He found himself awake very early, and so he went to read on the couch after putting on a tee shirt, two flannel shirts and track pants, taking the second steeping of the previous day's Dragonwell from the fridge to chase the tuna on rye he made himself.  The cat went to lie down on the rug.  He read, a review of a Japanese novel, written a hundred years ago, found himself intent on it, finished it, and decided to go lie down under the comforter in the bed to see if this was one of those wakings in the middle of the night.  His body, legs in particular, felt tired, and so he felt justified, though so long used to restlessness and dissatisfied with his life and work situation, as a barman doing nightshifts, that he would often lie in bed out of habit, napping, sleeping, sometimes feeling too much of a weary depression sort of a thing that he didn't want to do anything and would do little more than get up, feed the cat, get himself a glass of water, go back to bed, what was the point anyway.  He knew this to be unhealthy, but sometimes, you just feel defeated, or you need rest from what you've been doing to yourself, or you just don't know what to do.

The light was less higher up in the sky when he got up again, after dreaming, an hour or so later, diffused and permeating, making the room regrettably bright.  He changed into cycling shorts and made himself put in 40 minutes on the indoor trainer stand, avoiding turning on the television, even though he had completely missed the Inaugural, one more event after a series of holidays that meant the bistrot would be busy, that it would be hectic with tourists, that others would go home and he would be there late, eating by himself, pushed to have an extra glass of wine.  Varicose veins in his calf ached slightly, despite the compression stockings.  I will do some yoga, he thought, pouring himself a glass of water from the filter on the tap.

The bike ride, intuitively, would help.  He looked around his flat.  Things were scattered, laundry, bills, bits of paper, books, holiday detritus.

It struck him as odd, as he put his thoughts together on the bike, not thinking of work yet beyond the clock, that his father had been such an educator, great, gentle, a performer drawing vast connections as he lectured a university hall of students about plant biology, and yet he himself, maybe from the very things his father had discussed with him, things about the deeper nature of life and reality, seemed to have become incapable of action, incapable of even trying out teaching, and that the general effect of it all was that he himself had never really tried out anything.  Instead he had let life make choices for him. And he had so long been concerned about his real lack of a future of any stability, that he was deeply worried, even as he would go and perform his duties as a barman with friendliness, too much friendliness, the friendliness of an Irish politician, none of it warranted, particularly as he ruminated about the careful balances of Japanese life.

He opened a can of black beans, emptied in a Revere Ware pot, turned the burner on, added some white rice from a red cardboard Chinese take out container, and then returned to the yoga mat unrolled next to the bicycle on its stand.  "How much disappointment my father must have endured, from the first papers being late, knowing the academic fall would mean my never having a decent life," he thought.  Reflecting on the New York Review of Books piece, he agreed, it was acts of passion, no matter how chaste or well-intentioned, his brightness, his social activity as a social being that led not to action but to disillusionment and paralysis, such that now it seemed an only out for him to become spiritual in a self-help sort of a way.

It wasn't necessarily to think in such a way, though, not if he wanted to get through the night at work without getting into the wine again, the wine providing some physical relief, like sleep, but putting him down in the dumps the next day.

It was very cold out.  I'll walk to work, through the woods, that will help.  He glanced up from his bowl, stirring the olive oil, the salsa and the curry powder, finding Mariel Hemingway on the television news coming from Park City.  A new film, a documentary, about surviving the crazy in her genes.  Several good pictures of her grandfather, one from the Spanish Civil War, several later, flashed on the screen, the broad grin in two at least.  Handsome, attractive, just as she was, her face, and that of her sister.  She swims in icy rivers, nature a solace, where she is comfortable with herself.  And they know where to find me at work, he thought.

He got dressed for work.  The cat was out in the sun on a chair on the back deck.  As her cancer progressed, she had taken to eating outside, a statement on feline life and territory.  He did not mind, when he would go out and see the blood droplets on the blue paint.  There would be time to do the dishes left to soak, fold a shirt, pack away something to eat, leave a cordial note for the landlord and have time still to walk.  Later, a cab.

It had been an act of passion, or rather perhaps something he felt like a calling, and maybe further made necessary by the depressing knowledge that the odds against him doing okay in life weren't so great, to want to, somehow, he didn't know how, be a writer, or, more simply, write.  A calling that meant only more of the same distress continual.  Odd.  Wine tasting night.  Cremant.  Gewurtztraminer.  Alsace.  Supposed to care about wine, the great double edged sword.  Face people drinking wine, for hours on end.  Kryptonite.  Handling Kryptonite.  Kryptonight.





