Hatched (21 page)

When they left that night, the foundation had been poured for the final episode in this strange existence of mine, a base that had been foretold by some being, because I’d already known it was there from the moment I was conscious of my existence. I felt excited, feeling them leave Fabergé Restaurant, and knew that in future penetrations into my being they would bring us all closer to an abyss I’d anticipated as long as I could remember.

Chapter 16

John looked every bit the commanding officer of a ground force charged with fighting back a savage army of murderous infidels, with his chiseled jaw, his piercing, blue eyes, his workmanlike hands, and his gruff demeanor. As such, he hardly looked the part of a chef, and even less an architect of the elite, prestigious, meticulous Fabergé Restaurant, the New York landmark that prided itself on producing creations crafted to emulate those incredibly eggzotic artworks produced by the Russian jeweler, Peter Carl Fabergé, and his goldsmiths for the Russian Imperial Family. A look into John’s past, however, changed the complexion of his face from that of a military tactician to that of a careful crafter of recipes, weathered and hardened by his unrelenting attention to each detail of the invasion, and focused by his careful oversight of each member of the battalion charged with carrying out his culinary conquests.

John grew up and into the persona of John-the-Owner in the unassuming and one-time industrial town of Waltham, Massachusetts, where his father worked as a proud craftsman for the Waltham Watch Company, an enterprise committed to the revolutionary idea of creating moving parts that were so precise, as to be completely interchangeable. Appropriately enough, the company was once called the Warren Manufacturing Company, named in honor of General Warren of Roxbury, a renowned soldier of the War of Independence. The work they were doing on timepieces of the period were considered so novel that the founders specifically omitted the word “watch” from any reference to the company. Headquarters were built for this innovative company in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1854. And, to John-the-Owner’s pride, they still stand today, reminders of the first pocket watches made in America, as well as early chronometers and some lasting heirlooms, including the “William Ellery,” a key-wind watch that President Lincoln received as a tribute at the Gettysburg Address.

In 1949 the company declared bankruptcy, and John-the-Child’s father, who was by then nearly of retirement age, retreated for a time to his South Street home, where he and his wife discovered the length of the eight-hour day spent together. Luckily, their three-year-old child, John, was able to monopolize his father’s attention. And luckily for John, his father continued his meticulous work at home. John Senior had floundered about for a few months after the factory closed, but then sought desperately for an activity that would satisfy his lust for assembling intricate devices, leading him into the construction of balsa wood airplanes and, inevitably, ships in bottles. Young John watched his father work at these creations with surprising fascination and patience and was always rewarded with the product of his father’s meticulous labor. Unlike his father, though, John-the-Child fetishized the end results, and so in addition to the random collection of egg-related objects that are now scattered throughout the dining room of Fabergé Restaurant, the attentive customer can also admire, but not touch, the many airplanes and bottled ships that he had received and now treasured.

The connected parts of John’s early domestic setting were disassembled when he was a boy of twelve, when the Waltham Precision Instruments Company opened its doors in the revamped premises of the now bankrupt Waltham Watch Company factory. In what turned out to be the greatest, but also the final pinnacle of John’s father’s career, the company teamed up with Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers on building gyroscopes and other instruments designed for measuring changes in direction. The impetus for this new line of work was a huge order from NASA’s new Apollo navigation system, a collection of instruments that were to be assembled with the kind of precision for which Waltham watchmakers had become famous. The hygiene and cleanliness rules of the team were so strict that women were not allowed to wear makeup, and workers who came back from their sunny vacations were forbidden to work near the assembly area, out of fear that they could have skin flaking off from their suntans.

Unfortunately, though, John’s father never got to wallow in the glow of his company’s galactic success. On the very eve of the Apollo 15 mission of 1971, when Astronaut David Scott substituted his damaged Omega Speedmaster Professional chronograph with a Waltham timepiece, John’s father’s heart stopped. It was ironic that the precise ticking instrument that had successfully carried him to his eighty-third year had stopped on the eve of his greatest achievement. And so as the Apollo astronauts were catapulted by unprecedented rocket-fueled engines into space, one of the technicians whose work had made the mission possible was also blasted off into the other world, the glow of the television report about the Apollo mission illuminating his final moments.

