Waiting for the Man

by Arjun Basu

  “Any dreams?” Dan asked.

  I thought about it. I could not even recall sleeping. It was as if I hadn’t existed for, what. “How long?” I asked.

  “Twenty-three hours,” Dan said. “I think I won the pool.”

  “I slept,” I said, as if saying this would allow my body to relax, to feel as if it had been at repose. I said it to convince myself it was true. “I slept a whole day?”

  “No visitors?” he asked.

  I opened the door and made my way through the throng. All the questions related to my dreams, or to my lack of them. I did a lot of shrugging. I walked to a small grove of trees and found a spot hidden from the cameras. I leaned against a tree. And I thought.

  Where are you? I asked the Man. I heard my own desperation. Standing there, I was overwhelmed by doubt, by the idiocy of this, not just the journey, but the very nature of the voice itself. I had slept a day and yet I was exhausted.

  Takeshi emerged from behind a thicket of hedges, doing up his pants. “I’ve peed all across America,” he said, smiling.

  “I’m so proud,” I said.

  He walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He flashed concern. “My ass is sore,” he said.

  I laughed. I hugged him and laughed. “You smell,” I told him.

  He pulled away and sniffed his underarm. “There are no showers in your Honda,” he said, smiling again.

  I turned around and unzipped myself and pissed against a tree. “Did I really sleep for an entire day?” I asked. I watched myself water the tree. I couldn’t stop.

  “We took your pulse last night,” Takeshi said. “Everyone was starting to get a little worried.”

  I finally stopped. I had flooded the soil around the tree. I was afraid I might have killed it. I shook and zipped up and turned to face my Japanese friend. “Really?” I asked. “You took my pulse?”

  “Angie’s idea,” he said. “She was making everyone nervous. We ate ribs and then Angie told Dan to call a doctor.”

  “You had ribs?” I thundered. Dan had found us and he shot Takeshi an angry look. Did he think they could keep something like this a secret from me?

  “There’s a rib joint not far from here,” Dan said. “Sorry, very, really, but we were all getting hungry. They’d heard you wanted ribs so they brought out a slaughterhouse-worth of ribs. Fed everybody, even the reporters. Takeshi ate four racks. He made the news last night.”

  “The fact that we were sleeping, the ribs, or because Takeshi ate four racks?” I asked.

  “Um, yes,” Dan said.

  Takeshi licked his lips. “We tried,” he said. “Really. I punched your arm. Dan shouted. We turned on the radio, loud, loud, loud. That’s why Angie got worried. We took your pulse. A doctor came and did a checkup and said everything was all right. You were just tired. Exhaustion, he said.”

  “Doctors?” I asked. “I was examined?”

  Dan lit a cigarette.

  “Did you at least save some for me?” I asked.

  “No one wanted to,” Dan said. “I said you didn’t deserve it. I held a bowl of BBQ sauce under your nose and you didn’t move. It was thick and smoky. Redolent. What a good word. This whole area smelled like BBQ. The bus still does, I’m sure. You were undeserving. A sentient being should not be able to withstand a smell like that. I was about to auction the last rack off and then Angie interceded and there you are. She held off the guys. They were like vultures around carrion. I called her Wonder Woman.”

  I had an image of Angie in Lynda Carter’s getup. It was at once ridiculous and vaguely erotic.

  We walked back to the Odyssey. Angie was in the passenger seat, a broad smile on her face. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing a Yankees T-shirt. At that moment I could not fathom my neglect of her. Walking toward the minivan, the world seemed to slow down and Angie looked like some ideal of womanhood. I made my way past the media and opened the door. On Angie’s lap, a Styrofoam container. “Hi, sleepy head,” she said. I got in. She stroked my cheek and I felt it down to my toes. She opened the container to reveal a small mountain of baby back ribs and a small Styrofoam cup of dark, congealed sauce.

  “My God!” I said.

  She handed me the container. “The things I do for you,” she sang.

  I took a rib. “I’m so hungry,” I said. I looked to her, seeking permission, I think, though I don’t know why.

