by Arjun Basu
We’d gone from rusted out cars to valet parking. From the desperation of crack to the joyless happiness of ecstasy. From bodegas and thrift shops and restaurant supply stores to Scandinavian furniture and fine patisserie. From burnt-out hulls to boutique hotels and investment-grade condos and starchitects and hipsters and cocktail lounges. And my own rising fortunes had mirrored this. Each step in this street’s evolution. That I could still afford to live here was perfectly in keeping with the mobility this city offers to a certain type. I’m in the middle space of that Venn diagram between Knowledge Class and Creative Class. That’s the kind of working person that can afford this place, barely, even though most have decamped to Brooklyn or even Queens, or for those with kids, to New Jersey. Back to raise more kids like me.
I had a colleague who commuted from Philadelphia.
The other occupants in my building had turned over more than once. Except Angie. Her father owned four restaurants. Plus real estate on Long Island. She was set.
Dan had given me a special “free pizza” pass that looked like a get out of jail free card. It had the cheap look and feel of something done in haste and without much planning. I was told to hold it up if any media ever came by. The newspaper had not yet photographed me. Photos had appeared, but they had been taken from the crowd, anonymously.
Dan asked me, “What do you hope comes of this?”
I didn’t have an answer. How could I? “Sometimes I wonder what it is I can see that others can’t. In advertising, you’re privy to information about consumer behavior, about desires that aren’t apparent to most people. But this information is useless to me here. I can tell you you’ll probably buy a yellow tie next year. But it doesn’t advance your life or mine. You’ll buy a tie anyway. I just might know the color or the width or the pattern in advance. I might know where you’re going to buy it. Or who’s going to make it. Well, so what? I’ve been sitting here over a week and I’m starting to ask myself what makes me so special. And I’m also thinking who is this African American man in my dreams.”
“Do you have anything against black people?” Dan asked, scribbling in his notepad, fishing for an angle, for something to make this ordeal more than it was.
I laughed. “That’s pathetic,” I said. “You know this and yet you still ask the question. It’s not worth it. I have nothing against anyone.”
“I’m trying to find the same thing you are,” Dan said. “Except this is all going on in your head, so I have to probe. You only let things out on your terms. I respect that. This is a private matter that’s become public. I don’t have the arrogance to doubt the veracity of your dreams, so if you’re having these visions, if the man in these visions is a powerful enough force to make you quit a pretty good job and sit out here like a fool and wait for him, and if you’re not even sure who this man is, then I share your questions. Namely, who is this man and why did he pick you?”
Had I officially quit my job? I hadn’t done anything officially. “And why did you pick me, Dan?” I asked. “Why do you persist with this story? How far can you take the advertising angle? There’s a nice brotherly love angle to this. It feels like it could be a sitcom. Not a good one, but still.”
“Your story is different,” Dan said. “Anything that’s different is newsworthy. That’s true everywhere, but it’s truer in this city. Especially now. People get tired hearing about crime. Even though it’s down, even though TV is full of crime, it’s true. It’s OK to watch Law & Order but in the end, the bad guys always win, right? And people don’t really like politics. People are angry out there, sure, but they don’t know what they’re angry about. Or the budget. The budget hurts people. But their eyes glaze over. And whatever happens in the rest of the world isn’t local. Even the UN isn’t local. Entertainment is digestible news. Non-threatening. And I won’t deny the competition to get a story and make it yours, ours, is intense. Some people say we’re losing. The newspeople. Me. Maybe we are. But that means I have to work harder.” He paused, flipping through the pages of his notepad, until he found whatever scribble he had been looking for. “Right now, sure, you’re a harmless eccentric. No one tires of stories like yours. People like you broaden the experience of living here for everyone else. This is human interest without anyone getting hurt. Human interest is everything. You hear the word ‘experience’ a lot now. What’s reality TV but the rest of us living vicariously through the experiences of a few? Even if the experience is contrived and artificial. Everything is porn now, Joe. And for my brother, this is manna from heaven. This is his feel-good story, too.”
That Dan understood exactly what he was doing was equal parts depressing and impressive. Every note Dan wrote down, every plan he hatched, every angle, every calculation, said more about his future than mine. He wasn’t writing about me. Not really.
“What else do you cover?” I asked. I’ve always thought the life of a reporter to be dull in a strange, always on the move kind of way. How many ambulances can you chase, how many fires can you describe, how many doughnuts can you eat with a cop? How many times can you write about another senseless crime before it becomes boring? A lot of reporters made their names during and after the attacks, just for being in the proverbial right place at the right time. They lived in a world where they were expected to do their old jobs while navigating new realities. Dan was like a factory worker at the dawn of automation.
“I cover your basic city stories,” he said. “Murder, mayhem, gangs, drugs, lost kids, sex clubs, traffic tie-ups, exploding cars.” And so he confirmed my impression of him.
“What would you like to cover?” I asked.
“Why is it that you always end up asking more questions than I do?”
“Last question.”
