Three smoking hot saut� pans, three squirts of olive oil, and a big splash of salt and pepper across each one, as they sizzle on the stove. The thermometer, high up on the white tile wall above the fryer and the grill, reads 120 degrees. Into one pan I drop two raw pieces of pork tenderloin. With a dry towel in my right hand, I pick the pan up off the flame and flip the pork. A squirt of white wine, quickly swirled around the pan, then one six-ounce ladle of apple juice�the tenders cook in this sauce, which creates a glaze for the meat to be covered in. I kneel down below the burners and put the pork into a 500-degree oven to finish. While squatting, I lift my head up away from the hot oven and close the door. I see Roberto at the grill, a pair of tongs in his hand, about to turn a ribeye steak, sweat drip, drip, dripping from his forehead. I look up at him; he looks down at me and with his dark brown mustache moving up his cheeks, to the right and to the left. He grins.
For five, maybe six years I have been cooking in restaurants to earn money. I came to Chicago to be an artist. All I had ever dreamed of doing with my life was to make as much art as possible, and I felt that the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was designed for me. No grades, great big studios, the museum a short walk from any class; it sounded like dream.
I never really thought of making money to eat and live. No, I thought of gray days, streets lined with skyscrapers, a cappuccino in my hand, and the grand Picasso. I never saw myself at one o'clock in the morning looking a meat cooler up and down, making sure nothing was dripping on anything else, wiping down steel counters, shouting out in good humor, "Are we done yet, brothers?" Instead, I imagined a young man in a purple cape, wearing small mirrored, square sunglasses at night, an absurd artificial colored feather, maybe yellow, a really big one that might hit people in the face, sticking out of any kind of hat. He would be strutting around jazz barrooms amongst glamorous people, buying bottles of wine with sketches. But, Chicago life for me hasn't been like that at all. I sit on the train, picking out dried crud from the corners of my fingernails with my house keys, going home late, all sticky, seeing people who were just out on the town, smelling good and giggling, holding hands, brushing their flowing hair back. I am mush, with mashed food on and in my boots, stinky cooking pants; my head down, both hands on each side of my face covering my eyes, elbows supported by my knee caps, I am thinking about what I must work on when I get home, where I will sweat even more.
I had been out of high school for a year before Chicago became a reality. I couldn't use the scholarship I had gotten from the Art Institute so I had to turn it down; my family just could not afford the living expense of the big city. So I took another scholarship at a community college near my house in Oklahoma City, but I never gave up hope on the Art Institute. I stayed in touch with the school, I even got another scholarship for the following year. Once more, there were financial issues with my parents' income and my living costs. I was depressed, working at an all-you-can-eat joint slicing ham to order.
One day, stressed out and full of heartache, I went to see my high school art teacher and friend, Mrs. Magee. While we were talking, she kept bringing up her friends in Chicago, wondering if there was any way they could help out an old student of hers. Later that evening I got a phone call at home. "Hi, this is Linda Martin, Judy Magee's friend." She said I could stay with her family.
There was only a week and a few days before the semester started at SAIC. I was surprised at my good fortune. Hope built up in my life again.
As quickly as I could, I gratefully quit my job, dropped my classes at the community college, and packed up everything I could fit into two suitcases. This would be my first airplane ride and I wouldn't be coming back, at least not to live.
I had one hell of a first year with my new family in Chicago. Looking back, I guess I was a bit of a pampered country boy. My Mama had been good to me. I never really washed my own clothes or cooked my own meals. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know how to cook. My mom told me many times, "You'd better get in the kitchen with me sometime and learn how to cook, Paul!" I never cared for the cooking part of a meal, but the eating part�now that was where I belonged. I just didn't listen to her reasoning. I remember being full of ignorance and cockiness, explaining that I would not have to do my own cooking, as if I were going to strike it rich quick in the big city and have a personal chef of my own. Well, life proved to be less magical than that. Life was more mysterious, I found out, and full of surprises.
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