You never did know. The snow started early and came faster and heavier than expected. At eleven, when Tommy locked the doors and they headed into the parking lot to their cars, Bill told him he was sleeping at Mary’s and would bring her in in the morning. Tommy said he would call Mary if they were not going to open on time, but if she didn’t hear from him, all would be regular. He asked Bill if he wanted to stay over by him. Bill declined. He also offered for Bill to sleep in the office. That would have been the best choice.
Mary did not wear purple. She met him at the door barefoot and in her pajamas. But she hadn’t been sleeping. Her hair was done and her face made up. She wore deep red lipstick. Her toes and fingernails were deep red too. They kissed hello then she led him to the living room. Bill saw immediately that she’d been drinking and he knew she was high because there was an ash tray on the coffee table with two roaches in it.
“Sit down and fix your head,” Mary said. She pointed to a bag of weed and some Bambú also on the table.
“I need to call home,” said Bill.
He had tried three times to call his fiancé from work but she wasn’t home. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t driving far due to the storm. Mary led him to the phone in the kitchen and left him alone. He returned to the living room quickly, having discovered that she still wasn’t home.
He rolled two joints from her bag of weed. They smoked the first one together and sipped red wine. Mary told him to get comfortable, to take off his shoes and relax. Bill said he wanted to take a shower. He also told her that he brought some Quaaludes and that Tommy would call her in the morning if there was anything unusual about the opening.
While Bill showered, Mary fixed herself in red. She wore red high-heel pumps, red nylons, red garter belt, red panties and red bra. Just for fun, she put on a black mini, mini skirt and a very low cut white blouse.
“I need to keep some clean underwear in the car,” Bill said coming back into the living room. He was still wiping his hair with a towel and he was barefoot, but he had put on his jeans and his shirt.
“I have some skivvies for you,” Mary said. “They’re not new, but they’re clean.”
“Okay,” Bill said. He sat down on the sofa and tossed the towel on a chair a little bit away. Sitting there, he studied Mary as she had dressed for him.
“Remember what I whispered?” she asked.
“You bet,” Bill said. He filled each of their glasses with the wine then opened the pillbox he carried with him. Mary could see that there were black beauties inside along with the Quaaludes she liked very much. Bill gave her two Quaaludes and took two himself. Then Mary sat next to him and they smoked the other joint that Bill had rolled.
“You gotta stop giving me this shit,” said Mary. “This crap killed Yulie and it’ll kill you too if you ain’t careful. And you ain’t careful, I can see that plain as day.”
“Don’t mean shit to a train,” Bill said.
“Does to me,” said Mary.
They sat awhile like that. They drank more wine and waited for the Quaaludes to take effect. Bill did not touch Mary or even try to and Mary, for her part, sat beside him feeling extremely content. Most often there was that nervous tic-like sensation in the pit of her stomach. It was there now, but the Quaaludes calmed it considerably.
Bill tried twice more to call his fiancé before he and Mary started into anything. She still wasn’t home and Bill didn’t think much of it. She was probably staying over at a friend’s, he thought.
Coming Shortly
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with fat girls,” Mary said. Her work was mostly done for the day. She and Bill had locked themselves in the staff bathroom. Bill was leaning against the vanity, Mary was in his arms. They were kissing.
“You ain’t fat. Bea is getting toward really fat.” Bill’s hand had found its way there, or sort of there because he had stopped short of there and was teasing.
Mary shushed him. She spread her legs some so getting there was easier. “Meat on the bones is good,” she said. Then she reached around his head and pulled his lips to hers so she could kiss him and control the kissing.
“It’s supposed to snow,” she said.
“And?”
“Promise you’ll be careful driving home.”
“Maybe I should come over by you.”
“Maybe you should get with them fat girls. You could get paid and laid and kept plenty warm.”
“That is very cold.”
“You bet your ass it is. Now make me warm and creamy.” Mary stepped away slightly and lifted her dress. But just when she was about to settle Bill how she wanted him, there was a knock on the door.
“You got a call,” Henry Lee said to Mary.
“Goddamn,” Mary said. “Take a message.”
“It’s your mom.”
“Lord have mercy,” Mary said. “I got to get this.” She let her dress fall into place and opened the door. Bill followed behind her. She turned off to the party room where she could talk in private. Bill went into the meat room.
“What you need cut?” he asked Henry Lee.
