Lorraine brought in the first order while Tommy was still in the kitchen. She handed the dupe to Bill. He slid it between the clips so it hung on the board then slid it all the way to the right so it was in the first place. He didn’t call out anything. Jimmy walked over to read it, saw it was for three steaks. Two had fries, so he walked over and put two orders of fries in one fryer basket. He didn’t drop the basket until he knew Bill was about ready with the steaks. Tommy checked out the dishwashers, finished his coffee, left the mug at the dish machine and went back out into the dining room.
When they came up from downstairs, Mary and Bea came back into the kitchen. Mary had put on lipstick, a pinkish color. She had put on blush too. She wore a dress and she hadn’t buttoned her coat yet. She went right to the back where Grandma was and did what she always did just before she went home, which was check out everything back there.
Bea walked through the line to Marie, made sure Marie had everything she needed. She did a last-minute look through the station then headed back toward where Bill was now plating the three steaks which were the first dinner order.
“You have a good night baby,” she said. “Tell Mary I’m out warming up my car.”
Bill nodded and said good night as he worked. He put the baked potato on the one steak it went with and when all three plates were up under the warmer lights, he tapped the bell once.
After the bell tap, Lexi came in quickly. “I’m running,” she said.
Bill acknowledged what she said and noticed as she walked out the door to the dining room that she still wore the dark hose but had put on bobby socks and working shoes.
Mary stopped by the broiler on her way out and took Bill into the hall with her. “Couple of things I need for tomorrow. Tomorrow’s your last day, right?”
“Till the twenty-seventh.”
“Okay.”
“I need meat for meat loaf for tomorrow’s lunch. See what you got left over tonight and break down any old hamburgers for it. We’ll need to make brown gravy, and I want to start defrosting the turkeys for Christmas day so take out five of them tonight.”
“What else you need? I’m gonna work straight through tomorrow so I’ll help get you as much ahead as we can. I don’t think Alvin’s gonna be too helpful, and Mr. Jim only works limited hours.”
“I’ll let you know in the morning.”
“Okay. I’m getting us The Upper Room for the twenty-eighth. Plan accordingly.”
“Why don’t you take one of your bimbos?”
“Please. I don’t need an argument. You know how I feel.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yeah. We will.” Bill drew Mary with him toward the back door. When they were out of the kitchen’s sight line, he drew her to him and kissed her softly, a completely different kind of kiss than with Lexi or Lorraine or Marie.
Mary kissed back, also different from the kisses Bill got from the others. “Goddamn you,” she said.
“Thank God for you,” he said. He smiled at her. “If you think of anything else I need to do tonight, call in to Tommy.”
“I will.” Mary kissed Bill one more time and as she did so she ran her hand softly along his cheek. “Goddamn you,” she said again.
Bill took her in both hands by her coat collar before she went out the door. He gave her a closed-mouth kiss, rubbed his cheek on hers then drew her coat closed and buttoned several of the buttons. “Keep it warm for me.”
“Have a good night and be safe,” Mary said.
Bill watched her walk to Bea’s car before he went back into work.
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Are you a payer or a payee? Or are you both?
As the tax bill looms in conference and is being formulated into one bill to be sent to the president, we hear a lot of information about the bill. Most of what we hear from the left side is scare tactics and divisive rhetoric, about how us regular people will pay more in taxes and the rich will get big tax breaks, about how it will increase the gap between the rich and the poor, about how it will decimate Medicare and Medicaid, and on and on. Nancy Pelosi called it Armageddon, as if she, with her more than 115 million dollar net worth has any understanding of what such Armageddon would be.
Most of what we hear from the right side is about how it will stimulate fiscal growth and corporate growth, put people back to work again, put more money in the pockets of us regular people who have been paying taxes, repatriate a lot of cash that is overseas which will in turn help corporations to invest in themselves and grow, thus employing more people, not touch Medicare or Medicaid, and on and on.
Somewhere in between the left side’s rhetoric and the right side’s selling points is something getting toward truth.
Remember balance? The first rule of real research aimed at truth is balance, an honest look for and appraisal of the bonafide research about the issue.
So which shoes do you wear and what do you want to believe?
