Part 1: Accounts of the Life of Edmund Callipeaux

Contributors:
Edmund Callipeaux – artist, college instructor, lives in St. Louis Park.
Guy Cheblo – chef, corn expert, adventurer, lives in New York.
Kidpowertool – unemployed dairy professional, lives in Key West.
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Introductions:

Edmund Callipeaux – 8 January 2009, 3:20pm

Earlier today I had long, flowing blonde hair that messaged my shoulders as I walked past many storefronts or worked in my studio on painting after painting. This beloved hair protected me from the cold and filled the sky with rainbows wherever I went. I also had a full and sensuous beard (peppered with some grey because of my age) that Thor himself sent many a thunderstorm to subdue. With this rich, luxurious hair covering a sum total of 7/8th of my head, I went to my stylist, Nell. My appointment was at 1:15pm. But before this story can continue, I feel that I must rest. All this writing and typing is making me hungry and sleepy. Bonne nuit. - EC

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Guy Cheblo – 1 January 2009, midnight “Happy New Year!”

I met Eddie back in the late 1980’s - not long after my life’s dreams were squelched. As a child I had planned to graduate from Harvard Law and take a position as the new ace lawyer at a little known, yet prestigious Memphis law firm. Much to my dismay, after a montage or two, I would discover the firm’s mob connections. Rather than join this salacious group, I would have heroically brought the firm to justice while reuniting with my estranged wife. However, my miserably low grade point average as both a high school and community college student kept me from Harvard and my dreams died in 1989.

When I met Edmund Callipeaux, I was working as a chef at the Monticello Bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It must have been the fall of 1989. Eddie was a new hire whose skills in cooking didn’t impress anyone in the kitchen. However, because of Eddie’s chutzpah, ass kissing, and ability to keep up during after hours drinking sessions, everyone soon came to love him as much as any kitchen crew of the damned can love anything at all.

Sitting on the 32nd floor of my Manhattan luxury high-rise apartment, those days in Minneapolis seem so far away. I do remember Eddie’s first day on the job at the Monticello. I forget the chef’s name who trained Eddie in as a cook, but this man basically stood Eddie in the only one-foot by one-foot spot on the cooking line where no one would need to tread. He then proceeded to yell, berate, and swear at him for eight or more hours, straight through the diner rush. He wouldn’t let Eddie touch anything or move from that small spot. After that, for a week of shifts, Eddie stood in that spot on the cooking line while attacks on his character and appearance were levied at him from the entirety of the kitchen and wait staff. Ashamedly, I even took the opportunity to say that that he was a born loser and that his hair wasn’t long enough for him ever to be a decent cook. At best, I told him, he should retreat to the grungy employee break room located in the basement of the restaurant to lick his wounds and resolve himself to quit the restaurant business forever and move to Alaska where he could live out his days in obscurity.

Despite this cruelty, Eddie persevered as a line-cook. It was determined by the staff that he took his shots well and paid his dues. Therefore, he was allowed to be the afternoon broiler cook. Eddie preformed well in this task and everyone pretended to like him. I’d love to impart a brief story of an especially challenging order that came to the lunch broiler cook (Eddie) every Wednesday at 1:30pm. I was never there to witness it, but Eddie told me the story himself. He said, “Guy, have you ever cooked for the Rare People?” I told him that I only knew of those cheeseburger people oddities by reputation, but had never had the displeasure of preparing their disgusting food. I said that from what I understood, a family of three (mother, father, and son) came to the restaurant each Wednesday at precisely 1:10 in the afternoon. They were seated, and after having received drinks they placed an order at exactly 1:30 for a cheeseburger rare, a cheeseburger rare rare, and a cheeseburger rare rare rare. The question of who these people were had vexed us for years. How come they never got sick? Why would the restaurant take on the liability of serving undercooked ground beef? Or, if they did become ill, why would they come back again the very next week for the same exact meal?

The challenge that Eddie took upon himself was to determine just how rare he could go with these cheeseburgers. He worked out the math and here follow the details: 1) throw the first hamburger on the grill, check wristwatch. 2) After 20 seconds flip first hamburger and place second hamburger on grill, check wristwatch. 3) After 10 seconds flip second hamburger, place third hamburger on grill, and check wristwatch. 4) After 5 seconds flip third burger. 5) Immediately place one slice of American cheese on each hamburger patty, cover each with lid and water/steam to melt cheese quickly, check wristwatch. 6) Count down an additional 3 seconds, remove each of the three cheeseburgers from the grill and serve on toasted buns with fries and garnish. All three cheeseburgers cooked and served in under 40 seconds! Cooked in this way, no cheeseburger from the Rare People was ever sent back to the kitchen, and furthermore, Eddie and the rest of the daytime cooks inspected clean plates each week from the Rare People before they were given to the dishwasher. There was never a scrap of food left on any of the three plates. Truly amazing! - GC

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Kidpowertool - 3 January 2009, midday.