  “Normally, I’d say your food’s getting cold,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said and I bit into the rib. It was cold and had toughened up but I could imagine it warm, the meat falling off the bone and melting on the tongue as the smoke and seasoning danced around my mouth. I dipped the rib into the sauce and bit it again. My tongue sang hallelujah. In the sauce and the rub I could taste the history of BBQ, of the Midwest, I could taste the history of BBQ all the way back to Mexico. I tasted America. I tasted our country in this simple lump of meat and fat and bone. More so than hamburgers and hot dogs and cotton candy and fried chicken, ribs are America. Ribs. Pork, beef, it doesn’t matter. I wanted to sing. The word “ecstasy” boomed around my head. I was so happy I wanted to sing something trite and corny and awful. I rolled down my window. “Tell the people who made these ribs they are gods,” I announced. “And tell them they can quote me. Wait. Let me phrase it in a manner they can use. These are the best ribs in the world,” I said. “Hell, they’re the best ribs in Kansas City.”

  The media laughed knowingly. They knew a good slogan when they heard one. I rolled up the window. I devoured the ribs and stuck my fingers into the sauce and licked them clean. Angie produced a can of Coke from a paper bag at her feet and I drank it down with the greediest of gulps. I saw Dan and Takeshi by the trees, smoking. I wanted a cigarette, too. “Thank you so much,” I said to Angie. I leaned over and kissed her.

  I sat back up. She smiled and wiped her hair off her forehead. And then she wiped my BBQ sauce off her face. “You’re welcome,” she said. Wonder Woman.

  I got out of the Odyssey and walked to Dan and Takeshi. “Let’s go into the grove again,” I said. I still didn’t want my mother to see me smoking.

  Dan and Takeshi followed me. I leaned against a tree and took out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. Takeshi produced his lighter. I took a deep drag. “For the first time, I feel almost good,” I exhaled.

  “About the journey?” Dan asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “I’m at wit’s end about this whole thing. I’ll admit that to you. I’m talking physically. I can actually feel my body. I’m aware of my physical self. I can feel my hair. Until now I’ve felt disembodied in a way. I’ve been this antenna set up to receive signals. Now I feel human.”

  “This is good,” Dan said.

  “I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But it feels different,” I said.

  I finished my cigarette. I stubbed it out against the tree and handed the butt to Takeshi, who threw it into the direction of the shrubs. “The foreigner comes and pollutes our land,” Dan said.

  I returned to the minivan. Angie had retreated to the bus. I had stopped on an extra wide shoulder on the side of the interstate, not a rest area. I could see now that on the other side of the grove of trees lay fields of corn. I could make out an enormous silo in the distance. Around us were other cars and trucks and minivans, their occupants craning their necks for a look. And around the perimeter were state troopers. They had closed off a lane of highway and were directing traffic away from it. Others formed a barrier between the public, and the bus and my Odyssey. Cars on the highway honked as they passed. I had noticed none of this until I was ready to leave. And then I saw the Man. On the highway. He looked like he was meditating. He did not look at me.

  We hit rush hour traffic on the outskirts of Kansas City. The uneven skyline lay before me like a grade school class picture. It took us an hour to get through the city and
out the other side, on the Kansas side, when we hit a turnpike and the world was flat and golden and rolled westward like a sun-dappled sea. The driving was easier here, on the flat, straight roads, and we passed Topeka before we had time to consider it. And once we passed Topeka I couldn’t get The Wizard of Oz out of my head. Every once in a while I would say “Dorothy’s home!” and point to a farm near the highway and it was not until the fourth time that Takeshi caught on and I once again realized the sheer sweep of Hollywood.

  We stopped for gas near Salina and Takeshi bought another Big Mac and I ate a rapidly browning banana from the cooler. There was a foul odor emanating from something inside and Takeshi helped me throw it into the garbage bin. A cameraman recorded the toss. “Thanks to all my culinary sponsors,” I said, “and thanks to Rubbermaid for the cooler. Rubbermaid coolers are cool.” The camera was sure to relay my slogan and gratitude.