He shrugged. “City Hall? I like politics. I’m not sure. I got into this by being curious, by seeing through the sounds bites and the spin, by a genuine interest in the political process and the politicians. I remember thinking someone like Clinton, well he was perfect. We had this smart guy who acted like some Bubba but could out-think anyone. He jogged to McDonald’s. And he manipulated the media masterfully. He got in trouble and he got out of trouble. And that’s when we kind of lost our respect for the presidency.”
Dan closed his notepad. Again, I had defeated his will to work on this stupid story. Because it was stupid. I’m sure he could see that. “I haven’t thought about where I’m going. I don’t have a map. I sit at a desk and I write these stories and interview people, I run around town, and my days are long and I never stop to think. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to cover City Hall and then some kid’s been thrown out of a window and some Russian’s been gunned down in Brighton Beach and it’s a week before I think about what I want to do. Same thing. And when I think about shifting gears, or trying to, I don’t have the energy. I’m spent. So I’m saying, OK, next week, tomorrow, next year, this summer, I’m going to inquire about making changes, the feasibility of the thing, I’m going to make a list of what needs to get done, I’m going to think about the possibility of this. And then I don’t. I don’t even make the list.”
This is the stuff of our lives. This is the root cause of our collective anger. My job fatigued me. It was an endurance test for the weary. Dan’s missive is the rut we all talk about, the hole, the huge soul-sucking hole that buries you and doesn’t let you breathe. This is how people end up becoming managers at Arby’s. This is how people end up becoming Willy Loman, how people sometimes fall down and suddenly find themselves on the streets. This is why people are pleased to have a regular paycheck while spending their days complaining about their jobs on Twitter. And when your neighbor loses his job, or his house, well, you resent everything even more, because you know you have little right to complain. You feel petty. And you resent that, too.
For over a decade, life seemed to me something other people did. They lived. I watched. The rest of the world was television to me. Things happen
ed to me but did not touch me. I was free from the kiss that life supposedly bestows upon us. What Dan said told me I wasn’t different from him, from others, from everyone who had fallen into a rut and wondered how.
Except, of course, I had done something. People talk about not being able to afford the risk of change. What risks did I take really? Is it a risk to leap from the edge of a sidewalk? I couldn’t see how falling would hurt so much. Pain was absent from the calculation.
The Man appeared in front of me. He stood between Dan and me and he said, Let’s take a walk. And I told him I wasn’t tired. Oh, but you are, the Man said.
“Where do you want to go with this?” Dan asked numbly, a variation on a question he had asked too many times already.
“This is what I’m doing,” I said. “You see me doing it. I’m willing to sit and wait and see what happens.”
Dan opened his notepad and wrote this down. His lips formed a quick, sad smile. “And what do you eat?” he asked. “What do you eat while you sit here and wait for your man?” He closed his notepad and put it away. He could not look at me, even as he waited for the expected reply.
STARDUST
Money feels irrelevant here at the ranch. To me. It’s not, of course; I understand this. The place is premised on the idea of the possibilities afforded by vast sums of it. But for us, our isolation means there’s nothing to spend it on but booze and cigarettes. There’s an odd lack of commerce here. The ranch is very careful not to mention the price of anything. Even the bath balms from the spa don’t carry price tags. Guests don’t hand over a credit card upon check-in. Everything is assumed. And that’s a sign of wealth, too.
The closest bar is almost an hour away and the employee lounge carries four brands of scotch, some whisky, some bourbon, two types of vodka, and beer. And once a week, one of the delivery guys brings extra beer and we buy it from him. We save a few bucks this way. When the ranch opened, he worked out a deal with the wranglers and the deal has stuck. He’s developed quite a side business and though everyone knows about it, there have been no efforts to shut him down. The GM, the owners, they don’t care. They aren’t making money off the employee bar. And they need our relative happiness.
The delivery guy’s name is Ben. He’s a giant, close to seven feet, I think, and he supplies us not only with beer but also with dope and whatever chemical is making the rounds. He’d supply cigarettes also but for some reason the canteen sells them for a cheaper price than he can offer. No one asks Ben where he gets his beer or why his prices are so reasonable but I can imagine someone like Ben has things worked out. He never smiles. He’s the stereotype of the stony-faced Indian, Mr. Spock with a tan.
Ben is of this land. There is a certain symmetry in this. Giant Ben born under the giant sky. Everything here is so big, the land is so big, the sky is so big, the mountains are so big, it’s difficult not to feel that the world is aligned with something positive. People from this place are optimists. It is ingrained and logical. Our country takes its cues from land such as this. The endlessness of everything that surrounds you here creates a mythology that encourages limitlessness. Thoughts of freedom. I can see that. It’s difficult to imagine the end of the world here. This is where I can understand the concept of infinity. I may not be from here but I’m not so dumb as to not see the possibilities that a place like this can will into existence.
In Montana, you look up and the stars are there, magically, an insomnia of stars spreading out toward the peaks.
Ben’s deliveries are done in a methodical, joyless manner. He projects an image of disdain for the entire operation and, if his merchandise weren’t so vital, some would prefer the long drive to the nearest store to having to deal with him. Watching Ben work is to see a man unsuccessfully straddling the line between stoicism and contempt.