All of this is to say that John-the-Child grew into John-the-Owner, bearing familial characteristics that were transposed: from the ticking timepiece to the culinary creation, from the eternal to the ethereal, and from keeping time to watching it carefully in order to ensure the absolute perfection of the well-wrought meal. And along the way, John-the-Owner met his own precise masterwork: Яйцо Фаберже, the Fabergé egg. Inspired by its beauty, its complexity, and the pure aesthetic bliss of being in its presence, John-the-Owner emulated Gustav Faberge, eventually Fabergé (to add some style), as well as Gustav’s son, Peter Carl Fabergé, who both supplied masterpieces to the rich, the famous—and the doomed. Inspired by his new mentor, now that his revered father was no more, John-the-Owner fashioned himself into a creator and supplier of masterpieces, and was, or appeared, unconcerned by the ethereal nature of his own art and masterworks. In this regard, John-the-Child’s father would not have respected or even understood his son, because the very definition of craftsmanship, and even art, was survival, not only through time, but also through space and space-time. John’s father believed that art would be recognized as such in any dimension, just as his own crafted masterpieces would bear motion in time and space without diminution of their original worth.

It was perhaps for this reason that John grew into an inveterate collector of fine artworks, even in the absence of pockets deep enough to own those icons his father would have so admired. Furthermore, without the kind of cultural snobbery of a man with access to Chanel or Cartier or Fabergé, and with a belief in the American version of building from the ground up, John-the-Owner could settle, if settle is the right term, for magnificent, self-made creations. In short, even though he settled for facsimiles, he nonetheless managed to surround himself, and his clients, with images of fine craftsmanship. And each of the hundreds, nay, thousands of culinary creations that John-the-Owner had offered over the years to stimulate the palates of his clients bore the stamp of his father’s dedication to reproduction. And the reproduction of great dishes isn’t mechanical reproduction, it’s true reproduction, because each creation reproduces the power of the first work. From this perspective, great recipes hearken back to the creative flame that illuminates the vision of the creator.

At the same time, though, like the engineer-son of an inventor, or the dance-daughter of a choreographer, or the musician-child of a composer, John-the-Owner was destined for disillusionment. Relative to his own father, he would leave no instrument behind, and in regards to his own flesh-and-blood creations, his twin nine-year-old sons Jason and Jim, he had but a partial link that was eventually damaged by the destructive tides of a washed-up marriage. John seldom saw his ex-wife, and spent his days with Tina, who, like himself and his father before him, fought the fight of earthly perfection. Tina’s very existence seemed to reassure John, since she proved to him that despite the chips and cracks and flaws of the shells we call existence, there is nonetheless the chance to encounter true beauty.

Nobody could quite work out the connection between this odd couple, because nobody could fathom the depth of their connection. What people saw was superficial, that tiny, doll-like Tina and demonically possessed John were polar opposites, in every way visible, and so speculation abounded as to whether they could possibly be involved in a corporal relationship. The very image of John’s brutal masculinity seemed sufficient to crush the fragile femininity that coursed through Tina’s veins, veins that seemed barely wide enough to allow her body sufficient sustenance to survive. Nevertheless, everyone who worked at Fabergé Restaurant knew that John depended absolutely on Tina, just as they knew that he would be adrift were it not for the powerful force exerted by Doris the bookkeeper, and, moreover, that everything that truly mattered in the Fabergé Restaurant depended upon the value provided to it by Jessica.

Masculinity is the image behind the glass, or reflected back by the mirror. What the viewer cannot see, in both cases, is the weakness inherent in the display of raw power. The truth of nature and her creations is in the possibility of reproduction, and in that regard men are the spectators, not the progenitors. Nate’s transient creations, Jude’s puerile observations, even John’s masterful culinary creations are but the window-dressing of a world that survives by reproduction, but is given meaning by cycles. Value isn’t present in production or even reproduction, because both are slated for consumption, obsolescence, and decay. Value, like the passage from one generation to another, has to be experienced, not witnessed.

