The third part of the occasional and almost entirely navel-gazing I Know, I Wish series – (part I, part II for reference.)
I know that the space between giving space and giving up is narrow but deep; I wish that it wasn’t also filled with water I must tread while wearing emotional lead boots.
I know that the disease steals more of you with every passing minute; I wish that I wasn’t so selfish in my reaction to the pain.
I know that our friendship is over; I wish I cared more about it ending than getting the last word.
I know that fidelity has never been high on your list of relationship priorities; I wish that you would stop making me complicit in the process.
I know that spending too much time on my high horse is a character flaw; I wish I didn’t like the view from there so much.
I know that it would be the height of irresponsibility and selfishness, but I wish that the fantasy of running away from this life didn’t hold quite so much appeal.
I know that intellectual and emotional reactions must be measured for appropriate response to stimuli; I wish that past prejudices didn’t have a thumb on the scale.
I know that choosing my battles is a sign of maturity; I wish that I didn’t use that as an excuse so often.
I know that grief, loss, and recovery all have stages; I wish that acknowledging them would make them go faster.
I have discussed my insomnia in this space on more thanone occasion. For me, insomnia manifests in waves. Over the last twenty years, I’ve faced calm sleeping seas and consecutive years of high swells. Through numerous conversations with my doctors, I have steadfastly resisted their entreaties to allow them to medicate the problem (and me) into submission. Until recently, that is…
Three nights of little green pills have produced nothing more than fitful sleep and the strangest of dreams. What follows is an adaptation of one of those WTF!#?? dreams in which the characters and situations have no discernible root to my life.
I thought Jade and I had exorcised all of our relationship demons before getting engaged. We’d seen each other in crisis, had traveled together, found agreement on all of life’s big ticket items, and I was as mad for her as I was for her four year old son. For almost two years, we dated and never saw a problem we couldn’t solve with honest communication… and maybe some champagne too.
About a month before our wedding day – small ceremony in the chapel of her undergraduate alma mater – we went to a Mother’s Day lawn party hosted by her classmate and would-be Matron of Honor. The women all seemed to be wearing sundresses and the men all seemed to find a shade of pastel as harbinger of late spring. After my first hamburger but before my second beer, Jade ended a phone call and headed my way bearing the electric smile that helped me fall for her that first night we met.
“Why are you so happy?” I asked.
She laced her arm around mine and uttered the sentence I never thought I’d hear her from her lips, the sentence that would end our relationship.
“You’re looking at the new chair of the Palin 2012 campaign.”
There aren’t many things that could render me incapable of verbal communication, but this was near the top of a very short list. The room was spinning like I had the hangover from hell when Jade finally stopped the rotation with “Well, say something.”
“You’re a democrat, a democrat who’s pro-choice, pro-gun-control, pro-green, and you went to Smith for fucksakes!”
And that was it. Our relationship, our life together shattered in as much time as it takes for three “you betcha’s” and a couple of winks.
I grabbed another beer and went to find Max, the little boy who wasn’t going to understand any of this.
“Max, I need to talk to you” I said just after he stuck his dismount from the Moonbounce.
“Max, your Mom is going to have a longer conversation with you later but the short version is ‘I’m not going to be around for a while.’”
His little head, with surprisingly large ears, nodded up and down – Jade conceived through a sperm-bank and I always kinda suspected that Will Smith was the donor. I continued “There are some things I may not be around to tell you, but that you need to know in this life:
You’re going to get in trouble, you’re going to do something wrong and get caught; when that happens, never lie about it, that only makes it worse.
