Just a few days ago Miranda asked, with some desperation, if I could recall Dominic's last name. Campbell, was the easy answer to what was actually her husband's question, a question no doubt formed by an urgent and important need to refer a political colleague or compatriot to a man that appeared to be a bartender. Aside from raising a small laugh at their mutual brain freeze, the question from Tony and Miranda in turn raised a question of my own. Who was Tony connecting to Chicago's most deeply rooted and unassuming bartender? Why? A good drink? Quiet access to a loud alderman? The limitless possibilities were all irrelevant speculation to me. The relevance resided in the reverent presence Miranda's question called into my day: Dominic.
Whether the man was twined through my soul before birth or I forcefully knotted him into my tapestry, I cannot say. I do know that I recognized his thread from the first moment, as is always the case when the work of the Moirae is revealed to mere mortals.
It happened late one afternoon in my mid-twenties. It may have been any season, but no other time of day. These were my college days, joyously filled with endless studies and more recently, new friends Deirdre and Miranda. Via Deirdre, Miranda had found an instantly cherished study hall that provided adequate light, clean ashtrays and a full bar. When they invited me to join their study routine at The Admiral Codrington, I know they saw my momentary confusion at the combination of bar and quiet, followed immediately by happy agreement to be there at four o'clock. What they did not see was the breakthrough joy at their acceptance of this socially missed Miss into their study ritual. I didn't care if a patron vomited tequila on my textbooks. I cared that they opted to spend more time with me than was coincidence or proximity.
At four o'clock, I learned that The Cod was built of wood that absorbed and responded to the ruling human presence. Legends abound of past mischief and sorrow between those walls, and all aetheric remnants had subsumed their past terrors to the inviolate optimism of their present Lord, Dominic. The walls did not vibrate with energy, rather the space between them gently swelled with a basal thrum of contentment, a swaying hammock anchored to timelessness with room for all.
I entered alone, found what I believed to be an inconspicuous seat at the end of the bar, neighbored by empty barstools hopeful for my friends' behinds. I don't recall if I reached the safe defense of a book before Dominic approached me. I do recall that as and after he approached I had no need for defense. I was welcome, and already among friends.
It was the eyes, of course. Eyes that knocked at your soul without intruding, just enough greeting to let you know that the soul and person behind those eyes was happy to tell you what he saw, that he saw every truth, and that he will only show you what you asked to know. And like ordinary bartenders, he will tell you through his smile.
The smile was omnipresent, even when rumbling through a brain teaser or facing down a stumbling patron. It made you welcome, and shared secrets about bar-fellows when it shifted in your direction into a quick and silent smirk-the perfect meal for a lonely woman's soul, served with a healthy side of eyebrow. It was the smirk that led top-down to sex, and his ass that brought the idea home.
Dominic's ass was a pitch-perfect genetic rendition British history. The shorter, powerful thighs of the Saxons bred to the elongated brawn of heaving Norse gods. The battle-hardened breadth of shoulders still triangulated that rounded mound of torque, supported and tensed by swordsman's thighs. It may only be a warrior that truly recognizes that body, and resonates against it from any distance.
Distance was always and never the barrier. Dominic was accessible to me any time the doors were open, excepting those disappointing sessions when he was not working, leading to an overage in studying or libation and a deficit in salivation. Yet there was always the bar between us: A bartenders blind to the unwelcome encroachment of every drunk, the unbidden advance of a lonely heart, and the boundary-less blunderings of any disorderly personality. It was an unexpected and precise moment that revealed my own bridge across the bar, through time and distance to the inner sanctum of Dominic's life.
Perhaps I came early to our study hall that day, or Miranda and Deirdre were late, or I had summoned the tenacity to venture on my own to my usual spot at the end of the bar. It was quiet on both sides of the bar, as was usual for a Codrington afternoon. By this time I saw or imagined a difference in the attention Dominic gave me: A bit more, and a bit more personal. I measured the number and length of his conversations with me, and compared them to inter-pull conversations with any and all other patrons and friends. This intersection of attention and comfort was unusual and hopeful. It gave me a small courage, enough to respond with more than chatter. I engaged in discourse, and so did Dominic.
I learned him. I learned that he treasured books above everything, except perhaps solitude, and read them. His formal and self-education were profound, and I could not tell where one ended and the other began. There was a significant story behind his decision to enter the family's bar-bound business: its details were omitted and its conclusion was unwritten. His misspent youth was well spent plundering Air Force skies, the depth of his own soul, and women's thighs. The seeds of his bartending prowess were sown years ago and a bit south at the Clark Street Café. I shared, as one of those funny coincidences, that one of my elder sisters had waitressed there for a small spell. Then, from his lovely mouth came the dreaded question, "What is your last name again?"
