By: Jasper Jose
Making the NCAA is nothing more than a dream and a nightmare. March Madness is around the corner, and so I am being dragged around from state to state, listening to the droning of fossil men.
I heard Founder Tower once had a revolving restaurant, but it is now just a regular, un-revolving restaurant. It’s another unremarkable thing in the bland city of Ames, Iowa. The concept itself is not without precedent. I’ve sampled rotations in Vancouver and Seattle. Both were subpar. I was considerably younger then, like, a really small boy.
Prior to those visits, I had had no exposure to caramelized onions, and my school friend had raved about them. I had requested them as a side.
What arrived was a stinky broth, a swamp of sugar and mushy onions, and thus instilled was a false notion regarding caramelized onions.
Today, in a private booth, I ordered the 14-oz dry-aged ribeye, medium-rare, with caramelized onions on the side. Unfortunately, between the joy of scouring a menu and the joy of eating food is an anticipatory limbo that needs to be filled with small talk. It is a harrowing and reciprocal process where, if the other party is some idiot, you are thus tortured until you can eat. Let me paint you a picture:
“Hah, you wanna do basketball too, sport?” Grassford asks my little brother. He nods. Rhea and I had told him to be quiet and nod, which makes him look shy and quaint, and we want that.
I flinch when he turns to me.
“Cadell, you’re a sharp little fella, aintcha? You read the papers? You keep up with current events? Yeah? Good. That’s good. We need more fellers like you reading.”
He misunderstands me, because I don’t have the time to listen to the news because I am training at 5:00 am sharp, but also, I don’t want to be stupid. Instead, I listen to podcasts. Curating the morning listen is a delicate ordeal, but he doesn’t know that; he was born before the Civil Rights movement.
“Y’know, sport, when I was your age, I didn’t know I’d go into basketball or being a GM. I wanted to be a kinesthesiologist. But, y’know, life takes ya where yer needed. Really, it’s all just a people thing. That’s the secret. You shake the right hands, you say the right words, and here I am, heh.”
These meaningless talks with these former nobodies are stepping stones to greatness, or so I tell myself.
“You ever want an NIL, let me know, okay? I can get you into the league real fast. You seem like a good kid.”
Rhea knees my thigh, both for slouching and urging me to accept. A steak knife would look good in his throat, but that can’t be; I need to make the league
“Of course, Mr. Grassford. That’s very kind of you.” I want to gouge out his eyes. But of course, a heaven is promised at the end of it all, so I do not.
The dinner table has a few more laughs before a slew of waiters arrive. My ribeye is set before me. The onions are in a white ramekin. They are a sludge of semi-transparent allium in a brown, dripping sauce. I do not complain just yet.