ANOTHER VIEW

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You could smell the incense from three buildings away. Then Jackie, Treneka and I came upon the little wooden house, set back from the main street. It was painted bright gold with a red porch. A mass of Christmas lights glowed over the open front door, even though it was late May.

Thumbtacked to a post was a copy of the Tribune article Treneka had discovered and showed to us the week before, entitled:

On a little wooden ledge was a stack of flyers depicting a sleek blonde girl cradling a guitar. "May 28, Featuring Stolie, 9 p.m."

We edged toward the dark opening. We could see a dim flickering light, and the incense smell billowed over us. We all hesitated, feeling self-conscious at this venture into the unknown. We looked at each other and simultaneously giggled, nervously.

"Come on!" I said, and stepped down into the low room before I could lose my nerve. I heard Jackie whisper,

"She's so good at this kind of thing!" and then Treneka's head poked through the door as they followed me in.

My first view of Fred Burkhart as he moved forward to greet us: Over six feet tall. Long, snarled gray beard with dreadlocks dangling from the end. He wore a long-sleeved polo shirt, jeans, and black Converse hi-tops. He had kindly blue eyes, and over his short gray hair was a deep red cap with sequins. They glittered dully in the light of the candles flickering on many small tables.

"Things usually don't get started around here till eight-thirty or nine. You're welcome to stay, but nobody's here yet. There's a photo gallery upstairs if you want to look around."

We looked at each other and murmured, "Should we stay?" and "What do you want to do?" The empty chairs and tables increased our feeling of awkwardness. Fred Burkhart was the only person there except for a stocky, middle-aged man with a neatly-trimmed dark beard. He glanced up at us from a back table before returning to whatever he was reading.

We decided to take a look at the upstairs gallery, then go out for a while and come back when more people would be there.

We filed up the narrow creaking stairs. Through a kitchen with plants, hanging pots and pans, and boxes of herbs. Recurring paintings of a haunting blonde child covered the walls.

Past the kitchen was a spacious area with a red and green swirled wooden floor. There were more paintings, the most prominent of a lush naked woman sprawled out with her long hair billowing around her. There was a tangle of lush houseplants in a corner, and a lamp with a globe of multicolored glass.

We peeked into a dim side room with a mysterious curtained door (none of us was brave enough to look behind it). Leaning against a wall were stacks of colorful canvases, most of them portraying bald naked mothers nursing bald smiling babies. On shelves were paper books folded into odd shapes, and printed in a black and white geometric pattern. A sign on the wall read, "Handmade books by Oberc."

At the very back of the house was a brightly-lit room with a big window looking down on Halsted Street. The walls were covered in framed black-and-white photos, all portraits of people. Each was dated and signed "Burkhart." The years ranged from the 1960's to the present.

Matted photos for sale were filed in wire baskets. Rows and rows neatly labeled by subject matter: "Naked White Women." "Christians." "Derelicts." "Street People." "Children." "Men In Skirts." "Ku Klux Klan." Apparently this photographer's tastes were far-reaching and eclectic.

I fumbled through the files feeling naive and unworldly. What was I supposed to think, observe, know about these images?

Footsteps clumped up the stairs and into the next room. We heard men's voices. One had an Australian accent and Treneka smiled at me. "Janet! Do you like that accent?"

"What?" For a minute I thought she was talking about the Australian guy, but Jackie was flipping through a basket labeled "Photos of Trinity" and I realized she meant Fred's daughter.

"It's the girl in the paintings." Treneka leaned closer, and we all looked at photo after photo of a celestial blonde child with the eyes of an old soul.

We went downstairs (the cute Australian was talking to his friend and barely glanced at us) and told Fred Burkhart how cool his photos were, saying, "We'll be back in a little while."

We went to Starbucks and sat by the window, drinking hot Chai and tearing chunks from a cinnamon roll, asking each other, "Should we go back? Is it worth it?"

At eight-thirty, once again assailed by the incense smell, Treneka and I ducked into the place (Jackie had left us to meet her boyfriend at some bar).

"Hello again!" Smiling, nodding to us, beard rippling like a merman in an underwater grotto, Fred glided over.

"The donation is four dollars and that includes coffee, tea and coke...Right back this way...You can help yourselves..."

