Special Meal

 
    
Here we go, I guess. Start at Bagel Market in Park Slope. There’s a decent line for midmorning—I hope they didn’t land on one of those cursed “Best Bagels” lists. A couple big strollers; still lots of twins around here. Two TVs above the bagel baskets, one on the news, the other on the Disney+ landing page. Beautiful subscriber growth, though that Cricket deal might bite back when it expires. Can see the stainless-steel vats through the back.

Forgot they’d play cartoons here. Ella always liked that. I’d hold her up to see before taking the bagels back to our stoop to people watch. Wonder if I’ll see any of our “bagel dogs” out and about. The cookies-and-cream Aussie shepard with the sea green eyes, or the chunky mutt with the underbite. Menu’s on some blackboards in neon marker. 

The floor has the “6 feet” plastic circles on it still, but they don’t seem six feet apart, and there’s plexiglass dividers hanging down like someone’s air drying a hockey rink. My face looks buggy in the curved deli glass. A whole shelf of granola bars I’ve never heard of. Nut Is Good. Why Bars. Oakie’s.

The woman in front of me has a strange mess of red hair. I pop a Nesquik on the counter, Kettle Backyard Barbeque chips, get a whole wheat everything, bacon-egg-and-cheese, egg over easy, American cheese, toasted. Pay with Sapphire Reserve, 3x points on food. Wait next to the out-of-order bathroom making the alphabet with my right ankle. Why am I still doing this? Both the ankle exercises, and these notes?

The parents seem younger than I remember. I guess they are. Guess Marcy and I were that young when we lived here. Some singer-songwriter I don’t care for playing over the speakers. Tiny shelf, high chairs. A bigger location could accommodate more customers, which is a missed opportunity; having the best product is such an advantage. Should have spent time somewhere doing pro bono stuff. The egg is soaked into the bread with minimal drippage, just how I remember it. My seat has my face six inches from a stand of individually wrapped cookies, so after staring at them for a while, I get one, M&M’s and sprinkles, about the size of my hand. 

Seat is taken when I return from my second trip in line, so I grab a stool by the window. Someone left a bouquet of flowers on the counter. Bare plywood seating structure in the parking spot—coming up or coming down? Can’t believe the city designated those by frontage during the pandemic. Talk about picking winners and losers; you can spot the closed restaurants by their frontage. 

Always loved The Slope. Felt like the park blew some calmness our way. Quiet without being silent. Birds, kids laughing. Marcy got into running; I remember her moisture wicking clothes smelled so bad in the summer we had to buy special detergent. I got into taking Ella to the playground. Skinned knees era.

Paid again with the Sapphire Reserve, 3x points on food. Used to be all cash, if memory serves. Now they’ve got the Clover POS thing that swivels. Think we did them; both a go-to-market and an acquisition of some kind. The payment space is such a clusterfuck.

The women working all have lovely smiles. People buy more from women. Men and women both. There’s a study. 

Out of Bagel Market, head north to Spice Thai. Short walk. See shops I haven’t thought about in years. Paros. A bodega I never patronized for no particular reason. One of Ella’s little friends used to live halfway down one of these blocks, and I can picture their gumby face but can’t remember the name. Hot out; shirt sticking to my back. Spice isn’t open yet, so I wait under the awning. Cup my hands and peer inside right at 11:30, and they seat me against the window so passersby can see people eat here. 

Laminated menu the size of a painting. Current price of the shrimp updated in pen. More singer-songwriter stuff; is this a thing now? Big vinyl print of a woman carrying fruit in a palm frond on the wall. They’ve got those lights pretending to be kerosene lamps, like we’re in a frontier train station or a foundry. 

Order pineapple fried rice with chicken, spring rolls, and a Dr. Pepper. Marcy liked the garden here, but it’s too hot today. Not in San Diego, I’m sure. She’s probably out playing golf or walking the waterfront, maybe taking Ella to the zoo.

Food arrives and initiates a Pavlovian response. Consistency. Consistency is your promise to the customer, the way you create trust. Marcy would be rolling her eyes. For a lot of reasons. Consistency is easier said than done, I guess. The women working all have lovely smiles. People buy more from women. Men and women both. There’s a study. 

