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I have a friend (we’ll call him Dan) who is this intense, intelligent, straight-up guy. People know him as the man who ran a popular restaurant for many years. But he's left his fingerprints on lots of other projects, too. He's the kind of fellow who enjoys causing just enough friction so people can’t help being real. He's seen a lot, and done a lot, and I think he thinks that gives him the right to go around bonking people with his glad spirit. Besides being my friend, Dan is my patron. Last month, to help me out, he hired me to write profile essays of an uncle, a friend, and his true love. They were privileged projects for me because I got a chance to go under the skin of people someone I know really cares about. They were also easy for me to do, because Dan gave me all the information. I just wrote 'em up. Dan liked the profiles, so he asked me to take on another task, interviewing his son Jake, 22, and his daughter Jena, 16. "To get a snapshot of where they are," he said. I was feeling confident, so I said sure. So I called his kids. And called. And called. Neither one would return my calls. Finally I wrote them both and told them I'd give Danny his money back if they wouldn’t talk to me. A day later, the phone rang, and it was Jake. "Mr. Finley, I gotta warn you. I don’t feel the need to talk about myself much. There really isn’t much to say. But I'd be pleased to meet you somewhere and talk." I wait for him in a coffeehouse in my own neighborhood in Saint Paul, going over my strategy in my mind. Don’t be pushy, I tell myself. Don’t be clever. Don’t talk down. Don’t read your questions from a crib sheet. Just listen. And see where it goes. Why am I being careful? Because Jake, whatever else he is, is younger than me. And the young, I have learned from my own kids, have veto power over the old. All they have to do to win in any encounter is to tune us out. They are the gatekeepers, and we are allowed "in" at their pleasure. That's not how it was in the old days, I don’t think, but that's how it is now. I haven’t yet formed a mental picture of Jake, but when the door suddenly opens and I see a young man standing there, scanning the room for me, he is unmistakably Dan's son. He has the same strong jaw-line and brow, and a steadiness in his eyes that is friendly and reassuring but also a little daunting, because he seems calmly confident. We shake hands, exchange preliminary pleasantries, order coffees, then make our way sat to a table in the front. Before we start I gave him the official once-over. His demeanor: respectful, dutiful even, but unless I am paranoid, a little deeper down he seems to display faint evidence of dismissiveness. Which makes sense. He is, after all, humoring me to please his father. That's OK. My hope is to make this worthwhile for him, too. "I like getting over to Saint Paul," he says, stirring his cup. "Lorissa and I bought a duplex here for a couple of years, near Crocus Hill, and rented out one side. We redid everything, and that was neat. But it wound up being a real pain in the neck, and we had some real nightmares with tenants. But we got to really like the city." Jake spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, careful not to claim anything special for himself. He knows he has been, in some ways, lucky. But he also seemed to have a pretty good idea of who he was, and what his talents are, and to be OK with that. "I see," I say. "You did kitchen time at the Del, didn’t you?" "Yeah. I liked how it all sort of worked. I liked that we were putting out a great product. I liked that people were having a good time. But it was also crazy, and complicated, and hard. At any moment, two thousand things could go wrong, and we were expected to be a quality place, so people didn’t want anything to go wrong, ever. "And the economics. Everything cost so much -- labor, the equipment, the food itself. I liked the place, a lot, but as a business person today, I can see it was a hard business." "Jake, what do you remember most about working at the restaurant?" "I remember pickles. After each shift, that's what I smelled like, dill and vinegar. I must have been soaking in there with them." A couple of years ago he took over the cheese company his dad had bought. The business sells a variety of specialty cheeses to groceries and other retailers. Jake is the entrepreneur, and while he doesn’t spent much time in the office, he spends nearly all his time in the business, in his head. "You’re never not doing it," he said. "People who say you should leave your work at work never ran anything. I'm not saying that like it’s a burden. It fills you up but it's exciting, too. There are a million things you can do. It becomes you, and you become it." "What do you think about your business now? You run a wholesale specialty cheese business." "Yeah. My dad helped set me up in it. My business now, it's a lot simpler than a restaurant. We basically broker different kinds of cheese products to stores and restaurants. There's only just a few of us, including Lorissa and me. She's in charge of sales, and she does a great job. She just made a client out of Supervalu, which is an incredible sale. I have so much respect for her." "So what do you do with all your money?" He snorts. "Heck, I don’t make much money." "But, you make some, and you have to spend it on something. Do you like to eat out?" "No, not that much. I mean, I like a good meal. We both like Thai food. But we don’t have places to go to in the western suburbs like you have in Saint Paul. If we want good Mexican food, where can we go? But you can just head down to Concord Avenue." "How about the theater? Art? Your dad likes those things." "No..." "Fancy car? Travel?" "No, we don’t do a lot of that. We visit my father sometimes, in Florida. But, we're not jet setters, no." "Then what do you spend your money on?" "Let's just say we have expensive tastes." "I see, something criminal." "No!" "So how do you get along with your dad?" "Fine. Great. Good. I like my dad a whole lot." "He's cool," I say. "For an old guy,". "Yeah, he has an interesting way about him. He gets people's attention." "Why do you think that is?" "Hmm, good question. He's just out there, you know. People see he's paying attention. It's unusual, let's say." "Anything else?" "I think it may have to do with his health," Jake says. "He's spent a