Waiting for the Man (22 page)

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Denver and the mountains lay ahead of us, mirages emerging out of the golden fog of the tall grass. We drove through the sloping prairie, my foot growing heavier in anticipation of something momentous. The sun kissed the mountaintops; I worried about hitting rush-hour traffic. I tried to associate Denver with food and I couldn’t. Denver meant nothing to me except John Elway and skiing and the mountains, and the mountains had become very important. They symbolized something. The sky was clear, a deep azure, heading into Denver. I could see the mountains clearly now, running like a jagged wall in front of us, their peaks dusted with snow. Ahead of them, the skyline of Denver seemed like a small thing, a play set. “I’ve never seen mountains like this,” I told Takeshi, who had already seen them and wasn’t as impressed as I was.

“Japan has big mountains, too,” he said, almost defensively.

But I was excited, a boy lost in a world of candy. I drove faster. All my sensory experiences were somehow getting transferred to my right foot. “In New Jersey, we have hills and everyone calls them mountains,” I said. “Out here, you couldn’t even find one of those hills on a map. Over there, we ski on them. It’s pathetic.”

The sun disappeared behind the Rockies and the sky turned pink. Night descended quickly. Denver shimmered in front of us, like the tree in Rockefeller Plaza at Christmas, and then we were inside the city and the lights made the mountains disappear. “I’m hungry,” Takeshi announced. I was, too.

I called Dan and told him we were going to be stopping somewhere. I got off the highway and drove down a busy street, looking for nothing, looking for a place to eat but not knowing what I wanted. I knew Takeshi would hold to form and want a burger.

I called Dan again. He told me to stop at the next place with a good-sized parking lot and right away I knew we wouldn’t be eating well because in my mind nothing worth eating can come from an establishment surrounded by a parking lot. A good restaurant to me involves work, especially when it comes to parking. But perhaps that wasn’t true in Denver.

We drove by a large park with a banner hung from streetlight poles. The banners announced a zoo. We passed a large museum. I worried about getting too far from the highway and ordered Takeshi to point out the next place he saw. I wasn’t seeing anything. You can’t look for anything properly when you’re driving, especially when everything is unfamiliar. It’s like shopping for one specific thing. It never works and that’s why so many people hate shopping. The phone rang and I answered it. “So?” I asked Dan.

“A guy from the local paper says there’s a good Italian place right down the street, about five more blocks, and they have a big parking lot,” he said. He was laughing already.

“I didn’t drive all the way across the country to eat more Italian,” I said.

“Can you believe it?” Dan asked.

Thoughts of his brother’s inedible calzones danced in my head, waltzed into my mouth, and I wasn’t hungry anymore. “Fine,” I sighed. “Lead the way.”

The bus overtook us and I followed it. Seeing the backside of the bus was like seeing the tops of clouds, unfamiliar and strange, and I followed. I kept thinking of pulling a U-turn and just returning to the highway, severing the cord as it were, but I knew I wouldn’t and couldn’t. I could imagine Dan’s reaction, his face, how misshapen it would become with sorrow and betrayal. I saw a vision of Dan seeking military assistance. “I don’t want Italian,” I said.

“Tell Dan,” Takeshi said.

I called him again and told him I would not eat Italian. “I can’t,” I pleaded. “I have bad memories. There’s a Pavlovian thing at work. I can’t smell oregano again. The idea of a place that makes red sauce is making me queasy.”

The bus pulled into a parking lot. The restaurant looked like it once might have been a steakhouse. Across the street from it was what looked like a family-style restaurant, the kind that hands out balloons to all the kids and where the staff always sing “Happy Birthday” if you ask them to. I pulled in there. I parked and watched as the black bus slowly pulled out of the Italian restaurant’s parking lot and made its way to ours. Even the bus looked to be hesitating to cross the street to such a place. I was sure reporters didn’t normally frequent family restaurants. Unless they were with their families. Whom I’m sure they missed.

Dan jumped out of the bus and walked quickly in our direction. I lowered the window. “What’s this?” he asked, looking oddly insane. He had probably set his mind on a nice veal scaloppine.

