Bill could do the job. Not even three weeks later, he was proficient in handling the broiler and on his fourth Friday and Saturday night he handled the heavy weekend dinner rushes without any assistance. Alvin was sent over from the west, but he didn’t have to step in at all. He spent his evening shifts playing around with Henry Lee and getting drunk.
On Saturday, Mr. Bowman, the owner, came to eat along with his wife and kids. They came in the midst of the rush and gave strict orders that the kitchen not know he was there. Even Eleanor didn’t tell Bill. No one would ever cross the owner.
Since Bill did not know he was there, he didn’t know what the owner was eating or which order was his. But he would find out later from Mr. Bowman himself, and he would learn that it was a complicated order meant to trip up even the best broiler cooks in a dinner rush.
First, it came in in the height of the rush. Second, it was a four-top. Third it was meant to be difficult to bring up together: a King medium-well, a Top rare, a New York Strip medium-rare and a Boston medium-well. The thickest steak was toward the well done side and the thinnest was rare and everything had to come up together. The two strip steaks, also not thin ones, were tricky in and of themselves because the meats had different feels to them. That’s what was hardest to learn, the feel of how a steak was cooked by touching it with the tip of the tongs.
Lillian had called the order amidst a whole lot of steak orders and Bill was running a full grill. Alvin and Henry Lee stood in the hall at the doorway. Jimmy was doing the middle, fried fish, fried shrimp, French-fries, and he was finishing the plates with their sides, the potatoes and vegetables. Alvin and Henry Lee were goofing on Bill. Bill gave it back when he could. They were goofing on Lillian who kept ordering and didn’t pick up even when Bill told her he had to. So the kitchen dance went on, Alvin and Henry Lee just messing around until some orders for prime rib came in. Then Alvin stepped between Bill and Jimmy and cut the rib.
Overall, when all was done, they had run well, never falling behind and most orders coming up on time. When the broiler was mostly empty and Lillian had stepped out of the kitchen, Alvin and Henry Lee slapped Bill five.
“Goddamn,” Alvin said. “We got us a new broiler cook.”
“Good job, man,” Henry Lee said.
Bill lit a cigarette and went out in the hall to smoke it. Alvin and Henry Lee cut out, went downstairs and were going to head home. Lillian came back in the kitchen and put in her dinner order. That’s when she told Bill Mr. Bowman was there—she had found out when she had stepped out into the dining room.
About eleven, the waitresses came in ordering their dinners. Bill and Jimmy knocked out their orders quickly and then they took a break. A few late orders straggled in and Bill was on the line alone when Mr. Bowman came into the kitchen. He came around and onto the line where he stepped up to Bill.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I hear you did your first full weekend by yourself. I’m told you did a really good job.”
“Thank you,” Bill said.
“Robert told me you’d be great. Mary tells me you’re learning really fast. We have good plans for you. I had the King, two strips and the Top rare. Everything was just right.”
Bill smiled and thanked him again. He remembered the order.
“Well, I just stepped in to tell you you’re getting a raise. You’ll see it in your next paycheck. Keep up the good work.” Mr. Bowman reached out and shook Bill’s hand. “See you when I see you,” he said.
Bill watched Mr. Bowman head back out to the dining room. A moment later, the barmaid, Bebe, came in. She handed Bill a beer and put in her dinner order. She was the only one allowed to eat steak except for the managers and Lillian.
Just before closing, when all was finished, Eleanor came in to the kitchen and asked Bill if he wanted anything from the bar. Bill told her he wanted another beer, and he was sitting in the hall when she came back with it. She sipped from the bottle, rolled her tongue on it suggestively before handing it to Bill. Bill reached up her skirt and copped a good feel of her. She blew him a kiss and said “Tuesday, baby.”
Bill finished work and rode the Suburban van downtown where he caught the bus for home.
