John raised his head even higher, calling out beyond Jessica, beyond the boundaries of Manhattan, to Long Island Sound, all the way down to Boston Harbor and further, further, all the way to the open, turbulent Atlantic Ocean. “We must be on our guard tonight!”
Now he was on a ship out in the middle of a horrendous storm, barking orders with a voice stifled by the gusts of Atlantic air and salty spray. Stifled, yet, authoritative and powerful. Loud, but strangely impotent.
“THEY ARE CRACKING DOWN!”
From across the kitchen came a retort from Nate, who had risen up to look towards John.
“Cracking, you say?” he called. He had spoken with an Irish accent, his voice carrying from across the kitchen, just loudly enough for Jessica’s ears, but a little too muffled for John’s middle-aged hearing. Jessica turned away from John and looked towards Nate, who had brought his hands together to emulate a butt crack, the palms of his hands pressed together.
“You say something?” asked John, looking around the kitchen towards the source of the sound.
“Can I use your spray?” called Nate.
“THE SPRAY? OH, YES. I LEFT A CAN FOR YOU BY THE POT-WASHING STATION, NATE. AND WE HAVE A BOX THAT JUST ARRIVED; WE HAVE A LARGE SUPPLY.” John was bellowing now over the loud sounds of the kitchen.
“GOT IT!” called Nate, grabbing hold of the can of stainless-steel cleaner that was perched beside the hot-water handle of the prep-station sink. John acknowledged Nate’s diligence with a nod, and then set back to work polishing the Hobart.
“Hmmm,” said Nate in Jessica’s direction, causing her to look towards him. “If any of the lobsters win the Stairway to Heaven competition, I’ll fill this with Gatorade and spray the coach!”
From where she was standing, near John’s dishwashing station, Jessica could still hear Nate, and could see him running his little “exercises” with the lobsters on the stainless-steel contraption. These exercises were in fact just warm-ups to the Olympic events staged up and down the course that Nate had set up: long jumping, maze running, high jumping, and flat-out sprinting towards the string-bean finish line.
Nate’s lobster Olympics was cruel, and it was stupid, and some version of it went on almost every shift. But given that the real purpose for those lobsters was to lie around and wait for their being killed for the $87.99 boiled lobster dish ($127.99 with a side of her own eggs), or the $167.99 baked and stuffed lobster (with crab meat, bread crumbs, butter, and herbs), a little attention from Nate may not be the worst possible thing.
“WE HAVE A WINNER!” called Nate, suddenly hoisting one of the lobsters in the air. Luckily for him, he had risen at the very moment John had crouched down to polish the base of the Hobart machine, and so this declaration of victory was out of both eye and earshot.
“This,” thought Jessica, “is going to be a long night.” She sighed to herself. “But that’s fine,” she continued. “Better to be killed with humor than with glumness.”
This was indeed true. In spite of the past, and future, of her own world and the worlds of those around her, and despite all of the strangeness of this restaurant, the city of New York, the country, the planet, the entire universe, right now, for whatever else, was okay. She was at Fabergé Restaurant, undertaking culinary tasks that she’d rehearsed and performed to the satisfaction of John and of multitudes of clients for years, to the palate-ial delight of all concerned. And so her life had meaning, and she brought to this place the genius of her maternal warmth, the generosity of her flesh, the calm of her touch.
This is not to say that Jessica hadn’t enjoyed working as a clothing designer, in that little atelier called “Stitched,” not six streets from where she now stood. Like the rekindled relationship she’d had with Tina during much of that era, a relationship that had resulted in lines of clothing well-suited to exceptionally tiny girls, Stitched felt like it was from another lifetime. After five years of stitching creations from fabulous materials, and five more designing gastronomic treasures from earth’s ovulary creations, Jessica felt as though she had lived forever in the bowels of places that make expensive goods for wealthy, ungrateful, dissatisfied, and unsatisfiable consumers, clients, customers. True, there were the occasional gourmets, or passers-by, like that kid today doing experiments in the dining room, but they were the exception. The general atmosphere of ingratitude, complacency, and entitlement amongst those who enjoy the fruits of places like Stitched or Fabergé Restaurant not only helped her understand the odd relationship between workers and consumers in such rarified places, but also gave her an appreciation for the odd characters who recognize the amazing quality of beautiful products, and the even odder characters who think about what it means to work in such settings. Nate was one such character, someone who constantly measured his relationship to the customer, the product, and the means of production.
