My Life, My Love, and My Lady

I was working on this (“working”) some weeks ago, and it must go before summer ends! I don’t really know what I’m doing with this newsletter, but I do think if you like it, send it to someone else I guess? Is that how this works? I’m writing about a bike crash, but this needed to be finished first. Remember: you can always ask advice at the Google form, too.

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The sailors say, Brandy, you’re a fine girl! Such a fine girl! What a good wife you would be! Your eyes would steal a sailor from the se-a-a-a-a.

Between ages 19-21 I managed to find jobs despite myself and they all made me (to this day, adjusted for, well, you know) pretty good money. I was a Sales Weirdo at Good Vibes on San Pablo ($20/hr, plus sick commission on selling gold plated vibrators to fancy dykes in long distance relationships). I was a phone girl for a dating service (HIGH LIFE ADVENTURES for those of you listening to 101.9 THE MIX), which allowed me to read magazines waiting for calls and again, get commission.

In the summer of 2008 I scored a gig at the Chicago Yacht Club at Monroe Harbor. The Club Manager, Kevin, interviewed me and hired me on the spot. Memorial Day approached and I had to get trained up quick.

I think about the Yacht Club a lot in the summer, when it gets hot and I spy the harbor from the Lakefront Path. When I’m house and dogsitting, the husband has a home office above his garage. He fancies himself, or perhaps is, a sailor. Nautical touches everywhere: pennants, a map of Nantucket Island, blown up photos of his boat. An pillow proclaims: The Man. The Myth. The Sailing Legend. A Commodore of his very own home office harbor.

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On Fridays the Commodores had their lunch in the Commodores Room. We called them the Chivos, the old goats, then set their tiny flags on the table. The old men trooped in and got the same club sandwiches they did every week. We roshambo’ed for the privilege. 

The Mayor came in and I got his table, being new. When I say The Mayor, you know who I mean or you don’t, but Millennium Park had just about finished and Meigs Field covered in X’s on the front page of the Trib was fresh in my memory. He was an honorary Member of the Yacht Club, because every Mayor was. He did not sail. He was quiet the entire lunch, barely looked at me, and because of this the memory has gone staticy in my brain.

Richie drank approximately two pitchers of Arnold Palmers in the span of 90 minutes. I crashed at my then-boyfriend’s shit three flat that night, where I found out he’d finished his evenings at the Italian place our friend barbacked at. Shitfaced.

I rdo emember his wife. She was kind and spoke to me sincerely and looked at me over her lunch. She asked me where I went to school, and what I studied, and said English was a wonderful thing to pursue. When she died I told the story a lot.

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I heard recently on the radio about sailing at Jackson Park’s Yacht Club, and trying to be inclusive, and people sure seem to want to get on boats. I sit in the house I’m dogsitting in and look at knots, maps, regatta photos. I’d never heard of what the hell a regatta was until I was 21, wolfing garlic knots between putting down main plates and inquiring about after dinner cordials.

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I had to be ready for the big ones at CYC: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Venetian Night, and the Race to Mac. Once those were over I’d be cut loose and go back to college.

Three big men held sway over the dining room. They stayed on during the winter and the members had their favorites. Demure Pedro, Jovial Medardo, Smooth Vlad. A twink called Pollo took lunch shifts, showed up for the big events where we jockeyed for members we knew. Big M ran events, Little M bussed, Old Adrian ran food. Oscar did it all, a favorite of one of the higher standing padres in the archdiocese. Father O’Really O’Reilly, chanted Oscar when he dined with us..

Of the CYC buffets: Friday was Fish Fry, Saturday was Prime Rib, Sunday was brunch. It was easy when the members picked this and all you had to do was ferry drinks from handsome bartender Pedro Chileno. I still practice opening bottles classily: show bottle, slice casing, hold by the bottom, key screwed down, lower latch up, higher latch up, offer cork and taste to the gentleman ordering, first glass to the first-ranked lady at the table.

Wednesdays were Beer Can Races. Distributors promoted low-sellers so for a month we made Cuba Libres and Dark and Stormys from mediocre rum. I was stationed outside because I was young and not a man. When handed the promotional shirt (baby tee, v-neck), I wondered if there were any others available. Most days I wore an overlarge button up, black khakis, apron tied around my waist, and my brass nametag: CARMEN CHICAGO YACHT CLUB.

Since Beer Can Races were open to the public, they had to buy tickets and trade tickets for drinks. One night a young man approached and handed me forty tickets.

If I give you these forty tickets, will you give me the whole bottle? I handed it over and he slid ten bucks into my palm. It was not good rum. I did not care.

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It was better to have regulars. Not the Mayor, nor a local actor, nor a Commodore. When we hit Venetian Night I had my own. Nancy, a member of her own accord, who brought a gang of 16 for one of my covers. She liked me from the 4th of July and her drinks were easy. I was 21 years old. There was no world in which I could’ve made a Kir Royale for a member in the back bar, nor a French 79. I cajoled Chileno Pedro into helping me learn.

Nancy was jovial and generally patient and older and patted my arm a lot, told me I had a beautiful name. On Venetian Night when the tables emptied to the front patio to watch fireworks, she pulled me to her chair and pointed to a young man in her party. I want you to go see my boat, she said.

I have tables, I half-heartedly said. Everyone remained out on the patio. She called to her nephew, In the COAST GUARD! Show Carmen the boat!