The walk-in in the meat room and the deep freeze next to it would each bear permanent memories for Bill, as would the staff bathrooms downstairs, the store room and the party room. Eleanor would not be the only waitress, and waitresses would not be the only females. Bill would have fun with the kitchen help too, not all of them, but a few. Bill learned that fooling around was a way of life at Suburban, even a form of stress relief. But more, he learned that it was a power game used by managers, cooks, waitresses and wives. Thus, it was a stress creator, not a stress reliever.
Some eight months later Bill would watch Alfreda walk into the kitchen one evening, take a boning knife from the knife sheath attached to the end of the counter on the line, walk over to Marie, the night pantry girl, and start cutting away at her hair. “Sleep with my husband? I don’t think so.”
Cut, cut, cut. Marie was paralyzed, traumatized. Hair flew everywhere. Bill flipped the steaks cooking on the broiler, watched the scene. Jimmy, the other night cook, smoked a cigarette and stood by the reach-in box nearby. Henry Lee came up from the meat room. He looked tired and worn. He was dragging his artificial leg, a sure sign he was beat. Usually you could never tell he had a fake leg.
He walked past Bill through the line and over to Alfreda who was still cutting away.
“Give me the knife babe,” he said. He reached over her from behind and wrestled it from her. Then he gently pulled her back and away from Marie. “Come on,” he told her. “We’ll go home.” He led her through the line, handed Bill the knife and they were gone.
Bea came back to work about forty-five minutes later. Marie had left immediately after Henry Lee and Alfreda. She’d just gotten her things and cut out, never to be seen there again. Bea took up the work and closed up.
Eleanor’s time was limited too. The walls had eyes and ears all over both Suburbans. Mary knew the next morning that Bill and Eleanor had been together in the meat room walk-in. Bea knew it too. For Bill, it made him a player. Bea was calculating what she could get with the information she had. She didn’t actually know yet what she might want or need or what she actually had, but she knew she had a hand up.
Bea and Mary handled it differently. Mary took Bill aside and gave him a talking to.
“Look,” she said, “ain’t really my business, but everyone knows everything that goes on here. So we know you were with Eleanor in the walk-in. Mind your business.”
“Nothing happened,” Bill said.
“Don’t matter,” Mary said. “I’m just giving you fair warning.”
“Thanks,” Bill said.
Bea, on the other hand, chided Bill. “I see that burned hand don’t stop you from feeling up waitresses,” she said. “Let me know when you want to feel this.” She gestured to her privates. “Meanwhile, remember I’m in charge.”
Bill didn’t say anything. When he saw Eleanor that night, he warned her by relating what Bea and Mary said. Eleanor told Bill that Tommy had already spoken to her. He didn’t tell her she couldn’t do what she wanted. He told her she couldn’t do it at work.
“I got a nice car with a big back seat,” she said. “And then I can drive you home.”
Robert didn’t care about Bill and Eleanor. “What’s good to you is good for you,” he said.
Henry Lee gave Bill a big high five. “Hit it with as many as you can,” he said. “They ain’t gonna do nothing to you.” He laughed and patted Bill on the back. “Just make sure you can do your job.”
Actually, what Robert had done when he put Bill’s hand back over the fire was pretty much kill the nerves in those fingertips. Bill lost nearly all feeling in them for many years. That ended up being both a good and bad thing.
Within two weeks, Bill had mostly mastered the broiler cook’s job. He was fairly accurate at gauging how the steaks were cooked and was getting faster at handling orders. He could do the rushes on most weeknights but he still needed help on the weekends.
Henry Lee was teaching Bill to cut meat. Bill worked with Mary from six to nine then went down in the meat room with Henry Lee. He had learned the easy stuff, how to trim a top butt and take the first two cuts from it for the Boston Strips then split the butt and cut the tops, triangular steaks, in two sizes. The bigger size was called a Super. He could also trim a strip loin and get thirteen NY strip steaks from it. His cuts weren’t always perfect yet and sometimes he left too much meat for hamburger, but day by day he was getting better and better and he continually practiced.
He saw Eleanor again on his second day as a cook, that Tuesday. She had been off on Monday. She worked the dinner shift and was positively elated to see him. She’d told everyone the soup story, about his defending her and the subsequent issue with Drenovis resulting in Robert protecting him. She did omit the kiss part, she told Bill, the part, she said, about her being sweet on him.