“You don’t like the nice clown face?” I asked, pointing to the shape that made the
O
in Dot’s, the name of the restaurant. Beneath the big name, the words “The Fun Restaurant!” The branding was simple and effective. The sign hadn’t changed since it was put up, probably in the early eighties. The parking lot moaned under the weight of numerous minivans. I could imagine the swarms of kids running around inside.

“What’s wrong with that place?” Dan asked, pointing across the street.

“Honestly, I don’t want Italian,” I said. “I’m not joking. I’m sure it’s very good. But I’m thinking about the smell and, well, no.”

Dan reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He gave me a credit card. “Here,” he said. “Enjoy your astonishingly mediocre meal. Ask the kids to keep quiet. Maybe you can drink through a colored straw. I’m going across the street to eat something civilized.”

“The snobbery, the snobbery,” I said in my best Marlon Brando.

Dan boarded the bus. Angie exited. The doors closed behind her and the bus crossed the street and made its way to a parking lot resplendent with shiny sports cars. And not a single minivan. There was a neat sociological phenomenon exhibited by the lots but I was too hungry to think about it. My stomach made grumbling noises. I had to use the washroom. Takeshi exited the Odyssey. I did likewise.

“I hear Denver is full of great dive bars,” Angie said.

“I’m sure it is,” I said. “But not tonight, dear.”

I wanted a cigarette, but smoking in front of Angie, at that moment, felt wrong. Shameful. And I had no idea why such a strong feeling would come over me.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked.

“What have I done to deserve this?” I said.

“The boys on the bus can get tiring,” she said.

I held out my arm and she took it and the three of us entered Dot’s. A tall woman made up to look like Charlie Chaplin greeted us at the entrance to the dining room. Underneath the getup, I could see the woman was in her fifties, at least. Her nametag said Dot. “Good evening, welcome to Dot’s,” she said. Friendliness oozed out of her. The kind of authentic friendliness that would soon get annoying. “Would that be three for dinner?” she spoke in a tone that made me feel as if I had just walked into a kindergarten. It was on the ignorant side of patronizing. It was sincere. I wanted to show her the small scar on my knee from when I fell off my bicycle when I was nine.

“Three,” Angie said, and Dot looked in a book and then at her map of tables and then looked back at us.

“It’s Chaplin night,” she said, explaining her getup. “That just means I dress up like Charlie Chaplin.”

And then Dot’s smile disappeared, slowly, her upturned lips falling like a feather, and I could swear the color of her eyes went from hazel to black, matching the color of the bushy fake moustache she was wearing. “Aren’t you . . .” she asked and before she could get much further she stole a quick glance at Takeshi and everything was confirmed. “You are, aren’t you?” she said, suddenly shuffling the papers on her little stand. She became flustered. She pulled a Sharpie out of her breast pocket and handed it to me. “Could you sign this?” she asked. She gave me a menu and I signed it. I returned the pen but she gave it to Takeshi. He looked at me, a bit stunned, perplexed maybe. I handed him the menu and he signed it as well. “I’d imagine you want an out-of-the-way table,” she said. A bead of sweat formed on what little I could see of her forehead. “For peace and quiet.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Would it be too much to ask to get my picture taken with you?” she asked. “With both of you?” She smiled again except this time I saw Dot’s smile, not the Charlie Chaplin version she had given us when we walked in. “This is so unprofessional of me, I realize, sorry. But this is so unexpected!” She let out a short laugh. A snort.

“Can we eat first?” Angie asked. “Joe’s hungry.”

Dot hadn’t noticed Angie. Angie wasn’t on her radar at all. Her eyes widened. “Of course,” she said, studying her map again. “Of course. You must be so hungry. You haven’t had a meal since Kansas City, I’m guessing.” She pulled out three menus from a slot in the wall behind her. “Please, follow me.”