If you are a payee, and have mostly been a payee, and if you have no real incentive to be anything other than a payee, you can choose to believe the left’s point of view and sit on your sofa and feel angry about those who will maybe pay less and are richer than you while those others go out to work to pay for your benefits. And you can choose to believe the left’s divisive talk about how the rich get richer, which is actually true, while they neglect to tell you that the rich actually work for their riches and employ most of us regular people who make regular wages, which is also true.
If you are a payer, a tax payer, someone who’s been wondering for a long time how come the government takes a good chunk of your modest income and then the state and city governments come along and take another good chunk of your modest income, you might tend to believe what the right’s selling points are trying to show you, that you might have to pay a little less, which, since you are paying for everything for everyone who is a payee, doesn’t seem like a bad thing at all.
So there are some facts out there, that are really facts that give some indication as to what’s actually going on here and what is political BS. who pays taxes latest Federal tax data
The top one percent (1%) of Americans pay forty-three percent (43%) of the Federal taxes. Forty-five percent (45%)of the people pay no federal taxes at all. Those of us at different levels in between pay the rest. The two links show slightly different percentages and so you can see what’s close to real.
Once again, you can cut and paste onto your Facebook page the misleading headline bullet-list points of either side, left or right, and thus be part of the left’s divisive, fear-mongering rhetoric or part of the right’s economic selling points, true or not.
But if you’re one of the ones who pay nothing, receive everything and have no skin in the game, it seems like you should really stay pretty quiet. And if you are one of ones who are giving a chunk of your pension and Social Security to the government to pay for those who pay nothing, then it seems like you really ought to find out what is real and accurate and support that.
Which shoes do you wear?
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
“Don’t you be sorry for me.” Angry as she was, Marie looked at Bill, stuck her tongue out at him, then she freed her hand and gave him the notorious middle finger.
Bill laughed. He wanted to smoke another joint, so he stood up. He was going to ask her if she wanted to take the edge off, but just before he spoke, he saw Jim, the dishwasher who’d been causing him concern but who had been relatively quiet lately, step up to the end of the line by the knife sheath. Jim took it upon himself to lean over the sheath and linger there.
Bill moved to his left a bit to get a better angle so he could see if Jim’s hands went to touch a knife. But he heard Paul say something and understood that a rack of dishes had come out of the machine and needed to be emptied. Jim straightened himself up and disappeared out of sight from the doorway.
“I’m smoking a joint,” Bill said to Marie.
“I want a drink.”
“Henry Lee’s down there.”
“Forget it then.”
Bill shrugged his shoulders and went on out the door. He hadn’t even had two full tokes when Marie joined him. “Maybe it make me feel better,” she said.
“I already had some. You smoke what you want.”
Bill left Marie and stood where he could see the doorway and her. He kept an eye out. As he was standing there, he saw Lexi park her car and when she got out head toward where he stood. She was wearing a coat so he couldn’t see her clothes, but he could see she wore dark hose and high heels.
“Goddamn cold,” she said.
“You just need someone to keep you warm.”
“And who might that be?” She kissed Bill, much more than a hello kiss.
“I’m sure you have options,” Bill said after the kiss.
“I’m sure I do.” Lexi smiled and walked inside.
Bill stood waiting for Marie who came to where he was when she was done smoking.
“Feel better?”
“No. But I’m horny now.” She looked closely at Bill’s face, saw that he had lipstick on his lips. “You got lipstick on you.”
Before he could do anything, she moved in toward him and licked his lips where the lipstick was. She took a good, long lick on his lips, then she wiped it with her hand. Then she reached down and felt him up.
“That’s where it should be,” she said. “That’s where it could be.”
“We need to get inside.”
“No we don’t. Only reason we need to get inside is cause it’s cold out here. Who put that lipstick there?”
“Lexi kissed me hello.”
“Hello,” Marie said. She reached in again and kissed Bill a long, deep kiss. She laughed and pointed to the mistletoe on the doorway. Then, “I ain’t apologizing to Henry Lee.”
“My name is Been It and I ain’t in it,” said Bill. He started for inside, Marie following him and goosing him every step of the way until they reached the doorway to the kitchen. When Bill turned at the doorway, he noted Jim was back at the knife sheath. He didn’t say anything but stepped past Jim, Marie doing the same and walking through the line over to the pantry station.
Jimmy was up on the line now. Bea and Mary, seeing Bill and Marie come back inside, started for the doorway to go down to change clothes. Mary stopped by Bill. “We’ll talk when I come up,” she said.
