Waiting for the Man (8 page)

“I hope not,” I said. I smiled. He let go of my hand. “I’m as normal a man as you’ll find. I’m not so sure about them.” I pointed to the audience.

He turned around and walked into the crowd, his camera leading the way, everyone mugging for the photographer, demanding the one-eyed survivor take their picture and make them immortal, a feeling Dick would never desire unless accompanied by the power to change the past. I was full of admiration for him. And sympathy. And I felt amazingly lucky. Despite his feelings about the word.

Dan sat down next to me. “So?” he asked.

“Anyone who can say they’ve been stabbed by a boy for asking for food has a profoundly better story to tell than everyone else,” I said.

And then I felt tired. I felt crushed by the expectation of the crowd. For the first time, I felt like going to bed. I would wave to the crowd and close the door and never look into their expectant faces again. The show would be over. Canceled. I was exhausted. I closed my eyes.

And then from deep inside me I heard his voice.
Very soon
, the Man said. I couldn’t smell him anymore. He was not around me anymore. I could feel that. But I could feel something more profound. He was inside me. As if he had ditched the crowd and gone into hiding. Back to where he had come from.

I wanted the Man to make a bed appear magically before me. I wanted simplicity. I wanted a world where I wasn’t surrounded by “more” and “better” and “99%” and “free” and especially not “lite.” I wanted a world where every word wasn’t parsed for meaning, where focus groups didn’t decide the fate of perfectly fine products and movies and political slogans. I was hungry. I opened my eyes. Dan was sitting there typing away on one of his phones. He was writing the story I would read in the paper the next day. Or on his blog in about six minutes.

“Get me a slice of pizza,” I told him, “and then go home.”

“You’re getting testy,” he sang without glancing up.

Of course I was. I was annoyed. I was annoyed with sleeping on concrete steps night after night. I was annoyed with the growing circus of idiots hanging onto my every breath. With the hot dog vendors and taco trucks and newscasters and preachers and cameras and folk singers and toy sellers and sticky-fingered kids and Tupperware and Dan. I was annoyed with Dan. With his brother and his awful pizza. I was annoyed with how helpless I felt because of the Man. Because of his power over me. I missed my job. I had to admit that. I missed waking up and going to work and thinking up pithy slogans for canned fruit and expensive campaigns that would convince Americans that they needed a better mattress.

I desired such a mattress. I closed my eyes again. I was so tired.
Go
, the Man said.
Follow me
.

I turned to Dan. “Am I getting a slice or what?” I was scared. I finally had to admit I was frightened. What did it mean to go? Where? When? How long could I keep this up?

What was wrong with me?

Dan stood. “The usual, I’m guessing,” he said, by which he meant one slice of pepperoni and one of sausage. He sighed. “Nothing’s stopping you from just going inside and falling asleep,” he said. “Except that voice in your head.”

“Sleep? I would love that. It’s all I think about. My most depraved fantasies right now don’t go beyond a soft surface on which I can be blissfully horizontal. But that would be anti-climactic,” I said frowning. “Don’t you think?”

Dan was as curious as I was. He was interested in the story, in its arc, and how it ended. I just wanted it to end. I wanted to climb up the stairs and sleep and shit and eat and be normal. I wanted to fall onto my couch and watch baseball on TV, run to the fridge for a beer during a pitching change, fall asleep sometime during the eighth inning, and wake up to the happy chatter of late night salesmen around my head.

I wanted closure. I did not want to go anywhere.

The Sign

A shooting star streaks its way across the sky. And then it’s gone. And I remember once my father told me that shooting stars weren’t stars at all. They were meteorites, or tiny bits of asteroids or comets, burning up on entry into the earth’s atmosphere. We’re wishing upon something that is either dying or is about to cause death, he said. And I was too young to have understood the full meaning of his words. My father never taught life lessons. He just spoke his thoughts aloud and sometimes you caught the nuance. A shooting star is the wrong term, he said. Yet almost every culture calls it a star. I remember these things but I’m still not sure if they were ever important.