We followed Dot through the restaurant. She approximated speed walking. Families occupied every table. Large tables hosting either extended families or two families enjoying a night out. Children had the run of the restaurant and pink and blue balloons were strung from every chair seating a child. The ceiling was a graveyard of helium balloons. The volume in the room was like a noisy biker bar that had crashed into a grade school classroom, injuring many. Exasperated parents called out the names of children in a kind of random litany of exasperation. The customers were overwhelmingly blond. The parents were not much older than me and they were fit and handsome in a very all-American way. The smell of the room was a mixture of frying and perfume and kids, that unmistakable smell that takes over a place when enough kids are in it, the smell of play and dirt and soiled underwear and laundry detergent. It is the smell of people too busy living to care about something as inconsequential as a smell.

Dot took us to a table in a dark corner, on the far side of the kitchen door. It smelled of an unclean kitchen. “No one will bother you here,” she told us, handing us the menus. “This is where the staff usually eats. The doors will swing open every now and then but the rest of the customers won’t see you.” The kitchen door swung open, almost hitting Dot. “You don’t mind?”

“This is perfect,” I told her, and it was.

“Our specials should be on a separate sheet within the menus and if you want something that’s not on the menu just ask and we’ll see what we can do.” She smiled some more, warmly, exposing her gleaming gums. Dot had that mid-American friendly thing that I often thought of as aggressive. It was an aggressive friendliness.

“Does anyone want drinks?”

Takeshi asked for a Bud. I asked for a Coke. Angie ordered a rum and Diet Coke. Dot laughed. “OK, then, I’ll get your drinks and I’ll bring a waiter over shortly.” Dot’s teeth were beginning to hurt my eyes. Light emanated from her mouth. “And if you need anything at all, just ask for me.”

I watched her walk away and soon many of the waiters and busboys were coming to the table to have a look and say hi. The fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, the grandparents were bound to catch on soon despite the location of our table, partially hidden from the rest of the room by a serving station brimming with condiments and a touch-screen monitor. A tall blond Asian man brought us our drinks and engaged Takeshi in Japanese. Takeshi sighed and slumped in his seat and signed his napkin. He handed it to the waiter, who beamed and thanked him and left. “He says I’m becoming a star in Japan,” Takeshi explained sadly. “My father will kill me.” He took a giant swig of his beer and sank into melancholy.

I slapped his back. “Look,” I said, “forget your father’s business. You return to Japan a hero, do some commercials. You guys have a fierce and lucrative celebrity culture. The money is silly. Irresponsible. You’ve made it on your own. You’ve broken free.” I was talking like Dan.

Takeshi buried his face in his hands and shook it wildly. “This is all very bad,” he mumbled. “Very bad, very bad, very bad, very bad . . .” He repeated it until I was certain it had lodged in my brain, an earworm with a Japanese accent.

Angie raised her eyebrows and attacked her drink. “This is bad rum,” she said, making a face.

Takeshi kept at it. He was close to composing a Shintoist koan.

“Plus it’s weak,” Angie said. “What kind of a place is this?” She laughed at the stupidity of her question.

Takeshi banged his head on the table. It stayed there.

I opened the menu, bemused by Takeshi’s reaction, embarrassed that I had suggested he cash in on the predicament, by my hypocrisy, or, worse, by my willingness to say anything. I studied the menu. It offered every possible take on every menu in America. Salads, jalapeño poppers, burgers, steaks, fish, pizza, Thai spring rolls, pasta, club sandwiches, roast chicken, burritos. This place was everything to everyone and I half-regretted not following Dan and his minions into the Italian place across the street. “Nothing good can come of this,” I said. Angie didn’t even look at the menu. She knew what she wanted and if the menu didn’t have it, she would take Dot up on her offer. Takeshi’s head lay immobile on the table. He was pained and embarrassed. I looked at the deli section and found that the corned beef came with coleslaw, a pickle, and fries and closed the menu. I could picture the plastic bag that held my corned beef. I’m in Denver, I should have meat, a steak, something more local, I thought. I shrugged and reached for my Coke and sucked an ice cube into my mouth. And then I went to the washroom and had the most satisfying shit of my life, even while I could hear fathers and sons arguing in the stalls around me. I sat on the toilet for a good fifteen minutes. It was a kind of lost peace. A remembrance of how things used to be. I was alone and marveled at the feeling.