Steer into a skid… and that doesn’t just go for driving
Black and White photographs are always cooler than color
The correct number of eggs for an omelet is two not three
There is no such thing as ‘out of your league’
If your cab driver is listening to NPR, tip them a bit extra
Always make friends with the bartender
Never draw to an inside straight
A night of bad theater is better than a good night in front of the TV
Never do business with someone you wouldn’t drink with
Never wear loafers with a suit
There is no good sartorial application for polyester
People who only have self-taken pictures in their dating profile have no friends
Never pass on the opportunity to pay an honest compliment
Always wait for the second generation of a new technology before you invest
When you’re at a party, only tell one joke; always leave em’ wanting more
Quartz watches are for suckas
There is no car that looks good in yellow
Miller Lite is not beer… but that doesn’t make it evil on a really hot day
Learning how to dance early will yield exponential dividends later
Do go on that semester abroad
Do not gamble with pool players who have multiple word names like Philly Mike, or Six Fingered Tony
Chewing gum in public isn’t inherently bad, but everyone else knowing you’re chewing gum because your mouth resembles a bovine with a hunk of cud is bad
Daydreaming is a virtuous activity, practice it often… but not in class
Do not trust people who begin conversations with ‘Can I be honest with you’
Also not worthy of your trust are Yankee fans not from New York… or Yankee fans in general, might as well ad Red Sox fans to the list too
Do not see any Kevin Costner movie that doesn’t involve baseball… except maybe The Untouchables
Learn the word ‘feckless’ and use it whenever appropriate
It is always better to be the irresistible force than the immoveable object
Free advice is usually worth exactly what you pay for it, and ‘your mileage may vary’ applies to this list and just about everything you will ever learn as there are very few absolute truths…
Among the world’s absolute truths is that you will be judged for your ringtone – choose wisely.
And then I got in my yellow sports car, adjusted the tie on my polyester shirt and steered into my nocturnal skid.
I’ve had near-death experiences and contrary to rumors*, life did not flash before my eyes. I’ve never had that flash of an experience before… until last week that is.
Plans for my evening were simple – take a stack of work to my local, have a couple of pops, smoke a cigar, decompress. Half way through a La Aroma de Cuba Corona, and a great basketball game (which necessitated ignoring work) a voice behind me announced my full name (including my middle name which is only known to a handful of people.) The very big voice came from the very petite Michelle.
Michelle and I have known each other since high school – our respective best friends were an item and they constantly tried to push the two of us together. We remained fairly close through college, grad school and ensuing years. One day, having fully grown into our careers, personalities, and bodies we connected romantically. Our maturity couldn’t change our poor timing.
I hugged Michelle with all of the affection reserved for someone who requires no exposition for your stories. I hugged Michelle like a dear friend and former love for whom there is still a deeply rooted emotional connection. I don’t know how long it had been since we last saw each other but we shared a hug that was tight enough to melt the years. She then turned to introduce me to her date, Damian. To his great credit, Damian was not unnerved by our exchange.
After brief introductions but before the ordering of drinks, Michelle turned to Damian and announced “You need some history here!”
In that instance, the entirety of our romantic lives flashed before me:
The shared laugh at the expense of all of the people waiting to enter the shopping mall parking lot for a day of Holiday shopping, while we simply valet parked at the Ritz Carlton,
The explanation of a proper Gimlet – gin, fresh lime juice, simple sugar, and a dash of bitters,
The gentle first kiss in the back of a Town Car between dinner and a night cap,
The torrid kiss in the same back seat between the bar and my place,
The exhortation while I unzipped her dress “I’m only taking this off if I get to wear your shirt,”
The first time on my couch… and the floor, and in the kitchen, and finally the bed until an exhausted entanglement of bodies collapsed into a mass of limbs indistinguishable from the other,
The entirety of the six week long and sensual escape from the reality of her return to a doctoral program 500 miles away.
It all passed through my mind in a seemingly slow motion instant that cumulated with the question of “how much history was Michelle about to explain?”
Michelle turned to Damian and in a stunningly display of understatement said “Refugee and I have known each other forever, we practically grew up together,” then she instructed the bartender about how to make her a proper Gimlet.
* every time I write or hear the phrase “contray to rumors” it is in the voice of Morris Day and The Time singing it from the chorus to the song Gigolos Get Lonely Too. Don’t Judge – we all made some *ahem* questionable musical choices in the 80s.
One good thing about being snowbound (or really snow lazy) was that I had an opportunity to catch up on work, among other things. Like I suspect many of you also did, I vacillated between productivity and television/movies/books. One of the movies that I finally watched (and no, I am not necessarily proud of it) was the Sex and the City movie. I have no problems admitting that I followed the show during its early seasons – I may have attended and even hosted a SATC party or four – but I felt no real inclination to watch the movie. I’m going to blame HBO for showing it a bunch of times and my insomnia for choosing it over infomercials.
