The Whole Story
In Chicago there’s a place by Lake Michigan where you can get dinner with a god. It’s small, a fancy setup with a view of the water and only room for two. A seat there costs more than a car, but if you pay the price you can ask the god anything you like. And she knows everything there is to know.
Raymond King was willing to pay the price. He pulled up to the unassuming little building and parked his expensive car around back. He wore a dark suit and an overripe purple tie. Inside he took his seat at a square table in the center of a quietly opulent yet mostly empty room. There was no music playing, and the full darkness of the place drew his eyes off towards the broad bright window to his right. The endless bulk of the lake lurched out to the horizon, and the sky above it was turning its evening shade of shadow bruised blue. It would be night soon. He waited and watched the turning of the sky.
Then he heard the sound of heels clicking on hardwood. The lake and the sky were quickly forgotten. She was coming. Ray stared straight ahead, towards the sound of the footsteps and a door at the far end of the room. His collar felt tight as the sound of her came closer. He worried that his suit would seem too big, that he’d look like an impostor or a child when she finally came through that door. He breathed deep and rolled his shoulders, set his eyes hard ahead. And the clicking stopped. He turned in his seat, confused. And then she was there, impossible and beautiful, as she appeared without a sound in the other seat at the table. There was a single cut of meat on the plate in front of him.
“Raymond King,” her voice was clear and strong, and without a hint of malice. She had sharp, knowing eyes and just a ghost of smile at the edge of her mouth.
“Yes,” he said, after a moment of shock, “Thank you for having me.” He waited. “What’s your name?”
“My name isn’t important,” she said.
“Now that’s not fair,” Ray smiled, “I thought I got to ask you anything I want.”
“You do. But that doesn’t mean I have to answer.”
“Well that’s no fun. How do I know you’re not just gonna cut me off once I get to something you don’t wanna tell.
“Well you’re just going to have to trust me. I’m very generous with what I know. Just not with my name.”
“I hope so. I have lots of questions.”
“Oh really,” her ghost of a smile became a hint, “Prove it.”
Ray scanned the room. His eyes fell on the thick wooden floor boards, and then he turned to take in the lake and the sky that lay just outside the window before he drifted back to the table where a single lonely plate sat with a thick cut of meat steaming precisely seasoned and artfully arranged in the center. Ray nodded.
“Let’s start simple,” he said, and edged the plate an inch in her direction, “Where did this come from?”
“That’s what you want to know. It’s Chilean beef, farm raised, fresh, slaughtered three days ago.”
Ray sat back in his seat.
“Is that it?” he said.
“You want more.”
“Is there more?”
“There’s always more,” she said “But most things are simple. Most things are better without the details. The story can be bigger than the thing itself.
“Give me all of it,” he said, “I want to hear it all.”
“You want it all.”
“Yes. What’s the story behind this thing? What’s the whole story?”
She breathed deep, and Ray realized that she blinked for the first time since they’d started talking. There was no strain, no effort, nothing close to a sign of struggle. And yet Ray knew that in the span of that breath she was feeling and seeing more than any human mind would ever know.
“The cow never had a name,” she said, “but it was well loved by a farmer called Augustin Romano. He only ever raised a dozen animals at a time, and the last few years it’s just been eight, since he’s old and his sons Matias and Martin have moved away to Santiago to learn to be teachers. This cow was one of those eight, and Augustin raised it from birth to be a prime cut, a tender big ticket cow for rich customers in other countries that he knew he would never visit. He woke up with the sun every morning to massage its legs and its neck and its chest. He spent more time with that cow than his own wife.
“And yet he never named it, because he never loved it. He only ever loved what it could give him. Augustin knew that cow would make him enough money to send his sons to school for another year, if he raised it right. So he fed it by hand. And the grass he grabbed was grown from soil that was dead a thousand years. And before that the dirt had been a warrior, a Mapuche fighter named Cautaro who before he rotted had been called to defend his town. But he was young and untrained, and although he felt honor in his chest and pride that he would serve his people, when he went to battle he took a spear in the shoulder and died bleeding next to his friends within eyeshot of the only place they’d ever known. But soon that place was ash and their bodies baked in the sun and turned slick in the rain, and soon they were nothing but bones and then nothing but dirt and nothing but grass in the hand of a father feeding a cow that was killed three days ago and flown to Chicago to be seasoned by a cook who based his flavors on the smells his mother made in their kitchen to distract herself from the bruises the father left on her body and hid from the son who would season the steak that I just served to you.”
She looked Ray hard in the eyes.
“That’s the whole story,” she said.
“Yeah, that’ll do.”
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