So who is right, right in the head? The same world was a different place for different people depending upon what their experiences had been and what their circumstances were. Normal: everyone said there was no such thing as normal.
Jim was way out of line and Bill did his best to make sure he did not get a chance to go at Paulie. If he could see it or hear it, he would do his best to find a way to stop it. But Jim needed the job too. They all needed the job and Bill’s experience of desperately needing a job kept him from firing Jim or anyone without real cause. Maybe he should have fired Jim. Maybe it would have been better for everyone.
That first crew. You never forgot your first crew.
Midnight came and Marie was done with her work but she was hanging around. Bill was still busy with the fryers, almost done but not quite. Marie came up to him and asked him for a cigarette. When he could stop what he was doing, he handed her his pack so she could take one.
Marie did not smoke much. Actually she didn’t smoke at all except for an occasional cigarette every now and then. Bill could not understand that. He couldn’t understand how anyone could take just one of anything and leave the rest. No, that was not in his frame of reference and he was fond of saying that God had not given him an off button. If he ate a cookie, he’d eat the whole box. Same for M&Ms and same for beer, drugs, cigarettes or anything. That was why he was the proverbial garbage head.
Marie leaned her skinny butt against the wooden steam table shelf, the shelf that sat right before and attached to the steam table, the shelf where carving was done. Sometimes Bill or Jimmy or whoever was doing the carving would place the object—generally it was the prime rib—there on the board to cut it. She lit the cigarette she’d taken and put the pack down beside her, matches on top of the pack.
“Want a beer?” she asked.
“Why you hanging around?” Bill asked.
“He ain’t home. Probably out with one of his bimbos. The kids is with my mom. I ain’t in no hurry.”
“What you want from me?”
“I want you to scratch my back.”
Having said that, she stood away from the shelf, headed around the broiler side of the line and out of the kitchen through the automatic doors. She returned a moment later carrying two bottles of beer. By this time Bill was nearly done with the second fryer. He was changing the grease tonight and stood up to go empty the old grease into the grease barrel outside.
“Where’s it itch?” he asked.
Marie, a sly smile on her face, lifted her skirt and showed Bill where she itched. No one else was in the kitchen. The van for the dishwashers had come and gone and Bill was just waiting for Tommy or Bebe to pop their head in and tell him there’d be no more customers. Meanwhile, he went out with old grease while Marie settled herself against the shelf again to finish her cigarette and sip the beer.
When Bill returned, she’d unbuttoned most of her dress. She’d also shucked her panties and tucked them in her dress pocket. If he’d looked, Bill could have seen her coochie. But he didn’t look. He sipped his beer, lit a cigarette and went about rinsing out the fryer.
“Thought Henry Lee scratched that itch.”
“Still itches.”
“Show me where again.”