My tambour's primal beat changed in that instant to something much higher, faster, and fleeting. She had been there before me, and soured/seasoned the air with her own rhythm.
His reminiscings on my sibling were mercifully superficial and short, as, it turned out, was their relationship. In his retreat to conversational safety, he did recall loaning his Air Force flight jacket to her, and her failure to return it. It was my turn to ask the fateful question, "Did it have wolf trim around the hood?"
I confessed with grieving laughter that I was (at least partly) the reason she had not returned his treasured blue. I had fallen in love with that jacket the moment at first sight, and had--contrary to my usual character and position as the youngest of three sisters--refused to give it back.
The thinly padded fabric kept me mysteriously warm while I watched my breath collect and freeze on the dense fur that kept my young face safe from snow, ice and brutal winds. And although more than a decade had passed since I'd worn that jacket, I did recall the immense and strange feeling of safety it gave me. I recalled the knowledge that the jacket was mine, and that I felt strangely protected and powerful within it.
I could not recall for Dominic what happened to that jacket in the long run. I did thank him for it, without elaborating on the mystery or moments that connected us across time.
Was the refraction as unwelcome to him as it was to me? I chose to believe that it was. Was what I perceived to be an extra measure of attention merely trying to place that face? Were his stories filtered by what his eyes saw of my own desires for commonality, companionship and passion? Irrelevant. The Bridge to Sighs was closed, obstructed by my sister's naked body lying on the bar between us. Following our shared journey though the time rift, our greatest intimacy was his conclusion, "You're not like her, you're very different." There was no mistaking the complement.
That welcome, if lonely, statement gave me both the confidence and connection I believed was requisite to qualify as enduringly unique amongst Dominic's many acquaintances. That must have in some way been insufficient, because I surprised myself many months later by gifting Dominic with a complete set of Samuel Pepys' diaries. It wasn't that I felt a gift was at all necessary. Rather, I felt the set did not belong on a used book store shelf when I knew someone that who had the capacity and interest to appreciate and actually read them. I believed they belonged on one of Dominic's many bookshelves. I had the small power to purchase them and tie them with a single ribbon. And so I did.
I did not become one of Dominic's women. He did not become the only man on the planet to have an elder and younger sister.
And when time carried the specter of his wife to us, we ladies, United Fans of The Dominic, dutifully hated her in unison. After leaving the bar with our news, we exploded as a side street chorus of self-satisfied knowledge and foresight. We were confident that her beauty was all wrong for Dominic, and her motives impure. These unfounded and ignorant opinions were the powerless outward defense against what we truly feared for Dominic: limitation. Marriage-be it a path, a choice, a blessing or a curse-is always a limitation. His time, his energy, his attention, would all be henceforth limited. We, being outwardlly uninterested bystanders, of course knew what was best for Dominic. He was far from the marrying type, and he was ours. He had not consulted us on his decision to accept these limitations. Our refrains were all for naught.
Dominic happily married despite our unshared objections. And while we forgave him for being a man, we never forgave him his betrayal. Or was it our betrayal? Had we stayed away too long or visited too infrequently? Surely the power of our presence would have been sufficient to turn that tide.
Years passed, and my path curved back to Chicago many times. As days will do, one brought me back to the Cod. What a welcome moment it is to be recognized and made welcome across time. After two, maybe three times back on Lincoln Avenue with friends I found myself again at a near-empty Cod at four o'clock with Dominic. Oddly, he dropped almost immediately into our most intimate conversation. Oddly, the subjects of intimacy were dark, painful and secret. Why did he tell me that he was married, not happily? Was that the universal come-on from every married man, lingering curiosity, or an invitation to fulfill a destiny wronged by decisions long turned to dust? Why reveal even darker facets of life, suggest that in those facets we recognized one another's reflections, then allow his attention to return to the mundane with an invitation to pick up the conversation at another time? Why did he not respond when I answered his invitation? What was the complete thought?
I can mourn what I never had, if I was close enough to feel its presence. If its presence is greatly felt across time and sense, mourning becomes destiny. Destiny can be fulfilled equally by greatness, or the empty capacity for greatness unfulfilled.
My memory can render the image of Dominic where he worked: behind the bar, at a table or walking me through the ghosts of the second floor. He never appears to me as trite or cliché as sex in a bottle; he is a rare power and unique connection made amongst bottles.
Those images are real, yet less present than my own picture of Dominic reclined at what must have once been an uncomfortable angle in an overstuffed and dusty armchair under an old and perfect reading light, surrounded by a tight frame of bookshelves lined with the experience of others he had taken in as his own. Among those shelves is a complete set of Samuel Pepys' diaries, and between those leaves, a few moments of me.
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