"That's good," I replied, not really knowing what Vanessa had told him. I trusted her advice, and didn't see the need to know what she was telling him. "So other than a lack of staffing, how is adapting to your work coming along? And what happened to your face?"
Patrick touched the small cut above his eyebrow and winced. It looked deep and ugly, but still tiny, like it had been patched well. "Yeah, that's what you get when you decide to try and save money by not leaving your entryway light on and forget that you also parked your bicycle there at the same time. I was happy I could get it stopped with some pressure and a bit of medical tape last night, because I didn't want to go to the Mercy ER for something so embarrassing. As for my work, you mean besides learning that the corridors of City Hall are just about as dangerous and full of people willing to stab you in the back as The Playground?"
"Welcome to the jungle," I teased in reply. "Only difference is, in City Hall, you can't see the knives meant for you."
Patrick waved it all off in good humor, before looking around the table. "Damn, what a spread. You expecting a third person?"
I laughed and shook my head. "No, but seeing how big you are, I know that you probably don't eat a single spring roll and call it a day. My groundskeeper is a big guy too, and he eats like a horse."
"Well then, thank you," he said, sitting down. He was wearing tan chinos and a button down collared long sleeve shirt, but no tie or sport jacket. "I'd kind of gotten used to leaving lunch meetings feeling more than a little hungry."
"You don't have to worry about that," I replied, grabbing some pepper shrimp and putting it onto my tray of white rice. "I enjoy good food too. Of course the side effect is that I need to workout like a fiend in order to not swell up to the size of a small car."
Patrick chose the lemon chicken for his first choice, and followed my example. I was pleased to notice that he was quite adept with chopsticks, it's another one of those little cues that I use to see if a guy is worth being interested in. No man who doesn't have the patience to learn how to use chopsticks well is going to be able to put up with me, unfortunately. In watching him more, I was actually surprised, he was deft and skilled.
"I've got some Chinese friends who you could give lessons to," I noted as he picked up some rice with his sticks and took in a mouthful. "Seriously, how'd you get so good?"
Patrick chuckled and set his chopsticks down. "I had a lot of practice for a while. Before this I was a bartender, and before that I worked in a Asian buffet place for a while. The owner gave us free lunches, but with the caveat that we could only take thirty minutes to eat, and we had to use chopsticks. I got to the point that I could fit a lot of my daily caloric needs into a thirty minute window of binge eating while working for minimum wage, no tips."
"Really? You mentioned some of it yesterday, but I have to admit, I didn't really pay attention to your stump speech during your campaign. I live in The Heights right now, and on the north side before that."
Patrick chewed on his shrimp for a moment before answering. "Well, I'll be honest, it's not something I normally talk over with lunch. Think you'd be willing to trade?"
"What sort of trade?"
“I’ll tell you about my life, and you tell me about yours. I'll even be the nice guy and start off."
I took a sip of the iced oolong tea that the restaurant had included and nodded. "Sure, why not. But I get to ask questions. If you don't want to answer them, you just have to say so, but no lying."
"Deal. All right, so the basics. Yeah, I was born in Mercy Hospital twenty eight years ago. I have no idea who my father was, and my mom was, well, troubled. The state took me away from her when I was two."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Abuse, both of me and of herself through drugs. I spent the next sixteen years bouncing through the state systems, mostly within the city. I did get to do some summer camps upstate though, which were fun, but by junior high school the system pretty much didn't give a damn about me. I got into a lot of trouble during my teen years, which carried on until I was twenty one."
"What happened then?" I asked. "Or is it my turn?"