Middle-eastern chanting drifted from stereo speakers and mingled with the sweet pungent incense smoke. Most of the people were young, in their twenties. They sat in clusters or individually at the little tables, on a sagging sofa at the front of the room, or on benches lining a shadowy wall.

Red and black bulbs cast a supernatural glow over faces and hands. Big rectangles of Christmas lights still in neatly packaged rows softly flashed and faded. Treneka and I found a table against the wall and sat down with our steaming mugs of tea.

The sleek blonde guitarist was talking to Fred by the microphone at the front of the room, her long skirt swishing around her heeled boots.

"I think that's his daughter!" Treneka squinted her eyes at the musician as she picked up her guitar. She played and sang various folk-songs she'd written. During one song a white-haired man accompanied her on the conga drum.

"That's her dad." He handed us blank address cards for his mailing list. As he walked away Treneka clapped her hand over her mouth.

At the bottom of the address card was printed: "Do you want to be a Burkhart model?" There was a "yes" and a "no" to circle. I didn't circle either one.

Fred circulated from table to table. When he returned to us he glanced at our address cards and asked me, "Do you want to model?"

"I'll model!" Treneka announced. "But I won't do it naked!" She was frightened by the photos upstairs of nude women all trussed-up up with ropes and chains, or swaddled in gauzy fabric.

"Then you can pay me to photograph you!" Fred swept our cards into the pile of other addresses, laughing as he walked away.

"No, no!" Treneka had a shrill laugh almost like a scream. She was tall with large soulful eyes, rounded shoulders, and a long thin neck she'd stretch out eagerly, then shrink back into herself when she was startled or hurt, which was often. She looked up to me like an older sister, and I felt protective toward her.

Stolie's set ended, and the cute Australian guy ascended to the microphone. He was the only person there as tall as Fred. The candles threw a golden glow across his face. He smiled shyly at the room.

I got the impression that he glanced at our table for a second, before he started reading a poem he'd written. I was so distracted by his beautiful accent, I didn't take in a word he said.

Following was a short, cheerful black man in wire-rimmed glasses and a goofy black bowler hat. He introduced himself as Oz, and read a story about a man with a foot fetish, and a woman who gave him a "foot job" under the table at work, with her feet oiled up.

"Gross!" Treneka turned her head so she wasn't looking at him. I sipped my orange-cinnamon tea. My mug had a picture of a witch bounding joyfully over a bonfire. Treneka and I huddled together in a sea of cliques of people talking, scribbling in journals or sketchbooks, swaying and tapping their feet when Stolie went up to play again.

Fred read a story by Leonard Cohen, who I'd never heard of. The writing was abstract and I couldn't follow some of it, but the refrain burned into my memory as Fred recited in a sing-song voice, swaying in the smoky air,

We left around midnight. As we pushed back our chairs Treneka said, "Wait!" and went creeping back to the table with the coffee and tea, where the address cards lay neatly stacked on the corner. She scrabbled through the pile, pulled one out and scuttled back to our table, cramming it in her purse. "Okay, let's go!"

"Well, thank you! I'm glad you came." Smiling through the tangle of his beard as the room applauded Stolie's last song.

During that first visit to the coffee house, Fred announced between readings that an art opening would be held the following Friday at seven p.m.

I persuaded Treneka to go with me. We also brought our friend Myan and her sister Amanda, home from college for the summer.

The red coffee-house door on the ground floor was locked with a "Closed" sign. On the second-story deck people milled around in the muted evening air, clutching clear plastic cups of wine and discussing art. We climbed the wooden stairs and were greeted with smiles and "Welcome, welcome!" as they waved us through the open door to the photo gallery.

"Hello, hello!" A round-faced man with gingery hair and a cheerful smile came bounding over to us. "Welcome! I'm Derek! Thank you for coming!"

He had a European accent I couldn't quite place. Russian? German? Dutch? Scottish? Treneka turned her head and grinned at me.

"These are my photographs..." Beckoning gracefully, and we followed him into the large room with the red and green floor. The paintings had been taken down and the walls were covered in small framed photos, their glass reflecting the evening sunlight.

"Wine and appetizers are by the door-- please help yourselves." Derek bowed slightly and dashed over to another group of people.

