Jimmy and Bill had to hustle all night long. No rest for the wicked.
Being as busy as they were meant not even time to get off the line to pee, and seeing how busy they were Tommy asked Henry Lee to hang around, which of course he did. It was not what he wanted, but there was no choice. In such matters there was never a choice. Bill would learn that the working cook stayed until his replacement came in, and if there were no replacement, if someone didn’t show up, then that cook stayed and finished out the shift, even the day, whatever the case was.
The first dinner orders started coming in even before Bea and Mary had gone home. By five-thirty the board was full.
Before an expediter was working, waitresses speared their dupes on a spindle and rang the bell if no one were there. Jimmy or Bill, whoever could get to them, pulled them from the spindle and called out the order then slid the dupe on the slide board, a long clipboard-like thing attached on the inside of the server shelf. From there each cook could read what he had to do and take care of it. A good, polished team worked together seamlessly, each member knowing what the other member was doing, anticipating what needed to be done and where help was needed.
Jimmy and Bill, having had months working together, both extremely adept at their jobs, were a great team. Bill could walk behind Jimmy and drop fries when all the steaks on his Garland were in order and he had a moment to leave them without any looking after. Bill could also read the dupes and see what Jimmy needed from the reach-in boxes, things like onion rings, pickerel and shrimp. For his part, Jimmy would set the plates for Bill and dish up the side dishes just by reading the dupes and knowing where Bill was at. They were a dance team and a good one.
Henry Lee, hanging out to see if they needed any help, stayed downstairs and cut meat for as long as he could. This meant, this night, he could stay downstairs almost the whole while. Bill and Jimmy worked as if they were on roller skates. Tommy began expediting before seven, which was unusual. He worked straight through until Lillian started at eight. Jimmy and Bill danced together—Fred and Ginger.
About nine, not having been called up onto the line, Henry Lee came up in his civvies. Standing in the doorway, he asked Bill to ask one of the waitresses to bring him a beer and he told Bill he wanted a super medium-rare. Bill immediately threw one on the Garland and rotated one off for him, which he plated. He quickly handed the plate to Henry Lee who went down the line and helped himself to a big order of fries.
Sitting in the hall on the metal milk cases which he placed so he could watch Bill and Jimmy work, Henry Lee ate his dinner. Ordinarily he would have eaten in the meat room, but he did not want to go back downstairs again. He’d put everything to sleep down there.
“How you listen to that?” he asked Bill from where he sat. He was referring to Lillian’s raspy voice, her continual “ordering, ordering, ordering.”
Bill laughed. “She never wants to pick up,” he said.
Lorraine was the one who brought the beer for Henry Lee. She walked around the line and out the door to hand it to him. Then she stopped a moment to catch a bit of the cold night air that filtered in through the screen door from the opened back door.
“God that feels good,” she said. “Like I died and went to heaven.” Then, after just a brief moment, she kind of sighed, said, “No rest for the wicked,” and headed back to work.