If Jessica, then, is the truth about this world, then Doris is its protector, who toils behind the scene to ensure that tomorrow might have some of the positive elements present in the world today. While masterful eggy creations flowed from Fabergé Restaurant, Doris, when she wasn’t keeping the lights on and the gas flowing, played the role of a dawdling grandmother to John-the-Father’s children, on the days when they were staying with him. They would come directly from school to Fabergé Restaurant, enter directly into the Yolk, and play in various regions of the kitchen, while they waited long hours for him to pack them into the red convertible Eldorado for the short drive to his home. The children didn’t seem to mind that their father was so completely consumed by the many tasks of running the restaurant, because they knew that their actual needs would be met by those around him, especially Doris. And for entertainment, there was Nate. Young boys were enthralled by people like Nate, who seemed to have no boundaries, and for whom every activity could be turned into a game, or a performance. Their father was all business, all serious, all the time, but Nate was crazy, silly, and always ready to spoil them with his folly.

When Nate’s performances were over, though, they would turn to Jessica, whom they thought to be Nate’s girlfriend, an idea that Nate had never challenged. Jessica spoiled them with her affection, and delighted them with her kindness. And then, when it was time to ensure that they would have a good night’s sleep, and a proper meal, they knew that they could rely upon Tina, who would take them to their father’s house in advance of his departure from Fabergé Restaurant, where she would set the table and serve whatever tasty delight their father, or Jessica or Nate, had prepared for them. Sometimes Tina would be there in the morning as well to help out with breakfast and with their departure to school. They never thought that she was dating their father any more than they imagined that Doris was, even though she certainly looked more the part. At nine years old, they were still in that phase when they imagined that their parents’ separation was temporary, a vacation, designed to prepare the way for an eventual reintegration into an even bigger house and home. This dream was not to be, for reason more complex than they could ever imagine, or would ever know. There was another dream played out in this choreographed caring for John’s children, one that Tina and Jessica had once had of having children to raise together. They’d promised themselves it would be possible, all those years ago, and, strangely enough, it was.

John and Tina are the yolk and egg of this creation, those who surround them ensure the egg-like perfection of Fabergé Restaurant’s creations. Whatever happens subsequent to my own demise, they will not break apart, for if they were to do so, all meaning would splatter, Humpty-Dumpty-like, upon the ground, never to be restored.

Chapter 17

On Saturday, a mere two days after the fate-filled meeting between Tom and Steve, John saw the two of them again, this time with the guy he’d seen speaking to the young egg-writer back in Fabergé Restaurant. He caught a glimpse of them as he walked into the main entrance of the restaurant for the weekly meeting, the Pow-Wow with Doris-the-Bookkeeper. He knew that the news from Doris would be bad, but it had been bad for so long that he felt no anxiety or dread, no sense that the shell upon which he’d labored for so long might crack and ooze innards out onto Wall Street, where it sat, like Humpty Dumpty, so precariously.

Instead of joining Doris directly, John walked over to the iced containers at the server station near the front of the restaurant and poured himself a glass of eggnog. “Fabergégnog” was indeed one of the restaurant’s famed creations, used primarily as a mixer, for women mostly, who sought a sticky-sweet source for the sensual intoxication borne by the rum or brandy that was added but hidden amongst the heavy, creamy, eggy taste that was supposed to represent maternal sweetness, strength, and, of course, the bearing of life through eggs.

John sat down, relieved, or so it seemed to Doris, as though he needed a respite from the weight of the responsibilities of which she was about to remind him. Doris knew that he’d spent the morning with his sons, a pair of children who were born of the same egg. John’s ex-wife, who looked a lot like John himself, gave him little grief in this, the post-marriage years. They had created two children, but they had not been destined to live as husband and wife. And although he had made her some truly memorable meals in the five years they spent together, she did not miss him, and he seldom mentioned her, unless regarding some financial outlay that he was willing to dish out to the boys.