It became evident as the shift started that his principal coworker, besides the busboy, was suffering a marijuana hangover, by turns distracted, befuddled, obsessed with the electrical problem of the baseboard heater back in the wine room against the far wall.  On top of being late.  He had himself noticed the problem soon after arriving at work, a few minutes early, and had checked all possible breaker switches in the restaurant.  Running down two flights of stairs to get a Pierre Gaillard 2008 St. Joseph from the cave, the bar stools full already, the dining room filling up, there was his coworker, mumbling about a space heater. It was often the nights that were going to be 'slow,' particularly on the promotional nights, like Tuesday Free Wine Tasting, with its bottle discounts, etc., where, short staffed--"I'll be floating tonight," Joe said, "between up and down..."--you got spanked.  Tuesday was always a night of regulars expecting friendly chat and entertainment beyond simply pouring a glass of wine.  So, he quickly found himself running, picking up the slack, opening two bottles of wine, one Sancerre, one Cahors, for the six top back in the wine room.  Joe took the brunt of seating people, which he did effectively, something he himself found to be a losing situation.  People would show up fresh and new for the wine tasting, and you had to ask them, when they wanted a table, if they were going to dine, not just take up space.  Tonight this seemed like all Joe was capable of, in any organized fashion.  When the little walkie talkie rang, telling the busboy that plates of food were ready down in the kitchen, Joe was eager to go.  This kept him busy.

And then later as he found himself moving quickly from bar to table, he would overhear Joe talking to the visiting wine rep, whose task was to go round to the tables, pour a little bit of wine, explain it, entertain some, about a Rolling Stones show.  The night went on, and just a bit after eight, after the free wine tasting part of the ending had ended, there was a second hit at the bar of semi-regulars who were certainly interested in tasting wine, and the easiest and quickest way to get them to eventually purchase a glass of wine was to pour a few, maybe 3, maybe a fourth sip, 'til they found one they were happy with.  To him this was the shortest distance between two points, with the smoothest of interaction, kind of like, he imagined, shrinking someone, getting them to open up, while they talked in the meanwhile to the person seated next to them.  Sure, sometimes it meant a sudden pile of dirty glasses on top of the stainless steel glass washing machine when they were already piling up, but, it seemed to make everyone happy.  Wine shrinking can take a deft dance and presentation.  Usually it facilitated a good humor, this tasting business.

The night ended peacefully and early enough, it being very cold out, and it finally came down to one customer he knew from the previous bar where he worked.  "C'mon, let's go out.  Tuesday is chick night," the guy tried to impress upon him.  "Uh, no thanks, I'm pretty much a Buddhist these days," he ended up saying, wishing to get rid of this last fly in the ointment, while knowing that the conversation had not quite taken its course, even as he counted the money and made himself appear distracted, over by the cutting board above the stove, back in the corner, with the night's closing paperwork.


The next evening was Jazz Night.  Tonight he was not working with Joe, but Diana, an energetic and very sweet Salvadoran woman more than 15 years his junior.  They set up, talking a little bit about her bonding with her baby boy on her day off, a workout, P90X, moved the furniture into position.  "How is your mommie," she asked him, as he took the juice store n pours out of the cooler, rotating in mineral water sparkling and flat.  "I'm going to call her."  A cold spell had descended upon the East Coast.

Joe came late again, arriving bundled on his bicycle as he changed into his work slacks.  He sat down with the downstairs busboy, Elario, at the tableclothed set up table where the staff always ate, putting paper napkins over the decorative plates with the bistrot's name and silhouette trademark lifted from a well-known painting of a street scene in Paris with strolling couple, to eat baked chicken, the employee meal.  Joe came up and ate standing up at the zinc bar counter, next to the phone with the reservation pad.  It rang several times in succession, and it was not an enviable task, even as he had manned the phone back in the day, taking carry out orders at the bar, no matter how busy it was.  Jazz Night quite often filled up, even before walk-ins arrived, not having made a reservation.  He brought up the subject of a possible camping trip.  I wanted to ask him directly, what was up with him the night before, but I ate my dinner, the phone rang, and then it was time to get ready.

Later on, as the night started, Joe came up the stairs, looked out over the room, took the phone off of hold and took another reservation.  "Okay, we'll see you at 7:30," he said, with his usual polite phone matter.  Diana was copying down the reservations on to the wine bar's pad.  Joe started explaining to us where the three top would go, the four top over there.  He himself thought the flow would be better the other way, making tables easier to get to.  Joe looked at him.  "Whatever.  Do whatever you want.  I'm Not Working Up Here Tonight."

