Chicago--Part 5

“Excuse me?” I said to Candice as she continued flipping pancakes.  She stacked three large golden discs and put them on a plate behind her.  The plate was taken away almost as quickly as she put it down. 

            “Come on Leopold, no one’s here because their other life was happy.”  She gave me a quick look.  “It’s a woman, am I right?”  She paused as if to let me answer, but continued, “It’s always a woman with guys your age.”

            “It’s not a woman,” I said half-heartedly, shifting my weight.

            She smiled.  “I see.  Very believable.”  She poured a couple more batter into discs on the hot surface.  “Well, if you’re not going to tell me what it is you’re running from, I won’t tell you what I’m running from.”  She flipped a couple more pancakes.  “Pour some batter over there.  That’s your side, over here is mine.”

            I followed her directions, not sure of what to say.  After a long pause, I decided to say, “I mean, it’s not just a woman.”

            “Ahh,” she said.  “You’re a complicated guy, then.”

            “Not complicated, just not simple.”

            “I see.”  Her voice gave nothing away, and silence settled again over us as we each worked our side of the griddle.  I flipped over a couple cakes, seeing their golden-brown side signaling that they were almost perfectly done.  “Nice,” she said taking note of my work. 

            “So how does this work?  Do you always do this, or do you move after a while?”

            “Move up?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Like promoted?”

            “I guess.”

            “You -are- new,” she said with a smile.  “Be glad I heard you say that and not Stephen, because he would give you a 20 minute lecture on everyone’s place in society and how this isn’t society, only he wouldn’t say it that nicely.  See Leopold, there is nothing to be promoted to.  There is no up.  There is no down.  There is just the job you do.  We’re all part of the system here and we all fit in.  If you’re not good at this, then they’ll find you something else you can be good at.”

            “But don’t you get tired of doing the same thing all the time?”

            “Why would I?”  She said glancing over my shoulder, before turning back to the griddle with the faint hint of something running across her face.

            “Hey there,” I heard a second before feeling a solid hand on my shoulder.  Turning I saw the perfect, broad, white grin that would become so familiar to me.  I stepped back instinctively, but felt his other hand grab my other shoulder. “My name is Solomon.  I heard Paul brought in a new guy and I wanted to welcome here myself.”

            “Hi.  I guess I’m Leopold,” I said extending my right hand.  His hands stayed on my shoulder, as if he didn’t notice my extended hand.  I shifted the weight in my legs, but his hands held me firmly in place.  His smile grew even broader.

            “It is an adjustment being here.  We know that.  You’re still a child of the outside world, but you’ve taken a good first step by being here.  You have accepted help and by accepting help, you have started on your journey toward enlightenment and freedom.” 

            “Thanks?”  I meant it to come out with more sureness, but I couldn’t keep myself from staring into the deep blue eyes of this man as he stood there, holding me still and looking me over as if he understood me already.

            “I know in your time of introduction, you will feel pressure to introduce yourself by talking about what you’ve done in the past.  Who you were.  What you did.  That sort of thing.  And if that’s what you want to do, that’s fine—as long as you understand that what you’re telling everyone is the life you are leaving behind.  The skin you’re shedding on your path to becoming you anew.”

            “Okay.”  I said, unable to lower my eyes from his seemingly unblinking eyes.  I was sure his eyes went on forever, with wisdom and power undulating underneath the deep blue.    

            “Great.”  He turned his head to Candice, but held my shoulders in place.  “Candice, how are you today?”

            “I am good Master Solomon.”  She didn’t turn from the griddle, staring intently at the pancakes for any sign that they needed to be turned or taken and served.  “Thank you for asking.”  Her voice seemed different, like it could break off as it was coming out of her mouth and shatter as it hit the clean, tiled floor beneath our feet.

            Turning back to me, Solomon smiled again, his face giving no clue how he felt about their interaction.  “I hope you enjoy your time here.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.  Or anyone.  We’re all equal here.”  His hands left my shoulders and I suddenly noticed my back straighten, leaving Solomon about three inches shorter than me.  He walked away slowly, making his way to others throughout the restaurant.  I watched him as he greeted everyone in the restaurant, slowly talking to anyone he came across—the smile never leaving his face.