lot of time with doctors. His heart, you know. So he knows things other people don’t know." "Like what? Like he's looked death in the eye?" "Right," he says, and trails off for a moment. "Every year he says he's going to die soon. It gets old, but then, you want it to get old." "Just think how offensive that is to people who really are going to die!" "Yeah, all these people who are being quiet and not saying a word about it --" Jake grins hugely " -- and here's this jerk --" We are laughing so hard we nearly blow latte froth across the room. "I haven’t known Danny that long," I say, "but he tells me he was a real hellraiser." "I guess he used to set alleys on fire, or something. That's what his buddies tell me." "Like father, like son?" "Hmm," Jake ponders. "I've been mostly good." "How long were you in school?" "Didn’t go to college. In fact, if I hadn't transferred to Shattuck, I don’t know if I'd finish high school. I was kind of falling through the cracks at Edina. It was the same with my sister." "Why do you think that happens?" "I don’t know. I think sometimes the system isn’t designed for people to be who they are. It's hard for kids, because we don’t know what's what, and we just have to find our way." "How did you decide you were a business person? Why not an oceanographer?" "It's what I was raised in, I guess. I come from a family that all worked at the same thing, and I liked that. I would love to someday be able to hire relatives and keep the family together that way, like the Del did. I want to be able to treat everyone well." "To be like your dad?" "No. Well, maybe some. I wouldn’t mind being that kind of guy." "Like what?" "Well, there were times, growing up, when I didn’t see much of him, because of the divorce and so on. When your dad is gone, some kids would think he doesn’t care. But my dad sent me a postcard every single day with a note on it." "The same card -- 'See you in Atlantic City'?" "No! They were all different, and the notes were, too. And I'm not talking about a handful. I'm talking thousands of cards. Grocery bags full. After a while, you start giving the guy credit, you know." "For loving his son?" "For doing the work. You gotta do the work. Good intentions aren’t enough. He put in the time." "So you always had a great relationship?" "No, we had a rotten relationship sometimes. I didn’t speak to him for a whole year once." "Did he abuse you?" "No, nothing like that. I just took it in my head to show him. I remember Jena and I were in the back seat of the car. I might have been 11 or 12, and I took a ball and smacked her in the head with it. She was egging me on, and I smacked her again. Dad pulled the car over and yelled at me. I thought to myself, I'll show you. And I just shut up, I wouldn’t talk to him. It was great. I mean, it wasn't great, but I felt powerful holding a grudge for so long." It sounds like young male will against the older bull." "Yeah, clash of the titans!" "We've gotten along real well though, over the years. It's hard with the divorce. A part of you wants to keep everyone at arm's length, not to pick sides. But of course you do. It was hard, but we kept the faith, I guess you could say." "You were the man of the house. Wasn't it your job to take your mother's side?" "I think so. But now that I'm older, I can see both sides a lot more clearly." "How about your sister. Do you think she'll put up with me interviewing her? She's dodged all my calls and e-mails." "Well, Jena's having a tough time right now. She just left Shattuck, and everyone's upset about it." "What kind of person is Jena?" "She's a great kid. She's very smart, but she's young, too. I could do without some of her friends. She got whipsawed by the divorce, too. To be honest, I think she never got the discipline she needed as a kid, and that is making things hard for her now. Don’t take her ignoring you personally!" I tell him I don't. Although, I do, of course. A little. It's not just a good interview, it’s a good conversation. Jake has been a great sport, putting up with me, and as we part, I thank him. Before we go our ways, we pause at my car and I show him my dog, who has been patiently waiting in the back seat through our hour and a half. Jake very much enjoys dogs, which consolidates my growing respect for him. I go home, jubilant at us getting together after all this wait, and try to write up our talk. But it just doesn’t come. I'm blocked. I never block. What's happening? I identify several problems. One, Jake is a young man. His great days are ahead of him. How do you project that without bending credulity? Second, I can feel Danny's long neck, craning all the way from Florida, curious to learn what tack I'm taking. Suddenly, I've lost my way. I don’t even know who my client is. Is it Danny, who's paying me to write something great about his son? Or his son, who has his own reasons and requirements about how he should come across? And I think about what it means to have a son, how weird it is for a man to create another man to follow -- if the other man so chooses -- in his footsteps. How we pin all our hopes and our identities on these young men, and on our daughters, too. They are our only shot at living beyond our lives, whether that comes sooner or later. And how we worry that one misstep will undo all those hopes. And how, accordingly, we watch them grow with an ache in our gut, a misery that must be love. And hope they forgive us for wanting so much for them. "Well, what do you think of the world these days? Is it the one you expected to inherit? Or did you get a raw deal?" He sighs, and lifts his shoulders slightly. Then doesn’t say thing, because he just said what there was to say. A war is raging, and skyscrapers are falling down, and poison is in the air, and in the mail, and in our heads. Jake's got it right, and it's good advice for fathers. He doesn’t have to have a grand opinion of the world. Why should he? He's not in charge. What happens, happens. All we have to do is see it through, and do our bit, one heartbeat at a time. That's where the peace is, in the fervent secrets we keep from one another, and the modest miracle of our love.
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Lives & Visions#104, Jake Berenberg by Michael Finley 651-644-4540 See this essay online at http://mfinley.com/livesandvisions (c) 2001 by Michael Finley
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