This has never been a space for movie reviews and I certainly won’t change that by discussing a 2+ year old movie of marginal cinematic consequence. But after watching Carrie get left at the alter by Big, I just knew there was no way they were getting back together… and then I wanted to throw day old Domino’s pizza at the screen when they did reconnect and marry at the end of the movie. “How could she put herself in this position?” I yelled at the screen, followed by the thought “this is the bullshit message that ends a once formidable cultural phenomenon?”
A day or so later the distaste was still lingering in my mind when I trekked to a bar to meet a friend. The Only Slightly Sleazy Lobbyist and I were sitting on a mostly heated patio lamenting our NFL-Withdrawal while sucking on discount beers and La Flor Dominicana Cabinet Selection #1* for me and American Spirits for him. A few minutes later a slightly inebriated woman ambled over to our perch at the bar.
“Excuse me, I just broke up with my boyfriend and would like a cigarette please” she said with just a hint of affect.
My reaction to such information has long been the optimistic “Congratulations.”
Over the course of her smoke, Katerina revealed that it was a mostly good thing and that they split because he lives two time zones away. In an attempt to find the good news in a painful situation, I offered “That’s a good reason to split if for no other reason than the fact that he didn’t inspire you to want to move.”
Eventually Katerina thanked us for the smoke and the company and returned to her friends. Before we left the bar, she returned twice more for a tobacco intermezzo and some of the breezy yet serious conversation that is most easily found with imperfect strangers. On her final visit, Katerina broached the subject of the distance again.
“How do I know the difference between not wanting to move and not being inspired to move?” She asked.
“You don’t really know the difference until one exists. In my little world, if someone really makes your socks roll up and down, you’ll want to do certain things… like move out west because that’s where he is. Or he’d want to move here, or you two might find some hybrid between because you want home to be wherever they are. You see, the veracity of anything we have planned for our lives is never truly known until it’s tested. I used to think, and now think again, that I don’t want to have children. Then one day I was knocked on my ass by a love I had never even known could exist. That exceptional woman wanted children and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for me to want them too.”
“I never knew that” OSSL interrupted but I was on too much of a roll to respond to his statement.
“We believe all of these things about our world and what we want and then suddenly an unordinary love comes along and shakes our sensibilities like a fucking snow globe. Only in the face of that test are a lot of our really core ‘deal-breakers’ and ‘must haves’ really proven. It doesn’t happen often and sometimes not even easily, but it’s that exception that you just know, that you feel in the deepest part of your soul. Call it the Doctrine of Love’s Exceptionalism.”
In that instant, I realized two things 1) I had shifted from answering Katerina’s question and started speaking for some part of me, and 2) that I had to forgive Carrie for marrying Big.
*****
Ya know, just in case any of you ever need to know what kind of cigars your favorite restaurant refugee likes to smoke.
Easy banter and casual flirtation became the tangible, the inevitable on the night of my going away party. It wasn’t my speech about why I am a horrible person to date, or YALIUD asking me why I never asked her on a date. It became inevitable the moment the she and I caught eyes as the band started to play Besame Mucho. It was the look of mutual agreement, of adult coconspirators acknowledging a carnal pact.
A few hours later we were a collapsed mass of tangled bodies and damp skin. Spent but thirsty from drink and activity, I fetched two glasses of water from YALIUD’s kitchen.
“You know that I work as much as you do, right?” was the question YALIUD gently asked when I got back to the bed.
She was right, our schedules were different but the volume of hours was roughly the same. We made a go of it for a couple of months. Drinks after my shift, or dinner at the bar of the restaurant one or two nights a week, and most Sunday mornings – that was the routine. And like most routines, it grew old fast. We had lost the light, the breezy, the banter that made it so pleasurable in the first place.
When we first ended the unnamed thing that we were doing, we both had difficulty not using the other as a stress relieving crutch. It made her career driven move to New York City easier.
We traded emails over the ensuing years, had drinks together if we were in the same city (unless one of us was dating someone else,) and somehow kept a very weak but very real tether to each other.