Tommy came in the kitchen a moment after Bea and Mary went down the stairs. He walked through Marie’s station, checked on everything in the walk-ins, drew himself a cup of coffee. Carrying the coffee he walked through the line and asked Jimmy and Bill if they were all set. They both nodded and let Tommy pass through, checking what he wanted to check but knowing he didn’t have to check anything.
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Peter Weiss author page
How you look at things really depends upon which shoes you wear. We all think we know everything, and yet we actually know very little. Even those of us who have many years of advanced education know very little, and if our advanced education was any good (because nowadays the “goodness” of the education being presented is really in question), the first thing it should have taught us is that even when we’re experts we actually know very little of what there is to know.
My Doctoral adviser told me, when I first started my Doctoral studies, that none of the professors wanted to know my opinion about anything until I had the letters after my name. What he was saying, and he did articulate this directly, was that the word I should be absent in my papers, that the professors were only interested in valid research to support any thesis presented. He was careful to assert the necessity for balance at the same time. When one looks at an issue, one must look at all the research, not just one strain. When one ignores the opposing point of view and its valid research, the balance scale is tipped and the end result is often skewed if not visibly ridiculous.
So what my Doctoral Adviser was actually saying was that there are rules to research that must be followed and that when the rules are not followed the research and findings are generally not valid.
A good example of this is the climate change issue in America. When all the research is funded by the agency (the US Government) and the researchers’ funding is dependent upon findings which support the best interests of the agency’s position (in the Obama administration it was that climate change was our biggest problem and concern), there’s a good bet that all the research is going to reflect the agency’s position. Compound this with the Attorney General and many State Attorneys General literally prosecuting researchers whose findings contradicted the government’s position—yes for those of us with short memories, which our government officials count on us having, that is what happened—it becomes a really safe bet that the research, its findings and premises then being sold to us by people with political agendas is very skewed and imbalanced.
This does not mean to say that none of the research is valid or that climate change is not an issue. It is only to attest to the notion that research needs to be balanced to actually aim toward discovering truth. When people in power rewrite the rules of research to obtain the results they want and use the powers of money and litigation to suppress differing research, we’ve got a real crisis and it’s a good bet they’re not interested in truth.
A good example of balance is when Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich went on the road together in support of supporting failing schools in the cities. Sharpton and Gingrich on the road together. Now those two don’t see eye to eye on much, but when from their differing viewpoints they come to the same conclusions, it’s a good bet that overall they were heading toward a truth. In this case it was that there is a real problem with inner-city education.
So which shoes do you wear? There are many different viewpoints in many different areas, and none of us really know anything compared to what there is to know. When we start acting like we know everything and are right about everything and we use power to demand others see it our way, we’re in real trouble.
Take a look out there. Maybe stop and think sometimes before you cut and paste something on your social media whose veracity you haven’t checked out. It’s time to get back to real research and move away from believing our politicians (on both sides) who continually spout all or nothing arguments. Anyone who knows anything about debate knows the all or nothing argument is a fallacious one.
Einstein said: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
So Bill ate more chocolate. It happened unexpectedly, one night when Marie had kept totally to herself. She was angry and withdrawn when she came in. She went straight down to the meat room, picked a fight with Henry Lee and stormed into the linen room to change. Henry Lee stayed cool. When she left him, he went over and took himself a long drink of bourbon and when Bill came down—Bill was setting up the line for the dinner—they went into the deep freeze to get high.
“Bitch is crazy tonight,” Henry Lee said, smoke from the cold surrounding his words. He looked at Bill, Bill looked at him, both of them in the thick arctic parkas and quilted freezer mitts.
“You get to go home. I got to suffer her all night long.”
“You need to get you some of her.”
“Yeah. Like I need to get a cavity.”
“No, really. I need the relief.”
“Sorry buddy. She’s all yours.”
“That’s the damn problem.”
“We’ll it’s your problem. I got my own.”
“Do me the favor.”
“Get out of here.”
“Let’s do another joint.”
Bill had to take off the mitts to get a joint from his pocket and light it and then they stood dancing from foot to foot smoking the joint in the cold.
Upstairs, it was time to take out the baked potatoes, finish building the steam table and filling the inserts. Bea was done with her work and Mary was pretty much done too. The rib was ready to come out, but she waited for Bill to finish everything else.