In the night’s darkness, the line that separates the peaks of the mountains from the sky is rendered invisible, a rumor, the only clue to the demarcation the sudden absence of stars. At night, walking the grounds, the sounds of the ranch are adrift in the wind. The braying and snorts of the horses. The laughter of guests and workers alike. The opening and closing of doors. But there are moments when all is silent. When the artifice disappears and the music of silence is a spell broken only by the gusts of wind. Sitting in the grass outside, staring at the stars, surrounded by nothing and everything at once. By silence. By a literal hum that is the earth. At times like this, you can hear the earth whipping through space. Another form of sensory overload.

And being a city boy distrustful of silence, I seek out noisy corners of the ranch. The stables. A brook that runs across the western edge of the property. The bar after the guests have retired for the evening.

I scan the sky, willing another shooting star into existence, another chance to wish for something. Though lately I don’t know that I would wish for anything. Because I haven’t felt the need.

I walk by the stables toward the main building. Athena’s apartment is on the second floor, above the library. I think about my mother and that perhaps I should write to her. Something larger than a random email on a made-up account saying, “I’m OK. Don’t worry.” I can imagine my father, stoic, perhaps drinking a bit too much scotch, but satisfied with the contact — and still seething that I quit such a good job. After my last promotion, he had given me a long, deep hug and said quietly into my ear, “You’ve made it.” What would he say now? What would they say if they could see me, away from the filter of the media, just me, their son, thousands of miles from home, peeling fruit?

I walk up the dark wooden stairs and knock on Athena’s door. Tomas answers, a sweat-stained Cubs cap on his head, a glass of red wine in hand. He steps aside to let me in. Athena sits on a large black leather couch, her feet curled up under her. She’s drinking white. “Hello, Joe,” she says warmly. She has a large mouth with large whitened teeth and the effect of her smile can be blinding. Against her copper skin even more so. It is as if a light pours out of her mouth. It is a physical truth that may make men weaker in her presence than they already are. Athena is a beautiful woman. To deny it would be to expose yourself to a dangerously universal ridicule. And then once you have assimilated her beauty, or at least made the attempt, she speaks, and you realize she is the kind of worldly, infinitely interesting person that only sprouts from places that always seem to be within five miles of the sea. Tomas clears his throat and it’s obvious I’ve been staring.

He walks to the couch and sits down close to Athena. The distance he chooses shows both nonchalance and, I’m thinking, a kind of insecurity. That he even feels this way about me is flattering. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the lion king here. The threat I may imply is all in his head.

“Please, sit,” Athena says, pointing to a small divan. “Red or white?”

“What do you have?” I ask, taking my seat. The leather on the divan gives in to my weight with a little-too-audible fart.

Tomas snorts.

“I have a French merlot and a very crisp, floral almost, chardonnay from New Zealand.”

“I’ll have the white,” I say.

Tomas snorts again and rolls his eyes.

“Good choice,” Athena says. She reaches over and pours me a glass and the agitation inside Tomas grows.

We clink our glasses together while Tomas contents himself by staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to make this too formal and announce this as a meeting,” she says. She puts her legs down and slides her feet into a smart pair of burnished leather mules. “It is not a meeting.”

“Absolutely not,” Tomas says. He gulps down the remainder of his wine and reaches over to a side table and pours himself another glass.

“Your background interests me,” Athena says. “Tomas told me about your clafouti argument.”

“I wouldn’t call it an argument,” I say.

“It was close to one,” Tomas says.

I cradle my wine. I probably shouldn’t cradle white wine, I’m thinking. “I just had something to say. I don’t know why I said it.”

“Tomas said there was yelling,” she says.

I look at him and he looks at his wine. “I don’t think anyone raised their voice,” I say.