I remember the first time I met Edmund Callipeaux. It was the spring of 1990 and Ed was mayor of Tent City. Tent City was a sort of campground built of platforms and wooden walkways over a swamp, or rather a bog-like terrain called a Muskeg. There were no trees apart from these small, scraggly shrub-trees that grew very slowly out of the Muskeg. Tent City was (and probably still is) located just about a mile outside the town of Petersburg, Alaska, on Mitkof Island. I had arrived in town without any friends, money, or connections, and Ed welcomed me to Tent City as a brother. It was early April and the wind and rain and cold that blew across the Muskeg surrounding Tent City made life miserable. My tent collapsed in a storm the first night I was there. And so I was invited to move in with Ed and his two traveling companions. I don’t know how we managed with four of us in that small tent. It was pretty rough. One of Ed’s friends continually ate cans of cold cherry pie filling in the tent and left the sticky empty tins strewn here and there. This despite the fact black bears were all over the place. (Tent City was just on the other side of a hill from the Petersburg town dump. And the bears hung out at the dump looking for food.) I have bad memories of the not so good smells in that tent. Soon after my arrival, Ed proclaimed to me that he was growing his hair long and thus entering into his long-haired years. He also said that he wasn’t going to change his cloths or bathe for 21 days. I took him at his word. I had no reason to doubt him.

We lived in that tent for about a month. By then Tent City had become pretty crowded and unruly with seasonal workers from Petersburg’s fish canneries. About this time, we heard of an old man named Franz who would be willing to let us camp in his backyard, away from the craziness of Tent City. So, the four of us packed up our tent and moved with a few other friends to the south side of Franz’s shed. Franz was about 90 years old and he had been one of the first people to build a house in Petersburg. I heard that they had to carry all the lumber up the hill from the harbor on mules because there was no road to the building site. Since that time though, an entire neighborhood had sprung up around him. So, it was a little strange that about eight wild-looking guys in their early 20’s were camped out in his yard. Franz didn’t seem to mind though. I never actually spoke to him. All I ever saw of him was his daily attempt to get his old tractor started. He’d go into the shed for hours at a time and we’d hear a little clinking and the sound of Franz trying to turn the engine over. He never did get that tractor started.

Life was good at Franz’s backyard. He didn’t charge us any rent so we worked as little as possible and spent our time lying around and having small campfires at night. We stayed there about three weeks until the cops showed up. The Petersburg police pulled up in their car one sunny afternoon and ordered Franz to evict us from his property. They said the neighborhood wasn’t zoned for temporary living structures like tents and we were squatters. We had to leave immediately and return to Tent City. Naturally, we were appalled and outraged, so we marched ourselves down the hill to the police station to contest our eviction.

The town police station had a small entrance lobby with a counter. As we were asking the duty officer if there was anyway around our situation, we heard yelling and slamming doors from within the building. I looked at Ed and we both started to remember the recent story in the local newspaper of the sheriff who had requested the town of 2500 inhabitants to equip his entire police force with AK47 machine guns for riot control. The town council denied the request because there weren’t enough people around to ever have a riot with. The noise grew louder as the imposing figure of the sheriff burst through the doorway and into the little lobby. I don’t think any of us spoke. I only remember yelling, and spitting, and waving arms, and more yelling as the sheriff’s face contorted and turned purple with rage. Finally he screamed: “IF YOU’RE NOT LIVING IN TENT CITY, YOU’RE LIVING SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!” and with that he kicked us out of the police station.

As we walked away from the police station we mulled the situation over in our minds. We each repeated the final words of the sheriff over and over in our heads until finally someone spoke. “You know, he is right – if you’re not living in Tent City, then you ARE living somewhere else.” Truer words, and a more accurate sentiment describing our existence and its absolute relativity to a physical location had never entered our young minds. If you’re not living in Tent City, you’re living somewhere else. With that said, we returned happily and at peace to Tent City. And from that day on, whenever I think of Ed, I think of Tent City and where I live now, and the time and distance that separates the two spots.

Not soon after pitching our tent back at Tent City, life went back to normal and we had no further run-ins with the sheriff. We did however have a great party to celebrate a friend’s 25th birthday. There were three massively huge, live king crabs, a 20 pound white king salmon, a bottle of Ouzo, and Ed almost died of hypothermia. But that’s another story for another time. - KPT

Franz's backyard


Reverse of photograph


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