Waiting for the Man

by Arjun Basu

  “What are you waiting for?” Dan asked.

  And with this, the Man leaned in. It’s annoying, I thought. And I’m sure he heard me. How could he not?

  “Isn’t this fucked?” I said. I pointed to our audience, to the kids, to the old men coolly leaning over, trying to pretend they weren’t listening. Was the Man old? Did he have an age at all? “You should talk to them. They know the story. If you’re looking for action, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

  “I’ll talk to my brother if you help me out here,” Dan said. “I need to get something out of you and then I need to be at City Hall. I figure you’re a few stories, depending on how long you end up doing whatever it is you’re doing. So what if I can get you the pizza? What do I get?” I knew it would come to this. Despite our systems and Adam Smith and supply and demand and the rest of it, life is really about barter. Back scratching. Lice picking. Grooming.

  I told Dan about the dream. I described the Man to him. I felt oddly self-conscious talking about the Man while he stood a few feet away from me. I told Dan about the floating. I told him about my job, some of the campaigns I had worked on. He told me he hated the Berlin campaign but congratulated me for it. I told him I liked to drink bourbon, which wasn’t true, it wasn’t my go-to drink, but it made me seem more interesting. I told him I loved Italian food but that his brother’s calzone should be sent somewhere and burned. Dan agreed with me. And I told him that he could ask all the questions he could think up, but nothing would explain what I was doing. “It’s not in the realm of explanations,” I said.

  “I think there’s more to you than you realize,” he told me when he had stopped scribbling in his notepad.

  “Don’t flatter me,” I said. “I flatter people for a living. I dream up elaborate methods in the delivery of flattery.”

  He smiled for the first time since he introduced himself. He saw something. That I might play along. “I’m just trying to write a story here.” He stood up and put his notepad away. “A small story. I’ll go talk to my brother. If he gives you the pizza, what do I get?”

  “Unfettered access,” I said. “And your brother gets free advertising.”

  And I think that’s when Dan realized that I inhabited the same kind of mind-set; that I saw his paper as just another piece, a prop in the play that was being performed in the city every day, that we were all a part of, in the country, the world, for our own amusement and collective sanity. Or insanity. This was how the world worked. Barter.

  Dan had heard of me and decided to make some news. I was going to become a newsmaker. And Dan and I were going to be friendly opponents in a friendly game of “fill up the paper, get the advertising, pay, buy a product, make the owners happy, sell more advertising, repeat.” Except the advertising wasn’t so much there anymore. It was moving. Money was going in different directions, attention was going in different directions. If traditional media had been a dam, with a giant reservoir of ad dollars holed up behind it, well, that dam was broken. Dan was playing for the losing team. And I felt vaguely sorry for him.

  This is what I was thinking as I looked into Dan’s eyes, at his understanding. And my cynicism, which was never far from the surface, came rushing out of me. People in advertising, journalism, and entertainment are the three horsemen of the cynics.

  It says much about the state of things when a simple person sitting on his front steps can take a shot at celebrity. But I know I’m being naive here. We are all celebrities now, aren’t we? If you’re not, something’s wrong with you. My boss used to say that. People become famous for getting kicked in the balls and posting the video online. They get famous for singing badly. For fighting with pneumatically breasted Amazons in tank tops. For being so stupid that people wonder if you’re smart. People become famous for wanting to become famous. Wanting to become famous used to be an aspiration and now it’s a career.

  The middle class of fame is everywhere around us. Angie said this. She said this is how people live their lives now, by watching others live it for them. We have become our own entertainment, she said. Instead of fighting it, instead of making something better, all the producers decided to join in. TV gave up. Publishers gave up. They just threw up their hands and said, “We’re too lazy.” Reality is packaged for us now. Tragedies have their own graphics and music on CNN. We share our bodies now because people like me sold the idea that people like you could end up in porn.

  “That’s why I love food,” Angie had said. “It’s not an Italian thing. It’s because you can’t give up on food.” She told me about visiting France and seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. An old man pushed his way next to her and videotaped the painting. And after ten seconds he stopped and pushed his way to the next painting and videotaped that. He was going to videotape the entire museum and watch it on TV back home. Then it would become real. And then she showed me an app for the Louvre on her phone. “He didn’t even have to go,” she said.

  Angie stopped bringing pastas or seafood. Her deliveries evolved into pastry. The tiramisu at her restaurant was light and floated on the palate. It was a wonder of the baker’s art. Also, she said the sugars would warm me up at night. And Dan got me the pizza deal.

  Meaning very quickly, my diet had become Italian. All I was missing was the wine. I’m waiting for a black man to tell me something I think is important on the steps to my apartment amidst the glass and concrete of the city’s fastest-changing neighborhood and I’m eating Italian exclusively. Chinatown wasn’t too far from here. A quick jog. Some salt and pepper squid, some slippery sui mai to slide down my throat? Some Singapore noodles or a ma po tofu? Where were the Hispanic ladies? A few pupusas, an enchilada or two, some arroz con pollo. Or how about some corned beef from the deli up the street? Where were the others? A nice Catalan tapas place had opened up close by. There were more sushi places than fish in the ocean. Two Southern barbecues. A gourmet burger joint. Why had only the Italians taken me to heart? And why weren’t they giving me anything healthy? Like a salad. Even a creamy Caesar would have been a welcome break. Just sitting there, I could feel my midsection expand. Those years of caring about my looks, the treadmill at the gym, gone. I was eating a lot of melted cheese.