“I am, you know, sweet on you.”
“I’m living with someone,” Bill said.
They were standing in the side dining room where the staff ate after lunch was over and when it was empty late at night. It was just before the start of dinner. Mary, Henry Lee and Bea were getting close to going home. Alvin had come over to do the dinner with Bill and Grandma was already in. Grandma made the fried chicken and replenished the line at night.
“I’m living with someone too. So what?”
“Well…?”
“A little fun at work never hurt anyone.”
Bill didn’t say anything. He was twenty. He was male. What was to say? But he wondered and finally asked Eleanor how she would feel if her boyfriend fooled around. Eleanor shrugged it off. Then she repeated something she’d heard Robert say. “If it’s good to you it’s good for you,” she said. “Robert says it all the time.”
“You wouldn’t be jealous or upset?”
“You only live once, sweetie. Whatever experience I gain from you will benefit him. Same for you and yours.”
“That’s a novel way of looking at it,” Bill said.
“Anyway, we’ll have plenty of time to do whatever we do or don’t do,” Eleanor said. She pinched Bill’s butt as she left him for the main dining room floor.
Later that night, after they’d stopped taking dinner orders, Eleanor was waiting for Bill downstairs. Apparently, she’d been watching for him to go down and then gone down herself using the customer stairway. Bill was putting things away for the night and bringing up things he needed for cleaning. Alvin had already gone home. Bill was finishing up and waiting for the van to take him downtown. He was in the walk-in box in the meat room. She opened the door and went in with him.
“No Drenovis tonight,” she said. She stepped up to him and kissed him hard and long. “When he’s here, ain’t none of this for us. But he does waitresses all the time in the storeroom. That’s where I’m doing you first.”
“Oh really.”
“Do say.” She kissed Bill again while she took his hand in hers and led it under her uniform dress and between her legs. She continued kissing him as she helped him find precisely what she wanted him to touch. Then she closed her eyes and helped him touch her.
“Call it my welcoming you aboard,” Eleanor said. “Call it my formal hello.”
Bill had no words for it. He couldn’t decide if Eleanor would make it easier or harder to come to work. He only knew that that walk-in now held memories permanently etched into his mind.
About the same time Bill was reaching for the sizzling platter, the screen door out in the hall slapped shut. Robert shuffled in and headed down the stairs. He wasn’t down there even a minute before Mary, who had seen him come in, called for him.
Henry Lee had started to yell “No,” but before he got the word out Bill had already left the skin from the five fingertips of his right hand on that sizzler . Bill was in shock. Henry Lee could see Bill swoon and almost fall. He quickly dropped the rag into the fryer and took hold of Bill before he could actually go down.
“Uh, Mary,” Henry Lee said, “you better come over here.”
Mary came around her stoves and the broiler and onto the line. “Aw, shit,” she said. “Lord have mercy.” She called out for Robert who, a moment later, in his usual style, shuffled onto the line. He surveyed the scene. Henry Lee was holding Bill. Mary held his hand, burned fingertips up. Alvin sat over by Bea, on her stool, having divorced himself from the whole thing. He was reading Bea’s newspaper.
Robert didn’t say a word. He took hold of Bill’s wrist and forced that hand over the open fire of the charcoal grill. He held it there momentarily, cauterizing the burns. “Be mindful what you’re touching, boy,” he said.
Henry Lee took up his tongs, took up a sizzler, retrieved the grease-soaked rag from the fryer. Bill, still dazed, watched as he slid the rag over grills of the broiler. Smoke steamed up. He slid a half dozen bleus and a dozen burgers on the broiler. They hissed and steamed and spit. A moment later he flipped the burgers and rolled the bleus. Another moment later he took off the burgers and set them in a steam table insert with au jus. Then he rolled the bleus again. He took off all but one, let that one cook all the way through. Alvin dropped some fries and when they were done, they plated the bleu with the fries. Henry Lee tapped the bell. The waitress came in for her order.