Athena gives Tomas a look. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. She puts a hand through her hair. “I am interested in some of the things you said. Anyone who uses the word ‘brand’ in the correct manner is useful.” She laughs at this. I manage a smile.

“It’s a bad word,” I say.

“It’s just overused,” she says. “But you used it correctly. And you were right about what you said.”

Tomas sighs.

“It’s a tasty clafouti,” I say.

“You were the crazy guy that drove across the country, no?” she asks.

I don’t say anything. Tomas laughs. “What guy?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, trying to appear unconcerned. “And you still hired me.”

“I didn’t hire you,” she says.

“That wasn’t even me,” Tomas says, in a tone that suggests I should respect the hierarchy that the act in question has established. “Well, Carlos hired him.”

“I don’t care,” Athena says. “We are the sum of our stories, right? So. Here is mine.” She takes a sip of her wine. “I’m from Greece. I managed some very excellent hotels there. In Athens. But also in Thessaloniki. The city got hip somehow. I could see it coming, but when a city gets hip in Europe it means Germans and the English and the English drink too much and puke everywhere. I felt the need to get away. I was at that age. I worked in the Maldives. But I got claustrophobic there. There was nothing but sea. And I’m Greek!”

Tomas laughs at this. Perhaps trying too hard.

“And then I came here. Hotel GMs are a kind of nomad. We travel a lot. The good ones are like me. They work far from home. They feel rootless. And so they try to recreate a home out of the hotel. They work hard at this. They see guests and employees as family. That’s what makes them good.” She takes another sip of her wine. “We’re like flight attendants, but not as severe. They can literally sleep in a different city every day. But the idea of it is the same. It is rare to find hotel GMs or even chefs here, like Tomas, who work in the same city they are from. To be honest, I wouldn’t trust them.”

For whatever reason, the idea of parking a car enters my thoughts.

“I came here because it was new,” she continues. “I liked the challenge. It was so far from anything else. And it was also far from my reality. From what I knew. Because the land . . . I could not believe the size of this property. And I still love it here. I’ve run this property since it opened. I’ve found a special place.”

I’m thinking about the theology of parking.

“That’s a good point,” Tomas says. “About trusting.” He stands. “I’m going to raid the fridge.”

“I want to make it better,” Athena says. “And your argument with Tomas . . .”

“Discussion,” I say.

“. . . about clafouti, of all things, made me think. I looked up your file. I looked up the ad agency in New York. And then I realized you were the guy who made that crazy drive.”

“It wasn’t so crazy,” I say.

“And I thought I need to exploit this talent.”

“My craziness?”

“Your past. Your experience.”

“How old is this duck breast?” Tomas calls from the kitchen.

“When did you make it?” Athena shouts.

A long silence. “It’s too old,” Tomas says.

Is the act of parking Catholic or Protestant? Or Buddhist? And does it depend on where one lives?

“I’m calling the kitchen,” Tomas says.

“I have grapes,” Athena says. “Some cheese, too.” She turns to me. “What do you think?” She smiles. And it’s possible I’m squinting.

“About what?”

“About what I’ve said.”

“What have you said?”

“Exploitation. I want to pick your brains.”

“What is there to pick?” I ask.

“I love that expression. Pick your brains. In Greece, we have a similar one but it has to do with octopus.”

“Which shouldn’t be on the menu here,” I say.

“Fuck off!” Tomas yells.

“It sounds like I’m offering you a job,” she says. “At least to me it sounds like I’m offering you one.”

“What are you offering me then?”

She laughs again. “I have some Brie and old cheddar,” she tells Tomas.

“A consultancy?”

“Perhaps,” she says. “For now.”

“I leave the room for a second and he’s been promoted to consultant,” Tomas says, sitting down.

“Nothing has been decided,” Athena says.

“I see nothing wrong with having a nice clafouti on the menu,” he says. “The guests love it. And more importantly, I love it.”