Last week, after the happiness and the hugs, after a cocktail or two, after the conversations about making partner and her buying her flat, after eyelashes were lowered slowly and legs crossed carefully, the question finally came.
“Refugee, why didn’t we try harder? Why didn’t you try harder?”
“YALIUD, you know if we try to hold too tight we’ll find a way to choke it, not make it more secure.”
“Yeah, I know, but I like knowing that you’ve thought about the question too.”
YALIUD and I met back in 2004. Close to eleven and a few times a week, she would arrive at the bar of the restaurant I was running at the time. Three years removed from law school, she was a mid-level and fast-tracked associate at a white shoe law firm. Most nights she would have a single malt while perusing the menu (for no good reason as she only ordered a pair of the same four things) and scribbling on a yellow legal pad. When her appetizer arrived, she would move to a glass of red wine – whatever we recommended – and continue scribbling. By the time the entrée arrived, she was ready to nurse her second glass and put away her work.
We were a convenient anesthetic for her as we were only a block away from her condo and we had a habit of sending her a complimentary dessert, and always ensured that someone walked her home if she had enough for that to be prudent. The nights of her visits fluctuated, but she was always there on Tuesdays – the night that I chose to keep my bartending skills sharp. We would always do the three drink, 45 minutes of work, maybe one more dance. After a few weeks of regular patronage, she asked me for “a last drink of the night.”
After a few moderately successful but far from spectacular attempts, we settled on the Long Kiss Goodnight as her valedictory drink. It was the right balance of soft, and spice, and cream and subtle for her. She and I had the casual flirtation that is a tool a bartender’s uses more frequently than any jigger or shaker, but nothing further.
YALIUD had been coming to the restaurant for several months when I invited her to my private “Going Away” party for my last night there. I was headed to another, higher end, restaurant. One of the my favorite bands was going to play, one of my favorite distributors donated plenty of booze for the open bar, one of my favorite bartenders from another bar was kind enough to “guest” that night so all of the staff could attend.
“Have you ever seen the movie Good Will Hunting” YALIUD asked me as soon as she arrived at the party and before I could even say hello.
“It’s one of my favorites… according to my definition of favorites which is movies I have seen at least seven times and would watch again tonight” I replied.
“Ferfuckssaake, do you have to use every question as an excuse to pontificate?” YALIUD stated testily.
I wanted to give some variation of the “have you met me” defense but I have learned enough to know that sarcasm’s most receptive audience is not an angry woman – even more so when you don’t know why she’s angry. I went with “Sorry – bad habit” instead.
“You know that scene in the Will and Skylar first meet in the bar?” YALIUD said in what was only partly a question.
“Yeah” was my very cautious reply, you know the kind of “yeah” that takes almost three syllables to articulate because you’re not sure where things are going and don’t think you’ll like the destination.
“As she’s leaving she walks over to Will and says ‘You’re an idiot’”
“Right.”
“Yeah, well, you’re an idiot. Why have you never asked me out?”
Mission Control to Mouth, Mission Control to Mouth, come in Mouth.
Mouth here, go ahead Mission Control.
Mouth, you are instructed to proceed with extreme caution. The very attractive, and slightly annoyed woman is a notoriously dangerous creature – move forward with great care and godspeed, Mouth…. Mission Control out.
“May I get you a drink while I think of the best way to explain my obvious stupidity?”
I went behind the bar and grabbed the hidden bottle of scotch, Glen Garioch 21 year old, that I reserved for really great or really craptastic nights. I poured two fingers into a heavy bottom rocks glass and returned to YALIUD.
“The explanation for my idiocy is more complicated than you might think” I said while placing the rich and complex single malt in her hand. “You asked, so you’re going to get the full answer. You are a stunning woman with a rapier wit and intelligence that you wear so gracefully. Only a moron wouldn’t find you incredibly attractive. But I’m in the restaurant business, which means that I generally avoid dating my guests because it’s most often bad for business. Of course, I have made exceptions and I would be lying if I said I never thought about dating you. The real problem is that despite the light flexibility of the aforementioned rule, there is no flexibility about staff asking out a guest. I have fired people for doing that, so certainly couldn’t do it myself.”