Marie was huffing around. If you looked close, you could still see a slight tinge of yellow on her brown skin. Because she was skinny, almost like a crack-head except crack hadn’t come out yet, her cheek bone was angular and the yellow stain still visible.
Bea sat on her stool and smoked a cigarette. She was drinking coffee. Everything for the pantry, including desserts, was done and set up. She was back to her racing page.
Marie cleaned everything a second time. She wiped the stainless steel and stirred all the dressings. She made sure the pies were cut cleanly and the slices clearly delineated. She made sure the coffee urns were full and the coffee was fresh. When there was simply nothing else to do, she walked to the hall and plopped down on the lettuce cases, folded her arms and stared out the open back door.
About five-thirty Bill came out. Mary and Bea were over by Bea’s stool just talking and winding down. The dish washers were working, the machine going. Jimmy and Grandma had just come in. Jimmy was downstairs changing. Grandma was already in the back looking at what Mary had left on the stoves.
Bill sat on the milk cases, like always. He could see into the kitchen and he could hear anything that was amiss. The usual sounds of the exhaust fans and the dish machine were prevalent, but then there was Paul who was always hyper, talking his usual stuff.
“What you looking at?” Marie stared at Bill. She sat with her legs crossed and her arms akimbo. She was all to herself.
“I didn’t do nothing, so don’t pick on me.”
“You ain’t gonna do nothing neither.”
“Got your period, huh?”
“No. Just sick of this goddamn place. Sick of this goddamn life.”
“Join the club.”
“Well you gonna be off for a few days. Me, I’m going be working.”
“I paid Alvin twice for the time off. And then I’m leaving her up there and working here for New Years.”
“Lucky you.”
“Why?”
“Gonna be alone.”
“Oh. Had another fight with your husband, huh?”
“I’m a fix him, you wait and see.”
Bill smiled at Marie. “Sorry for you,” he said.
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Peter Weiss author page
Bailey was crazy to get with Lucy. Many men were crazy to get with her. For her part, Lucy, a single woman in her late twenties, stayed away from fraternizing with the help and with customers. Mr. Bowman, for obvious reasons, wanted Lucy to get with Bailey. He was hoping they would go out a couple of times and maybe find their way to The Upper Room. Robert secretly hoped for the same thing, but he would never enter into any discussions about such things, not even with Mr. Bowman who had broached the subject several times.
“It would make things so much easier,” Mr. Bowman had said.
Robert had stayed mum. But Mr. Bowman was right. Bill would never again have to worry about the police picking on him or even watching him. They would never follow him home again, and that was a lot better than having to look over his shoulder to see if they were on his trail, which he always had to do now. The numbers game would be more protected than now too. Now it was only protected by the fact that Bailey played one number every day for free as long as he played other numbers too. The more of his friends who played, the better his perks, and this didn’t count his eating for free.
Marie was relentless. The swollen cheek which was also a black eye blossomed. Once again she wore sunglasses for nearly two weeks, right up until Bill was ready to take off for Cleveland to visit with his fiancé’s family for Christmas. Both he and Henry Lee had inquired about it. It was a familiar story. He had seen her get out of Bill’s car and wobble up the walk and into the house. Just after he closed the door and right before she could say a single word, he had cracked her one right on the side of the face. She’d gone done like a limp rag-doll and when she was conscious enough, he’d forced her to do things she would have done for him if he’d just asked. Then again, if he’d just asked, she would have told him the truth, that she was drunk and high and couldn’t drive and Bill was nice enough to drive her home.
Every day, black eye and all, Marie implored Bill to tell Henry Lee he was gonna get with her. Every day Bill stayed away from it as much as he could, and when she took things on her own and said something to Henry Lee about it, Henry Lee told Bill it was okay with him, that he really didn’t care and even hoped Bill would because she was a pain in the ass.
Every night Marie ambushed Bill. She would wait for him to go outside to get high and join him behind the building for smoking a joint. While they smoked she would cop feels of him and lead his hand to take feels of her. She would make sure to wait until he went to the storeroom to go down for what she needed so that they were together down there when no one else was around.
Bill couldn’t deny that he liked being pursued. He couldn’t deny that he liked touching her and getting touched by her and that he’d even begun to have some fantasies about things with her. He even liked when she cornered him against a stack of cases and jammed her tongue in his mouth, pressing all up against him and making him press against her. One time, when she’d taken his hand under her dress and wasn’t wearing anything under there, she’d kept his hand until she thoroughly pleased herself.