In those early days working at Fabergé Restaurant, Nate had provided Jessica with adequate descriptions of her experiences. Encouraged by her interest, he began to build a philosophy that he simply referred to as resentment. “Resentment!” he would say. “In French? Ressentiment! In Italian? Risentimento! In Spanish? Um, fuck, I’m not really sure!” He would elaborate upon this philosophy during the many hours they spent sitting together in the back alley of Fabergé Restaurant. This dark, urban alleyway was a place that he referred to as “his own little pastoral farm.”
“Pastoral farm?” she had asked, during one of the first times she’d ever sat with him there in that dark, dingy, smelly, asphalted space.
“It’s a retreat, Jess. I think about it when I’m not at work, because it’s where I can actually brood.”
“Over what?”
“Everything, Jess. That kitchen where we work is a microcosm for the whole damned thing, for this city of servants and served. It’s a factory that favors all the eating and drinking and preparing, and then it’s a reservoir for all of the resulting pissing and shitting, and then it’s a metaphor for what it means to clean the whole fucking thing up. It all happens in one building. He looked up at the oddly shaped Fabergé Restaurant.
“The Big Apple is the Big Egg, Jess. It’s fertile, it’s fragile, it’s filled with opportunity, but when it’s fertilized, it lands up in these bloody, noisy, filthy streets, and hopes for a place to repose. That’s what the pastoral farm is for, Jess. Repose, reflection, retreat.”
Jess examined him with admiration, illuminated by a few crass bulbs whose rays were able to sneak out of their rooms in order to find their own repose in this, Nate’s pastoral farm.
“Do you like Wordsworth?” asked Nate. Jess hesitated.
“Sure!”
“Do you know ‘Tintern Abbey’?” A rustling sound suddenly made them both aware of some urban creature who took ownership of this space. Alleyways like this one attracted skunks and raccoons, creatures that come to forage in the open bins, digging away, when homeless people aren’t around, in search of prized scraps.
“I have read Wordsworth,” Jess began.
Nate took in a poetic breath and turned towards Jess, darkened by the evening sky, illuminated by the wayward beams. “The day has come when I again repose, Jess, here, under this dark sycamore.” He paused. “This building here,” he motioned towards the nondescript, brick building that made up one of the walls of their little clearing. “Under this dark sycamore, and view these plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts.” He motioned to the open space around them. “Gorgeous, no?”
“Yes,” she grinned. “Gorgeous!”
“These orchard tufts, which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,” he paused, “and eggs.” She smiled, as they both looked up at the egg restaurant before them. “Eggs, which at this season, with their, um, their unfertilized fruits. Did you like that? Unfertilized?”
“What is it supposed to mean?” asked Jessica.
“Unfertilized,” replied Nate. “Like Fabergé Restaurant. And like you and me.”
She blushed, but the scant li
ght wouldn’t reveal it to his probing gaze.
“In Wordsworth’s version it’s ‘unripe.’”
“I guess he didn’t know about this pastoral farm,” said Jess.
It was Nate’s turn to redden, but his color, too, was imperceptible in the darkness.
“At this season,” he continued, “with their unripe fruits, among the woods and copses lose themselves. Also like us.”
“Copses?” she inquired.
“Um, bushes, clumps of trees. Like those.” He motioned towards other buildings, adjoining those that demarcated their little alleyway.
“It’s a really beautiful poem,” uttered Jess silently.
“Not done yet.” Nate knew when he was onto a good thing.
“Among the woods and copses lose themselves, nor, with their green and simple hue disturb the wild green landscape.”
“Do they ever!” exclaimed Jess, motioning back to the buildings surrounding them.