We walked out onto the dock and he was polite and indulged his aunt. I tried to ask about the Coast Guard. We looked at the boat together and the fireworks went off. I have a boyfriend, I said half-heartedly, half-hearted all summer, crushing hard on the sous, crashing in the boyfriend’s (or fiance, depending) apartment between shifts. The Nephew smiled. When I brought Nancy the check, she tipped well in cash, and winked.

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Mostly they all tipped. I tried to find tables that liked or took a shine to young women, in familial ways.

Sometimes I struck out. Later in the evenings each of us would have to take turns waiting on the Junior Piccata. His dad was a class act, we all reminded ourselves. Their name was painted big across buildings and water towers across the city. I put two and two together one night riding to the bar with my friends, spotting it high above the Cermak Bridge. Christ, I thought. Christ.

I struck out on a Thursday when his group moved from the bar after their beers to their table. First came the rounds of cocktails, and then the wine. Our assistant manager, beautiful avian Syd, mouthed Sorry. Which we both ended up being as they lingered for three hours.

There were two women with the group of them, and I hope if they were working that they made a haul that night, because the men were awful. Junior ordered a wine from the locked cellar worth my then-boyfriend’s share of the rent. Put two more aside, we’ll need them.

I stood at the hostess stand with Syd and waited and waited, missing the last Metra train, texting my boyfriend to tell him I’ll be on the 60 bus. At one point I walked over to check in and Junior said, Weigh in: girls DO like anal, right? One of the women apologetically caught my eye. Junior tipped like shit. When they left, Syd gave me money for a cab, and I pocketed it instead, turned on my iPod on an air conditioned CTA bus.

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You get up close to the wealthy and somehow the adage of money can’t buy happiness falls apart. It buys locked up wine, it buys boats, it buys your name on airplanes and plaques and buildings and water towers and museum wings.

In grad school I learned about housing development finance and real estate, about Chicago’s Arthur Rubloff, “real estate mogul”. So much money that he doled some of it to the Art Institute of Chicago for a wing. On the stipulation they house his collection of almost 1500 paperweights. They’re pretty. I’ve seen them. But that’s fuck you money for you. Paperweight empires.

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The Club would close to turnover tables and switch cooks between lunch and dinner. If we finished our sidework early we’d grab Cokes and stand against the wall, stared out the floor to the ceiling windows at the ships in the harbor.

If you have enough money to buy a boat, what do you buy? I asked one day. Little M and Oscar stood next to me.

I don’t buy a pinche boat, laughed Oscar. I buy a brand new Charger, and then I leave town.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop dreaming of fuck you money.

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I remember a 21st birthday at the Skylark and watching midnight movies and driving to my godmother’s funeral that summer. But mostly I remember the CYC. In the middle of the summer four Irish boys came straight off the boat to bus tables, some strange visa gift between the Alderman and the City and the Nation of Ireland, I guess. They were mostly gingery and freckly and tall, with one sweet faced brown eyed boy who was more earnest. CYC, all our embroidered shirts said. One day Patrick (Patrick 1? Patrick 2?) crows out from where he’s pushing dishes back to the dishwasher.

CYC! CARMEN YA CUNT! I laughed wildy, I remember this story over and over again, his sweet face and lilt, and how funny it was. I covered my mouth each time he whispered it to me.

It was a summer of men, and rich men, I guess. You could not trust them, so you had to trust everyone around you. You shared half drunk bottles of wine or ran Jack and Cokes back and forth between the bar and kitchen for plates of calamari and french fries. In the mornings I walked down a gangway to the employee entrance with Lobo, Station Chef, singing BA BAM BA BAM BA BAM as I made my way down in cutoffs and wifebeaters. I ran into Rico, the Killa Dilla 45 Spinner in Pilsen all the time on his cruiser and Wild Ones cap. He always hugged and remembered me. I saved enough money for rent in the Bay Area and loved cash in my pockets. 

Sometimes I think this experience helped me in the future where I cajoled money from wealthy people to redistribute via non-profit development. Prospect research on Wealth Engine, learning when to listen, ask, follow up. Men could be Major Gifts Officers but mostly relied on being Men, brash and chummy. I played my hand like I did at the Yacht Club: a nice story, a smiling face, my own definition of a commitment to service. I don’t have much to say about non-profit industrial complexes, but I will tell you there are not sweet, sweet cash tips. 

I ride past the boats in the harbor in the summer and fall and winter when they’ve laid off everyone except the big guys and there are not many cars in the lot. I think about Oscar and Little M and me watching the sails bob and the expanse of Lake Michigan on a sunny day. What would I buy with Yacht Club money? A horse, maybe two, a motorcycle, land, a home. 

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“Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” is much maligned, but god, I love that song. I do have a braided chain necklace, Still, no wealthy lonely sailor seemed to want me based on serving whiskey and wine.One time a boy did ask my why I wasn’t married yet, based on making coffee and egg tacos. You’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be.

The club closed every night, the bar wiped down, the dishes done, the city hot as hell. It wasn’t a silent town, but when I’d escape onto the A/C of the CTA the bus was quiet and empty except for all of us ready to sweat in front of our box fans, wake up to the same bus in mere hours and get ready to set up for breakfast. 

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I had to do it - maybe next time you’ll get a whole screed about Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Probably not, though.