“Nothing, really. Everything’s done. We could start on the inventory for tomorrow, but I think it’s gonna be real slow tonight.”
“You know, Columbus has some of the ugliest winters I’ve ever seen,” said Bill.
“Yeah well, what it is. Still if it snows like they saying, you gonna be sitting around.”
“So what should I cut?”
“Tops. But not too many. Then see what Mary needs besides what you were doing in the bathroom.”
Bill cut five top sirloin butts which yielded enough Boston strips and Tops for them for the next day. When the steaks were neatly trayed and fully wrapped, he cleaned up where he’d been working and went upstairs. Mary was sitting out in the hall. It was almost time for Marie to be coming in, almost quitting time for her and Bea. All her work was done except taking out the baked potatoes and putting the food items on the line. The prime rib was still in the oven.
“You got any weed?” she asked Bill as he got to the top of the stairs.
“Sure.”
“Let’s get high.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. My mom’s keeping the kids overnight. They’re saying it’s gonna be a major storm. Gonna start soon too. They’re saying we could have like a foot of snow by morning. You really should think about staying close by. Maybe Tommy close early.”
“Maybe I should come over by you.”
“Maybe you should.”
“What I get for it?”
“You might find me in purple.”
“Really?”
“Maybe.” Mary stood up from where she was sitting. She blushed red over her dark chocolate skin. “What I get for it?”
“What you want?”
Mary leaned in and whispered in Bill’s ear. When she was finished, she kissed him once on the cheek. Before he could see her face, she gingerly stepped down the stairs. Bill followed right behind her. He was calculating and scheming.
After they’d all gotten high in the deep freeze and helped themselves to a generous amount of bourbon, Mary sat on the stainless steel counter like she always did, legs and feet hanging over the edge, feet crossed at the ankles.
“Think they close early?” she asked Henry Lee.
“Just might if it starts real soon and comes down heavy.”
“They done it before,” Mary said.
“Never know,” Henry Lee said. “Never know about a lot of stuff,” he added.
Coming Shortly
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
At Suburban the walls had eyes and ears. The next morning at 10 o’clock when they were sitting out in the hall, Bea looked at Bill and gave out one of her throaty chuckles.
“I heard that dishwasher tried to pimp you yesterday,” she said.
“Say what?”
“You heard what I said,” Bea said. She sat like always, up high and with her legs spread wide. Bill sat down low, smoking a cigarette. He had just popped a black beauty and was waiting for it to kick in.
“Oh that,” Bill said. “Wasn’t nothing.”
He had been stunned by the dishwasher’s words, totally taken by surprise. At first he hadn’t realized that the dishwasher was in fact trying to pimp him. But when he’d thought about it later, that surely was what was happening.
Luckily, and happily too, Bill’s being naive kind of saved him. The idea as presented was anathema to him so he’d just politely declined the offer. The dishwasher had told him that if he changed his mind to let him know.
That was something Bill would pass on but it was something he would wonder about every now and then, especially as he got older and tried all different kinds of women.
“They’re just a little fat,” the dishwasher said.
A little fat was probably really fat, Bill generally thought when he thought about it. Bea was fat and she was fun. Mary was plump. She was like a ripe plum, smooth and sweet and very juicy. Lorraine was kind of like Mary, equally juicy, just as sweet. Lexi was a tigress, ready to spring at any moment. Sooner or later, Bill would meet all kinds of women through the course of his career, from shameless witches whose intentions were to ruin his marriage to Marilyn Monroe wannabes. Really fat would not have been bad, he would eventually discover.
“Goddamn but that cool air feels good,” Bea said. She was flapping her dress up and down.
“Put that shit away,” Henry Lee said. He was standing next to where Bill was sitting. “I can see much more than I want to.”
“No one asked you to be looking.”
“You crazy, girl,” he said.
Mary, who had not sat down anywhere, laughed. She was standing next to where Bill sat, on the other side of him than where Henry Lee was. “I’m sweating up there too,” she said. “It’s different for a woman.”
Henry Lee didn’t say anything. He finished smoking the cigarette he held and shook his head scornfully.
“Want me to cool you down?” Bill asked. He reached to the hem of Mary’s dress and started fanning it like Bea was doing to hers. Then he reached under and up from behind and fondled Mary’s butt.
“Get the hell out of there, boy,” she said. ” What the hell is it with you?”