"Hey! You made it!" Fred came tripping into the room, looking like a madman with his long gray beard tangled in knots. On his head was a tie-dyed knit cap.

"Hello, Fred." Treneka smiled cautiously, as if at any second he might tear her clothes off and shoot a photo.

He nodded to me, then swiveled around to Myan and Amanda, who had wandered over to the refreshment table.

"Hmmm..." Fred narrowed his eyes at small slender Myan with her tangle of long dark hair, olive skin and jangling jewelry. Amanda was popping grapes in her mouth, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with her straight brown hair in a ponytail.

"Sisters!" he breathed, and lifting his camera from where it hung around his neck, started snapping candid shots of Myan and Amanda snarfing vegetables and dip.

Derek, whose work was on display, had traveled and lived in many countries around the world. He'd met his wife in Japan. She moved quietly and demurely among the guests, and occasionally a dimpling smile lit up her face. She wore a pink kimono and gold sandals with white socks. She was small and curvy and graceful, with skin like milk.

They had a one year-old son named William, with a fuzz of reddish hair and dark slanted eyes. He was a mellow baby, and permitted the twenty-odd guests to coo over him and pass him around the room.

A wrinkled, gray-haired couple smiled proudly as he was handed over to them. "This is our grandson!" The woman balanced him on her knees and William blinked at us complacently.

"Peek-a-boo!" Treneka covered her eyes, then smiled at the baby who gurgled a laugh. The two of them entertained each other while I tried to follow the old man's rambling conversation.

"So you girls live in the neighborhood?" followed by an incoherent discourse on how the city is different from the suburbs. I smiled and nodded and tried to look like I understood what he was talking about.

"It's like France!" he concluded, and standing there I pondered the mystery of Derek's ethnic origin. Baby William's grandparents were obviously not Japanese, which meant they had to be Derek's parents. But they were both American, and even seemed to be from the Chicago area (from what little I'd gathered from the old man's monologue). How, then, did they produce a son with a foreign accent?

I considered the possibilities. Like maybe he'd been separated from his mom and dad at birth, adopted by a family in the Ukraine, and then reunited with his biological parents as an adult. Or perhaps I'd misunderstood and these weren't the baby's grandparents at all.

At a much later time, I would learn that these were Derek's parents and he was born and raised in Skokie. Then during his travels he decided that being American was beneath him, and fabricated an accent which he refused to give up, even with his family and closest friends. But that evening I was oblivious, and totally in awe of the suave voice and mannerisms of this worldly artist.

Myan and Amanda were swigging down red Chardonay and loudly discussing the benefits of maxi pads versus tampons.

"So I told her, oh come on, why do you want to stuff something up yourself? Don't you just want to let it flow?" Amanda flung her head back and shouted, "Come on, let it flow! Let it flow!" as Fred's camera clicked and flashed.

Treneka and I wandered around the room looking at Derek's photographs. Most of them were views of the various cities around the world that he'd lived in. But it was hard to tell what anything was because of the cracks and bubbles distorting the surfaces, and the red and orange streaks slashing across the images of buildings, trees and cars.

Derek swept across the room to us and started explaining the complicated chemical process and special acids he used to produce that effect. I knew Treneka didn't understand it any better than I did, but she kept smiling at Derek with obvious admiration, from time to time murmuring,

"Wow, that's really interesting!" so that his conversation really started to flow, and before we knew it he was enthusiastically sharing his cultural and political views.

Everything he talked about seemed way over my head. I couldn't grasp it at all. In addition, his fake accent made it hard to understand anything he said. I stood there feeling intimidated while everyone else nodded wisely, and occasionally someone would say under their breath,

The only thing I understood clearly was that Europe and Asia were the cultural centers of the world, and that Americans were beneath contempt. Listening, I felt ashamed for not being from another country.

Derek added, "And you know, it's true I now live in the Chicago suburbs when not traveling, but you see I have a family now, so...!" He gave an exaggerated Gallic shrug and laughed, and everyone laughed with him. As the group dispersed, Treneka turned to me.

There was suddenly a commotion at the open door leading to the deck. A small, skinny black man with a decrepit beard was pleading with a short, pasty bald man in wire-rimmed glasses. "Come on, man!"