            “You gonna faint or something?” Candice’s voice called me back from wherever my mind had swum to. 

            “That guy is…” I just trailed away, not finding the word I wanted. 

            “He definitely is.”  Candice let out a breath of air that sounded like she had been holding in for a long time.  “Are you gonna jump in here?”

            “Yeah,” I said, stepping back to the griddle and flipping a couple pancakes that now looked a little browner than would be considered ideal.  “Sorry about that.”  I let a couple beats pass trying to form the question.  Eventually, I just settled on, “so what’s his deal?”

            Candice looked at me out of the sides of her eyes, not turning her head fully to me.  She spoke carefully, “Master Solomon is the head of this order.  He teaches us and guides us.  He’s the reason most of us are here.”

            “I see.”  I said trying to digest the change in her mood.  “And you…think he’s all right?”

            She smacked her spatula down on the griddle and turned fully to look at me.  Her cheeks were flushed.  “That sausage is burned.  I told you to watch the sausage.”  She put her hands at her sides and bent her head forward murmuring something.

            “I’m sorry, I—“  Her hand shot up, ending an inch from my lips.  Her palm was callused and strong.  I got the message and shut my mouth. 

            “I am sorry for my reaction.”  She said in a stiff, quiet voice.  “I know the competitive impulse pushed me to that place.  I am still working on controlling that part of me.  I did not mean for you to feel looked down on or out of place.”  She looked up, her mouth pulled tight.  “I have been here so long, but there are still those things I have trouble controlling.”  A beat passed. 

            I stepped back to the griddle and pushed the sausage over, so the links turned.   Their charred sides faced up, hiding the tender, uncooked parts.

Chapter 4--Chicago

It was late, so I was shown into a large room on the second floor of the place.  There were drapes drawn across the windows to drown out the little remnants of daylight that remained after this long day.  As I went in, I could not see where I was headed.

            “The bunk in the far right corner is open.”  I heard him whisper.  “See you in the morning, when the work starts.”  And with that I heard his footsteps as he headed downstairs.  I stood for a minute as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, before I stepped toward the corner.  My foot landed on something soft, but nothing yelled, so I continued to the corner.  As I got closer to the corner, I could see the wooden frames of two bunks, with three beds each, standing perpendicular to each other.  There were lumps in all but the top-most bunk on the one farthest from me, so I quietly slipped out of all of my clothes except my boxers and slipped under the coarse sheet.  The mattress was, if I’m going to be nice about it, firm.  If I weren’t going to be nice, I’d say “concrete”.  There was no pillow and I struggled all night to get comfortable.  My body tossed and turned all night trying to pound some comfort either out of or into the mattress.  Finally, I think the battling numbed me enough that I could fool myself into thinking I was comfortable and I nodded off. 

            What seemed like twenty minutes later, I was awoken by the loud thudding of people jumping off their bunks and the clatter of people piling out of the room.  The door shut with a finality as the last person made their way out.  The drapes covering the windows barely held out the light of what seemed to me to be an early morning sun.  I opened my eyes and watched as about thirty people filed out of the room, and I was left alone.  I sat still for a minute considering whether I should get up and follow them, but I nodded off to sleep before I could make up my mind. 

            I had just resumed the recurring dream I’d had since the death of Mindy James when I heard the door creak open slowly.  I turned and saw two men standing there looking directly at me. 

            “Well, come on,” said a man who reminded me of an old dog who had been out on the street to long—rough around the edges, fierce, not to be messed with.  As I was thinking this, he approached the bed and reached up.  Instinctively I sat up, putting my legs between him and me.  “It’s time to work,” he growled up at me. 

            I threw off the sheet and jumped down.  The second man, who had remained at the door, howled and spun around.  Shocked, I started to walk toward him, but the first man grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.  “What the hell are you wearing?”  He spoke averting his eyes from me.

            “Boxers,” I said with a shake of my head.