Henry Lee guffawed. He walked to the back door and flicked his cigarette butt outside. “We got to make hamburg,” he said. Then, to Mary, after he’d walked back to where she stood, he said, “Ain’t nothing wrong with the boy. He got him some good taste in women.”
Mary smacked Henry Lee on that he arm about the same time Bea stood up. “Love them white boys,” she said, licking her lips.
Bill stood up too. “I’ll kiss all over that beautiful ass,” he whispered in Mary’s ear. “And a lot more too,” he said.
“I’ll bet you will,” said Mary.
“Count on it,” he said. He winked at her.
“Fat girls, huh?” Mary said.
So, Still Coming Shortly
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
So what would you say if I told you that you had to spend $23 billion over the next 50 years to fight the war on poverty and at the end of the 50 years the results of your spending would be pretty much negligible?
So what if I told you that you could be the leader of major cities in the United States for the next 50 years and that despite how much money you spent on education, crime-fighting and on public welfare to help citizens, your education would still rank about number 30 in the world and your crime rates would still be ridiculously high?
So what if I told you that currently eight of the ten most dangerous cities in America are strongholds of the Democrats and have been run by the Democrats for just about 50 years?
So what if I told you that there would be a tremendous influx of illegal aliens into your country and that instead of calling them illegal aliens we would find a much nicer name for them such as undocumented citizens or undocumented residents, and having found such a wonderful name for them we would offer them welfare, unemployment benefits, Social Security and free medical care? And what if I told you that for these undocumented citizens we would keep it secret so that the American-citizen taxpayers paying for it couldn’t know that their taxpayer money was being used in such a fashion?
So what if I told you that as an American citizen you are subject to our laws and to prosecution for violating our laws and that you would be punished accordingly for doing so, but they, the undocumented citizens, could commit horrendous crimes including even rape and murder, yet not be prosecuted for such crimes and even be protected? Then what if I told you that you would have to pay for your lawyer but they could get legal aid and have legal services for free so you would have to pay for their lawyer too?
I think you’d think I was crazy. I think you’d start to wonder where I got such crazy ideas. I think you’d think that someone like me should be run out of town.
So what if I told you that, give or take, much of what’s written above is actually happening in our country and that you, the taxpaying American citizen, have really no say in what’s going on but have to pay the taxes to fund it all? On some level you would think it’s laughable, that is as long as it’s in the realm of the make-believe. But in the realm of reality it’s not laughable, it’s tragic, and in the long run if we don’t do something about it, it will be our downfall.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. If you read some of the history stuff about it that is kind of true.
So what if I told you finally, that in 1989 the Berlin wall would come down and the Soviet Union would collapse? And what if I told you that the end of the Cold War would leave one world power, the United States of America?
Then, what if I told you that over the next 30 years the United States of America would let China surpass it economically and allow Russia to rebuild itself such that it was once again a world power threatening the very existence of the United States?
And what if I told you that while this was happening the United States was pretty much wasting its time on internal power struggles between the Republicans and the Democrats, wasting its tax resources, depleting its military and exhausting the military’s supplies and equipment? Worse, what if I told you the United States was supporting its enemies with huge economic payoffs to the tune of $150 billion to Iran, a country that every day reminds us that it would see us and Israel obliterated from the face of the earth?
Well, so what would you say?
Coming Soon on Amazon
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Sometimes life really does get in the way. A few things have happened and I’ve been away from here. (I’d put a sad emo-gee, but I don’t know how.)
The good news: All is well, mostly.
The bad news: Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be delayed a little while, but not long.
So, Still Coming Shortly
The first volume of Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be available on Amazon soon. Thank you all for following the series and the blog.
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
All of the outtakes are autobiographical fiction. The workhouse outtakes are especially autobiographical. Bill Wynn first appears as the main character of The Kitchen Stories in 1979. The Kitchen Stories will be released later this year.
Enjoy!
Reprinted from The Daily Signal Daily Signal 5.3.18
America is suffering through a crisis in education, especially when it comes to history.
Many were horrified when a poll, released in April, showed that two-thirds of millennials don’t know what Auschwitz is, despite the fact that it was the most notorious Nazi death camp in World War II.
That was hardly the only worrisome poll of late.
