BELOW ROCK BOTTOM

From the R.M. Dolin novel, “AN UNSUSTAINABLE LIFE – The Book of Issac“

Chapter 8: Below Rock Bottom

Early indications suggest it’s going to be a wicked Windy City winter; telltale signs confirm locals know it by worried looks and their already hunching shoulders. It’s no different down at Murphy’s Northshore Bar where the faithful are transitioning from exciting Chicago Cubs baseball to Monsters of the Midway Chicago Bears football. Already wagers abound for Sunday’s home game against the evil Green Bay Packers. Things have gotten so crazy someone’s actually taking bets the Bears will score two touchdowns off interceptions; given the statistical unlikelihood of that, Issac had to get in on the action. It’s hard to tell if Lenny’s learning anything from Issac when it comes to betting or if Bear’s wagers for him don’t pack the same emotional punch as Cubs wagers, but so far, based on his Bear’s bets, Lenny’s more apt to lead with his head than his heart, which might finally put him on the winning side of the ledger. While Lenny is a die-hard Bear’s fan and part of the Soldier Field faithful, he follows Issac into acquiring slices of the interception-wager, which leads Lenny to wonder if Issac can be trusted.

“Tell me again why you went to Wisconsin,” Lenny asks with a tone of suspicion, “cause so far your story about wanting to see the changing colors ain’t treading water.”

“The corn’s been cut,” Issac offers while setting a fresh pint down. “The leaves are turning, so I figure Sara probably ain’t never seen anything like it; ya know, her being from Texas and all.”

Lenny wipes foam from his face. “Ain’t nothing those cheeseheads got we don’t have right here in the heartland.”

“We ain’t got FLW?” When Lenny stares at Issac in blank ignorance, Issac continues. “Frank Lloyd Wright? The most innovative architect in American history? He has a wonderful museum called Taliesin, near Spring Green, a beautiful place to spend the day and maybe have a picnic.”

“Yeah,” Lenny smirks, “seem to remember your uncle saying we should take a ride there someday. We never got much past talking about it though.”

“They got the Harley museum in Milwaukee, isn’t that like Mecca for you?”

“Between the bikes the boys in my club bring by, I pretty much work on every Harley worth a damn, so don’t need to be running up there for anything.”

Issac gets suddenly serious, “Let me ask you something, since you brought it up, you’ve been around a long time, probably met most guys with bikes-”

“Serious guys,” Lenny caveats, “not like them posers on their BMWs or crochet rockets.”

“Fair enough,” Issac continues, “but have you, with your limited exposure to motorcycle enthusiasts, ever come across a guy with a tattoo of a woman wearing a red hijab?”

“What the hell is a hijab, some sort of ruby necklace?”

Issac laughs while wiping condensation off the bar from Lenny’s beer. “No man, a hijab is the scarf Muslim women wear around their heads.”

“What the hell would a Harley guy being doing with shit like that!”

“The heart wants what the heart wants my man and somewhere in the annals of Chicago Land Harley lore, there has to be a biker who fell in love with a Muslim woman.”

“Not in my lifetime my friend.”

“Maybe the tattoo has nothing to do with the forbidden love of a Muslim woman, maybe the red hijab’s a metaphor. In this guy’s tattoo, everything’s covered except her eyes and they’re a piercing green like limes; it could maybe mean, she can see him but he can’t see her, you know, like she sees all his flaws but he never sees hers, or maybe, he has no idea the pain she’s hiding behind her mask, a pain so powerful and consuming, she can no longer be with him, which is why there’s tears in her eyes?”

Lenny shakes his head, “At least one thing is clear to me now, if that’s the kind of bullshit they were teaching you at Northwestern, it’s makes perfect sense you’d drop out.”

“No man,” Issac laughs, “I was in computer engineering. They don’t let us take liberal arts classes because they’re worried it’ll screw with our logical minds.”

“Well then don’t be going all Darwin on me, next thing I know you’ll be talking brickyard shit from Saint Stan’s and then this whole dance we’re doing is gonna get weird, so no, I never met a biker with a Muslim tattoo.” Lenny takes a drink and wipes his mouth in his sleeve. “Why are you asking about crazy shit like that anyway?”