It seemed the bald guy had promised him three dollars to find him a parking spot, and now he was refusing to pay up.

"Hey mother-fucker-- I'm talking to you!" Grabbing his arm and wrenching him around to face him.

They went on like this for quite a while. Their voices escalated until finally they were yelling, shoving each other in the chest with quick aggressive jabs. Half the people in the room were staring openly. The other half were talking to each other in loud, cheerful voices and pretending to look at Derek's photos.

Myan and Amanda joined Treneka and me in a corner where we could watch the action from a safe distance. Baby William was startled out of his complacency and started wailing. His mother enfolded him in the flowing sleeves of her kimono and carried him from the room.

"What the hell is going on in here?" roared Fred, storming into the room like Moses coming down the mountain when he smashed the Ten Commandments over his knee.

They resumed their argument and Fred joined in, so now all three men were shouting and swearing with occasional macho shoves in the chest, like at any moment they might break into a full-fledged brawl.

The attention of everyone in the room was now riveted on the doorway. Derek was bouncing on the balls of his feet. Myan said casually, "I think I'll have more wine."

"Thank you, my brother!" throwing his arms around Fred in a bear-hug and then stuffing the three singles he'd handed him in his dirt-caked back pocket. He stalked out the door to the deck and down the stairs, flashing a quick victorious look over his shoulder at the pale bald man, who was turning pink with agitation.

"Why did you pay him? That was my business and you interfered!" Scowling at Fred through the wire-rim glasses.

"You bring your conflicts into my house, you asshole, and ask why I interfere!" Fred towered over him, his face flaming behind the long gray beard.

"But you don't know what really happened! You're accusing me without hearing my side!" His voice was shrill.

There was a moment of complete silence, then everyone started talking at once. Derek quickly skipped over to the fuming bald man, put an arm around his shoulders, and led him outside to the deck.

At sunset, Derek's wife performed a Japanese tea ceremony. There was a screen with a low table in front of it. The lights were turned out except for a small lamp that threw a rosy glow across her milky skin. Two short candles were lit. Everyone was silent as if in church.

"May I have three volunteers?" Her voice was soft and flute-like. Her smile dimpled at the faces surrounding her.

Myan and Amanda instantly stepped up, hissing, "Come on!" at Treneka and me. We both shook our heads, and a stocky guy with a crew-cut and goatee moved awkwardly forward to join them.

They sat three in a row on a bench while Derek's wife performed the ceremony with slow, deliberate movements. Now stirring, now pouring, now wiping the stirrer carefully with a cloth. Everything she did was graceful. I was mesmerized. I shifted from side to side and stood on tiptoe to see past people's heads.

"Oops, I wasn't supposed to drink it yet? Sorry." The stocky guy lowered his cup, looking embarrassed. Derek's wife smiled at him and bent her glossy black head over the pot of tea. Fred and Derek crept around the room with their cameras, crouching down to capture the ceremony from different angles. White flashes like strobe-lights lit the faces of the silent spectators. Behind us, a liquid orange sun sank behind the buildings on Halsted Street.

We left during Derek's video presentation. It was footage of the different cities he'd lived in, and like his photos, the images were so distorted by wavy lines and deliberate static, you couldn't tell what anything was. Derek's voice was recorded talking over the scenes, but his explanations were obscured by the inscrutable accent.

Myan had also traveled in many countries around the world. As the four of us walked past neon-lit bars and restaurants on our way to get some Thai food, she told us that Fred reminded her of a dirty old man she'd known in Egypt.

"He lived in a hut, and one day when I was helping him spring-clean his hut, I found a stethoscope. I asked, 'What's this for?' and he said, 'For using on pretty young girls!'"

I smiled, but secretly I thought it was unfair to Fred, who'd made us feel welcome and had given that street-guy his money. Around us, cars honked and the Friday-night crowds poured into the neighborhood bars and blues clubs. Above the streaming headlights and buildings, a fragile crescent moon floated in the sky.

At the time I discovered the Burkhart Underground, I was working at a boutique in Lincoln Park called Presence. The store carried trendy women's clothing and was the main source of my social life, including my friends Treneka and Myan.