We looked at him.  I didn't say anything.  He had brought a fair amount of negativity around lately.  He always asked polite questions, and had a solicitous manner with the clientelle, and Lord knows, the guy had done more than his fair share of busy weekend nights and messed up wine bar nights, but lately, something was up.  Diana looked down at the reservation pad.  "Joe, why didn't you block out the Open Table at 7?  We have (counting them) 18 people showing up at 7?  Why did you do that?"

"You fucking bitch," Joe said, loudly, "all the times I've saved your ass, don't tell me what to do."  I looked at him, not saying anything, just looking at him.  Diana looked at him.  "C'mon Joe," she said after a while.  "Don't talk to me like that."   Oscar, the busboy, went over and said, quietly, "it's okay."  Don't worry about it.  Joe stared at us a while longer, then he turned and went down the stairs.

In a way, such a disturbing circumstance makes your job as a server, or bartender, all the more clear. The main job, the first thing, is to be hospitable, kind, even tolerant, peaceful and friendly.  But the sudden transformation, while blood-running cold upsetting, did not come as a complete surprise.  Joe had presented the thought before that only he knew what was going on, and the rest of us were idiots, people to be tolerant of, before being told what to do.  Maybe as an older brother, this was his way of being, he speculated in his mind.  Indeed, the night got very busy, with everyone, basically, wanting wine at the same time, to be sat at the same time, to be told the specials all in sequence, for orders to be put in, drinks to be procured, the next step as far as wine readied, bread from the oven delivered, all while lots of things were going on.

Uncharacteristically, Joe did not say good night or anything when he left.  The keyboard player singer was just leaving with his people as Joe went off bundled with his bicycle into the night.  Nor had he said a word when dropped the downstairs paper work and money, wrapped in the large sheet of paper that was the night's reservation pad down on the top of the cooler in front of the computer Posi Touch cash register, down with a plunk, as if to connote, 'here, I don't give a shit.'

And all of this is strange, to observe, as restaurant people necessarily become friends with each other, particularly when they come from similar backgrounds, but that never required.

The next morning, after fretting about the matter, he awoke to snow on the ground, a dusting, still troubled.  Thoughts like, "I should have told him to leave the bar," took up space in his head.

A day off, you never know what to do with yourself.  You'd want to suddenly go to grad school, and earn some credential, or do something with your life, but, as we all know, that doesn't happen in a day.  And instead, you do maintenance things, upkeep, like laundry, maybe get a workout in.  Maybe just to feel that you've accomplished something.  He made his green tea, he sat down on the couch with his yellow legal pad, and had no idea what to write.  He fed the cat, as she wanted to eat outside, even on a frigid day, let her back in finally, and lit some incense to clear the Ego away from the room, from his professional life, from his friendship with Joe and also with Diana, from the day, from his nervous system.  And he remembered something he thought was fairly wise, which was to simply not engage with the Ego, when it jumped out like that at you (always strange, the timing of such things), to not take it with complete seriousness.  As Ekhardt Tolle says, open a window, light some incense, take a walk, and hope the beasts of Ego don't follow.  But even if they do, you are armed with a certain knowledge.


Some people, it seems, are just in an egotistical habit.  You can watch them as it comes over them, when they become enchanted with the me/myself/I of the self.  And for the most part, people are rather jovial and friendly, and take the interests and biddings of their egos to be perfectly reasonable, and even responsible.  It's what you do, to perform your role in life, isn't it?  It's what makes us what we are, economic beings engaged in a life-long trading system, no?  But to take a step back from all the Ego is telling you, as they speak heavily to all of us, is a token of maturity.  And while you'd like to look the hero who solves everything and makes a stand for the right, really the best thing to do in many situations is actually to not react at all, or as little as you can.  (Which probably requires a bit of thought placed carefully, lest ye slip, easily, into the Ego's habits, hard when our lives are ruled by economic realities.)   Maybe, even, if your head is telling you you've done something wrong, maybe that too can be the voice of Ego, Ego clinging to you, trying to assert its self-importance upon you as you slowly diffuse it bit by bit.  Be a quiet master of things.  That's all you can do.

And so he faced the uneasy uncertainty of a day off, all the voices in his own head, just like those in Joe's head, almost screaming at him, "do something, Do Something! do something?" as calmly as he could, without least panic as possible.  He sat down, and rather than write on his legal pad, his scrawl getting sloppier of late, but on the laptop computer handed down from his brother, fancying himself to be something of a blogger, even while realizing that too, was complete fantasy insufficient to solve any of the world's problems, and really just something done in between the breakfast sausage and lunch's tuna sandwich.

