I schlep hash for the goyim.
Last night at around 4 am, when I’d finished cooking for downtown bar hoppers, I stepped silently into the streets and planted myself on a curb with a cigarette near Southwest 10th and Alder and thought back to the pivotal moments in Trogir: Take the flight, or stay in Dalmatia. I took the flight. Now, six months later, I am a cholesterol transference technician in an upscale delicatessen in Portland, Oregon. I can’t help but review the decisions that led to my installation in this lubricious galley.
I remember the night that the crisp air of the village was fragrant with rosemary and the smoldering coals that cooked the day’s catch a few hours earlier. We were drinking local wine in front of the TV in Gule’s living room, relaxing before the drive to the airport in Kaštela. We left at around two in the morning. My flight wasn’t until six o’clock, but Danijel and Gule insisted we stop for a few farewell drinks at the little casino next to the bus station in Trogir, where they introduced me to the bartender and a few of their friends. We had a round of rakija together, then they mingled and played a few machines. I sat at the bar alone, steeling myself against the impending degradation of the next 24 hours I’d spend in the prison system we know as post-9/11 international airports. Squarely fatigued from paperwork, packing and cleaning my apartment, my head swirled with the events of the stationary roller coaster ride that was the previous three months. My mind involuntarily performed background calculations, assessing what I faced on arrival in America, working out how to hit the ground running in such a way that my exodus to Portland would be an expeditious one. Danijel and Gule are among my closest friends in Marina; I really wanted to whoop it up with them for my last few hours in the country, but I was exhausted. There was the hammering insult of all the senseless crap with work, and my brain was already making a hasty retreat to English in an existential statement of defiance against the feeling that I was the most gullible of maroons to come to Croatia to run a hotel kitchen. I think I’m the only chef from America to do this, but it hasn’t turned out to be much of a feather in my cap.
Every once in a while the boys would come over with an even prettier girl (and every girl in Croatia is prettier than the last. It simply doesn’t end) and buy me another beer. I think they were trying to persuade me to stay, or at least get me drunk enough to blow off my flight so they wouldn’t have to spend another couple of hours in the car. I wanted to stay, but couldn’t see how. In my mind, I was already in Portland, surrounded by the familiarity of American life in completely strange surroundings. Gule told me about some possibilities for me to work with friends in Omiš and Brač, but I was in no shape for a deeper exploration of the rabbit hole at that point. And I was in love with The Girl again. We would soon be reunited.
We were within the stone walls of the bus-station-casino-bakery-and-public-toilet compound for about about two hours, I think. Inside, the place is painted black, and the only light in the room came from beneath the bar and the glowing screens of the video slots and poker. If there was music, I don’t remember hearing it. It seemed like the only thing the handful of people here were interested in was gambling. I drank slowly and silently, smoking Kolumbo cigarettes in the black room.
The last two weeks of my stay were internally frantic, but the outer trappings of the day-to-day were the stuff that dreams of village life are made of. Aside from mostly older Germans and Britons who want less kids, crowds and traffic in the backdrop of their vacation, the tourists are generally gone by the first week of September. That’s when the locals make wine, lay out figs on the roof to dry in the sun, and celebrate life with the wealth bestowed by another summer season of throngs of European tourists. The Adriatic has cooled somewhat, and so the fishing is quite good and the eating of fish is constant. September is bittersweet everywhere, but I can see how there is a deepened nostalgia for it there. All of the traditional ways of life begin to come out then, and in the quiet you can hear a sardine skeleton hit the ground from the other end of Mala Vrata. The most fulfilling of those days was, for me, the day of the big harvest, when we crushed what had to be at least two tons of grapes at Konoba Marina. For the first time since I’d been there, I felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from putting in a full day’s hard work. And this work would result in making people happy for at least a year. I’ll take that kind of work over bowel movement design any day of the week.
I looked at my watch, slammed what remained of the liter glass of Karlovačko and rounded up the gents. It was time to go to the airport and shuttle me off to Geneva, then Atlanta, and finally to St. Louis to re-group for a couple of weeks before heading to Portland, where, fast forward, I now live and schlep hash for this town’s soggy-bearded, horn-rimmed and hat-wearing denizens.
Emotion can blow like a gale force wind in the the sails of the will, and it is emotion that sped me over sea and land to Portland, where 70% of the population is young, beautiful, and probably high on something. ‘Twas love what propelled me against the hoary headwinds of probability to this moist burg for a shred of possibility with The Girl. By some guidelines, travelling six thousand miles to be with someone is a romantic gesture, but in this case the gesture would bear sour, mealy fruit. The Girl neglected to inform me before I left Dalmatia that she lives with a man she’s been “dating” for four years (Cue maudlin melody on wheezy oboe played by fat, redheaded nine-year-old).
I can now say that I have traveled a great distance for the truth.
It’s reasonably safe to say that most of us want to be the Primary Provider of Services in a romantic relationship. There are worse things to be than the Dildo Under The Bed, but there are also more satisfying roles. My dear sisters (or brothers, as the case may be), the simple courtesy of letting a man know that this is his role in your life may not be met at first with dancing and cheering, but if the knowledge prevents him from making a costly romantic gesture that cannot easily be undone – such as a perilous journey, unfortunate tattoo or utterance of ‘I love you’ – then you will earn a surprisingly lukewarm place in his heart. And if he is of a certain territorially ambiguous temperament, the likelihood that you will even get to keep your Dildo Under The Bed is stronger than you might predict. If you don’t count the cuckolded significant other, everyone will emerge champs.
Speaking of greyish forecasts, the weather in Oregon is quite predictable at this time of year: It rains all goddamn day, and every goddamn day. They tell me it dries up and gets beautiful in late spring and summer, but the same could be said of a cold sore. I will remind Them of their testimony with swift kicks to the pants if it is revealed as a lie. I’m fairly certain that you read a measure of embitterment in my words, that I just hate everything right now, but I must shout it from the hills: Portland is a beautiful town. My presence seems like a great cosmic mistake and I currently have no network of trusted, supportive friends, but I’m going to give the place the benefit of the doubt and see what becomes of things. I’ve had enough traveling for a while, and Portland is home to both a thriving food culture and an excellent public transportation system. You don’t need a car – or even a bicycle – to get by quite comfortably here. This suits me. It’s like in the village, where anything you could possibly need for a happy life of simplicity is a five minute walk away. Home it is, for now. I’ll make friends, or I won’t.
Before finishing my cigarette on the curb a half block from the Ace Hotel and heading back to the deli to clean up for the night, I sat with my mind open to the world, listening for hints, looking for signposts, asking the wordless questions that only the cosmos understands. The response came: A car full of revelers rolled past me, heading north on Southwest 10th. The driver leaned out the window and shouted, “You don’t need that girl! Let her go!”
I wasn’t even thinking about her at the time, so she must have been written all over me like a shitty tattoo. She has wafted in and out of the picture a few times over the last six years, like a sweet fog you can taste, but not drink. In any case, the cosmos does not lie. I do not need The Girl.
I wonder how long I’ll stay here. I can smell Forever, but I’m not feeling it.