“The other day I got to remembering a time my uncle took me for a ride up to Wisconsin, I was probably ten and we probably rode your Harley. Anyway, we stop for lunch at a truck stop, and this group of Harley guys roll in, who knows, could have even been your club secretly crossing state lines to get good cheese. Anyway, this one guy, huge guy, he’s got this amazingly striking tattoo on his left arm of a woman in a red hijab whose face is covered so only her eyes can be seen. Before long, this dude starts telling me about his tattoo and talking about some pretty profound shit.”

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Like everyone we love eventually breaks our heart.”

Lenny takes a swig of beer as he thinks about the many times his heart’s been tattooed by love. “Bet you didn’t know us biker dudes were so deep.”

“I’ve been replaying a lot of memories lately and the stuff he said mixed with other memories from that day had me up the other night questioning things,” Issac takes his time with the next part. “In light of what you said a while back about my mom and how she’s the reason my uncle went awol in my life, well, I ain’t saying you’re right, but maybe you’re not wrong. I am in no way apologizing for what went down between you and me but I’m big enough to admit that I’ve been going through a lot of shit lately and-” Issac pauses to further refine what he’s trying to explain. “What I’m saying is that I can see where some of what you said could be true, that’s all, so don’t go reading anything past that.”

Lenny laughs, “You know what you are, a hedger. You hedge life like you hedge bets, always working the margins and angling for shit. You’ve already decided what I said is true, yet you stand here splitting hairs. Well kid, at the end of the day, it’s a distinction without a difference.”

Issac sets a fresh pint down while deciding if anything Lenny’s said is cogent. “Well first of all, it’s a difference without distinction, that much they teach computer geeks at Northwestern.”

“Says you.” Lenny wipes foam from his face. “And what you’re saying about Darwin is definitely a distinction devoid of difference.”

Issac starts to respond but immediately sees the silliness of engaging Lenny in yet another one of their circular debates. “That pretty much sums up what I’m saying, you say shit that ain’t right, but at the same time, ain’t wrong either.”

Lenny laughs at the repartee he’s perfected, “That’s why I say what I’m saying.”

Issac knows from past interactions someone has to be the adult. “I’m getting off your clown carousel cause quite honestly; you’d do this shit just to screw with me all night if I let you.”

Lenny smiles, “gotta do something to keep the free pours coming.”

“Be that as it may, what I’m trying to say is that since that night when you said all your shit about how it broke my uncle’s heart to be kept away, I’ve been replaying past memories and can see where some of it could be true. It don’t mean I forgive the bastard, but I can see where maybe it wasn’t all on him.” Issac wipes invisible condensation rings from the bar to delay diving deeper. “Guess where I’m going with this is that maybe this thing between my uncle and me doesn’t have to be about forgiveness.” He considers the best way to state his proposal. “What I’m trying to tell you, is maybe next time you see him, you can pass that along.”

“Happy to kid, only-” Lenny takes a swig of beer and wipes away the foam. There’s a guy at the bar trying to get Issac’s attention but he’s not a local so Issac’s in no hurry to help.

“Only what?” Issac presses: suddenly and unexpectedly caught up in Lenny’s cliff-hanging drama.

“Something odd’s going on in New Mexico.” Lenny reports.

The guy at the bar’s getting pissed, but that’s because he’s not listening to the mystery theater playing out on Issac’s other side. “Whatta ya mean,” Issac asks, “like some Roswell sort of shit?”

“I don’t know what that means, but Darwin was supposed to be here this week. We had plans to run over to Lafayette and catch the Boilermaker game only, he doesn’t show. Not like him to miss something as important as Purdue’s Old Oaken Bucket rivalry. I call and leave multiple messages, but he hasn’t called me back. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, so likely no need for worry, and I wouldn’t, but something just feels off about the whole thing.”

“Excuse me!” the guy on the other side of Issac abruptly interrupts, “can I get a beer?”

