Twelve straight seventeen hour days was turning his mind to putty, making the Saloon, open later than two, the perfect stool to which he could sit and calm his ragged nerves with violent glasses of irish whiskey. He 'd smoke his camels and talk shop with the other kitchen gargoyles that patrolled the trenches of the city's finest eateries and crawled its seed streets early into the morning. The four of them at The Wine Room, brothers in knives, had bulled their way to the top fo the food chain by hard work, dream like talent, and timing. Blitzing through busy Saturday nights like devils on speed, the plates being created and perfected were pushing the edge of italian cooking in this city steeped in tradition, and it was making waves.
Within the sweltering confines of the kitched they turned out standard polentas, risottos and pastas yet twisted their ordinary makeup into something so explosive that it was beginning to redefine the common definition of each. Using common ingredients to create uncommon dishes in uncommon combinations was the backbone of their genius.
Sitting at the Saloon, listening to Howlin' Wolf growl from the nearby jukebox, all he could think about was the tiredness in his joints and his craving for an ice cream. Smoking haphazardly he recalled table 21 with its return of the ravioli special, and a requisite story from the harlot waitress. He hated when food came back for whatever reason, and this one was classic. She said it wasnt lobster, but crab, and that she should know since she' d been eating crab in this city all her life.
He smiled to himself and asked for another whiskey. People eating in restaurants presume an authority ove rth food they order, and when it is different from expectations, their authority is God's word. Appeased with another glass of wine and an alternate entree, he doubted they would see her again. What he and his posse wanted was a place they could serve a menu-less dining experience, where there was no box to think outside of and customers put their trust in the food. Set price, three sittings a night, communal tables, three course. Perfect, he thought, steppping back into the present and his empty glass.
The wind had picked up , delivering sounds in waves washing b ack and forth over him. The fog muted the night as if pausing to give yesterday's ghosts more time to evade morning's discovery. Columbus avenue was a busy often choked four lane artery through North beach that was lined with cafes, bookstores, pizza places and a different era of characters. Men sat in wire chairs playing cards or dominos, sipping espresso and tilting their hats into the breeze along the sidewalks. Pigeons cooed and flocked to empty peanut shells, to the echoes of conversation and to the bounty of targets walking below their hidden nests. Not only Italian, but French, German and the greasy Americanized version of English was kicked up and down this street.
Leaning on a paperbox, he pushed his boot into a brown paper bag with a capless bottle poking up and felt a weight heavier than just an empty fifth. Pushing harder, the botttle failed to tip over so he leaned down carelessly, wondering to himself why it mattered, and grabbed the neck and stood up. What fell through the fog dampened bag made his head spin back and forth up and down the deserted street, hoping beyond hope that nothing and noone was there. Nothing could have prepared him for what was presently lying next to a box of yesterday's news, clean wrapped and seemingly radioactive on the pavement. Rubbing his bleeding eyes with grubbly food stained hands, he shook the disbelief out and pushed his cap around.
Carefully placing the guilty bottle atop the paper machine and bending quietly down beneath its level, he eyed the front page nervously. Stealing glances over both shoulders and down the street, he began shoving the offending packets in to his pockets, down his jeans and into his coat. Like a trapped rat looking for an exit, he froze in his immediate desire to move, unable to fire the neurons in his brain to make his legs move.
A car suddenly spun around the corner, coming at him from the opposite side of the meridian, dizzying his sense and rattling his bones. Panicking both inside and out, he flew into the empty road and tore off into chinatown seeking refuge in the alien street signs, odd smells and anonymity. Feeling his heart start to migrate up toward his throat, he swallowed what little strength he could and tried to act casual. Running along a sidewalk of shuttered stores , a pair of headlights was catching up to him quickly, reflecting their obnoxious beams off empty windows and back into the filthy street. This wasnt the quaintly ethnic, westernized row of dim sum restaurants and fortune cookie take out dives that characterized the touristy zig zag of streets bordering Market st. on the one side and North Beach on the other. This was the chinatown of spidery one ways, dark alleys and dead ends, where nobody spoke english and nobody looked you in the eye. The smells of fish, rotting fruit, decay and trash rose up through the night while the dampness shoved everything else closer to the ground. He ran while the car slowed behind him, flashing its high beams silently, balatantly into his ignoring back. Ducking down an alley lined with dumpsters and empty parked cars he saw his exit over a chain link and away from the still pursuing car. Running deeper into chinatown meant moving further into an unknown universe, a foreign country fraught with danger. Yet what was in dogged pursuit was also unknown, likely unfriendly, and potentially harmful .
The heart in his chest long ago became accustomed to artifical stimulants such as caffeine, speed, cocaine and gallons of energy drinks, but this sudden physicality of actually running was doing more to kill him than anything else. Adrenaline junkies like himself were allergic to this sort of expenditure of energy, preferring to walk between places, or better yet, get a ride. Running was for criminals and athletes, not smoking, drug using, greasy, itchy line cooks looking for nothing more than a paycheck and a buzz.
Settling into a comfortable pace, he made mental plans for his coup. The possibilities and avenus he could now stroll down, the doors he could shove open, and the comfort he would gain. He smartly fingered his pockets and felt th eliving breathing answer to many of the day's problems. Walking taller, feeling stronger, acting bigger and now practically strutting into a part of the city he shouldnt be, his self assuredness and confidence was sky high. There were no more tailing headlights and his aloneness surrounded him as he began to cross Market st. heading nowhere in particular. Left was the Embarcadero while to the right was the financial district and the mission, two areas best avoided when one has pockets full of happiness.
Feeling a presence start to materialize behind him, he picked up his pace a bit and heard the distinct echo of following steps. Not wanting to turn around for fear of fear itself, he continued moving blindly, trying to mask his dwindling bravado of minutes before.
Cars were scarce and people scarcer as it was a Sunday morning and the weather was classic stay in bed weather. The requisite cart pushers and the cardboard denizens of the cracks of any city hovered here and there killing time in their insouciant way, but other than that the streets were deserted.
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