Bill did not pop the acid he’d brought with him and he spent the remainder of the day careful with what he drank.
He helped Mary on her station again when he and Henry Lee came up from cutting meat. First he checked the convection oven and then he took out the baked potatoes. He put the potatoes into a steam table insert, covered the insert with aluminum foil and set it in its place. Next, he poured the vegetables into a cylindrical insert and set that into the steam table. He did the Bordelaise sauce after that and then he took the round from the oven. Mary helped him with it by taking one end of the roasting pan.
By 11:30, when Suburban opened for business, the entire line was set up and everything double-checked. Fried fish, fried shrimp, French-fries and onion rings were all in abundant supply. All the steaks were in the reach-in, enough for the busiest of lunches. Mr. Jim was out again, so Bill and Henry Lee were flying solo.
Bill had brought up a joint. After triple-checking the items he was responsible for, seeing the line was ready and Mary’s prep work was done, he told Mary to come with him and they went out the back door and around behind the building. Bill lit the joint and passed it to Mary. Mary smoked by herself for awhile then passed it back. Bill did a puff-puff-pass and left it with her. He walked off a few feet, stood facing away from Mary, unbuttoned his fly and peed. When he was done, he returned and finished up by smoking the roach.
“You through with your mood?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe yes or maybe no?”
“Maybe. Maybe maybe.”
“Give me a kiss.”
“Why?”
“Cause I want it.”
“What about what I want?”
“Tell me what it is and you got it.”
“Be careful there.”
“Give me a kiss,” Bill demanded.
Mary stepped close to him and kissed him, softly at first and then passionately. They kissed a long moment until Mary stopped it by saying they needed to get back. But when they returned to the kitchen, no orders had come in yet so they sat in the hall. Bea and Henry Lee were already there, Bea on her lettuce cases, Henry Lee standing and smoking a cigarette.
“You owe me,” Mary whispered in Bill’s ear. “And I’m collecting.”
Bill smiled. He listened, went into the kitchen and asked one of the waitresses to bring him a big soda. The waitress, one Bill was not particularly friendly with, told him to get it himself. Bill smiled at her and walked close.
“Get your ass out there and get me the soda. Get one for Mary too.”
“I told you, get it yourself.”
“I go out there, this is your last shift.”
“Bull.”
“Okay,” Bill said. “Bull? You better start cleaning out your locker.”
The waitress looked at Bill. She didn’t seem sure whether to believe him or not. But Tommy came in the kitchen as Bill started for the door. Bill went straight to Tommy and told him the kitchen wasn’t serving her any of her orders after this shift.
Tommy called her over and asked her what it was about. When she told him, Tommy shook his head in disbelief. “You’ll give up your job because you don’t want to get sodas for the kitchen?”
Coming This Month:
The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide
