“So what did you talk about?” Bill stood up and faced Tommy. He stood hand on hip, smoked his cigarette, sipped his beer almost as if it were in defiance.
“Just that you’re turning into a damn good cook,” said Tommy. “Pretty soon be time to make you a manager. With your cooking knowledge complete and your college education, you’re a perfect choice.”
Bill didn’t say anything. He just smiled at Tommy.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your work,” Tommy said. “I know it’s late and by the time you get home be almost time to head on back.”
Bill didn’t say anything. He was deciding whether or not to stay over at Lorraine’s. With her kids there it was innocent enough and he could actually get some sleep.
Once Tommy was out of the kitchen, Bill took his first trip outside to dump the grease. He stopped at the Garland first, emptied the grease drawer into the stock pot filled with grease then headed out the door and outside to where the grease barrel was. Sitting out in the cold, the grease in the barrel was all congealed. The grease Bill spilled, still very hot, melted the top layers and slid into the congealed grease some as Bill poured. But there came a point where it wouldn’t melt anything more and then it filled the hole it had made and settled on top, a good six inches of liquid grease that would quickly congeal.
He cleaned the fryer before he went downstairs for the next grease cube. He ran hot water through the fryer, catching it in the same way he had caught the grease, in the small pot which he emptied into the big one, over and over until he was satisfied the fryer was clean. Then he wiped it with already soiled dish towels.
The dirty water he spilled out in the pot washer sink over by where Andy, the pot washer, would have been if the dishwashers hadn’t already finished work and gone downstairs to put on their civvies. Bill made sure not to dirty the sink Andy had left clean by rinsing any scum the water had left anywhere.
He parked that big stock pot at the end of the line, right by the knife sheath, underneath it and pushed up against the end of the counter. Then he headed down the stairs to get the second cube of grease. He was on the stairs as the dish washers rounded the corner and headed up toward him. They all said good night, first Paulie, the ADHD kid, then Mickey, the finagler, then Andy, bald-headed and with one strange eye. Jim came up last. He didn’t say good night. He stopped where he and Bill crossed paths since Bill was coming down. They stood face to face on the same stair.
“You could have given me a beer,” Jim said. He looked Bill straight in the eyes.
“Nah,” said Bill. “I couldn’t and you know that.”
“Really think you’re something, don’t you? But you’re just a snot-nosed kid.”
That said, Jim headed up the stairs.
Bill turned to watch him go up. He stood there thinking the matter was not going away, that Jim was becoming fixated on it. It was shifting from a little incident type thing to what looked like it was going to be a problem, and it was getting time, almost, for him to say something to Tommy, to have Tommy tell him he most certainly could not have alcohol.
Before he went into the store room for the grease cube, Bill stopped in the meat room for another drink. To his surprise, Marie was there waiting for him. She was sitting up on the counter Mary always sat on, still in her kitchen dress only the dress was mostly opened so at quick glance he could see the whole front of her bra on top and up her spread legs on bottom. Her skinny legs were covered more by her white half-slip than the dress.
“Been waiting for you, white boy,” she said.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
After Victoria and Lorraine left the kitchen, Bill tucked his beer bottle down under the steam table on the stainless steel shelf. Cigarette in mouth, he went down the stairs to cart up the first cube of grease.
He stopped first in the meat room where he took himself a long drink of bourbon. As he was drinking, Marie came in.
“You never gave me that drink,” she said.
Bill handed her the bottle. “I never got one myself. This is the first chance I had.”
Marie took a drink and handed the bottle back to Bill. He capped it and put it back in the drawer under the towels.
“Make sure you’re okay to drive,” he said.
“I’m fine.” Marie stepped close to Bill and reached to stroke his thighs. “You got any weed?”
“Yeah. But I ain’t smoking any now. I’m carting up the grease and finishing up the fryers so I can get the hell out of here.”
“I’m all done,” Marie said. “Mind if I take a joint from you and smoke it in the deep freeze?”
“Knock yourself out.” Bill reached into the same drawer where the bourbon was and found a joint he had put there. He handed it to Marie. “It’s strong stuff,” he said. “Last time I say it, just make sure you can drive home.”
Marie reached up and kissed Bill, tongue and all. “I just have to empty one coffee pot I left full for the people still out there. I’ll see you upstairs before I leave. Sure you don’t want to play with me while I get high?”
“Want to? Yeah. Going to? No. Girl, I don’t get this work finished, I might as well stay here the whole night.”