“Yeah” Issac says gesturing to the far end of the bar, “go ask Murphy.” Issac can’t be bothered by customers when compelled to come back to Lenny. “Uncle Darwin was gonna be here this week?”

Lenny looks at his favorite bartender in disbelief, “really, that’s the part you heard?”

#

Normally Issac doesn’t see Sara after a shift, by the time he has things squared away at Murphy’s it’s too late for her and she gets up too early for him, so they usually only see each other when they both have the same days off. Since the Cub’s season ended, Murphy’s been really good about scheduling Issac around Sara’s schedule, but game day is always a must-work event. As part of Sara’s mentoring rotation, she now works the morning mise en place shift, where her primary responsibility is to prepare ingredients the afternoon shift uses to create evening shift entrées. Her new tasks include things like chopping vegetables, soaking meat in marinades, cutting and toasting yesterday’s bread for croutons, and making salad dressings early so the ingredients have all day to marry.

Sara’s not annoyed Issac knocks on her hotel door so much as she’s in need of context, which Issac struggles to provide because he doesn’t have a certain crisis or dramatic dilemma in need of resolution, he just needs to be with someone who understands he has strange emotions gripping him. Why he should care that his Uncle Darwin missed a football game defies logic and yet, Issac’s infected by the same eerie sense something ominous is afoot that’s got Lenny spun up. What scares Issac to unsettledness is that this sense is the same indescribable feeling he had the night his dad died and his mom had yet to return from New Mexico, a feeling of utter loneliness, like he’s in a dark void with only the stillness of nothing; and that’s something a young boy learns to never forget. He tries explaining this to Sara and can see she’s not getting it but he also sees that all she needs to know is that he’s in crisis and that as much as anything is why, he now knows he loves her; not in the good-time Charley way he once thought he loved Gabriella, but in ways beyond physical or even emotional. While accepting all the metaphysical elements of how he now knows he loves Sara, he stops short of believing his love is spiritual; after suffering alongside his mom as the cancer slowly took her, he’s abandoned thoughts of spirituality in his life. Rather, he just accepts that he profoundly loves Sara and there’s no reason to dissect that into elemental units of complex compounds.

“Of course it’s okay you came.” Sara reiterates. “Your upset about something you can’t talk about and I understand. If you want us to just silently sit here, that’s okay; often when I’m upset, that’s all I really need.”

“I can’t explain this unsettledness I feel.” Issac once more tries. “I mean tonight was going just like any night at the bar with Lenny talking shit like he always does; next thing I know I’m telling him that while I don’t forgive my uncle for what happened, I can sort see things from his perspective. Then, I’m telling Lenny he can pass that along to my uncle and that’s when he starts going off on being worried something’s happened to Uncle Darwin and next thing I know I’m having these goofy-ass feelings of like, I don’t know, worry, and even more bizarre, remorse.”

On some level, as Issac tells all this to Sara, he’s forced to concede there’s a part of him that would rather be talking about love and all the ways she’s come to mean so much to him. Loving Gabriella was hard, if he can even call their dynamic love; looking back he now knows, it was more the comfort of convenience. He thought he loved her because they matched for a moment but once that moment faded, there was nothing to hold them over. Of the many ways he knows he didn’t really love Gabriella, the fact that once she was gone, he didn’t miss her ranks at the top. When everything went south, he wrote off his complacent response as being too much in crisis over his financial calamity to devote bandwidth to dissecting feelings of love, or lack of feelings to be more precise. After the crisis somewhat abates, he decides his lack of interest in finding any kind of way to win her back is further evidence that what they had could probably be called a lot of things but love certainly isn’t one of them.

