Chapter 22 – Minor Notes to Major Alchemy

Conejito's Place – 539 W. Virginia St., Milwaukee

After a sad and desperate work week I mass-texted a pathetic call for a secret meeting at Conejito's but didn't really expect anyone to respond to my last-minute, individualized guilt-trips (“if no one responds I'll just: steal a car and drive out west; go to Qdoba; jump off the Hoan”) to what might be chaos at Margarita-time, but to my surprise, Armahn said he'd “swoop me” in his red Volvo, so I took the streetcar halfway there. (No one asked me, but I would have designed the streetcar to loop between Real Chili, Conejito's, and The Domes.) It's a tough place for a secret meeting because they have a lot of rules, won't seat groups greater than 15, or anyone until all the members of the party arrive, but no one else could make it—though, at least Armahn invited his friend Mauricio, who I'd never met, so three constitutes a meeting, I always say. I haven't been to Conejito's Place in so long I half expected cobwebs and one old guy at the bar—but of course, your next generation (and next) have discovered it, so it's thriving more than ever. There are two sides: too dark dive bar side, and too bright dive bar side, and we got seated in too bright, but you can't argue. I did notice that the hanging planters are still in the dark side, though the dead plants have been replaced with ghost plants. I did miss the jukebox that sounds like it's playing full volume in a bomb shelter a block away. Armahn had tacos (they only have tacos with flour tortillas, which I find strange), and I had my usual, cheese and onion enchiladas, rice and beans. I literally find myself craving these particular enchiladas about once a week, and they haven't changed. It's been so long since I was here, I half expected that they'd now have organic, cave-aged gorgonzola enchiladas with hand-massaged sustainable field greens on small plates, but to my relief it was still orange cheese, a piece of lettuce, a monthly sodium allowance, and paper plates—which become amazing art by the end of the meal. If I become a regular again, I might save the plates, let them dry, and propose a gallery show. (What? Someone's already done that?) Speaking of which, I need to get back to visual art. Armahn is an artist, and Mauricio (I since looked him up, Ramirez) is this amazing painter of these giant murals. He was doing some kind of design wizardry on some kind of an iPad device while we ate, and as I watched him, my heart sank a little, just knowing how the world has passed me by, with my colored pencils and protractor. Though, I realize that every day, when my remotely located boss gets annoyed that I can't remember how to “share my screen” and when to meet on “hangouts” and when to meet on “chat.” We're not paying you $11.73 an hour just to clean, answer phones, and run a mailroom—you also need to know how to hack into the Pentagon weapons systems—and when did all this happen? The world isn't passing me by, the tense is now past, and the dirty secret is that Soylent Green won't even be secret, it will be expensive—on small plates with organic balsamic pomegranate vinaigrette.