You drive and drive around searching for a sign that gives you permission to park. One sign among countless signs, most of which are prohibitions. And when you find that spot . . .

“The clafouti question is interesting to me,” Athena says, “and I’ll tell you why.” She puts her wine glass down and sits up. “In the Maldives, our hotel obviously had a lot of fish on the menu. Vegetables are expensive there. Everything has to be flown or shipped in. But the menu was fusion. It had a French base. The chef was from India but he’d studied in France. In Lyon. So the menu made sense to guests. They felt like they were enjoying refined local cuisine.”

“Where is this going?” Tomas asks. Skeptically. He sits on the edge of the couch.

“This clafouti discussion, this mentioning of the brand, it made me realize I could not quite describe the brand here. What are we selling?”

I cleared my throat. I was still thinking about parking. Was I missing home? “Depends on who’s buying,” I say. Athena leans forward. This was an invitation to continue. “I’m guessing your PR and marketing has been focused on a handful of places, just from the guests I’ve seen. Japan is an obvious one. California. New York. Florida. All high-end. The economic situation has hurt. American security restrictions. Fewer Europeans are traveling. I know that. I heard we’re getting more Canadians. That makes sense. It’s so close. This is a very
Travel + Leisure
kind of place. It’s made to look like it should be in the pages of an Australian travel magazine. The kitchen pumps out pretty food. Outside of the steak dishes, it’s all very elegant. Tomas’s brasserie background is evident. The food is pretty. And it’s simple. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

Tomas shifts his weight. “This is going where exactly?”

“This is supposed to be a ranch,” I say.

“With a spa,” Athena says.

“And plunge pools, fuck!” Tomas says.

“I know, but it’s still a ranch,” I say. “You can still take a horse into the mountains. You can ride off into the sunset here. You can fancy it up as much as you want, but the idea of a ranch is simple.”

“You can have a four-star fuckin’ catered picnic up in those mountains with foie gras empanadas on an onion compote with a chilled St. Émilion,” Tomas says.

“I love your empanadas,” Athena says.

“I just think there could more unity to the offering,” I say, my first real opinion of the night. “The clafouti, to me, sticks out. Maybe it’s all the peeling I have to do. Or maybe it’s just not simple. Apple pie is simple. It’s easy to understand.”

Tomas downs his wine. “I can’t believe this fuckin’ discussion.”

“Tomas,” Athena says.

Tomas squirms on the couch. “Fuck this and fuck you,” he says.

“C’mon,” I say dismissively.

“OK, a consultant,” Athena says. “Officially.”

“I’d like to continue working in the kitchen,” I say, not quite believing I’m saying it.

“No,” Athena says. “I don’t want you to get too food-focused. You already are. This is an overall vision. I’m not looking at changing anything. But I also don’t want to have to fly some consultant in from God knows where and deliver an obvious list of recommendations. You know this place. You’ve been here long enough. There’s an extra office downstairs. You can start when Tomas finds someone to replace you.”

He snorts, again. If we had snacked, would he have been happier? Athena stands up. The evening is over. Which is good; the wall clock reads midnight. She turns to Tomas. “This isn’t about the clafouti,” she says. She touches his shoulder, the first sign of any kind of affection all evening. “Even when this is over, when Joe has studied the situation, you can always have Mathilde’s clafouti on the menu.”

Tomas does not speak. He definitely can’t look at me. He’s offended. I stand and Athena offers her hand. We hold hands but don’t really shake. “This is going to be fun,” she says.

I’m still not sure what she wants from me, but as she closes the door behind me, I can see another door opening. A larger one. Something more important.

Parking a car in New York: Prohibition. Prohibition. Prohibition. Prohibition. Fire hydrant. Prohibition. Prohibition. Prohibition. Salvation. Parking a car out here is something else. There’s so much choice. Not a lot of thought. There’s a New Age quality to it. But in New York when you find a spot, and it’s on the street, the joy you feel at that moment is an intense, stupid kind of joy.