Geno came down to work the Monday morning prep shift. Stav was in the kitchen, so was Micah.
“What are you doing here?” Geno asked, shaking hands.
“Seeing if you wanted a new job,” Micah said.
“Me?”
“My dough assistant is moving on to other ventures. Stavi says I’m too old to do the work alone.”
“That is not what I said,” Stav called. “Don’t listen to him, Geno. I made a high recommendation for you.”
“Why me?”
“Because it’s a good job for insomniacs,” she said, winking. Then her expression turned serious. “In my limited opinion, G, I don’t think working in bars is the best thing for you right now.”
“It isn’t,” Geno said.
“So, you want to give bagel-making a try?” Micah said.
“Sure.”
“Stavi’s right. It’s early morning work. I start at four.”
“Stavi’s right,” Geno said. “I don’t sleep much.”
He was a little concerned about handling dough, but hell, that whole weird episode was practically a year ago. He’d be in the company of an old man, not a baby boy. Worst case, if he popped a boner, he could cool off in one of the walk-ins and tell Micah the work wasn’t for him, thanks anyway.
As it turned out, he took to the task immediately, but adjusting his clock to the new schedule nearly killed him the first week. Up at three-thirty and at the shop by four. Micah was wide-awake, showered and shaved, hair slicked back into its tail. Coffee made and the radio tuned to oldies.
“You kill the average guy,” Geno said, borrowing Jav’s line.
Using the five-gallon buckets and a scale, they measured flour, yeast and warm water into the big mixer bowls. Micah added a brown syrupy substance he said was sourdough starter, honey and canola oil. The wire guards of the mixers were lowered and the barber shop spiral hook went into action, pulling liquid into solid, activating the gluten.
“How’d you learn to do this?” Geno asked, amazed how Micah rarely needed to add an extra dollop of water or scoop of flour to get the correct consistency.
“My friend Samouel Franco opened this place,” Micah said, adding salt from a small silver bowl. “He came from a long line of bakers. He was the brains of the operation. I just lifted the heavy stuff.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“We were childhood friends in Athens. His was an old Sephardic family. He spent the war hidden in a monastery.”
“So you learned Ladino from him?”
“Yes. It’s all his family spoke. And I loved it.”
“How did you find each other after the war?”
“Oh, one of those post-war reunions that’s so serendipitous, it’s divine. Six months after my wife and I get to New York, I bumped into Sam on the street. We wept, we wailed, we clutched each other and we opened a bagel shop.” He winked. “We may have gotten drunk somewhere in there.”
“I know I would,” Geno said.
Micah turned off the mixer and lifted the guard, indicating Geno should do the same on his batch. History lesson over, he returned to Geno’s education in the art of dough. He was a patient and thorough teacher, giving the why for every how. Putting a dusty white hand over Geno’s to guide him in the rhythm of kneading or shaping a bagel.
“Don’t be so angry at the dough, habibi,” Micah said. “Knead with kindness or it won’t be kind to you.”
Micah peppered his speech with Ladino endearments. Besides habibi—an all-purpose word for brother or friend or companion—he called Geno presiado, precious one. Mi corasón. My heart. Querido. Dear boy.
Geno put kind, tentative hands on the dough. It was tactile and pleasant. Nothing more. No thrumming or weird arousal. He exhaled and relaxed into the work.
Plain bagels and bagels that were coated—sesame seed, poppy seed, salt, onion—could all go through the machine to be shaped into the iconic rings. These were put on white trays, slid onto the rolling racks and put into the cooler to rise for eighteen hours. Then another batch of dough was made for the bacon bagels. Those could go through the machine, too, but dough that had fruit or nuts had to be shaped by hand.
“You don’t want to clean raisins out of the machine, corasón,” Micah said. “Sam and I learned that the hard way.”
To Dean Martin and Rosemary Clooney and Glenn Miller, the men portioned off dough. Rolled it into short snakes, then folded each snake around a hand to make the ring, rolling the edges smooth. Micah could shape bagels two-handed, each identical to the next. Geno’s came out lopsided at first, but he soon got the knack. He enjoyed it. Five hours passed quickly, and when the mixers and machine were immaculate and every surface wiped down, Micah praised him. Stav sent him on his way with a cup of coffee and an egg-and-cheese on a bacon bagel. It was nine in the morning and the rest of the world was just getting to business.
Slackers.
By two in the afternoon, he was dying. Too tired to chew his lunch. Nodding off in group therapy and then stumbling to the art room. Looking at Stef with a thousand-yard stare when asked something. Sinking his head onto his hand and then nearly breaking his chin when his elbow slid off the table. “Dude, go back to bed,” Stef said, laughing.
Within a few days, Geno was hitting the sack by eight-thirty—something he hadn’t done since fourth grade—and he was sleeping. Deep, honest and dreamless sleep with only the occasional Ambien to help him settle down.
“When it’s the right work, you sleep well,” Micah said.
Down in the clean, white dough room, Geno asked Micah many questions.
And Micah told him many things.