Nate was now looking at her intently, as though he wanted to make love to her with his gaze. Which he did. Uncertain of what could bring on such joyful copulation, he simply continued his soliloquy.
“This is my favorite part, Jess. Once again I see these hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines of sporting wood run wild.”
“Beautiful! That is beautiful, Nate. Why is it your favorite part?”
“Because I love how he corrected himself but didn’t take away the first thought. I think about that sometimes when we are in there.” He motioned to the Fabergé egg. We taste something we’ve just made, and it’s good. We add a bit more, um . . .”
“Vanilla?”
“Vanilla, yes. We add more vanilla. And it’s better, but it’s also different. We know that it’s different, but the, um, the waffle doesn’t. We correct it, but now it’s not corrected, it’s just different. Nobody except us knows how it tasted before the extra dash of vanilla.”
All of New York grew silent.
“That’s really beautiful, Nate.”
He moved a little closer to her and gently touched her hand. He was almost always either joking, or instructing, he seldom just let go as he did then. He didn’t dare go any further, but had no way to respond that wouldn’t destroy this special moment. And so he continued, but looked once again to the words that had brought him to her warm skin for strength.
“Once again I see these hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines of sporting wood run wild. These pastoral farms, like this one, Jess.”
She smiled softly. She was almost weeping at the joy of this moment.
“These pastoral farms, green to the very door. And wreathes of smoke.” He motioned upwards to the nearly obscured sky, intimating that Fabergé Restaurant was emitting smoke, which it undoubtedly was, but invisibly.
“Smoke sent up in silence, from among the trees.” He motioned to the buildings around them once again. “With some uncertain notice, as might seem, of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, or some hermit’s cave, where by his fire the hermit sits alone.”
Silence. Calm. The endless clamor of the city had been turned into a distant din.
“I’m the hermit, Jess, on this pastoral farm.” He raised his hands and opened them towards her body. “You are my fire.”
This was the type of moment that had led them to imagine a future for themselves, together, in some place that could resemble an actual pastoral farm. In moments like these, Nate was so tender, so eloquent, and Jess so open, so giving, so generous. But Nate was also a wandering soul, and although he could describe rootedness, he was always onto the next thing, the next idea, the next challenge. He had dreamed of being alongside her, with her, inside of her, but then alongside her again, and then in front of her, and then off somewhere, and then . . . And so in that walk-in on that momentous day he was inside her, and she wanted him, but not like that, and he pushed her into those cartons of eggs stacked up for consumption, and he pushed her, and her body succumbed, and the eggs shattered, onto her chest, into her chin, upon her forehead. Smashed.
The rustling sound returned, and they were both suddenly made aware that the animal near them was large and powerful, one of the thousands of raccoons, as it turned out, that roamed the streets of New York, like foragers in the jungle of wildlife that had managed to make this artificial island into a commodious home. This was a good decision on the part of New York’s wildlife. The trash in Fabergé Restaurant was comprised of discarded golden nuggets, either prized sumptuous creations that were too much for overstuffed clients, or somehow flawed according to John’s wildly ethereal standards.
Not knowing how to stay in this moment, particularly in light of the interruption of this masked intruder, Nate continued in his quest to articulate his philosophy. “Jess, it goes beyond resentment.”
She had been transported, and could barely recall what they’d been discussing before pastoral farms. Nate barreled on.
“These are very special relationships that can only be formed in places like Fabergé Restaurant. We are in the bowels of paradise, slaving away to satisfy the most far-flung desires of a class of people who exceed in their resources even the aristocracy of previous eras. That creates resentment.”
“Indeed,” she said. She looked through the darkness at him, inquiring as to his very existence.