Americans should be outraged that our schools have failed to teach even the most basic historical facts to the younger generations. Worse, the education they receive has often only turned into a justification for superficial social activism, lacking in depth and veracity.
Throughout history violence and war only creates more of itself for example WWI->WWII->Cold War ->Korean War->Vietnam and up to today. While nonviolent moments like Gandhi’s, the suffrage movement or Civil Rights movement lead to peace and long lasting change. Ours will too.
This is little more than bumper sticker history, demonstrative of Hogg’s historical illiteracy.
For one thing, it’s unlikely that Gandhi’s pacifism would have been of much use against the Nazi war machine. People willing to put other humans in ovens are unlikely to be moved by passionate pleas for peace.
It should be noted, too, that Hogg’s two examples of nonviolent movements succeeding—Gandhi’s Indian independence movement and the U.S. civil rights movement—were not exactly nonviolent.
The Partition of India was incredibly violent, and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of people. And the civil rights movement certainly wasn’t an entirely nonviolent affair, either. The rights of many black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were secured almost entirely by gun ownership.
These so-called nonviolent movements occurred in countries with a tradition of respecting the rule of law and individual rights, giving them an actual chance to succeed through ballots instead of bullets.
In China, nonviolent student protests in the 1980s were crushed by the state—literally in the case of the Tiananmen Square protest. Historically, repression has been the norm, not the exception.
For Americans, the right to speak freely and protest was only secured because young men, mostly teenagers, were willing to take up arms—arms that Hogg and others have so relentlessly crusaded against—and risk their lives to fight for their God-given liberties against the British Crown.
At one time, every American would have known this and would have acknowledged the blood and suffering of the Revolution that secured our freedom and independence.
War is a terrible thing, but it is often just and necessary, and it has certainly served to stop tremendous evil in this world.
To deny that is absurd.
Despite the clear gaps in his historical knowledge, Hogg hasn’t shied away from insulting the civic acumen of others and hectoring them. He once said, “Our parents don’t know how to use a f—ing democracy, so we have to.”
Not content to simply insult his parents’ generation, he then followed up in a later interview claiming that those who were against him were on the wrong side of history—a history that his generation would presumably be writing.
“Regardless of what your opinions are or where you come from, you need to realize we are the future of America,” Hogg said in an NPR interview. “And if you choose not to stand with us, that’s OK, because you’ll be on the wrong side of the history textbooks that we write.”
If that’s so, then future history textbooks will look more ideological and baseless than accurate portrayals of the historical record. But perhaps that’s because many current textbooks are, too.
Americans are free, regardless of their education or knowledge level, to use a public platform to espouse their views. At the same time, it’s hard to have a substantive and productive debate on the issues of the day when even the most basic facts of history are unknown to those doing the debating.
Platitudes begin to sound like profound insights when one has an extremely narrow view of history and world events.
It would be nice to see a little more humility from those who have such an incomplete understanding of that history.
Nevertheless, we have only ourselves to blame if we are not doing more to fix the increasingly deplorable state of American schools.
We must admit that the public school education model is failing our youths,despite how much money we’ve pumped into the system.
We should take it upon ourselves to improve our republic through better schools—perhaps charter schools, or even better, private schools funded by caring parents who increasingly can use vouchers or education savings accounts to escape the current institutions that have failed them.
Currently, many of our schools don’t meet even the basic requirements of what Americans need to be informed citizens. Worse, the education students are receiving, especially in civics, is heavily skewed toward left-wing politics.
As my wife, Inez Stepman, wrote for The Federalist:
If education reform is going to be about more than ticking up the United States’ score on international exams, and if school choice is also our only opportunity to break a left-wing ideological monopoly on public education, we must deliver meaningful, universal education choice to parents now, while Generation X parents are still the majority of those with school-age children.
We must give all parents the opportunity now to choose education options that align with their values, or the values we cherish will continue their slide into extinction.
Historical ignorance and cultural disintegration are only going to become more pronounced until we find a way to expand the net of education that works for the youngest generation.
School choice can no longer be treated as a back-burner issue.
Our future and our freedom depend on it.
Coming Shortly
The first volume of Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be available on Amazon soon. Thank you all for following the series and the blog.
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
All of the outtakes are autobiographical fiction. The workhouse outtakes are especially autobiographical. Bill Wynn first appears as the main character of The Kitchen Stories in 1979. The Kitchen Stories will be released later this year.
Enjoy!