            “Not allowed,” he said.

            “Not allowed?”

            “Not allowed,” he repeated. 

            “I heard you, I just don’t understand.”

            “What’s not to understand?  If you’re going to be here, you can’t wear those.”

            “Okay.  Well, I’m not just gonna let my junk hang loose.”

            His head snapped to mine quickly.  “And you cannot be this crass.  Honestly, I don’t know where Paul found you, but if you can’t conform, you won’t stay here long.”  He stared at me a second, and I couldn’t decide whether he wanted a reply or not.  Finally he said, “Calvin, go get a pair of shorts for Leopold, here.  And the rest of what he’ll need.”

            “Yes, Stephen,” said the now less-shocked man, who I guess is Calvin.

            “Why did you call me Leopold?  My name is [gumshoe].”  I said, feeling a trickle of sweat run down my back.  I was starting to think I had made a mistake. 

            “That may have been your name, but now it’s Leopold.  I don’t know why they don’t put all of this stuff in the intro tour, but this is basic stuff here.”  He took a deep breath and let it out as Calvin came back with a stack of clothes, on top of which were a pair of underwear.  They would be called “tighty-whities”, except they were a deep shade of brown.

            “I don’t think these will be very flattering to my body-type,” I said holding them in my hand.

            “Humor.  That’s good.  Put them on and we can make with the laughy-laughy.”  I pulled off my boxers and tossed them on the floor.  It was then that I noticed my clothes from yesterday had been taken.

            “My clothes are gone.”

            “The clothes of the outside world have been taken.  You’re here now and you’ll dress appropriately.”  I was starting to see that Stephen was kind of a dick, but I put on the clothes without saying anything else.  “Fine,” he said after I had finished.  “We’re going to start you on the griddle.  Can you handle that?”

            “Uh.  Sure.”  I said, following him as he started walking out of the room.  We went down a different staircase than the one I had climbed the night before.  It led down to the kitchen where the people I had presumably slept next to last night were running around like a well-oiled machine.  There were people who were chopping, stirring, mixing, and shredding; eggs were being beaten and fried; pancakes were being poured and flipped; bacon was being grilled and turned; and omelets were being folded and plated.  Waiters, walking in small, quick steps, were taking plates out to customers.  There was some conversation, but it was in hushed tones.

            I stood on the last step for a second, before I realized Stephen had continued forward, and was still giving me instructions.  I hopped down and caught up.  “Our mornings are pretty regimented, but that’s how we like it.  No time for shenanigans.  No time for trouble.  We make breakfast.  We close.  We spend our time considering the world around us.”  He stopped and turned as we reached the griddle.  “This is Candice,” he said pointing to the woman who monitoring the pancakes.  “She will show you what you need to know.”  He looked me over, shook his head and walked away without another word. 

            I turned to Candice, “So…” I trailed off.

            “You probably know how to make pancakes.  You pour from this thingy over here.  You wait until you see bubbles coming through, then you flip it over.  And then you wait for a second or two, and then you take it off.”  She said, without looking up at me.  “The sausage over there, you just have to turn it every once in a while and don’t let it burn.  No one likes burnt sausage.”

            “My name is [gumshoe],” I said as I picked up a spatula.

            “I was told to call you Leopold,” she said glancing at me out of the side of her eye.  “So, what are you running away from?”

Chapter 3--Chicago

The man didn’t have a shaved head, or have on clothes that one would consider odd.  In fact, he was dressed in a nice pair of khaki pants and a polo—an authentic, very expensive polo.  He had short hair that he parted in what would I thought was almost conservative.  He was somewhere north of forty years old, but it was hard for me to pin down.  His hair had some gray spattering in the dirty-red it had been, and his hands had the weathered look of someone who worked outside and who maybe had worked with raw materials.  I imagined him as a crafter of wood, bending and shaping it into something useful or artistic.

I’d walked next to him down Addison away from Wrigley Field and the bars that surrounded it, past Southport and a large Catholic church that had buildings on both sides of the street.  We crossed Lincoln Ave., went under another branch of the El, and crossed Damen Ave. before we turned south.  I spent whole walk listening him talk.  He started out by telling me a story.