That said, he left Marie in the meat room and stopped in the store room where he hoisted the first fifty-pound cube of grease up on his shoulder and carted it up the stairs. He dropped it by the first deep fryer, then went for a small pot to drain the grease into and a big stock pot to empty the small one into. This was the routine, a well-practiced one that he virtually never varied from. Because he was changing the grease tonight, he hadn’t emptied the Garland’s grease drawer yet. He would do that on his first trip outside to dump the grease from the stock pot.
So he got down on his knees. He opened the door to the fryer, where the drain and gas jets were, lined the bottom shelf of the fryer with used dish towels. He made sure the gas was turned off and began the process. He opened the drain, filled the pot, closed the drain, emptied the pot into the stock pot. He did this over and over until the fryer was empty.
Still on his knees, he lit a cigarette and reached for the beer he’d left under the steam table. It was then that Tommy came in to tell him that most of the customers had left but there were still a couple of tables with people at them. He said they might order a dessert, but no more food was going out for sure.
“We ended up with a good night,” Tommy said.
“Real good,” Bill said. “I can tell by the meat inventory.”
“You and Mary and Henry Lee will have your work cut out for you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“Did he leave a round cut?”
“I didn’t look. Don’t matter. If not, I’ll cut one first thing.”
“You did a good job.”
“I heard you and Lillian had a talk about me.”
“Yeah, we did,” Tommy said.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Judging people and things back then by today’s standards is only one disintegration of reasoning and language. There are many. Many! There are many ways our language and reasoning have been and continue to be eroded.
A second major beginning of the breakdown of language and reasoning goes back to the eighties once again. That’s when, so far as generally accepted in the timeline, the gender issue in pronouns became an issue and when the language began shifting, moving into what became a most awkward period. The actual issue of gender consideration in language is much more longstanding. But the changing of the language, that is a serious matter whose effects must be understood in the context of what we end up doing as a people in our history.
Seat belts. When the first seat belt regulations came into play and the first seat belt laws came into effect, we were assured, even promised, that we wouldn’t be ticketed for not wearing a seat belt. Now, some years later, we see that that promise was pure BS.
E-ZPass. The advent of E-ZPass was a great convenience and time saver. But we were afraid electronic tracking would compromise our privacy. So we were assured that E-ZPass records would be kept private, that they would never be used in court. Then along came that first clever lawyer with the great idea of using those supposed-be-to private records to prove marital infidelity, and lo and behold E-ZPass caved to the subpoena. Now E-ZPass records are pretty non-private, or they are easily used in courts.
History shows that first and foremost money talks and BS walks, no credit for that saying taken here. It also shows that government can’t be trusted to stay to where its rightful place is, which is protecting its citizens. The two examples above show the progression of things when left in the hands of our leaders, all of them, but primarily those who adhere to and preach the progressive narratives.
Gender-Specific Pronouns! So in the eighties these became an issue. At first the linguists looked at them in terms of messiness and discomfort. The language no longer had the wherewithal to suit our needs if we wanted to be gender-fair and considerate. Language is our tool, they thought. If it no longer met our needs in regard to gender-specific pronouns, it would fix itself to do so. They thought language would adjust to compensate for equalizing or neutralizing gender references.
But as with the two examples above, that wasn’t quite what happened.
What happened was, like with the seat belt and E-ZPass examples, legislation and regulation. The progression that was supposed to be toward gender equality or gender neutrality in language so as to match what was perceived as happening in our society turned toward control. Or, to be more precise, it turned to control for the purpose of extracting money in the form of fines. Today, in certain states one can be arrested, jailed, fined or all three for incorrect use of gender pronouns.
What has this breakdown in language and reasoning wrought upon us? Or, from what was supposed to have been a move to empower and equalize the genders (he and she), or at the very least to neutralize them within the language and thereby equalize them, what has the erosion of language brought us?
Those same people who have led us at every turn to being controlled through fear of prosecution, can now prosecute us for using an incorrect gender reference. And with some thirty-something genders now, another result of the breakdown of our language and reasoning skills, how would one know if one’s gender-pronoun usage is correct?
We have been led to confusion and dis-empowerment because the aim behind the breakdown of language and reasoning as mostly articulated by the progressive narrative is control and domination.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Bill turned to face Marie. He rubbed his head where he’d bumped it.
“Damn girl,” he said.
“Damn nothing. Give me some.”
“Some what?”
“Some of what would make this punch I took worth taking.”
“Ain’t nothing make a punch worth taking. Maybe a million dollars cash up front.”
“Only reason I stay is my kids.”
Bill knew there was nothing to say to that. “Want a cigarette or some rib?” he asked.
“Told you what I want.”
“I got a lot of work and it’s late already. See me tomorrow.”
“Well, give me some bourbon then. And bring some good drugs tomorrow.”