“So when we gonna finalize this?” she asked repeatedly.
“Finalize what?”
“Come on white boy. Make me happy. Have some more chocolate.”
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Peter Weiss author page
Bill and Alfreda christened that van and Marie, Alfreda and Jenny, Pam’s cousin, were the three who used blackmail, or it’s threat, to get with Bill for vengeance on their significant others. Bill didn’t mind all that much. He would never have touched any of them if he’d had a clear choice. He did have choices, not clear ones, and he made them.
Christmas approached. Lunches got busier and busier. Bill worked around the clock, straight through the afternoons and into the night through the dinner. Opening to closing, seven days a week through the month he worked because he owed Alvin three days for getting Christmas off and he was paying in advance.
They hired several new waitresses at the beginning of the month. Drenovis was in his glory, strutting as if he had something to strut. The two new girls hired for the East were about thirty and sweet. Bill called Lorraine and Victoria aside and asked them to let the new girls know about Drenovis’ Riviera, about the pressure to accommodate him in the back seat. They told Bill that was first thing they did and they’d already done it. Then they both asked if they should warn them about the excessively horny broiler cook and they had a good time goofing on Bill about it. But as the days rolled along, the new girls trailed, learning the menu, then working shifts on their own.
Over on the west side they hired three new girls. Bill was working a lunch there one day Alvin was off when he met two of them. They had both, by the rumors, visited the back seat. Bill and Alfreda were talking about it, or Alfreda was expressing her disgust. She remarked about how she disliked managers, him in particular. Then she talked about how beautifully Robert sang, not only in church but with his friends, who were mostly members of the choir. They had cut a tape and Alfreda said she had sung some backup on it. Mary sang too, but she wasn’t on the tape.
Bailey came in that day. He strode up to the open hearth unabashedly and shook hands with Robert and then Bill.
“Get to visit with two of my probationers at one time,” he said.
“Huh Glory,” Robert said.
Bill didn’t say anything. He was cutting the round, busy making sure it was even and all beautiful.
“I see you’re learning the trade,” Bailey said to Bill.
“He’s not a natural, but he’s doing great. They’re gonna make him a manager.”
“I’m doing okay,” Bill said. “And I’m really grateful for the job.”
“I’ve been seeing some of the cops watching you.”
Bill stopped slicing and made direct eye contact with Bailey. “They follow me home sometimes. They did it all the time before.”
“I know. I told them to ease off you. And I told them to talk to their Whitehall friends too.”
“And they said they would?”
Bailey smiled at Bill. “Let’s say that we all play nicely in the sandbox.” Then to Robert he said, “Play my numbers for the rest of the month.”
“Lord have Mercy,” Robert said. “Huh glory,” he sang out. “Buy my tape, sweetheart. The money goes to the church. And get your girlfriends to buy it too.”
“Deal.”
“What you eating?” Bill asked.
“What you’re cutting.”
“Tell the waitress to let us know it’s your order.”
When Bailey had walked away from them, Bill told Robert he was glad they played well in the sandbox.
“Oh, I been watching out for you. When you started messing around, getting comfortable, you know, I started talking with Bailey. He comes here almost every day. He mostly eats for free, but not when he’s got friends with him like today.” Robert pointed with a head gesture to where Bailey had gone to sit. He was with four other men at a six-top. “It was just a freak mistake that I got busted,” Robert said.
Bill noted that Bailey and his friends were drinking. He noted that Lucy was hanging around their table and flirting and so were some of the waitresses.
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Peter Weiss author page
Alfreda kissed him more in the van. She couldn’t help herself, she said. It started at the first red light and picked up at every red light until Bill finally asked her why she didn’t just pull over and park for a moment.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” she said, and that said, she quickly drove into Whitehall, the borough outside Columbus where Steakhouse East was situated. She knew of, and didn’t have to find, a small park where she could drive around to an isolated side street at the back of the park.
“Every now and then I come here to get high,” she said. She smiled. “I got a joint, if you want.”
They sat and smoked the joint, windows open on both sides. Alfreda pressed Bill about Henry Lee and Marie. Bill continued to deny knowing anything, but of course he knew and the more she pressed the weaker his denials seemed. When it got awkward, she stopped, but not until she reiterated that she knew for sure and would certainly get even.