Announcing:
The first volume of Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be available on Amazon soon. Thank you all for following the series and the blog.
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
All of the outtakes are autobiographical fiction. The workhouse outtakes are especially autobiographical. Bill Wynn first appears as the main character of The Kitchen Stories in 1979. The Kitchen Stories will be released later this year.
Enjoy!
Hindsight is 2020, so they say. Even though his fiancé’s father would never loan them money, at one point just after they were married he gave Bill a stock tip. The stock was sure to skyrocket overnight and Bill should put every penny he had into that stock. That would’ve been great if Bill and his wife had had any money. They took the hundred dollars that they could spare and put it into that stock. Literally, overnight the stock jumped from 5 to 40.
So there were problems festering. In retrospect, Bill would think later in his life he should have seen them, should have understood them, should have anticipated them and dealt with them. But he was only 20 and what do 20-year-olds know? He was 20, abusing substances, a boy in a man’s body whose life had already been upended twice. That meant that two times already his railroad track, whatever track it was supposed to have been, had been switched. Twice already he’d been taught that no matter how hard he tried he would never have control over things. Later in his life Bill would come to the conclusion that control is an illusion, something we all try for but few of us ever get. It was like the girl game. The more you tried to get a girl the less she wanted you. The more you grasped at control, the less control you had.
So there were problems festering. The one he would not see for many many years was the one with his fiancé. The ones that would surface more quickly were there at Suburban. The first had to do with Jim, the dishwasher who always wanted a beer, the dishwasher who’d been kicked in the head by a horse and was not quite right. The second was with Bea. Bea was more tricky than Jim. Jim was blatant. Every time he would see Bill drinking a beer, he’d say it would be nice to have a beer. Bill would tell him he couldn’t give him a beer and Jim would say that Bill really thought he was something. Sometimes Jim would tell Bill he had no clue of what being something really was. At one point in his life Jim really was something.
Control. Jim got kicked in the head. He would’ve been killed if one of the stable boys hadn’t been able to pull him out of the way and calm down the horse. There was never an explanation as to why the horse did what it did. It simply went out of control.
Bea was more in control than Jim. But at least Jim was who he was. Bea was the wolf in sheep’s clothing, all sweet and caring when she wanted to be, when she wanted something, when she wanted Bill. When she was horny she would do anything to have Bill take her downstairs to satisfy her itch. When she was feeling threatened by Bill’s liking Mary, she would be sweet and make sure Bill got everything he needed from her. Well, almost everything. But like almost everyone, Bea made the simple mistake of thinking that she was in control.
And so one day, not long after the new year, not long after Bill’s fiancé was wholly immersed in her UDC spring concert preparations, wholly immersed in her schoolwork and active in all the evening activities that the dancers attended, some of them not because they wanted to but because they were obligated to, Bill found himself approached by one of the dishwashers.
“I was wondering,” he said, “if you’d be interested in making a little money. I see you’re quite popular with the girls here. There are a couple of ladies who live in my rooming house that would like to meet a guy like you. They’d be willing to pay handsomely if you were to meet them.”
Coming This Week:
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Like any underlying problem, like any problem that is not addressed, it festered. Bea became more demanding in her sexual wants. The more it seemed to her that Bill liked Mary, the more she wanted to get in the way. If under other circumstances it might have been because of jealousy for Mary, in this particular case it was due to a power struggle, a power struggle only she seemed to feel.
For his part, Bill could care less. For most things in running the kitchen, he was happy to have her take the lead and let her have the responsibility. Most things she directed regarding the way the kitchen worked had little to do with the actual putting up of the meals. But there were times that Bill felt her judgment was skewed. It generally had to do with how she treated the dishwashers. Having been a pot washer, then a dishwasher, and being a college-graduate cook, he was painfully aware of the notion of being looked down upon. He compensated for this with the dishwashers by making sure they had everything he could possibly give them. This included steaks to eat, unlimited sodas to drink, and even cigarettes when he could give them to them. He also made sure that Drenovis didn’t bother them when they rested between rushes.
Bea didn’t always see things like he did. In fact, Bea saw things less the way he did the more he was with Mary. Bill’s liking Mary was a sore spot for Bea. Bill’s being able to do his job with ease also was a sore spot for her. So like Alfreda, Bea was becoming more and more a powder keg. Bill could see it. Mary could see it. Henry Lee could see it. And they all knew that sooner or later given the right circumstances powder kegs exploded.