  The deal with Dan and his brother was simple. It was a commercial transaction in the truest, most ancient sense. Dan would return to ask questions until this played itself out. Those were the words he used. And I would have to mention the free pizza. That was it. He would keep tabs on me until something happened. He said I would get mentioned in the Post every day until the editors got bored with me. There would be nothing big, a few hundred words, a photo if events warranted, and I would always mention the pizza and the pizza would never get edited out. Perhaps if something interesting happened, he would run an expanded version on the website.

  The next day, the paper came out and the crowd grew larger. Mostly locals still, but the radius of the neighborhood seemed to grow. People who lived blocks away were claiming the street as part of their neighborhood. I think they figured that locals don’t gawk. You’re only a gawker if you’re from somewhere else.

  The police came by; they figured a crowd meant trouble. I finally told them what I was doing and their confusion was priceless. They had terrorist plots to thwart, murders to solve, chaos to reign in. I assured them I wasn’t crazy. Dan even tried explaining the situation. Cops may be the only constituency that takes the Post seriously, I’ve realized.

  And for the first time while sitting on the stairs, I developed a sense of worry. I worried that this ridiculous attention would drive the Man away. That he would be scared off. But he remained. Hovering on the edge of the growing crowd. Sometimes, I could only smell him, and I knew he was out there.

  But the dreams. They entered my sleeping brain with more promises, all with the same meaning: he would make things better. He emphasized that all the time. And he said this in such a seductive, convincing way that he had me. And
he would tell me this in a new place every time. Sitting on the branch of a tree in a silent forest. On a sundeck atop a tall building. Riding a Ferris wheel. I bought the promise. I saw in his message my own improvement. He had created a need I didn’t know I had. I was willing to wait to see what he was selling. I was willing to make a purchase from the Man. I was willing.

  Pigs on the Wing

  I work in the kitchen. This is what I could manage when I found myself here. That I was employed at all was like some kind of magic. Someone had recently left. I showed up at the right time.

  I work in a corner of a large showroom-type space that shines in brushed aluminum perfection. It’s a TV kitchen, the kind you might see while zoning out on your couch and say, “I want.” It is airy, and the staff — all twenty of us — is never in danger of getting in each other’s way.

  The kitchen is one of the most obvious clues to me that the idea of roughing it at the ranch is nothing more than a sales pitch. The concrete floors, the high tech ovens, the copper pots — everything shines. An army of ladies cleans the space between meals.

  Here is the rugged freedom the West represents. The outside is Ralph Lauren country. The bedrooms are Laura Ashley with subtle Philippe Starck undertones. The kitchen is Martha Stewart but a bit more antiseptic. The influences seem obvious to me.

  I spend my days peeling carrots and potatoes, apples and kiwis, in a blank death-mask state, a strange Zen state. One of the sous-chefs keeps inviting me to a regular poker game the staff set up in the main dining room late at night. So far, I have refused. I’ve never been a big card player. I ignore the joking and laughing coming from the “pigs” as we call them, the lowest of the low in here. The “dish pigs,” for whatever reason, work in another room, something that doesn’t seem so feng shui to me, meaning we also have “runners” hauling dirty dishes from the busboys and then hauling clean dishes back to the kitchen. The housecleaning staff are called “suck ups” and they are either Hispanic or Native. They hang out with the stable hands and wranglers who, of course, actually like horses and don’t mind cleaning up after them. The ultimate act of love is cleaning up after the object of your affection.

  In the trailer, our cubicle-like rooms come with a bed, wooden shelves halfway up the walls, and a closet. Each trailer has forty cubicles, twenty on each side of a dark narrow corridor. There are two trailers, set up at right angles. Forty people share six toilets and four showers and with these basics we are expected to remain clean. And presentable. I’ve heard that during the winter you can see your breath inside.

  My cubicle is the last one before the washrooms. To go to work, I have to walk the length of the trailer to the other end, something I’m sure is not to code. During the long walk, I look out for people entering the trailer, because it’s impossible to pass another person in a walkway obviously designed for small animals. Pigs, maybe. Because I am at one end of the trailer, my cubicle has two windows. The person I replaced had been here for years and I accepted the inheritance of someone I had never met. My room, then, is a luxury. This has the potential of making me popular.