  The highway through Kansas cut through some incredibly empty plains. We drove for miles without seeing much of anything. The evening sun lay directly before us. We were driving into the sun. The landscape changed. Rocks appeared. And then we spotted some more towers of rock jutting above the plain like skyscrapers that had lost their way. The road was so straight, so obviously west in its orientation, I kept expecting the Man to appear. To end this thing. For the payoff. A windswept, desolate western place where the world was the same in all directions seemed like the perfect locale for our final meeting. I drove through Kansas thinking it had to be the middle of something because this is what I imagined the middle of everything to look like: featureless and plain, a place where one could lose oneself in the curve of the horizon, in the stillness of the tall grass, in the play of light and shadow across the land. Night fell and the strength to continue driving returned to me. It again felt like a purpose, not a chore. Hunger evaporated. The daylong sleep had meant something, surely. I had slept once on this trip and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to sleep again.

  We passed into Colorado. “We’re going to hit the mountains soon,” I said. Takeshi was asleep. I checked the backseat and the Man was not there.

  I awaited the mountains. I was surprised by how flat this part of the state was. It was just like Kansas. But there was a noticeable upward slant to the road. We were rising. We would hit the mountains, go over them, and head to the ocean. Perhaps I would deliver Takeshi to the airport myself.

  And the thought of this, the thought that perhaps all I was doing was helping Takeshi get home, filled me with something. Not worry. Not dread. A precursor of defeat. In a sense, the mountains could signal some sort of awesome inevitability. With the bus still behind, I started to feel the futility of this again, and I wondered finally about the public’s perception of it. I was going to suffer a public and far-reaching humiliation. It would be international in scope. I found myself caring about something I had refused to care about.

  The euphoria of the ribs had worn off.

  If the Man wasn’t going to appear, my sadness and disappointment would be played out before more people than I could count. I was worried about not meeting the Man and feeling like a fool for believing in him. I was worried about the Man knowing I was feeling these things. I was worried that my doubts were perverting the process, the lines of communication, were being projected onto a giant screen for him to see and realize I had been the wrong one, that my beliefs were scattered randomly like cards on a table. I was worried that my doubts would become nothing more than a signpost of fear. A billboard.

  I was worried about what the world would say when they saw me cry.

  I drove on, west, toward the mountains, the Great Plains behind us. The entire country behind us.

  Come and Get It

  This is my hunch. The public has forgotten. The media criticizes the public for their lack of an attention span but it is the media that feels the need to move, to create a new narrative environment, because they feel stale otherwise. The media can’t stay on a story for long, no matter how important. And then someone who wants to stay with a story is called obsessive. Politicians used that word expertly. As an expletive. If politicians are good at something, it’s changing the dynamics of our attention. When they fail, the scent of scandal pollutes the air.

  I’m thinking Dan is writing his book without a valid ending. Or at least he’ll leave it vaguely open-ended. I’m off the radar. The country has moved on. I didn’t deliver what I’d promised and there’s nothing the country likes less than someone who doesn’t deliver. I led the population to a barren place. I was a false prophet. Except I’d never promised anything in the first place.

  In this sense, really, I was a celebrity. And in this sense, Dan was right. And that is another reason to find comfort here. I want a kind of anonymity that I’m not sure exists in the world.

  In an odd way, this place, this blip of land beneath the mountains, is becoming a tonic. Or is already. Every time I realize this, the surprise registers with the force of dynamite. I feel new. Even this direction I’ve taken, Athena’s project, a role I could not have conceived even under the threat of torture, has my body feeling lighter. I feel nimble. I don’t resent what I’m doing. This job, this new life, has energized me.

  I’m walking around the restaurant watching people eat dinner. I’ve never done this. I’ve never spent a meal on this side of the building. I’ve never seen what the waitstaff has to put up with, the daily humiliations they must endure, all for the chance to win that one extravagant tip.

  This is what I’ve learned. There is talk of treating the Germans as badly as they treat the staff. Or there was but there are hardly any Germans here anymore. Not enough to generalize. The English are fun until they’ve hit the bottle. The Italians dress too well, even when mounting a horse. Especially when mounting a horse. To them this activity is equivalent to a night at La Scala. The Canadians are polite, don’t tip well, and look like they shop exclusively at the Gap. Except they have a tremendous amount of money. To be honest, we kind of resent it. The Texans come here with a “this ain’t a ranch” swagger but are pleasant about it. And tip like champions. New Yorkers always worry about the lack of cell phone reception. The fact this place doesn’t have it confirms all their perceptions of places that aren’t New York. Californians enjoy the mud baths and drink more wine than the Italians but they don’t ever seem to enjoy themselves. They seem serious, which is something I would never have thought to accuse Californians of being. There is a lot of talk about real estate.

