The Watchmaker

The watchmaker's shop is tucked away in a six story building on Wabash, nestled among the old and new architecture of Jeweler's Row. A worker is hosing down the sidewalk, and the water steams, streaming across patches of noonday sun that filter through the rumbling steel network of the L above. In a lobby that hasn't enjoyed the attentions of an interior designer since the seventies, I find a security guard with sartorial taste to match the decor. He asks my destination, then tips his trilby in the direction of the elevators. 

"Fourth floor. Out to the left when you exit the elevator. End of the hall."

The shop is smaller than my studio apartment, but the front room manages to hold a deep burgundy leather sofa, a cluttered desk with a pair of chairs for customers, and an elevated work station covered with the spilled guts of various timepieces. As I walk up, the watchmaker is emerging from an inner room. He sees me smiling through the glass door, which I am unsure about opening without some kind of invitation. Pandemics change all the rules.

He pushes the door open, nodding toward the large white plastic doorbell mounted in plain sight. "There's a doorbell, you know."

"Yeah," I say dumbly, smiling harder. "Sorry."

We take up our positions across the desk from one another, and I hold out my wrist to show him the minimalist Danish watch I only just started wearing this year. Simple, featureless, with a plain white analog face and an embedded second hand dial. The band is a smooth black leather, thin but not daintily so.

"The thing came off. The little holder band."

He tilts his head back to peer through the lower half of his glasses, and I wonder how someone doomed to progressive lenses manages to perform such finely detailed work. 

"The keeper." He nods. 

"Is that what it's called? Yes. That. I lost my keeper." I glance at his face to gauge his sense of humor. Craftsmen fascinate me. Cobblers. Woodworkers. Tailors. Men who've devoted their lives, minds, and hands to the fixing, mending and rescuing of things we'd otherwise have to abandon. I find any excuse to bring them my broken, torn, overpriced material treasures. To befriend them and patronize their cozy, antiquated shops. To flirt and charm and invite their gentle mockery for overspending on cheaply made things. To be in the presence of patient, dedicated experts.

I can't see his expression, however. So instead I take in his Hawaiian print shirt, floppy blond surfer's hair, and tanned forearms. The framed certificates lining the wall above the sofa attest to an advanced education in horology, and I don't doubt him for a minute. But Chicago's foremost authority on Swiss watch repair looks for all the world like he just stepped off a Caribbean cruise ship.

"It's the floating keeper," he continues. "I'm pretty sure I have some extras around here somewhere..." While he rummages in a drawer I absorb the surround sound of gentle ticking that seems to come from every corner of the office. I scan the desk for the closest source and realize what I'm hearing aren't watches at all. Two plastic kinetic dancing toys - a hula dancer and a flying pig - wiggle underneath the green umbrella of a banker's lamp, softly clicking as they waggle and wave. The watchmaker empties a plastic freezer bag full of broken watch bands onto the desktop.

"Wow," I say. "It's like harvesting organs." This wins me a toothy, yellow grin. The assortment looks promising at first; I see plenty of black among the mix of colors. But as he picks through the lot, he rejects one after another for being the wrong size. Mine is apparently the Goldilocks of the watch world. This keeper is too big. This keeper is too small. Eventually, he finds a keeper that is just right...sort of. It's black, and the perfect width. But it's crocodile skin. 

I balk. The watchmaker waits. 

"What's the alternative? A totally new band?" He nods. That's exactly the alternative.

"Okay," I say slowly. "Let's do it. But if my OCD gets to be too much and I hate it, how much for a new band?"

"I have bands exactly like yours for, oh, twenty-five bucks?"

He takes my watch and the detached limb of the transplant watch and turns to his work station, switching on the lighted ring of the jeweler's lamp. Finally, I think, excited to see him in action. But a moment later, the jangling of the door opening behind me pulls my attention away. An older couple tentatively steps in, taking seats on the sofa at the watchmaker's direction. When I turn back, he hands over my repaired watch. The deed is already done. It took him less than ten seconds.

"Amazing," I say. "How much?" But he just shakes his head, signaling with a dismissive wave of his hand that he's not going to charge me.

"Oh no, please let me pay you for your time..." I look around his desk for some kind of credit card reader, but there's only a small calculator and an invoice form pad. "Then can I at least buy you a cup of coffee?" I feel uncomfortable that the couple behind me is overhearing this generosity. I'm afraid, somehow, that they'll use it against him when it comes time to settle their own bill.

But he just holds up his hands, feigning palsy, finally sending back a joke of his own. "Too much caffeine. Can't have a watchmaker with the jitters, you know." He winks.

I pull a business card from the holder on his desk and brandish it meaningfully. "Yelp review," I promise. "If that sort of thing helps you?"

"It does help," he replies. The couple who've been waiting are already moving into the chairs I've just vacated. 

The security guard hails me on my way out. "Find it okay?" I triumphantly hold up my wrist in response. 

Back on the muggy sidewalk, I step into the sun to examine the tiny loop of embossed leather I've just been gifted. It's terribly ugly, and though it does fit the band, it's noticeably larger than its sister half an inch away. But it's okay. In fact, it's a good lesson in embracing imperfection, in detaching from expectation and desire. I'm going to keep my orphan, mismatched, crocodile skin floating keeper until it falls off. And when it does, I know where to go for a new band.