Three doors down was a Starbucks coffee shop I visited regularly. I would fortify myself for my shifts at work with tall espresso drinks swirled with caramel, brownies, lemon bars or carrot cake heavy with rich frosting and nuts, or dusted with powdered sugar that exploded down the front of your shirt every time you took a bite.

I walked into Starbucks the Monday after Derek's art opening, still reliving the weekend in my mind. I was dazzled and overcome by the ambiance of art and culture that hung in the air at Burkhart's as potently as the haze of incense.

I had of course gone to the coffee house the night before, but by myself this time. At the restaurant on Friday, Myan had fed into Treneka's anxieties about nakedness with more anecdotes about the dirty old man in Egypt, adding spice to our Pad Thai and Tom Yum soup! Afterward Treneka told me she didn't think she'd go back to Burkhart's for a while.

Sunday night's coffee house was a pleasurable blur in my memory, a tapestry of assorted faces and voices overlaid by the faltering sheen of candles and smoke, and the ever-changing beat of the conga drum. A two-person band had performed. One of the musicians called out,

Kam went to the front of the room and played the drum. His hands flew across the surface, patterning an echoing rhythm. His head was bent so his hair fell across his eyes. He never looked up. All evening I hoped he'd notice me, but he never looked my way. I was too shy to approach him or draw attention to myself.

I enjoyed myself anyway, thanks to Fred being a gracious host. He welcomed me like I was an old friend, and came over to chat with me many times throughout the evening. My self-consciousness dissolved, and I felt very much at home. I was grateful to be received into this world of artists, musicians and writers. I drank in the collected creative energies like nectar.

On this Monday afternoon before work, I'd brought my journal with me to Starbucks so I could record some of the weekend's experiences. I carried my frothy drink and pastry to a coffee table surrounded by velvet armchairs. As I sank into the plush upholstery and opened my journal across my lap, I looked around the room with pity for the clean-cut customers in their expensive clothes, reading trendy fiction or frowning over their laptop computers. It was unlikely that any of these people had ever been to Burkhart's, A Genuine Coffee House.

At the window beside me, the light was suddenly blocked by the silhouette of a tall figure on a bicycle. The glass rattled as a fist pounded into it, with a muffled shout of, "Hey, Janet!"

A few seconds later Fred Burkhart himself burst into Starbucks, his beard swinging and his sequined cap twinkling in the sunlight.

"Hey!" He peered at me over glasses with red lenses that glowed like stained-glass. Removing them, he looked down at the journal on my lap. "I don't want to interrupt your writing..."

"Oh, no!" To me his presence was an extension of the weekend, and I was thrilled. I was even more pleased because he was the man behind it all. It was like having an encounter with a celebrity.

He collapsed in the armchair next to mine and propped his Converse hi-tops on the coffee table, instantly adding a bohemian flavor to Starbucks.

"What kind of place is this, anyway? Starbucks? Oh, hell!" He chuckled and folded his arms behind his head.

"It'd be nice if there were more unique places like that you could go to, but it seems like there's only Starbucks and Caribou."

"Wouldn't it be cool if there was a place like that attached to Starbucks? And you could go back and forth from one to the other? So then when I came into Starbucks I'd just put on a suit, tuck in my beard-- and no one would ever recognize me!"

I asked him questions about his photography. He told me how he received his first camera in 1968 from his acid dealer, and over the years making photographs grew into a psychological study of his subjects.

He explained that his goal as a photographer was to strip away the false layers people hide behind, and expose the true inner essence of each individual.

I nibbled on my brownie while he gave me examples of what he could learn about people during a photo-shoot. One time a married couple posed sitting at opposite ends of a bench. They were surprised when he asked them to sit close together with their arms around each other.

"They really believed they were happy together, but I could tell just by how they positioned themselves physically, that the marriage would never last. A year later I ran into the guy, and he said they'd just gotten a divorce!"

Fred was anxious not to impose on my time or make me late for work. "When it's time for you to go, make sure you tell me. Don't let me keep talking and make you late."

I finally looked at my watch and said, "Yeah, I have to go." As I carried my empty cup and plate to the garbage I added, "I'm working with Myan tonight."

He got on his bike, and I watched him wobble at a diagonal through the rush-hour traffic, and then with a wave over his shoulder, he picked up speed and went streaking northward toward Diversey in the late afternoon sunlight.