Spring rolls lack sweetness but the Dr. Pepper’s a good compliment. Onions are sliced, not diced. Chicken’s white meat, cooked thoroughly without being chewy. Great balance. Strange how my mouth expects it to come off one of our low-lipped ceramic bowls. Don’t think I kept any. Marcy has them all. Corp housing has something, but it’s not real ceramic. Spring rolls came out in a bowl shaped like an edamame pea. The Dr. Pepper came out in a mason jar with a lemon wedge. Whatever. 

There’s a golden elephant on the front counter. Ella has a project soon, mentioned something about elephants? For science class. She got to pick an animal, maybe? How do they keep the leeks crunchy? I can’t do anything to a leek without having it flop over. Don’t think I ever ordered another dish from here, maybe they’re all better than the pineapple fried rice, but I doubt it.

Now there’s a couple in here, also by the window. Man in a button down, woman in a floral something. Wonder how they have the day off; they don’t look like artists. Told Elyssa I’d be out for vacation. White lie, I guess. Wonder how she’ll take it. Skim the article Ella had Marcy send me about the James Webb telescope. Smart frickin’ kid. Text Marcy to let her know I’m going to put in the main wire transfer today and it should hit her account in three days. Receive a thumbs up. They still have that peculiar stump to sit on when waiting for takeout. The couple by the window are speaking English in different accents. His is some SSR, hers is definitely Polish.

Bathroom before I go. Tight squeeze, like on a plane. Smells like lavender and shit. Have no idea how rice is farmed, but given the insane yield I imagine it’s complex. On the way out, take a picture of the elephant, send it to Marcy to send to Ella.

  

Walk from Spice to the Q train, Manhattan bound. Crowded. More sweaty backs. Maybe a delay unclogging. Get off at Union Square and walk north to Hill Country Chicken.

Looks like they didn’t make it, despite the ample frontage. What I get for not googling. The awning is still there, American blue and white. Windows are papered over, that construction paper you lay down to paint. Hate that paper. Peak through a gap to see if they’re remodeling or gone, not that it matters. I remember they all wore red aprons and hats with hairnets underneath. Long lunches in the basement seating. Productive space, good sauces.

Pay with Sapphire Reserve again, 3x points on food.

Continue up Broadway. Keep under scaffolding to avoid the sun. They’ve created a pedestrian area by laying artificial turf in the street. That’s nice. Reach Koreatown at 1:15 p.m., start at Jongroo. Take the fragrant elevator to the second floor. 

Umami. Huge open layout. This should be office space; Koreatown has a special zoning easement, I think. Table after table of meat being cooked by its eaters, the steam rising into the industrial vents. So many staff. No reservation, but for lunch that’s okay. Feels like I’ve had the meal on smells alone before ordering. Delegate tasks to my EA on email.

The work is easy. People are messy. How to know what to say? I never figured it out. They want you to be honest, unless the truth is ugly, then they want you to be kind. 

Remember Marcy and me in Copenhagen, that long dock we sauntered down at night, possibly off limits, the light squinting from Sweden. Pleasant night, until I picked some fight on the walk back; don’t remember what about.

Takes a long while to get a menu in my hand. English first, mistranslations everywhere. Ask for a Korean one in my pitiful pidgin. Get a nod. There should be a micro-translation service for menus and the like. Small amounts of text. Could be crowdsourced. 

Work out a basic business plan in another note after selecting the bulgogi bowl. Ask the young woman where in Korea she was from. Seoul, of course. Told her I lived in Ichon-dong before it was too expensive.

You’d do it like this: The customer translates the text first using a free web service, then submits. Photos might be easiest, for existing menus. Would need an AI to crawl photos and ballpark word count. Wouldn’t be too complex. Basic pricing, scalable to entice enterprise customers into a monthly subscription. Offload the server needs with AWS or one of the startups going cheap to eat market share. Adjust pricing for each country’s COL. 

Bowl comes out nearly on fire. Beef a paragon of tenderness despite the bulgogi style. Prize of the day so far. Users could log in, verify language proficiency, then start spotting errors. Could have two tiers, one that highlighted errors only, one that corrected a translation. Someone who speaks English can read a translated Cypriot menu and notice where mistakes might be. Each text checked by multiple users to ensure accuracy. Would be bought before you could finish staffing up.

Stick to water. Glad for it. Pay with Sapphire Reserve again, 3x points on food.