  Everyone loves the Japanese. Especially when they get on a horse for the first time. The Japanese are not afraid of humiliation. This makes sense to anyone who has watched their TV shows. They laugh at everything. They love getting dressed up western. The men really love the chaps. They drink hard and they drink expensive and they leave good tips. The noise a group of Japanese men will make after a bottle of scotch is something to behold. It is as if their normal reserve is just a way of saving up for the drunken firestorm that always, inevitably, must come. The Japanese are just as sloppy as the English when drunk, only nice and nonviolent about it.

  Inside the main dining room, the rustic wood tables gleam with layers of varnish and polishing. The walls harbor authentic Remingtons. The silverware shines. The china is the kind of white that teeth whiteners promise. The waitstaff have a uniform: bootcut jeans, rattlesnake-skin cowboy boots, a soft cotton flannel shirt. The women wear bandanas around their necks and replace the jeans with denim pencil skirts. The real cowboys around here, the wranglers, for example, find the outfit the stupidest thing since City Slickers. It took me a while to understand why everyone on the waitstaff is from somewhere else, from California, New York, Ohio, Florida, places where the only cowboys are on television, where the West is a punch line for a lame joke, Stagecoach, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, cowboys and Indians.

  The restaurant’s GM, Sandy, is also the room’s hostess and she dresses in western-inspired evening wear and makes sure to show of
f her too-good-to-be-true cleavage and the men all think she loves them. She’s very good at what she does. She makes good money. She just bought a home half an hour away. There are rumors she’s a lesbian.

  Tomas has made something he hasn’t offered in ages. Grits are on the menu, paired with the porterhouse or a pecan-chipotle-­crusted chicken. Each waiter works five tables, each seating four people. The tables are large, round chunks of wood. Sandy places the featured wines on each table, the house brand merlot from Sonoma and a pinot gris from Oregon.

  I stand around with some of the waiters as we wait for Sandy to open the room. I go out back for a quick smoke. Some of the dishwashers stand around smoking, and we say hi to each other, and not much else. Coming back here, I can sense I’ve broken some code. I’m no longer kitchen staff. They must think I’m management and smoking with them breaks every rule of caste that has been elaborately built up here. For example, waitstaff spend most of their downtime with the wranglers. The kitchen mostly keep to themselves except when they need sex and then they hang out with housekeeping. I’ve often wondered how these codes evolved, or if there’s actually some bizarre book that forbids, say, administrators from keeping company with the kitchen. The different jobs aren’t racially defined, and the rules aren’t about money either (if it were, the waiters might hang with housekeeping). It’s based on what you do. It’s as rigid a system — caste, clan, whatever it’s based on — as I’ve ever seen. The commingling of the groups is treated with suspicion. Even hostility.

  I throw my cigarette to the ground and stamp it out and walk back into the dining room. The waiters stand around, bored, with empty looks on their faces. We all wait for Sandy to announce the kitchen’s ready and then Tomas will go to the terrace in front of the restaurant and ring the triangle. The guests love the triangle. An authentic touch to herald the West, a touchstone. A totem.

  I hear Tomas yell “OK” from the kitchen. Sandy comes out and claps and this is the waitstaff’s real signal to get moving. Tomas walks out of the kitchen through the dining room and onto the terrace. He rings the triangle. And the guests start marching in. Or barging in. The bankers and lawyers and accountants and oilmen and minor celebrities share stories about the glories of their day. I overhear laments about the economy, government intervention, about the direction of the stock market. Complaints about corporate tax structures. I hear a Japanese banker apologize to a group of American executives for his country’s economic problems. I don’t hear the Americans offer a similar apology. I hear a tanned trophy wife discussing the best plastic surgeon in Argentina with another tanned trophy wife. Or escort. I hear admissions of past infidelities and failed marriages. I hear men debate the pluses of high colonics and the best resort in the South Pacific. Waiters have struck it rich in the past, just by talking to the right person, overhearing the right conversation. There is a local legend about the chambermaid who is now the vice-president of sales for a successful dot com in Seattle.