I used to know when I was dreaming. Hard to tell nowadays.
It rained last week. Hard. Tornadoes were in the area, flooding was everywhere. I could see the shoreline. It was a mile away. I put my head down and swam. Furiously. For hours. When I could swim no longer, I looked up. The shoreline was still a mile away.
The next morning, 7 a.m., I went to work.
There had been no leaks in the second-floor apartments or the restaurant below them. The air-conditioning was cool and quiet.
Juan and Javier were working on the steps and deck to the apartments. They offered me some coffee.
A father-and-son team was working on the metal rail for the staircase, singing a Polish folk song.
I had found two old sinks from the New York Athletic Club at a little antique shop on Sage Street, but the building code required new faucets. They arrived yesterday. Tom the Plumber was installing the sinks in the lavatories.
Soon, Kevin the G.M. was meeting with Mike from Love Lane Coffee. Mike had brought along his young nephew from Lecce, Italy. There were harmless, bilingual jokes about café con leche.
Two guys from Long Island Beverage arrived to set up the soda and beer system in the basement. With four New York beers and two Paumanok wines on tap, we will have fewer bottles and less recycling.
Peter the G.C. was dealing with Peter from Bar Boy, the supplier of the stainless steel tables in the kitchen. The tables are the last pieces of the puzzle.
Chef Joe was at a table with his computer and cellphone, haggling with vendors, hunting down some missing bowls.
Keenan, one sous chef, was printing out the employee manuals and asking where to get his tennis racket restrung.
Jimmy, the other sous chef, who had just arrived from Mile End, a hot deli in Brooklyn, was painting and putting polyurethane on 10 pieces of plywood that will support the booth cushions. The booth tables were drying.
The FedEx guy delivered an industrial stool from Mission, Tex. We screwed it together, put it at the bar, and took turns trying it out. Everyone was suddenly hungry and thirsty.
I drove to Sag Harbor to get two grandma pizzas at Vincenzo’s — square, thin-crusted with tomato slices, pepperoncini, basil and pesto. It was so tasty and the day was so filled with bonhomie that even Rush Limbaugh’s radio rant about liberals despising freedom, liberals fearing failure, liberals hating America didn’t get my goat. He made me smile. He is an unwitting satirist.
Mike from Twin Peaks Geeks called to say he could repair my Apple remotely — that is, get into my computer from his computer to fix the damage from the previous night’s storm without leaving his office or dealing with summer traffic. Mike is a wonder.
Onis arrived from traffic court all dressed up, with sunglasses, looking like an ’80s rock star. Within a half hour, he was on his knees drilling holes behind the bar with a special bit so the beer and wine can rise from the 55-degree basement.
Shawn the Electrician, all muscles and smiles, claims to be a former bodybuilder but his bulging body belies the modesty. He was putting up the exterior lights next to the front door.
The four marble tabletops arrived from Gem Marble and were epoxied to their bases. They looked great.
Nick from Shore Power, always pleasant and clever, was completing the installation of the audio and Internet system when I returned. The television fit perfectly into its nook. (It will be hidden behind a chalkboard until there is an election, an assassination or a Super Bowl.) The sound system operated as smoothly as Sade.
The restaurant had music and calm activity and was humming along at a lovely pace. Pardon the metaphor, but we were cooking. It was a day without debt or deadlines or death. It was a day of deep pleasures, just being among a group of dedicated, cheerful, hard-working guys. (No women had applied for any of the jobs.)
Whatever hardships, setbacks and imbroglios we have encountered along the way — and will again — this one day, the calm after the storm day, we were building one sweet restaurant.
I looked up, and the shoreline seemed only half a mile away.