Sheep
The mysterious chunk of metal, rusted almost to nothing,
became an obsession for Calvin. He’s tried to figure out what it is on his own,
but Google has failed him. Mixed in with the rust is possibly blood, which is
the linchpin in the mystery. Cal really doesn’t care if it’s blood or not, he
just wants to find out what it is, why it’s here. Why it was sticking up out of
the ground at the restaurant, as if someone placed it there, waiting for him to
discover it.
From the beginning, he'd decided to share his find with his coworkers.
Perhaps someone else can shed light on this object, an object that’s really a
hook, found in the dirt after the recent renovation of his workplace. Cal works
at Tavern on the Green, a stepping stone to loftier pursuits (better reviewed restaurants,
perhaps), he hopes.
His investigation has yielded mostly historical details that
he’s surprised he never knew. For example, the fact that the building he toils
in used to house a herd of sheep. A herd of sheep that plodded from the tavern
space to the green space at Central Park, day after day. Of course, there were
clues, like the logo from the Tavern, and the fact that the green space is
called Sheep Meadow. Clues are only useful if you’re paying attention, thought
Cal.
Tuesday evening after the crowd has thinned, Cal corners the
manager in the kitchen. The manager’s getting ready to head outside for a smoke
break, and is resistant to an interruption. Cal pulls out his cell phone,
indicating that this interrupted break will only last a few minutes. He has
taken a good photo of the hook, a couple of photos, actually, and they allow
him to leave the hook safely at home.
His manager takes Cal’s phone, scrolls between the two
photos. He appears to think, fidgets with his cigarette.
“Do you recall the murder of the young maître d in 1960?”
Recall? Cal thinks. I wasn’t even born yet.
“No, tell me more. I haven’t heard that story yet”. His
manager goes on to tell him about a young waiter, too young to be maître d, and
how jealousy from the other wait staff became fodder for the gossip mill when
he was found dead in an alley on the West Side.
“Dead how?” Cal asks.
“Stabbed, evidently,” explains the manager. “I’m not sure of
any other details, but I’m sure you could find out.” He hands Cal’s phone back,
resumes smoking, staring off across Central Park West. He’s clearly done with
this conversation.
Later in the week, Cal finds someone else at work who knows
a bit more about this crime. She’s an older waitress, old enough to have been
alive in 1960. She tells what she knows about the crime in great detail.
Somehow, Cal doesn’t think the murder is related.
Interesting story, perhaps, and a mystery to be solved, but not the source of
the hook. He nods and mumbles “wow” at the appropriate times, but is already feeling
a little let down. Part of him thinks
he’s foolish for even imagining he could get to the bottom of it; part of him
thinks history and detective work often come together to help others solve
mysteries, why not for Cal? He keeps the hook in his apartment, thinking that
later, maybe next week, he’ll explore the mystery further.
A wealthy patron who is so elderly she recalls the
beginnings of the Tavern, Mrs. Salmon (known only as Mrs. Salmon; no one seems
to know her first name) comes in every Wednesday at noon for lunch, all by
herself. Well, not really by herself, an “assistant” is usually present. This
assistant’s name is Jenny, but that’s all Cal knows about her. She’s pretty,
maybe in her 20s. A relative, perhaps? He feels that Jenny is the key to getting
to know Mrs. Salmon.
Cal plans ahead, cornering Jenny as she waits for Mrs.
Salmon outside the restroom. It’s Friday, and he asks if he can have a few
moments with Mrs. Salmon the following Wednesday. If Jenny is suspicious, she
doesn’t show it. She seems excited about the prospect of an additional guest at
lunch.
On Wednesday morning, Cal is nervous, worried that Mrs. Salmon is
the key to understanding what the hook is all about and he will fail to get the
information she’s hoarding. He fears her wrath, for some reason.
Cal takes his lunch break and prepares to join Mrs. Salmon
and Jenny. He sits down, greeting both of them warmly, but Mrs. Salmon looks
resigned. He apologizes before they even begin.
