The employee locker room at the East River Club featured an overwhelming array of hygiene products including aftershave, two kinds of moisturizer, soaps, hair gels, deodorant, tonics, sprays, and colognes. All of these products, including the mouthwash, were a shade of faded green that reminded me of a wrinkled dollar bill that had been put through the wash. The products were manufactured by a company named “Clubman.” The Clubman label featured the silhouette of a dandy wearing a top hat and tails and leaning on a cane in a leisurely fashion. The implication was clear: If you used Clubman, no matter your station in life, you, fine sir, were one refined motherfucker.

A sign was posted on the locker room mirror that read, “These products are provided for every employee’s enjoyment. We encourage you to use them liberally. -Management.” This was a diplomatic way of saying the following: “Dear Savages: Since many of you hail from cultures that for some unknown reason frown upon the routine use of soap and water, do us a favor and douse yourselves with ample amounts of these cheap chemicals. We appreciate it!!!!”

The East River Club was not fooling around when it came to body odor. Mr. Galanti was always pulling kitchen and floor staff aside to have private discussions about hygiene. Each discussion earned you one checkmark in Mr. Galanti’s notebook. Three discussions about body odor and you were told to clean out your locker, something which you probably wouldn’t do very well since you had such a difficult time cleaning yourself.

Several of us got carried away. A busboy named Lino, who already had one checkmark against him, stripped to his boxer shorts in the locker room before each shift. Instead of taking a proper shower, Lino would spend no less than 10 minutes meticulously coating his bare arms and legs with Clubman aftershave. He wore a grim expression on his face as he worked. Lino was not a “boy” at all, as his job title implied, but a man in his mid 50’s. He spoke broken English and lived on the South Side with his wife and six children, including a son who was nearly my age. Lino had a tattoo of a blurry rooster on his upper thigh, which was something I very much wished I didn’t know about Lino.

My habit was to begin each shift by rubbing a dime sized shake of Clubman aftershave vigorously between my palms, then gently patting the stuff onto my face and neck. It burned when it hit the skin, but it cleared the mind, especially if I was trying to stave off a hangover. The aftershave somehow always made me feel clean and reborn and above reproach. I smelled the way I imagined my grandfather smelled in his faded World War II portrait, wearing in his sharp Army uniform, his freshly shaved head as bald as a newborn baby’s.

After only my first initial shifts at the Club, the Clubman scent began wending its way into everything I owned. The hood on the windbreaker that I wore to work each day smelled of Clubman. The backs of my hands stank of Clubman. My bed sheets were lousy with it. Even food tasted of it. No matter what I ate in the employee cafeteria—lasagna, or the chimichanga, or the tomato soup—it always left a dull, vaguely electric aftertaste in my mouth which I recognized as Clubman. But the final outrage was this: when I kissed a girl who was a Club employee, which I soon would do, her warm, open mouth would taste distinctly of Clubman.

I left the Club one afternoon after my lunch shift and was surprised by a fast-moving Midwestern rain shower. Storms like this came up on you quickly in Chicago, much more quickly than they did in the East. I started to run, looking for shelter. Finding none, I decided to give myself over to the storm. I walked along the sidewalk, splashing through the puddles, my hair hanging in front of my eyes. Rain drummed the top of my head. I received a comical dousing. After the shower passed, the sun broke free from the clouds, causing a low-hanging mist to rise up from the asphalt. I felt my sinuses open in an entirely unexpected way. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs, taking in the smell of exhaust from the busses on North LaSalle, which was almost sweet; I smelled the rotting garbage in the alleyways. Somehow the cold rain had rinsed the stubborn Clubman cloud from my form. I was Clubman-free for the first time in months.

Though I would work there for another six months, I understood in that moment that my days at the East River Club were numbered. I’d proved to myself that I could find gainful employment in this city. I’d found a place that was willing to take me in, to give me a chance. I’d turned myself into a passable fine-dining waiter. I’d navigated the East River Club. I’d basically done all that I could do there. I needed a new challenge.

And I’d soon find one.