Standing there, on impulse, Bill reached up Marie’s dress and under her panties. Marie spread her legs for him so he could have free access to her. He’d never done this in the kitchen with her before, not at her station, not standing there on the line, not even in the back. Sure, they’d copped feels, but not like this, underneath and in plain sight. He realized he was tired and he was getting somewhat spaced. He knew he needed to lay down, maybe do some Quaaludes and go off to sleep. The other choice was to pop another Black Beauty, enough upper to get him through the night.
Marie closed her eyes and let him feel her. She was happy he was doing this and she’d already decided how she was gonna get even with her husband for punching her. Having had her time with Henry Lee this afternoon was a big part of it, but now she saw opportunity before her eyes.
They both jumped when they were disturbed by the sound of the automatic doors. Bebe, the barmaid, came in. Marie was the one facing the front of the kitchen. She saw Bebe’s face, saw Bebe raise an eyebrow seeing them there together. Not that she actually saw anything, because she really didn’t. At the sound of the doors, Bill quickly withdrew his hand and Marie started to move toward her station. But Bebe was swift. After she left the kitchen, after Marie told Bill about her facial expression, Bill thought she surely surmised what they’d been up to, maybe not precisely, but in general. Having turned in her dinner order and delivered two bottles of beer, Bebe’d told Bill they were getting more tables, that he shouldn’t hurry to clean up.
As it turned out, Bill worked orders until after midnight. As it turned out, Marie had to do all her cleanup all over again and Bill would not start doing the grease until quarter-to-one in the morning. By then, at least, all customers and help had been fed and no new tables were being seated. So Bill could concentrate solely upon the cleanup, which he did, working faster than he could if there were the chance of customers coming in. He shut everything down, broke down the steam table and wrapped all the foods to be put away. He left that food on the counter back by where Mary worked so it was out of his way and he could scrub indiscriminately, meaning if he slopped sudsy water around, it didn’t bother any food stuffs.
He scrubbed quickly up and down the line. As he did so, both Lorraine and Victoria came in. They each brought more beer and stood watching him work, sipping from one of the beers they brought. The other Bill gave over to Marie.
Bill caught a look at Jim when he went to light a cigarette and have some beer, when he stood just an instant by the two waitresses.
“People still sitting there,” Victoria said.
“My dogs are killing me,” Lorraine said. “Damn but that rib was good.”
“Hell yeah,” said Victoria.
“You want more?” Bill asked.
“Nah. We gotta go back out,” Lorraine said. She reached down and rubbed her ankles, first one, then the other. “I could sure use a foot massage,” she said.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Bill smiled at Lorraine. After putting the beer bottle down he went to drop the onion rings and pick up the fries. She’d come into the kitchen to see if her order was ready. Seeing it was close and knowing where she was at with her customers out in the dining room, she decided to wait.
“It’s coming,” he said.
“Which one?”
“Burger table.”
“Good. Wish I was coming.”
“Wish I was going,” Bill said. Then, “Soon as I put it up, I’ll cut some more rib. Bring in another beer when you come back.”
Bill plated three steaks on three plates he’d laid out on his board. Two were medium and one was rare. One medium and the burgers took fries, the other two steaks took a baked and veggies. He spooned the veggies onto the plates, then put the buns under the grill to toast.
Quickly, he slid down the line to get the fries. Basket in hand, he scooped up the buns, just golden brown, and plated them, then he plated the fries, went to put the basket back on the fryer, slid back to the grill and plated the burgers.
Ordinarily, in the midst of a meal service Bill would have speared one of the steaks with a colored arrow to indicate how it was cooked. If there were two rare and a medium, he would have speared the medium, and so on. For this order, with Lorraine standing there, he just told her which was the rare steak from the two with the same sides. She acknowledged and deftly hoisted all five plates into her hands. Two she took in one hand. With her free hand, she balanced a third plate on those two using her wrist to keep the balance. The other two she took up with her free hand. Off she went.
Bill flipped the steaks that were left working. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag, put the cigarette down on the shelf under the steam table near him. Then he sipped a beer. Then he flipped the steaks again, took the two rare ones and moved them where they would get warmed but not cook much. On the way to drop the pickerel and the onion rings and get one more basket of fries, he took another drag on his cigarette. All that done, he cut the rib and cubed it for him and the waitresses. Like before, he used his spatula to plate the cubes of meat.
For a moment, in the midst of what was going on, both Lorraine and Victoria stood at the end of the line by him. They ate the rib, sipped his beer. Marie came over and reached down to where he’d left his cigarette. She took a drag on it.
“How about a beer for me?” she said.