            “I was once lost, like you are now.  I used to work in this world,” he said as he almost shrugged at the buildings that crouched behind the small green lawns.  “I went to a job and worked hard.  I had a wife and child.  I did all of the things that would make me a good citizen.  Paid my taxes, volunteered my time, voted.  In short, I was a good person, but something was missing, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.  You know,” he said pausing to look at me out of the side of his eye.  After seeing I was following along with him, he started again.  “There’s a bar, not too far from here, just south a bit, that I used to go to a lot.  Not proud of it, but that’s how I was.  In the bar there are pictures hanging on the wall of great writers.  Hemmingway, Faulkner, Twain.  But the one I always noticed the most was James Joyce.  I’ve always loved Joyce.  Read Ulysses, Dubliners, and Portrait of an Artist in college.  Changed my life.  I thought for the better, but…well.  Reading those books made me think I could be a great writer too.  So every day, after working my day job, I’d go to that bar with my notebook and stare at the pictures and wait for that great idea.  I was gonna write my own Ulysses.  And I was going to be celebrated and loved.  It was silly, wasn’t it?  But I don’t regret that time.  I guess that was the best I could do at the time.

            “But now I know better.”  He looked at me and I noticed his eyes were the color of charred wood.  He waited for me, and I, not knowing what else to do, nodded.  “I’m not going to be a great writer.  And I had to accept that I wouldn’t be great at anything, just like the vast majority of the people in this world.”  He paused to let that sink in.  “And there is nothing wrong with that.  A lot of people keep trying to climb up and do better, and we don’t judge them.  They’re doing the best they can, and there’s something noble about that.

            “But what we do is, in my opinion, a more noble pursuit.  We have disengaged from that world in order to become better people.” We reached Roscoe St. and turned to the west walking by a number of hip bars and restaurants, as he continued his speech.  “We are a small group of people, sort of a family, who seek enlightenment through reflection and by working our simple trade.  You see, the world out here,” he said waving his hand at the buildings, many of which were new condominium buildings with businesses on the first floor, “is corrupt.  It’s corrupt and it’s ugly.  So we’ve formed a retreat from its influence.”

            He stopped in front of what used to be a two-story home.  A banner hung from the windows on the second floor that said, “Victory’s Griddle.”  He stepped to the door and opened it, revealing an entryway that seemed inviting and accessible.  Hardwood floors lined the area and led to a counter with a cash register sitting prominently on top.  “Come on in.”

            “This is a restaurant.”  I said somewhat confused.  He walked inside and I found myself following.

            “It is.  As I was saying we work a simple trade.  We run a restaurant that serves food, primarily breakfast, but we will be expanding into lunch soon, to the people who live and work in this neighborhood.”  He ran his hand over the counter.  “I’m not telling you this is a glamorous life.  Not luxurious.  It is work, but it’s work that leads toward something great—acceptance of who you are, not who you could be.  You won’t find pie in the sky on our menu.”  He smiled and gave a knowing wink.  “So, how does that sound to you?”

            “What?”  My voice cracked.

            “Do you want to work here with us?  Do you want to accept yourself as you are right now?”

            “I—“

            “Aren’t you tired of being told you can be better?  Aren’t you tired of trying so hard to work on everything?  Think about it.  You have to work on your marriage, your relationship, your job—everything.  And if those are wrong, or if you have the wrong car, haircut, or clothes, they judge you.  ‘You’re different,’ they say.  ‘Defective’.  ‘Bad’.  Whatever.  They label you and set you aside from their race up the ladder that leads nowhere.  Course they don’t know it leads nowhere, but that’s fine.  What I’m offering you is a chance to detach from the hold they have on you.  I’m offering you freedom from the concerns of their world and acceptance in a more fulfilling one.  I’m offering you the chance to choose a family who will support you and work with you as you become a better you.” 

            And I agreed.  Let it never be said that I was unwilling to make a huge, life-altering mistake on a moment’s notice.