It’s different with Sara, if nothing else, he’s certainly different; more mature, wiser perhaps in some ways, more capable of seeing the world in real terms. That, if anything, is the gift working at Murphy’s provides; a chance to experience the world in real terms with a front row seat for the first time. There’s the obvious world of being behind the bar, where he interacts with patrons and their problems and the demographic at Murphy’s is so different from what he’d spent his prior life around. There’s also the world of Murphy, the gruff old bastard is hard for sure, but the respect he commands and the way he empathically embeds himself in the lives of his employees is impressive. Prior to experiencing Murphy up close and personal, Issac dismissively saw him as a hustler shagging for a buck. Now through, Issac’s come around to the fact that there’s nothing degrading about working hard to make a living but even that misses the mark because Murphy’s much more than that. At first Issac thought Murphy gave him a paid position out of pity and while it offended him, he was desperate so had not choice but to suck up his pretentious pride. He’s since come to understand that Murphy has a similar sort of deal, or understanding, or arrangement with everyone and that it’s those micro-measures of accommodation he makes with both his employees and his patrons that make him so beloved.

That’s the gift, in so much as one can call becoming destitute a gift; working at Murphy’s has taught him, what it means to be part of a community where you not only care about someone other than yourself, you allow others to care about you and when Issac really peels back the onion of his love for Sara, that’s what’s at the core, she’s become a part of his community, it may not be the most affluent and it is most certainly as far removed from the world he was roamed, but Sara is a part of the circle of people he cares about, and just as importantly, who care about him and that’s how he knows he loves her, which is why he’s completely uncertain he hears her correctly.

“I’m sorry,” Issac interrupts, “I was momentarily distracted, can you repeat that.”

“I think this crisis you’re having is about loneliness. Souls can sense a stirring; a coming together or a pulling apart. Your soul is talking, only it’s not telling you about your uncle.” Sara takes Issac’s hand; she smiles softly and looks sympathetically into his eyes. “I was waiting to talk to you later today when we both have time off, but your soul got my message early; that’s why your here.”

Issac looks at Sara uncertain what she’s talking about; he’s already confused and in crisis and she’s just making things worse. “I don’t understand.”

Sara squeezes Issac’s hands while compassionately looking into his eyes. “You always knew I was only in Chicago for a mentoring rotation.” She feels Issac hands withdraw from hers. Her instinct is to grab them, but she lets him go. “We’ve talked about it many times.” Sara continues with a forced smile, there’s an uneasiness in knowing the thing you need to say still needs saying even though the other person already knows and she can’t help but marvel at the irony of the timing. Her mamma taught her that no matter how difficult something is say, coming straight out with it is best. “At the end of the month, I rotate to the George Cinq in Paris.”

Issac looks at the woman he’s just confessed unrequited love for in disbelief, of all the things he thought she might say, of all the ways he imagined this conversation could end “that wasn’t even on the list.”

#

Like any afternoon in the back-of-the-house before a big game, the place is buzzing with activity; the kitchen staff are busy with pub food mise en place, bartenders work to prepare their condiment trays based on that they think will be popular, and waitstaff make sure the flatware, plates, and glasses are ready for the anticipated game-time rush. Issac expected the bar for a Bears game to pretty much run the same as for a Cubs match but Murphy’s adamant they’ll be way more whiskey poured and given the Bears are playing the Packers, and Murphy is featuring his “Murphy’s Big Cheese Special”, he’s probably right.

The Murphy’s Big Cheese Special includes a pint of ale, a shot of rye whiskey, a wedge of cheese and a complimentary grater to shred cheese each time the Bears score a touchdown. There’s been some debate about whether the cheese should be from Wisconsin or Chicago. Murphy argues it should be Chicago cheese as they are ceremonially burying the Packers in cheese after a score. Patrick counters, first from a pragmatic sense, that the cheapest cheese should be used since no one’s going to eat it. He then contends hard dry cheese should be used as it will be easier to clean off the floor later. He caveats his logic by adding that if cost and cleanup are not considerations then cheese from Wisconsin should be used since grating the cheese after a Bear’s touchdown is tantamount to the Bears metaphorically grinding up the Packers. In a nod to Patrick, Murphy decides to raise the price of his special and go with Wisconsin hard dry cheese.

Patrick watches Issac slice lemons into half-moon disks while occasionally barking out orders to his line chefs when he catches them idling.

“You okay kid,” Patrick asks Issac, “you seem a little off.”

Issac doesn’t look up, “just got a lot going on.”