YALIUD’s look made it clear that she understood my point, but I sensed a need to preempt the next question, now that I am leaving…
“And as much as I’d love to take you to dinner sometime, now that I am going to another restaurant, you should know what it’s like to date someone who runs a restaurant:
I will break plans with you at the last minute a minimum of three times before we actually have dinner
Most frequently we would only see each other after midnight
We would never get together on a Friday or Saturday night because I will always work those nights
When we do, finally, go to dinner, I will be interrupted by phone calls at least twice and leave you sitting at the table while I attempt to resolve the crisis du jour over the phone
I will never get to meet any of your friends unless you bring them to the restaurant, and even then I will have severely limited amounts of time to spend with you
Our social life will exist, by necessity, based on my schedule and there won’t be much that I can do to change that
I will be constantly distracted and preoccupied with thoughts of the restaurant.
“You still want to go on a date with me?”
“Wow, that was like a bad romantic comedy all condensed into forty seconds there” YALIUD replied snarkastically. “You’re right, I probably don’t want to date you any more… taking you home is a different story though.”
Dinner at Le Bernadin was as exquisite as you would expect (and yes, I just name dropped a four star restaurant, because what the hell, it was sublime.) It was the first time I dined by myself at a restaurant of this caliber since I was making a strategic effort to drink some of the best bottles in my wine cellar. This put me in a mildly reflective mood, so the cab driver had to alert me when we arrived at my hotel.
I walked into the hotel bar where I was meeting Yet Another Lawyer I Used to Date for a quick drink and maybe a trip uptown to her favorite latin-jazz joint. It was just before 10pm, and true to her exceedingly busy form, YALIUD had already sent one message about being almost unstuck from the office.
My hotel was of the classical variety thus the bar was blissfully absent the tragically hip elements that are too popular these days. Barely half a minute after choosing a seat at the not quite crowded bar, the bartender slides a cloth napkin in front of me and asks for my drink order.
“Good evening, perhaps you would indulge me; I’d like equal parts cognac, frangelico, and bailey’s shaken heavily and served straight up, please.”
A few moments later, as the bartender sat the drink before me, she said “OK, I’ll bite, does this thing have a name?”
“There’s enough left in that shaker for you to pour yourself a dram; why don’t you taste it first” I implored. The bartender gave me a look that instantly indicated that drinking was against company policy, so I continued “I understand if it’s against the rules, but how can you learn a new drink without tasting it? It would seem a waste to do otherwise.”
I have never claimed to be a good influence on anyone.
She gave furtive glances to each corner of the room before pouring the remnants into a small rocks glass and taking a sip. Her smile of delight was balanced by a slightly furrowed brow that I interpreted as consternation.
“I’m Wendy, and you need to tell me about this drink” she said while extending her hand.
“Hi Wendy, I’m Refugee. That drink is a Long Kiss Goodnight…”
“Oh my god, that name makes perfect sense” Wendy interrupted. “Where did you have it or learn it?”
“Actually, I invented it for a woman who used to come to my restaurant on the one night of the week I was bartending. Just before she’d leave she always said ‘Refugee, make me my last drink of the night.’ It took about four weeks but this is what we settled on as her last drink of the night.”
“Hang on a second, I’ll be right back” Wendy said before tending to a group of suits in the middle of the bar. Three Amstel Lights later Wendy was back and as many bartenders are wont to do, she continued the conversation right where she left it without segue. “So, you used to be in the business, and invented this drink made with three standard ingredients that had never been put together before?”
I laughed a bit at the question because I understood the incredulity that inspired it before answering “Yeah, it sounds a little strange, but it was more than a few years ago, and I did some research before declaring it a creation. There are more than a few other recipes with the really different ingredients with the same name, but this is the only one with this combination.”
“Well, it’s really good, and the flavors are really clean… and this one’s on me. Thank you for teaching me something new” Wendy said at the same time that YALIUD finally arrived.
After the hug, the kisses on the cheek, YALIUD just looked at the bar and then to Wendy and said with a huge smile “Did he teach you MY drink?”
It starts with the Acela train that lets me arrive moments before departure, allows me to use the phone and internet for the whole ride, has adult sized chairs and actual legroom, and then deposits me in midtown without so much as a wrinkle in my shirt.