At noon Tommy came in. He called the orders for the lunches. Lunches were fast and furious, bang, bang, bang and then it was over. Big hitters on the menu were fresh carved roast beef au jus and top sirloin steaks. They sold a boatload of hamburgers too and about a dozen bleus, which were oval shaped hamburgers stuffed with bleu cheese. Bill did not like to make them, let alone eat them.
After lunch, the cooks ate at a table in the side dining room. Amazingly, the pain in Bill’s burned fingers had gone away. He sat with Mary and Robert, Robert talking with Mary about the plans for Bill and the issue with Drenovis. He told Mary to teach Bill everything she could.
“Why’d you put my hand over the fire?” Bill asked.
“So you wouldn’t be afraid of it,” Robert said.
“Lord have mercy,” Mary said.
“You learn everything you can, fast as you can.” Robert smiled. “What’s good to you is good for you,” he said. “Mary take care of you mostly from here on in. I got to be back out west. Remember, be mindful what you touch.”
“Everything’s hot and most things slide,” Mary said. She laughed. She got up from the table. Robert got up too. He said bye and left. The cooks went back to work. Bill followed Mary, checking her out as she walked. “Quit looking at my ass,” Mary said without looking back.
All was right with the world, but that didn’t make everything perfect or even right.
Alvin went down to be with Henry Lee and when they came back up at eleven-thirty they were both near drunk. Bea had spent some time informing Bill that she was the boss. She had the keys to all things including the linens and she made it clear that she ran the show, meaning the dishwashers and the kitchen help. Of course Henry Lee and Alvin scoffed at this, laughing at her but not challenging her unless her orders were specifically aimed at them. Then they told her to kiss various parts of their anatomy, not just their butts. Mary, whose only female camaraderie in the kitchen was Bea, steered clear of all the BS, but when Alvin grabbed her and started to cop some feels, she smacked him upside his head. “Go back out west, asshole,” she said. Alvin laughed at her and told her she needed to get some. Henry Lee told Alvin she didn’t need his ugly black ass and they both laughed.
Stricter decorum took over when a waitress brought in the first order. The three dishwashers were in place now and Mary was back on her station in the prep area of the kitchen. The prep area was directly behind the line. The line equipment and the prep stoves and convection ovens were back to back and what separated them. This way the exhaust fans in the hoods overhead served them both. Mary could not really see through everywhere, but she could see some.
Mostly the line cooks were looking toward the waitresses and the serving shelves with the warmer lights. Bea’s pantry station was to the left of the line and even with it. She worked facing the line, her serving shelf set in front of her so the waitresses could move along, pick up salads and hot foods without having to go around anything. It was an L. Next to Bea as she faced the line was her reach-in box where she stored salads ahead, dressings and desserts.
Opposite Bea, on the other side of the kitchen and just before the door to the hall that led to the back door one way and down to the meat room the other way, was the dish machine and pot washing sink. Three men stood there now. They were all smoking cigarettes even though no one was supposed to smoke in the kitchen. At the very end of the line, attached to the stainless steel counter was the knife sheath. In it were two chef’s knives, a carving knife, and three boning knives, each a different length.
The first order was a single bleu with French fries. Bill watched as Henry Lee used his tongs to pick up a clean kitchen rag. He walked over to the fryers and dipped the rag in one of the two of them. Realizing he had nothing to catch the dripping grease on, he asked Bill to hand him one of the sizzling platters stacked up on the charcoal grill. He did not consider that Bill was a new cook, a novice, and that Bill would take that request literally. He didn’t mean Bill to reach for it. He meant Bill to take up a tongs to reach for it, or maybe a kitchen fork and use the prongs to hook it so Henry Lee could drop the grease-soaked rag on it and take it from him with his tongs. That’s what Alvin, a seasoned veteran cook would have done.
But not Bill. It was his first day as a cook. He was trying to please. He was trying to do good. He was trying to get by. He reached for the sizzler with his bare hand never even thinking it would be red-hot.