  We eat after the guests have left the Mess Hall — that’s the reverse pretentious name for the restaurant — usually around ten. I have been told that the time depends entirely on the number of Europeans staying with us. By eleven, the guests are usually asleep. After a day of riding and roping, hiking, biking, rock climbing (which I don’t get — why come to a ranch and go rock climbing?), or massages and mud baths and acupuncture and facials and yoga, of listening to seminars by famous motivational speakers, a late night doesn’t make sense. Not when the morning bell rings at seven. They still have a morning bell. Another bit of authenticity that is rendered facile the moment a guest receives their breakfast with choice of newspaper before rushing off to yet another session with our Ashtanga-certified instructor. And after paying so much to come here, to miss something because you’re tired doesn’t seem economical. No one comes here to relax. One guest told me he would sleep after his vacation; he was here to enjoy himself. Experiencing new things is its own form of currency.

  This place is a case study in the successful world’s work ethic. In rules that have flown right over my head. Perhaps not the rules, but the code. The system is written in code. Whatever system one must live by to make a good living, to earn enough to come to a place like this, is a system I don’t understand at the DNA level. I do get it, I know of it, but it doesn’t come naturally. The hard work that elevated my parents, the incessant toil that builds places like New York, the round-the-clock activities of the world, its scale, the amount of commerce that is the result of a constant and ceaseless effort, is all amazing, frightening, and, ultimately, tiring. It made me tired. It started to seem pointless. I can see that. Now I can. But I also see the point. The code, finally, has a point, regardless of how silly it might be. Rules are rules. Only the lucky can be smart enough, or rich enough, to avoid playing by them. What was the economic meltdown but a large group of people fudging the rules? It was as if we had all lost the playbook, the keys that unlock the world’s riches. All of us grapple with the book, searching for a nugget we can understand.

  This may be why I’ve got my poker face on. The image of me, a man lost in a world he doesn’t understand, an outsider, appeals to me. It keeps me out of the center of anything. The center is also, ultimately, tiring.

  I’m happy. But I don’t know that I’m ready to share that happiness. I’m getting used to the idea of it myself.

  I also know this: I won’t be able to keep it up. Being out here alone is hard. If it’s easy to feel lonely anywhere, and it is, it’s especially easy to feel lonely here. I don’t want that. I want to feel a part of something larger. Something collective. I want to belong. I want a tribe. I may need to be alone right now, but when I start feeling lonely, I will nudge myself closer to my surroundings. And share the knowledge I have earned.

  Let’s Dance

  Dan stopped by every few hours, and within days the charade that was our interviews had ended. “I now understand the decline of the newspaper business,” I said.

  “There are plans,” he said.

  “Say that with a German accent and you’ll sound sinister,” I joked. And he didn’t find it funny. “I need to laugh more than ever,” I said. “Please see the humor in this.”

  “I’ve been thinking about electronic media,” Dan said. “This thing has traction.”

  “I said humor,” I huffed. “Not the internet. What about T-shirts?”

  “I’m going to start a blog,” he announced. “Get some webcams set up. Start up a Facebook fan page, maybe.”

  “The world has enough stuff,” I said.

  “Perhaps you should, too.” When Dan had an idea, he was deaf to my voice.

  “That renders you obsolete. I go new-and-improved and your old-fashioned print goes further along the path of obsolescence.” I was surprised he hadn’t brought up these possibilities before. Or that he hadn’t gone ahead and done it. Who asks permission anymore? The internet means everything is fair game, whether or not the game is fair.

  “There’s one website devoted to you,” he said. “That I’ve found.”

  “Only one?” I asked. This information was both surprising and disappointing. “Turn me into a meme, Dan.”

  “You show up on many sites. But only one devoted entirely to you. It’s someone out there.” He pointed to the crowd, scanning them. The Man came and went. I imagined him trying out the new Korean BBQ two blocks over.

  “Maybe you need to surround me with kittens,” I said.

  “My feeling is it’s just the beginning,” he said. “Look in front of you. Traction.”

  “Or with kittens strapped to the backs of puppies. And the kittens are wearing pearls.”

  The crowd kept growing, day by day. Some would come with the Post in hand. Dan told me he’d done an interview with a blogger covering Ne
w York media, a niche that must have been overcrowded and incestuous and boring, a kind of closed loop of friends dishing on friends. But the media thrive on trivia. Or stupid. Sooner or later, this story had a bull’s-eye on it. Dan knew it, too. He used the word “traction,” but he could have said it’s “dumb enough.”

  Most nights, as I slept on the steps, the Man would enter my dreams. He would ride his white horse down the street smiling, waving his big floppy hat. Or he would strut toward me and pat me on the head, paternally, whispering, You’ve been very good, or something like, Don’t worry, I’m always watching. Our talks involved a lot of movement. We walked. There was a TV quality to my dreams because of the movement. He spoke slowly and I spoke quickly, as if there were a time limit on my dreams. And there was. Because I would always wake up.

  The women of the neighborhood continued to leave their leftovers with me, their Tupperware containers stacked neatly at my feet in the colors of the flags at a Gay Pride parade. The old men stood in front of the steps drinking their coffees, discussing me, politics, the Yankees, the miseries of the Jets, Giants, Knicks, Rangers, Mets, take your pick. Memory unites people in this town and not much else. Loyalties centered on shared conversation. The city is a collective conversation about briefly shared moments. Because it is otherwise constantly changing. My block was a prime example.