There are so many things I love about visiting New York City, though I don’t think there is much I would enjoy about living here. For the next few days, however, I am going to walk her streets, dine in her restaurants, drink in her bars, and, yes, take a meeting or three.
I’m going to hit the BlueNote, the Vanguard and the Algonquin for a little hot & cool swing.
I’ll roll through Circa Tabac, a place that was speakeasy cool years before that trend got annoying, for a cigar and a proper cocktail.
The aforementioned cigar will be purchased from the Davidoff store which, as the best cigar shop in the country, is like Mecca for cigar smokers.
There will be dinners at four stars, pizza at corner joints, very serious sushi, some uptown soulfood, and probably the most amazing dumplings I’ve ever tasted.
In truth, I am not sure I will get to all of the things I want to do as this is still a work trip, but I am looking forward to trying. I’ve rarely been grateful for my insomnia, but this is one of those times.
Monica is the sixth child of Salvatore and Annalisa.
It is worth noting, just because it is, that a fifteen year old Salvatore lied about his age to get into the US Army and fought in the European theatre in World War II. Upon getting out of the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to attend college and earn a PhD from Stanford. He is an unmitigated intellectual badass with courage to spare and a drawer full of medals to prove it.
Monica seemed to have the wisdom, charm, and wit of her siblings running down hill to her. She was one of that exceptionally rare breed of human – so kind, so interesting, so everything, that if you didn’t like Monica, it was probably your fault. And for some reason, during her last year of grad school she chose to date me.
I was still pretty young too – fresh out of grad school and just starting to make a decent living. We were mostly up through the fall, briefly down in the winter, and the strangest of peaks and valleys that spring. In retrospect, I am fairly sure that our inconsistent behavior, despite steady feelings, was primarily a product of two people adjusting too the new reality of adulthood. I did have the pleasure of meeting her old a man just before Christmas and again at her graduation that spring.
Monica was stuck in New York for job interviews when she called and asked me to entertain her father until she could get back. It happened to be the night of the inner office holiday party of the corporate titan for which I was consulting. The party was held at one of the swanky pool hall/bar/lounge that became really popular in the mid 90s. Being the pool snob that I was (fine, still am too) I had my sticks with me for the party and consequently when I walked in the hotel bar to meet Salvatore for the first time.
We had planned to grab a drink at the hotel and wait for Monica for a late dinner but as soon as he saw my cue case, Sal asked “someplace for us to get a game around here?”
I’ve mentioned my pool game before, and I’ve mentioned that I’m a pretty decent shot, but that doesn’t provide full context. Standard pool ratings run from 2 to 7. You’re average person playing in a bar that has a couple of coin operated tables is between a 2 and a 3. The average person in my pool league is just better than a 4. Back then, I ranged between a five and a six depending on how much I practiced.
A Short cab ride later we’re walking into my usual pool hall and headed for a corner table. I was determined that I was not going be that guy – it’s bad enough that he knows I’m shtupping his daughter, does he really need to be a worse pool player too – but to make every game I lost look good.
In an odd way, I was playing incredibly well to just miss shots and have it appear that I really meant to hit them. We played about a dozen games: I won three, Sal won three, and I gave him the other six.
Our conversation flowed easily and there was more of it than most games between serious competitors. We really liked each other and, drank the same single malt.
By the time Monica arrived, Sal and I were full-on friends and I kept my losing percentage the same. I was really proud of myself for losing so well. When Monica went to the wash closest, Sal said to me “You know, Refugee, your games pretty good you should just practice some more.”
That burned a bit, but I was still in control. A game later when Sal chortled at one of my misses and laughed “Poor Refugee, any time you get near the eight ball, you keep choking,” that was a bridge too far.
I didn’t quite run the next rack, but I wasn’t too far from it.
Sal just whispered in my ear “It’s about time you stopped laying down” and winked at me.
In return, I gave him my favorite line from the best pool movie ever. “Just give me your best game, Fat Man, just give me your best.”
He laughed, and we continued playing until well after the place closed.
We played about even, if any one’s curious.
Salvatore died last week. He leaves behind an amazing wife, six children, more grandchildren than I can count, and a really big fan on the other side of the country.
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