 

Olive Barbeque Chicken next, across the street. Not meant to be fine dining. Pre-made carton of tenders and rice, again with the Sapphire Reserve, 3x points on food. They have the Toast POS, the box. We probably did them, too. Beer hall seating; an actual bar downstairs.

Kpop, I think, up here. Better than the sad stuff. Nearly 3 p.m. Get Wild Cherry Pepsi. Never learned why it tastes different in the can, but it does. Some folks using chopsticks for the fingers. Use my fingers for the fingers. 

More plexiglass, this time between the tables, each table is its own toll booth. Ads in the seating area like the meals are soon-to-be-released movies. Boneless chicken Gang-Jeong. Honey Garlic Wings. Animated honey dripping on a real photo of chicken. Tastes the same here as it did in Seoul. Hilly midnight walks, talking to Marcy on the phone. The firm covered almost any amount of international calling; the only way to get people to go. We got good at the phone, Ella understood Facetime, understood that it was me. Where I was. Watching her grow in timelapse. I was good at being away. Good at email, good at the phone, good at family admin. It was hard and I was good at it. Excelled. Big moon reflecting off the Han, crossing the Wonhyo in the dead of night.

Everyone young here. Some schools are out, I guess. Ella finishes in two weeks. Look up existing translation services; most are clunky and expensive. Perfect disruption target. All text-based, too. The word chicken on the wall a thousand times. Can follow some conversations at the other tables. Always harder to speak, once you start losing it. No pay for translators, just internet points. Marcy posts a photo of her and Ella at some kind of outdoor event with streamers, paper plates. Cookout or a birthday party. Could be both. Meat looks dry. Log out of dummy account to confirm continued existence of block. Block confirmed.

Look up why it tastes better in the can. It’s because of the polymer lining. Finish the tenders, sit for a bit with the Pepsi, watch people come in and out. Everyone has tank tops, short hair, tattoos on their forearms, words in cursive. Anti-Anti-Social Club shirts, even a few hoodies despite the heat. Same industrial lights as Spice but bigger, same neon red tungsten filling, same zig zag.

Ella, my little kangaroo. My golden elephant. My little schlumpy.

Walk up Broadway towards Time’s Square, then west. Legs feel weird, like the parts aren’t talking to each other. Get over to 9th for BRGR.

Milkshakes thick and served with a metal straw and long mixing spoon. Final tray spot for the day. About 4 p.m., place is empty. Red diner stools screwed into the ground. Each table has a themed collage underneath the laminate. Mine is ice dancing. Photos, articles, drawings. Start on the milkshake first. Call Marcy and get voicemail, ask for her to confirm info for the wire. Worried I mistyped the routing number. She texts, says she’ll call and leave a voicemail. Tell her I’ll delete it right after. Watch her number come in, watch it ring. I watch it, all the rings, all the way to voicemail. A personal victory. Still have some will power left. This is the kind of thing an EA would’ve handled ten years ago, but now the work needs to be work.

Strokes, I think. The music. Still no one here. Make a list of potential competitors for this translation business I’ll never found. Start on the burgers. Eat mine first, double bacon, then Ella’s, plain cheeseburger with ketchup. Have a bag of sweet potato fries, three thimbles of ketchup. Dip the fries into the black and white milkshake. Regret not getting cookies and cream; miss the crunchiness. Salt the fries a bit more.

Our after-movies spot. Our don’t-tell-mom place. I liked that, even though Marcy wouldn’t have cared, I liked having that. When Ella laughs, it sounds like someone being spun around, ecstatic. She’s smarter than me, I can already tell, can see it in her eyes, the way they scan a room, the way she’s not afraid. Curious, always. Soft presence, wide focus. Not charging into the world with certainty. Real intelligence. Wisdom.

Buns are toasted perfectly. Peek into the back to scope out the situation. They’re doing it right on the griddle, same as everyone else. Perhaps a timing thing, or extra butter/oil for browning? 

Ella, my little kangaroo. My golden elephant. My little schlumpy.

Get a second shake, cookies and cream. Work through what came in my inbox. Keep emails to two sentences or less, as per my signature.

 

Walk down 9th Avenue. Lean on a light post a few times. Was going to be the same amount of walking back to the train. Pass under the Port Authority bus ramps. Sun getting lower, not as bad now. More building shade. God, even the ugly buildings are beautiful. Spend a few minutes against a light post looking up at some shitty old office, the patterns of the brick, the detail of the molding around the windows. Even the flat, exposed side with nothing along it looks like something you’d see at Dia. And the whole world is like that. Flat, dirt, green, blue. It’s a wonder, really. But you can’t.