In my room in the trailer, I have a bar fridge, left behind by the previous tenant and for which I am grateful. I can stock it with beer and vodka and a carton of cigarettes. I have taken to bringing back fruit salad from the kitchen. It is my regular breakfast now.
In the mornings, I eat some fruit salad, get dressed, walk to the washrooms, and brush my teeth, wash my face, and head off to the kitchen. I share a smoke outside the service door with some of the dish pigs, go inside, pour myself a coffee, and scan the local paper. I never find anything of importance and I derive an odd sense of comfort from this. The news cycle moves on. Its relentless march forward is one reason certain starlets forget their underwear. It’s why the world of PR is so big and getting bigger. Why we pay people to manage and massage reality.
And then I get to work.
The head chef is from Chicago. His name is Tomas Hill. His mother was Czech or Slovak. One of the two. He worked his way through some big kitchens in Chicago until he found the backing of investors and opened up a brasserie just north of The Loop. It bombed. And then he did what chefs do when they need to recover from failure: he went overseas and cooked in a hotel. In Singapore. And away from the pressure and a high stakes foodie culture that tolerates greatness and mediocrity but nothing that merely promises greatness, he thrived. His kitchen became renowned, praised by the very critics who had driven him from the country.
In Singapore, he created the kind of cuisine that should have worked in Chicago but didn’t. Because it wasn’t of the moment. Because food culture in America is about trends and fashions and not really about food. Because in Chicago, it became cool not to like his cooking.
Vindicated, he looked to return home. But bad memories last longer than good ones. Instead, he wound up here, on a ranch near Canada where the wind can blow the smoke of his creations clear to Mexico. And the food critics love him again. Here, he has been elevated to celebrity. Maybe the critics see in his exile something noble. He has published a cookbook. There has been talk of TV, but he’s unsure about that kind of work. And he doesn’t want to expose himself to the critics in that way again.
His food is very good. He applies his love of brasserie to classic American cuisine. It works for a place like this and the clientele adore this, though I don’t think he’s doing the ranch’s brand any favors. He probably sells more porterhouse steaks than he’d like to, but as a Chicagoan, he understands the lure of a good piece of meat as well as anyone. He also sells a lot of bison, something that seems to thrill him. We have a herd of bison next door. Tomas is constantly going on about how fresh the bison is. “It’s still moving!” he says every day upon examining the meat.
One joke I dislike: his love of clafouti. He hired a French pastry chef just so he could get her clafouti. It’s on the menu every night. The Japanese, in particular, think this is perfect. Ranch. Clafouti. Two Japanese obsessions — Americana and a perceived high-end French culture — in one sitting. And clafouti means peeling an inordinate amount of apples. It is a punch line delivered badly. Apple pie makes more sense to me. A pie in these surroundings, perhaps with some homemade ice cream, would taste better here. But there is no pie when there is clafouti. And there is always clafouti. Every day.
And so, today, for reasons I don’t quite understand, I tell him what I think. Because I have had enough of peeling these apples. Today. And forever. And I have said maybe two words since I’ve been here. To anyone. “More clafouti?” I ask.
Tomas walks into the kitchen and washes his hands. He has his apron slung over his shoulder. “Excuse me?” he says, half smiling. I realize he’s never heard my voice.
“Why all the clafouti?” I ask.
He takes his apron off his shoulder and puts it on, over his head, adjusting the back. “Do you have a problem with tonight’s menu?”
I sigh. Apples surround me. I have a bucket of lemon juice the peeled apples go into to prevent browning. I am surrounded by peels. All of it destined for the compost. “Who comes to Montana to eat clafouti?” I say. “Everything here is about the West or is trying to be. What’s clafouti have to do with it?”
> “What’s Thai massage got to do with it?” Tomas asks, by way of answer. It’s a good answer and it tells me that perhaps I should shut up. And I should.
“Clafouti doesn’t fit into the brand of this place,” I say. I can’t help myself. For the first time since my arrival, I’m questioning my station. “It exists outside of it. The clafouti messes up your menu. There are wagon wheels in there,” I say pointing in the direction of the dining room. “Your desserts are brilliant. Your tarts. Your cakes.”
“They aren’t mine,” he says.
“Mathilde’s,” I say. Mathilde is the French pastry chef.
“And I brought her here because she’s brilliant.”
“Yes,” I say.
“And I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“No, of course not.”
“Not to be rude,” he says.
“It’s your kitchen,” I say. “You’re not being rude.”
“Whatever I put on the menu is on brand, as you might say.”
“I disagree. Respectfully. There’s nothing easy about a brand.”
“The Japs love the clafouti,” he says.
“It’s true. But the Japs wouldn’t miss it either. And from what I’m told we don’t get so many of them anymore.” And this is also true. Even the Japanese are having trouble affording the place.
“They’ve become almost iconic,” he says. “The food writers love them. There’s a recipe in my book. The recipe’s on the website for this place.” He finishes tying his apron. “I like them, too,” he says. “Mathilde’s clafouti reminds me of my mom’s tortes.” He walks into his office. What is good food but a pleasant memory? I should appreciate my place. A kitchen is a dictatorship. I need to respect that. Or I could find myself wandering again. Or worse, shoveling up after the horses.