Nate, who was Nate-the-Prep-Cook, had but a single public life, which he spent working. The rest of the time, he read copiously, particularly in genres of social history, the application of political theorems—especially radical ones—and of course fiction, realist novels mostly since they, when written by the likes of Balzac or Zola or Dickens or Steinbeck, were the best kind of social, political, activist history and practice. Or so thought Nate. But he had this rather magical knack for memorization, and he applied it, mostly, to poems. He’d learned long ago that this ability, whatever he thought about the poem itself, gave him a kind of magical pass, particularly in conversations with girls. He wasn’t particularly handsome or desirable, but he was passionate about ideas, mostly ideas that very few people cared about. And so poetry was the medium for his intellectual seduction. He loved Jessica because she appreciated him as a thinker, as a talker, as a cook. And the fact that he knew many hundreds of lines of poetry was, for moments like this one, the difference between being interesting and being desirable. He wanted to be desired, despite everything, by Jessica.
Jessica loved Nate in her own way, very differently from how she’d loved Tina, or other loves she had taken into her embrace over the years. She appreciated Nate, but knew that Nate had bigger fish to fry, as it were, and although they’d spent many hours together, including precious hours in this pastoral farm, his gaze went beyond hers. She knew that each meal that Nate helped prepare was another brick in a wall of resentment that he was building in order to someday entrap the world’s wealthy clients. And so she was for him the earth from which all nourishment came, and he for her the purveyor of regrettable sentiments about where nature’s bounty was headed. This was a match that was bound to crack, smash, and end badly.
“We toil, Jessica, we build and craft and create and tenderize and flavor nature’s masterpieces for the underdeveloped palates of those who have earned the money required for our creations, but not the discernment that would be needed to appreciate them. And so we feel them to be our inferiors.”
Jessica dropped her head down in modest disagreement, and then looked back into his visage, for she loved knowing that his relationship to this place was so philosophical, so engaged, so much more than cracked eggs and stirred yolks.
“We are their superiors, because they know nothing of the process, even if they can appreciate the products. They are the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, we the workers and the craftspeople. And so we toil, we sweat, we grind, we suffer, but in our actions we become their superiors, because they are but the passive consumers of our genius. We know this, but in the paltry rewards we receive, in paychecks that barely cover the appetizers in this place, we feel scorn
for those who can amass the world’s bounty and grind it into their palates for the eventual mindless expulsion from their overused anuses.”
Jessica grimaced, but Nate continued, unabated.
“That, my dear Jess, is resentment. It’s what you feel, it’s what I feel, it’s why we hover between despair and sublime fulfillment, between revolution, and Wordsworth!” He paused. “And they, in their weakness, their vulnerability, their undeserved dominance, feel to be our superiors precisely because they are weak and incapable. They patronize us, literally, and we take it. But we also dish it out, because in our gaze we bear the truth of their helplessness, and we know it, they know it; and if the artifice upon which their world has been erected were ever to crack and then crumble, they know perfectly well who would dominate them. And so they gorge themselves, they fill themselves up, pretending to be squirrel-like and thus capable of storing up the ephemeral pleasure of wasting precious resources. They do so because when the inevitable diarrhea pisses from their burning assholes, they are reminded of their profound fallibility, and of the superiority of those who know the recipes for their decay, decline, and death.”
Jessica looked straight into Nate’s eyes, but said nothing.
“That’s us, Jess. Us.”
I had seen these scenes of miserable revel, and always knew that it was in those moments that Jessica had wanted to embrace Nate, to hold him, to give meaning to his body and his soul, to reassure him that somewhere, in a warm and caring place, his life had meaning and his words had effect. But she never did. When within the very bowels of the Yolk, he took her, he froze her sentiment, and then smashed it, just as she had obliterated those eggs upon which she laid, open, vulnerable . . . crushed.
Chapter 6
Jessica stood before John. She had emerged from that pastoral farm, from her daydream, from one of the many moments and worlds that she held inside of her, eggs to her thoughts, the yolks of her memories. She looked at this powerful, strange, genius of a man who was still scrubbing—or perhaps stroking—the Hobart washing machine, as though he was somehow responsible for all this inequality, all of these wasted efforts. She felt as though she’d been transported by her thoughts to the very scene of her discontent with Nate, and was veritably amazed to find herself still in Fabergé Restaurant, still at the dishwashing station, still standing before John. He seemed oblivious to her past, and to his own, and seemed to be unaware of everything going on around him.
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