“I know it’s been rough, kid, I mean not that I ever had to go through it, but it can’t be easy going from a ne’er-do-well trust-fund lavish life to being a working stiff barely having two coins to rub together. Don’t you worry though, I have something that’ll cheer you up. Got a call today from the Chinese poker guy I was telling you about, he’s hosting another event by O’Hare; says it’s a tournament; many players, multiple days, big money and he wants me to cater. I’m thinking we recruit Sara, and the four of us knock this out. Of course, she has to work under my Sous Chef. Hey Santi,” Patrick shouts to the dish-washing area, “you okay if Sara works our gig?”

Santi shouts back, “Si chef.”

Patrick smiles in satisfaction, “there, everything’s set.”

“Tell me how this works,” Issac wonders, “you’re a fry cook at a dive bar where Santi washes dishes and somehow you two caterer high-dollar corporate events?”

“The world belongs to streetwise hustlers’ kid, never forget that.” Patrick considers the matter further, “You look at me and Santi and see a fry-cook and a dishwasher, but have you ever noticed as soon as this dive gets busy, we’re ghosts? That’s because we got our own thing going. We agree to do Murphy’s mise en place on game day and in exchange, he lets us use his kitchen when we got a gig, it’s win-win. You look at Santi and see a cliché Mexican washing dishes, but if you look past the obvious, you’ll see he washes dishes because it necessary for what we do, the rest of the time he’s helping me prep. Santi maybe didn’t go to a fancy culinary institute like Sara, but he’s mentoring under someone who did, and someday, Santi’s gonna be a damn good chef; every bit as good as anyone at Four Seasons. Here’s the deal with life kid, fancy credentials get you in the game, but sooner or later it’s gonna take talent that can’t be taught to excel and Santi’s got that in spades. So, what say you call Sara and ask if she wants in, this gig’s gonna be big and we’ll all make bank, two, maybe three coins you can rub together.”

Issac looks up in a way that dispels any myth Patrick might have that Issac’s excited about this opportunity. “Yeah,” Issac mostly whispers, “ I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

“Why not kid, we both know you need the money and Sara could use some real Chicago culinary cooking.

“Well,” Issac struggles to say out loud what he’s been avoiding having to hear himself say, “Sara and I broke up.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what happened?”

“She’s being transferred to Paris.”

As a veteran of constant culinary change, Patrick understands the magnitude of the moment and compassionately puts his hand on Issac’s shoulder. “I’m sorry kid, I know it seems unkind, but I’ve been in Sara’s shoes many times, it’s the unfortunate nature of a culinary career. But know this, just because she’s leaving don’t mean she doesn’t love ya.”

Issac pretends to be too busy to look up. “Yeah,” he states with collapsing clarity, “she just loves her career more.”

Having had this conversation more than once, Patrick knows what to say and is about to, when Murphy enters the kitchen on his way from the bar to his office; he stops in front of the gas range beside multiple aluminum pots boiling with steam. After a brief hesitation and some instructions for the chef manning the stove, he slowly makes his way over to Issac, not at all surprised to see his sadness on display. “I’m so sorry lad, I just got the news myself and I’m completely devastated.”

“Thanks,” Issac quietly answers.

“I mean we go through life and we all know shit like this happens, but we never are really ready for it to happen to us.” Murphy looks at Patrick for confirmation.

“Indeed,” Patrick adds, “Murphy here knows what I’m talking about.”

“The thing is lad,” Murphy continues, “the longer you go in life the more you learn shit like this gonna happen to you.”

“Amen to that brother,” Patrick adds. “I was just telling Issac that constantly transferring to new kitchens is part of being a chef.”

Murphy looks at Patrick with perplexed confusion, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Sara’s leaving Chicago,” Patrick announces, “being transferred to Paris. What are you talking about?”

“Issac’s Uncle.” Murphy takes a moment to read Issac’s reactions. He pauses, not sure how to proceed. “You don’t know do you lad?”

“Know what?” Issac asks with hesitation born of experienced angst.

“I’m sorry lad,” Murphy says in his patentably abrupt way of driving to the point, “your Uncle Darwin is dead.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Patrick groans.