Out in the hall Bea made sure to always sit opposite Bill and higher up. She made sure to always sit with her legs spread wide and a fat-ass grin on her face. At one point Henry Lee took to making comments to Bea, telling her to close her legs, telling her to leave the boy alone, telling her to go on and get some at home, telling her he was going to drop a dime to Mr. Bea.
That of course was a two-way street and Bea reminded him she could always drop a dime to Alfreda. Bill had been with Alfreda once, and Alfreda was wanting more. For the life of him, Bill could not understand why. He did not fancy himself as much of a lover, and when all was said and done, later on in his life he would come to realize that his desirability was based upon two things: first, he was white, and second, he was young. His being white was simply a matter of what would later be known as jungle fever. His being young simply meant he was ready at a moment’s notice.
For both Bea and Alfreda there was no power issue. Bill did not have control over whether or not they ate steaks or drank beer. What they did regarding everything in the kitchen was on them.
With waitresses, it was a different story. Bill had power over waitresses and he controlled what they had for dinner. So for them, giving some to Bill meant eating better and that was what they wanted. Bill had little regard for these types of waitresses. Bill had great regard for Lorraine and those waitresses who were working hard to support their children. After all, that was how he had started in kitchens, to be able to support his wife-to-be.
Regarding his fiancé, she was wholly immersed in the spring concert series even though it wasn’t even near spring yet. There, at home, with her, something was already festering too, but what was festering there would not come to light for some fifteen years.
Coming Right After Mother’s Day
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Purple. Bill liked Mary most in purple. Purple lipstick, purple nails, purple toenails, purple stockings. He liked it when she wore purple lingerie and purple shoes. He liked the shoes high-heeled and open-toe.
The first time Mary dressed up for him she was embarrassed. She wasn’t used to dressing up for anyone. She was used to only getting dressed up to go to church.
Bill had been insistent. When Mary balked, he had gently coaxed her, told her that she should try it. She had asked why and he had told her just because, because he wanted it, because it would make her feel sexy. She was quick to tell him that she wasn’t sexy. He was quick to tell her that she had no clue as to how sexy she was.
It was a mid-January night that she dressed up the first time exactly as he wanted her to. The other times they had been to The Upper Room Mary had selected her own outfits. She was not one to have fancy underwear and she was not one to have fancy dresses. Her fancy dresses were church dresses and under them she wore regular underwear.
“What you want from me boy?” she asked one time.
“I want you to be sexy for me,” he said.
“What you know about this stuff?” she asked.
“Apparently more than you,” he said.
“You don’t know squat,” she’d said.
But she’d complied with what he wanted and when they were all settled, when the bed was made and they’d smoked a joint, he’d asked her to undress for him. She told him he was crazy. He just smiled and asked her to humor him. Bill could sense that she had a rough time with what he was asking. Doc to the rescue. He pulled out two Quaaludes for her, two for him and they popped them while drinking a full glass of red wine. That done, they smoked a second joint and by the time they had finished that Mary was in just the right frame of mind.
The next day at work Mary reminded him that she still had her purple underwear on. Bill replied by telling her it was good to be young. Just the notion that she was still wearing the purple under her kitchen dress turned him on. They met first in the party room where Bill put her up on a bar stool and went down on his knees. Mary, having gotten more used to what the Quaaludes did to her, asked if he had more. He told her always for her and got some. That led to a second meeting inside the staff ladies room.
Tommy was a fair man. He did not hold it against Bill for not taking the manager’s job. In fact, he understood clearly that Bill could be of more service continuing as he was than wasting their time being trained as a manager and then not having more than several months to work at it.
Drenovis, in his usual way, was a prick about it. He razzed Bill, and razzed him more, and made sure Bill was always painfully aware of the fact that he held a higher position. Bill, having become a seasoned broiler cook, having learned his lessons well from Henry Lee and from Robert, took no crap from Drenovis. As much as Drenovis gave him, he gave back more. Bill would never start anything, but he made sure nothing went unanswered.
Bea was the one who became most out of sorts. The stronger Bill became in his position, the weaker she felt in hers as the kitchen manager. One day, without her having realized it, Bill could see more about the running of the kitchen than she could. That was a problem.
Coming Right After Mother’s Day