Bill began plating the rest of the orders. First he took off all the steaks. Then he got the pickerel. Then he put the sides on including the fries. Two at a time, one in each hand, he slid all the plates under the warmer lights.
Once the orders were up, both Lorraine and Victoria jumped into action. They quickly swallowed whatever they had in their mouths, went around to the front of the line and waited as Bill sorted their plates for them by pointing and speaking. In a matter of seconds, they were heading out the door with their food.
Bill bent down and took up his cigarette. Marie snuck over behind him and goosed him while he was bent over. Surprised by her, he bumped his head on the server shelf as he was getting up.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
You ain’t getting no beer, Bill thought. He was already reaching down into the meat cooler for the steaks that were ordered when the dishwashers turned the corner and went back to their machine. He noted Jim eyeball the beer bottle and he watched as Jim went on to the dish machine and put his dinner dishes inside one of the racks. Then he watched as Jim assumed his position at the machine.
Lorraine came back in first. She had two more dupes and Bill suddenly found himself in the midst of a little rush all by himself. It wasn’t the first time this had happened and it surely wouldn’t be the last but he wasn’t getting out early this night. He took a moment to look at the French fryers with disdain. He had to change the grease and that would make him even later.
Lorraine had brought him another beer. She sipped it before she set it down. Once her hands were free, she took up another piece of the prime rib. That left only one on the plate.
“Go ahead and eat it,” Bill said. “I’ll cut another piece.”
“Good,” Lorraine said. “We’re gonna be real late tonight.”
“Yeah, well, no one’s home waiting on me.”
“Where’s your fiancé?”
“Up in Cleveland with her parents.”
“You want to sleep over then? I mean my kids are there, but you could sleep on the sofa. It’s close by.”
“I might just take you up on that.”
“Good. I hope you will.”
Lorraine ate the last piece of rib then went over to the pantry for her salads.
Marie was bitching because she’d already done most of her clean up and was gonna have to do it again. She’d covered everything and now it was all uncovered. She’d wiped everything clean and dry. Now she had to do that again.
Meanwhile, Bill had eight steaks, three hamburgers, two fried shrimp and a pickerel working. He also had two orders of rib to cut. He had five orders of fries to drop and one order of onion rings.
As the steaks and burgers cooked, he put the fries in the baskets but didn’t drop them both. He dropped one, the one with the fries that went with the fried shrimp. The other basket would wait until he was close to plating steaks. The pickerel was coming up next to last so it sat alone in one fryer basket. The two orders of fried shrimp came up with the two ribs. The shrimp were working, so Bill cut the rib quickly then turned the steaks that needed turning. He plated the rib orders, put a baked potato on each plate, ran au jus over the meat to warm it up. Then he picked up the shrimp, shook them free of excess grease, plated them, picked up the fries, shook them free of grease, plated them. One plate in each hand, he pushed the plates up on the shelf under the warmer lights and hit the bell. Before he did anything else, he took the order of onion rings he’d taken out when he got the fries and set it in the empty French-fry basket. Then he dropped the other basket of fries.
Up was Victoria’s order. Soon as she came into the kitchen, he warmed the ribs one last time, this time leaving au jus on the meat. He split the baked potatoes and spread them open, put parsley over the ribs. Then he pushed these plates up for Victoria to usher out to the dining room.
Being nice, Marie brought him over three set-ups. The burgers and some steaks were next up. Beyond this order, two rare steaks came with two medium-wells, so Bill held those two to the very front of the grill where they wouldn’t cook. He flipped the burgers a second time, rotated the steaks. Then he took a moment to stop and sip his beer.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Go on. Just call me racist up front and get it over with. As was said in And the Winner Is, that word, the R word, is now applied so often and used so callously that its meaning is quickly dissipating. Like the Deplorable label, it becomes a badge of honor when one is called it for saying something true simply because one is speaking about a person or persons of color.
For example, merely saying that Al Sharpton didn’t pay taxes and helped publicly frame Steven Pagones in the Tawana Brawley case would make one a “racist” by today’s standards of the word even though there is no racial implication in the factual statement. That speaks to the breakdown of our language and our reasoning, both of which are different issues altogether though very essential ones and ones of course tied to the bundle of what’s going on with Obama being the big winner and what’s going on in America.
The argument goes like this: why are you picking on Al Sharpton? Lots of whites did a lot worse to blacks. Pick on them! Picking on Al Sharpton is racist. You are a racist.
Similarly, to say anything about Hillary Clinton causes one to be called a misogynist. The argument: Lots of men did a lot worse to women than anything Hillary has done altogether. Pick on them! Picking on Hillary makes you a misogynist. (And we all know that the reason she lost was because of misogyny and chauvinism.) You are a misogynist.