"Yes, the timing of things is rather strange," he thought.  Somehow it could not all be a bad thing.  Curiously it seemed to have pushed him closer to a momentary clarity, and when he'd gotten home the night before, laid down on the couch with the TV on, with his clothes on in the cold, napped as the words, a show about drones, then later meatballs? drifted barely comprehensible through his mind.  Finally, awake again, enough to have some time to deal with before putting himself to bed, in which he ate and watched a Frontline piece in the midst of which Lloyd Blankfein gets into his security Lincoln Navigator (or Cadillac) laughing, laughing at pulling a big coup over on the US Senate, he opened a bottle, found it corked, admitted to himself that it was, and opened the second, and had less than two glasses with his dinner, reheated Bolognese over rice shells.

His main struggle now was to keep as sober as possible, to not give up hopes so as to land him back into it again, to get back into shape.  A clearer mind, not dependent upon anything that wasn't healthy or ultimately nervous.

One can, of course, be so utterly embarrassed with what he's done with his life, that he feels ineffectual about being able to make any positive changes in it, to find a way to carry through steps that would lead somewhere, like going back to school.  At what point does it become too late, anyway?  Live in the now, yes, but... where does that get you, but more of the same.



Days later he lit a stick of sandalwood incense, placed it into the soil of the pot of a Norlolk Monkey Puzzle that sat on the radiator in front of the right window of the living room with its small company of Buddha statues, and thought of his predicament.  Joe, of course, was his friend, an unimaginably nice guy.  And it seemed like all the accumulated fakery associated with the hospitality business had found form lashing out at his coworkers.  "When I do it," he reflected, "it's always against myself, beating myself up, lacerating myself for a past one cannot do a thing about.  'You did this, you didn't do that. Why did you mess up so?'"  Which was all very tiring, and increasingly hard to deal with on a daily basis.

And here was this lifeline, offered by things like the Tao, like the White Lotus Sutra, like Ekhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, such as was rare to find in fiction.  Yes, perhaps he had been his own sort of outreach minister placed behind a bar, but that bar dealt an awful blow to itself by offering, pushing even, an escape from Buddha reality, in that everyone would get a bit tipsy, maybe only slightly, start engaging, meet a beautiful woman, so on.  The great shortcut to life, and look with what it leaves you.  Nothing.  Eventual homelessness.

Or is that being too hard on yourself?

Each day the primary order of business was shaking off that hint of a hangover.  Even just slightly, you felt it inside you, unhappiness, a lingering taste of even the tiniest sip of Martinique Rhum for professional curiosity.  Wine, wine, wine, great source of enabling bullshit, vain promises, idle talk, hot air, egotistical self-fancy, lies on top of lies.  Yes, at a certain point it has to come around.

Oh, that I could quit tomorrow, have the guts to do so, in so doing opening up an inner creativity, but of course risking the great shame of being unable to pay your bills, and then what would you do with all your stuff, and where would you sleep?  And at one point in your life, 'here was this bright lad...'

The sandalwood lofted through his nostrils, his landlord came down his stairs to get the mail, doors clanked loudly back and forth as if his own apartment hallway were an acoustic chamber, the cockers whined about the day's strangeness in dolphin-like tones, the man's neck hurt from lazily reading on the couch the day before, head propped up on a pillow, the yoga headstand from 3 days ago, or both, and he sensed further and further how small his prospects had become now at his age of forty eight, of how he need an entire break from social life, a retreat so that he could meditate and find, like a vision, the right path, the middle path, no longer swayed by jarring influences and the lower elements of humanity  taking little curiosity in spiritual existence, the primary reality of being, or no, wasn't that only money.

Am I here, to serve the Universe, by telling some sort of Buddhist version of the story of the Prodigal Son?



I dressed for the cold, with layers on, and walked up through Kalorama, past the mosque, over the bridge on Massachusetts Avenue, and down a grass slope, down into the woods onto the trail along the creek.  The creek was running, ice along its banks, and I took out my phone and made little movies thinking of a Japanese scene, Kurosawa's Dreams.  We like to go out in nature and find it soothing, because it reveals to us the Buddha Nature of everything.  Nature reassures us that enlightenment is the ultimate truth about the world.

Joe called and left a message while he was in the shower getting ready for his Sunday shift, asking if there was anything he could do, concerned about the news that he would soon be putting his cat down.  "Nicest guy," the man said to himself, as he readied for work.