So Mr. Jim made a speech. His wife, also gray-haired, also smallish, stood by his side and held his hand. It was charming to look at and a rather tender moment altogether. Henry Lee stood by Alfreda and held her hand. Marie stood alone. Bill stood by Mary who wanted to hold his hand but wouldn’t reach out for it. So next best thing was to stand close enough to him so her hip brushed up against his. Every now and then she shifted on her feet and made sure that he felt her against him.
Mary had done her makeup in a way Bill always liked. She wore no facial powder except a touch of rouge on her cheekbones. Her nails and her lipstick were deep purple. That purple drove Bill crazy. He wondered if her toenails were done in the same color and when he asked her, she slipped one foot out of her shoe enough for him to see that they were. He was the only man to date that had ever kissed her toes, even licked them and kissed her feet all over. That drove her crazy.
Drenovis looked bored out of his wits. He probably would have skipped the whole thing if he could have, but Mr. Bowman was not letting that happen. Robert stood next to Bea whose husband had come simply because he knew Mr. Jim and his family and he wanted to be there for them. Bea was not happy about Mr. Bea being there, but she had no choice. So on one level, for as wonderful an event as it was for Mr. Jim and his family and even for Suburban, that’s how awkward a moment it was for some of the staff.
Mr. Jim’s speech chronicled his kitchen life. He spoke briefly about being one of the few people of color in those days to graduate high school and be lucky enough to get a job even though it was a beginning job as a kitchen worker on the railroad. He spoke about hard work and perseverance, about simply showing up and being there all the time. He spoke about being the best pot washer they’d ever had and then being the best dishwasher they ever had. He talked about his good fortune when one of the railroad cooks died. While it was not the cook’s misfortune, he was lucky enough to be given an opportunity. He talked about how that opportunity only materialized because he had shown up and done a prideful job all the time.
Mr. Jim spoke in detail about what it was like to be a chef on the dining cars. He spoke about learning all he could from the other cooks around him and from the chefs. He said he was happy in his older age to be able to pass that on to many younger boys who were up-and-coming on the railroad. He said he knew that using the word boy might offend some people, but, he said, being in his sixties meant that kids in their late teens were just boys. He remarked that there were no girls in the kitchens in those days, and Bill could testify to the fact that there really weren’t many girls in the kitchens even into the eighties.
Mr. Jim attributed all his success to his wife of nearly fifty years. She, almost alone, raised their kids, this because he was away most of the time. In the older days, sometimes when the trains were going long distance, the chefs traveled with the trains. He said he was proud to have accomplished what he accomplished but that the trade-off was being away from his family. He had missed a lot of his kids’ growing up, but, he said, he was happy that at least he could be there to watch his grandchildren grow up.
Well, Bill thought, if that speech don’t shame us all. He wondered if Mary, Bea, Henry Lee and Alfreda were thinking the same thing.