“I’m sorry if I’m ruining your lunch…I just wanted to find
out more about the history of the Tavern,” he explains. He explains about the hook again, showing Mrs. Salmon and Jenny the photos on his phone.
Mrs. Salmon looks at him, deeply. She stares into his eyes
for so long, he’s tempted to look away. Maybe she’s just trying to affirm his
readiness to hear the story. Maybe there is no story. She sets down her teacup, brings her napkin to her
mouth. Her hands are lined, the skin delicate. He can see recent bruises.
“Do you recall the story of the young shepherd, back in
1920?” she asked, her voice creaky and slow. There’s that assumption again,
someone asking if he can recall an event that happened prior to his birth.
Recalling a story, though, Cal guesses is different. Giving Mrs. Salmon the
benefit of the doubt, he answers: “no, I don’t, and I would love to hear it.”
She stops, sighs. Picks up her teacup again, sets it down.
It seems she really doesn’t want to tell the story, thinks Cal. Maybe she was
hoping he’d know the background, and then they could discuss the possibilities of
the hook.
He decides to help her along. Jenny has left them alone for
now, probably thinking she was in the way. She wasn’t, Cal wishes she was here,
but he’ll need to bridge this conversational gap himself.
Before Cal has a chance to prompt her, the old lady begins.
“It was 1924, I believe. No, 1923. Or maybe it was 1922…”
she trails off, trying to remember the exact year. “Doesn’t matter,” she shakes
her head, moving forward with the story, “it was a sad, lonely time for this
particular shepherd.”
“Did you know him personally?” asks Cal, more interested now
that he had found someone with a real link to the story.
“No, no…” she laughs, a creepy, rasping sound. “How old do
you think I am?” She pauses. Cal reddens. "I’m just trying to create a story for
you, here…” she croaks. “Do you want to hear it or not?”
Chastised, Cal sits silently through the rest of her tale of the shepherd.
One thing stands out. Back then, the shepherds lived in the
barn alongside their sheep.
“Well, not really alongside,” explains Mrs. Salmon, “but
their quarters were close by. As if you were in one, comfortable stall in a
barn and your charges were in a larger, less comfortable space. But you could
hear them, if they needed you.” Cal thinks of the shepherd’s charges, the
sheep, and feels sad for the young shepherd. Was this all there was to his
life, carting sheep back and forth, day in and day out? Cal imagines incessant
bleating and baaing, going on all through the night so that one couldn’t get a
wink of sleep. He’s glad he lives in the latter part of the 21st century.
The old lady hesitates when sharing the facts of his
demise.
She croaks along: “this shepherd was sad…I suppose we’d call
it “depressed” today…” Lost in her thoughts again, Mrs. Salmon stares off into
the distance. She starts to sip her soup, then thinks better of it. “He
couldn’t go on.” She stopped staring into the distance and looked directly into
Cal’s eyes. “He killed himself.” There are no details on how he killed himself,
or even if it happened “on the job”, so to speak. The old lady is done with
Cal, and is signaling for her dessert.
Somehow Cal thinks of the hook, and that the hook was the
means by which this poor shepherd killed himself. This is probably not true,
but Cal decides to imagine it, anyway. He decides this tragic, dramatic end to
the mystery is preferable to thinking that the shepherd accidentally grabbed
one of the sheep too roughly one evening and tore a hole in that fluffy,
pristine wool coat. That he, in a fit of impatience, grabbed the neck and
jerked hard enough to inadvertently prepare the poor sheep for slaughter.
Cal thinks of the poor, lonely shepherd and his poor, bloody
sheep. He wonders what happened to the sheep after the Tavern became the
Tavern. He would like to think that the herd was taken to a small farm just
outside the city limits. He doesn’t want to think of lamb chops, lamb roast,
lamb curry.
photo: inspiration for this assignment, taken when Joel and I sat at the outdoor bar at Tavern on the Green in November 2015.