Wind at my back, arms tucked to my sides, sail down the avenue. Forgot my good shoes. Should have left more stuff here. Could have stored in a drawer at NYO somewhere.

All the way down to Salinas, 9th and 25th. Can’t feel my toes; hands are sweating. 6:30 p.m. Many young people, impressing each other with tidbits of conversation plucked from the same websites. Marcy loved it. Loves it, still, I bet. The eavesdropping, some stranger’s excitement wriggling into her ears. 

Sit booth-side opposite the chair. Good view of the place, all golden light, all nooks and crannies and gossip, drinks floating out every half-minute. Order five or six tapas and a main course. Ask for a bottle of Marcy’s green wine. I always had Scotch, which is silly. Say muchas gracias, go to the baño. Patatas bravas already on the table when I get back. 

Send the translation idea to Marcy’s little cousin over email. Keep it to two sentences, though one is a run on. Put the sketch work on drive, share it with him. He said he wanted to be an entrepreneur last time I saw him.

Draw a bit in the back of my datebook while eating the potatoes. Why did I stop drawing? And when? Can’t remember. Only have a Waldorf pen. Some trees, a little house, a sunset. Soup comes second and I draw. Something pastoral. Text a photo of it to Marcy, ask if  she could show it to Ella. Say it’s a present. Or a message from Dad. Didn’t expect a response, didn’t get one. Read receipts have been off, so she figured that out. Could try to DM Ella on Instagram, but she’d have to follow my dummy account first. Still daylight there. They’ll still be on barbeque time, still be out laughing, Marcy resting her hands on the shoulders of whomever is funniest. Ella running around, screaming her little head off, laughing like a falling leaf is the funniest thing to ever happen. Making friends, charming all the adults there, beef-eating grin a mile wide. 

I wonder how her teeth are looking. I wonder if she will avoid braces like I did. I wonder if all her wisdom teeth will fit when the time comes. Six stuffed cherry peppers are literally finger-licking good. Credit to the oil and the sea salt. Ham-and-cheese croquetas are serviceable. I wonder if she’ll look like Marcy her whole life, or if she’ll start looking like me one day? Sherry clams also serviceable. The paella comes out, signature. The smell brings me back, Marcy with the short haircut, could rest my fingers on the nape of her neck with no obstruction. Second bottle of green wine comes out. Licking my lips over the sauce, the largesse of the whole thing. I could stick my spoon in a different ordinate and get a different meal. Pay with Sapphire Reserve, 3x points on food. Leave a tip, ten hundreds. Write a note on the backside of my drawing to the server. Getting sloppy. About how we used to come here, etc. Trailed off. Asked him to please split the cash with the staff for the evening. Leave.

She’ll do something smart with the money, Marcy will. Ella too, eventually.

Nine. Lots of hours in tapas land, but that’s how it goes. In Spain, of course, dinner would be just beginning. In España, they don’t begin eating until bedtime. Head towards Mr. Chow. Know they’ll seat until 11, even on a weeknight.

Not long now. Play Marcy’s message with the routing number a few times. Put my headphones in and listen to it some more. Have enough cash still for Chow. Go into BoA, Marcus, and Citi apps. Initiate the transfers. Put “For Ella” in the memo area. Got the routing number memorized now. Go into the Chase Saphire app, convert all my points to fiat, send to Marcy. She loved Mr. Chow. The duck. A few miles, maybe two. To SoHo. She’ll do something smart with the money, Marcy will. Ella too, eventually. More humid with the sun down somehow. Not many people out. Piss between two vans.

Make it to the river, start walking south. Some people jogging. Some people on benches. Sky is dark, Jersey lit up across the way. Come upon one of the carousels. Not open. Broken? It’s summer, for God’s sake. Encased in opaque glass, like a hotel bathroom. The animal shapes are shadowy. They’re in witness protection. Tempered or something. The glass. Put my bare hands against it. My nose against it. It’s warm. Try to peek in. Look for an Ella-phant. Assume the picture will clear up. Doesn’t. Turn. Back slides down the glass. Can see all the way north and there’s George Washington. Big pretty bridge. Far away. Way uptown. Not going to make it to Chow’s, I think.