So, a little about the breakdown of our language and reasoning.
Way back in the eighties when studying literature in graduate school, we were taught that an author who wrote in the forties should not be called a racist in the eighties for referring to a black man as a Negro because that was the correct term of reference at the time the writer wrote. Or, forty years later, in the eighties, calling the author a racist or saying he/she was being derogatory back then is incorrect. It is logically flawed thinking. More important, however, doing so then was indicative of the beginnings of a breakdown in our reasoning and language that was being driven by a progressive narrative.
This type of breakdown in language and reasoning is evidenced all the time now and it leads to the revisionist history we are seeing today. It is the logical progression of that progressive narrative we are being force fed, and it is the danger within America.
As an example, consider slave owners during legal slavery times. Being a slave owner did not necessarily make one a bad person or one who should be erased from our history due to being judged by today’s standards of morality and right or wrong, which in and of themselves are quite questionable.
History shows there were many slave owners back then who were anti-slavery and kept their slaves because they knew that if they freed them other slave owners would gobble them up and mistreat them horribly. These “good” slave owners (I know, by any sensibilities it sounds like a contradiction in terms) treated their slaves humanely. They utilized them as workers, allowed them a decent standard of living, did not abuse or molest them, allowed them marriage of their choice amongst themselves and to stay in the families they themselves created. They did not sell off their children for profits.
As messed up as it may seem today, this was in many circumstances the moral thing to do back then. Not only was it moral, but it was courageous, for those who did it were going against the social and economic norms of the times. If found out, they were ostracized and boycotted economically such that they lost their businesses.
Judging people and things back then by today’s standards is clearly a breakdown in reasoning and language skills, not to mention it being nonsensical. Doing so ignores the concepts of time, context and knowledge, not to mention the differences between the accepted morays of the society back then as compared to now. Furthermore it denies rational logic.
The absence of logic in today’s discourse and the general breakdown of our language and language skills is a true danger to America.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
From the start, Obama’s proclivity toward communism and his general disdain for the American way of life were inherent in his attitudes as president. While these proclivities could not be seen looking directly at him, they could be clearly seen in the group of people he brought with him to the White House. Every president does it, surrounds himself with people he trusts, with people whose views are simpatico and in line with his agenda. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with this. The electorate expects it then takes comfort in the fact that a president is limited to two terms, one of the built-in constitutional protections against a takeover.
In what was seemingly a normal, rational world, which we were at the time Obama became president, those who liked the new leader were happy. Those who didn’t, not all of course, but most, were at least respectful of the person and the office. They were generally tolerant of the changes, willing to give him a chance, and they were even hopeful that as the first African American president he would unify us as no other president before him had done.
Obama truly offered hope and change. The problem was that few people understood what he meant by that slogan. Those people who did understand it had taken the time to look into his origins, his upbringing and his associates. These people, of two kinds, were basically supporters or opposers. The opposers were quickly saddled with that racist label, branded almost immediately with the R word. The goal of the racist branding was to silence all opposition to the pro-communist, anti-American president of the United States.
So Obama was the big winner. He was the big winner because people were afraid to speak out against him for fear of being called a racist. He was the big winner because he carried the mainstream media in his pocket (and still does). He was the big winner because as a result of both of these trends he went unchecked and mostly free to do what he set out to do.
In the scope of things, overall, we don’t know yet if his direction was a good one. Whether or not where Obama led us in his eight years as president was to a good place would surely seem controversial. One thing that is not controversial is that he was the big winner.
So what was Obama really about? What was the purpose of what has come to be known as the apology tour? What was the purpose of decimating the military? Of growing the Federal Government’s bureaucracy to bloated, wasteful limits? Of willfully and purposefully dividing the American populace along racial and class lines? Of giving away the store to our enemies and alienating our allies? Of moving the Democratic party so far to the left that it would be unrecognizable to its greatest liberals of yesteryear?
This was his fundamental transformation and Obama was and is the big winner because he was able to partially achieve this transformation, a transformation we now know was the attempt to scale down the United States as a world power and world leader.
Unfortunately, the answers to what Obama was about are relatively simple but the issues are rather complex. In the end, the overriding answer to what Obama was about was power, pure and simple. The secondary answer is that he was about the taking down of what he was raised to believe was the evil capitalist empire that was so presumptuous as to dominate the world. Or, he was about the transformation of the United States into a non-power. He did not like the United States. Neither did his wife, his pastor or most of his friends and his associates.
Obama accomplished much of what he set out to do. And that makes him the big winner.