Finished smoking, the tiny roach tossed out the window by Bill, Alfreda slid herself over the console in the middle and onto Bill’s lap.
“Been waiting a long time for this.”
“Not me.”
“Don’t you like me?”
“Course I do.”
“But…”
“But you’re Henry Lee’s wife.”
“And the mother of his kids. And we have a good marriage except he fools around all the time. He always fooled around. So don’t worry. You won’t be my first and probably won’t be my last.”
“It’s just weird.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
They sat for about twenty minutes kissing and fondling, easily steaming up the windows of the van which they had closed because it was bordering on winter-cold outside. Alfreda ran the engine so the heater would blast. The radio played rock music. Bill was reminded of high school, of the many times on lover’s lane making out with his girlfriend. They would go into the back seat of her car and steam up the windows. Up and down the lover’s lane strip sat a whole load of cars with steamed up windows.
They would have stayed longer, but the radio blared out the time and when they heard it they both knew they had to get back.
“You know I want a repeat of this,” Alfreda said.
“Yeah. That’s the problem.”
“Ain’t no problem, baby.”
“I got some good weed over in my locker. I’ll give you a joint before you leave.”
“Good. Me and your butcher friend’ll smoke it after the kids get off to sleep. Maybe he’ll get lucky.”
“How’d he lose his leg?”
“Long story.”
“Give me the short version.”
“White dude thought he was looking at a white girl, picked a fight, drew a knife.”
“I hope he got arrested.”
Freda had pulled the truck from the curb and was headed back to Delta Road, the main drag Steakhouse East was on. She took her eyes off the road and looked at Bill, a long, serious look.
“What world you live in?” She guffawed. “Oh, almost forgot, you live in the white world. It’s a different place from where we live.”
“Watch the road, Freda. Tell me the rest of it.”
“He lost his leg. The white guy damn near died cause Henry Lee stuck him in the gut. The cops found them both outside, in the alley—you know how Columbus is set up with the series of back alleys—in the cold. Henry Lee got charged. There were witnesses. The blacks said the other guy started it and drew his knife first. The whites lied, said it was the other way around. Henry Lee got the false leg and five to seven in the Penn. He got out on parole after three. White guy skated. What else is new?”
“I’m really sorry,” Bill said.
“Yeah, me too,” Freda said as she turned from the street into the restaurant’s parking lot.
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Peter Weiss author page
Marie’s husband dropped her off at four. Marie was wearing sunglasses and her cheek was swollen. She didn’t get with Henry Lee but went straight from changing clothes to work on her station.
Alfreda drove Bill back east. All her prep was done. Robert said he would put the baked potatoes on for her and make sure the prime rib was okay. He said he would stir the Bordelaise sauce and pour it into the bain marie for the steam table. Meanwhile, he and Mr. Bowman locked Drenovis out of the office for nearly an hour. Only two things could possibly be going on. The second was money dealings with the numbers game. But truth was that both things went on and both things were why Drenovis had no hold on Robert or anyone Robert protected.
Locked out of the office, Drenovis started in on Bill, told him sooner or later he’d mess him up, told him he heard about him and Lexi and that he’d better enjoy it while he could because Lexi was a goner. Bill was tired. He didn’t bother with Drenovis. He broke down the steam table, cleaned and scrubbed the line, brushed the grills, greased them and emptied the grease drawer. Then he had a few moments free. He went out the back door and sat on the bench there to smoke a cigarette. He was thinking how Lexi had curled his toes and Drenovis would never get that. Lexi was freaky-deaky and she loved every minute of being it.
It was cold outside so he didn’t stay out long. He stopped by Alfreda in the back part of the kitchen. This kitchen was set up differently from on the east side, but the same things were cooked and served the same way every day. So Bill knew the cooking and what Alfreda was doing. He knew why sometimes she liked to go out east and talk with Mary. If there were any menu changes, they had to be coordinated. Sometimes they just talked about how they were going to do things. Then also she got to see her husband, and sometimes to see Marie, the girl she knew her husband was fooling around with.
In this kitchen which was situated directly behind the line there was a table for the staff to eat at. The dishwashers were sitting around drinking sodas. Alfreda was cutting onions on one of her cutting boards. Drenovis was not around. Robert and Mr. Bowman were still locked in the office. Lucy had come in to see what she could get to eat but not seeing anything she liked she didn’t hang around.
“You want something?” Alfreda asked.
“Nah. Just looking for a snack.”
“Ain’t nothing but the usual.”
“What did you do to Drenovis?” Lucy asked Bill.
“Be friends with Robert.”
Lucy smiled at Bill, shifted on her feet. “And then some,” she said.
“What’s that mean?”
“You know what it means.” Lucy looked at Bill coyly, wiggled her behind a touch as if to give indication of what she was saying. “Say hi to Mary and Bea,” she said as she walked out.
“Bet you’d hit that if you could,” Alfreda said.
“Who wouldn’t?”
“When you gonna do me?”
“I need to go back on the line,” said Bill.
“You need to give me a kiss.” Alfreda turned and kissed Bill but she didn’t touch him because she had onion-smelling hands. “Next time it’s tongue,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t go. I’ll leave you alone.”
“What?”
“How often that man of mine hitting it with Marie?”
“Like I said, I need to get back on the line.”
“Think I don’t know? Think I won’t get even? Cause I will. If it’s you, it’s you. If it’s someone else, then it’s someone else. Any way you slice it, it’s happening. You just make it easy and clean and you keep it in the family.”
“Like I said, I hear the line calling me.”
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
Purchase The Ghost Writer: Rose’s Story here
Peter Weiss author page
Two black beauties coaxed him out of his fear and woke him up. He left at five-thirty, after a long, hot shower to warm his bones.
In the car he blasted both the heater and the radio. Leaving as early as he did and coming home so late made the drive both ways quick and pleasurable. The amphetamines and the music kept him awake and focused. Christmas was up next and he was taking the holiday off. Thanksgiving was gone, his first of what would be many Thanksgivings spent at work. Christmas in Cleveland with his fiancé was required, but he was working up until the 23rd and back to work on the 27th. She was staying with her family until after New Years. He’d had to beg for the time off and pay back with covering others on his days off. He owed Alvin three days.
The morning started like always. They opened up, went down to change, had coffee and lingered over by Bea’s station. Bea read the racing pages of the Dispatch and took the numbers which she would pass to Robert. She was feeling frisky and wanted some, but Bill was standoffish since he’d just been with his wife-to-be. He told her later, but that wouldn’t happen because one of the cooks on the west side called sick and Bill was going over there. He didn’t find out about it until nine-thirty when Tommy came in and told them all. Robert was coming to pick him up at ten and either he would bring him back or Bill would ride with the van for the meat pickup.
So off Bill went, not quite at ten but a bit later when Robert sauntered in in his usual way. He sung “Huh, Glory” to announce himself, flirted with everyone, took money from Bea, checked things out with Mary. Then he stopped in the office to speak with Tommy before returning to the kitchen, putting his arm around Bill and leading him out the door.
The west side always needed three. They could manage with two but it was a great hardship, so when any of the cooks called sick, Bill was drafted. Mr. Jim and Henry Lee could handle the east side’s lunch service. If it got crazy, Mary jumped in to help doing the fryers. The west was an open hearth and had to be a good show as well as run efficiently.
On the west side lunch was fast and furious. This day Alvin was out and Bill worked the middle cutting the round. Robert danced and laughed as he did the broiler, and he took time sometimes to slightly rearrange how Bill plated some things. Drenovis called the orders and Mr. Bowman watched things, met with customers, schmoozed as it were. Some of his customers played the numbers, but Mr. Bowman never took numbers himself and never talked about it. It was his game, he was the bank. He would say he didn’t know anything, to ask around, and he would leave it for the customer to find someone who knew. Most all of the regulars knew that Robert had been busted for running numbers and so he was the logical one to approach. With the open hearth, Robert could direct them to someone who would help them out.
“See Lucy,” he’d say.
Lucy was the hostess, on the numbers payroll as well as the Steakhouse payroll. She was a drop-dead knockout of a woman, absolutely gorgeous and in a league beyond any of the Steakhouse waitresses, some of whom were stunning. Many of the single men from downtown, the businessmen, came in just to see Lucy.
Alfreda, who did the prep cooking on the west side, came on to Bill like always. Bill was all business and reminded her that he worked with her husband. She would be the second vengeance encounter he would have, the second woman who would threaten him with blackmail to get with him, not because he was so desirable they couldn’t live without him, but because he met the prerequisite for what they wanted.
Rose’s Story: Pick up a copy today!
