First thing Bill did when he went downstairs was go to his locker and get some more black beauties. He popped one on the way to the meat room and put two into a small baggie which he sealed and stuck into his pocket.
In the meat room he and Henry Lee went into the deep freeze to smoke a joint. They took their time and made it a leisurely smoke. They didn’t talk much because there wasn’t much to say.
The meat delivery wasn’t due till tomorrow. For this afternoon there was just a regular amount of meat to be cutting and of course the meat for the other store. But Henry Lee had gotten well ahead of the game and he could’ve handled it by himself. So they worked slowly, drank bourbon as they felt like it and passed through the afternoon.
Round about four Mary came down and plopped herself up on the counter like she always did. First thing, she asked if Bill had any more weed. Bill looked at her as if she were crazy for thinking he might not and without her having to say anything else, he handed her a joint then watched as she fingered it, smoothing it out, making it ready to smoke.
“Who’s going in there with me?” she asked.
“Not me,” said Bill.
“Girl, you don’t need no one to go in there with you,” Henry Lee said.
“I want some company,” Mary said.
Henry Lee said, “You ain’t no goddamn baby.”
Mary gave him the evil eyes followed by the finger. She crossed her feet at the ankles and swung her legs to and fro.
“You gonna be messing with Arlene?” she asked Bill.
“I don’t think so.” He was cutting top sirloins. He set his knife gently on his cutting board and walked over to Mary.
“Not that it makes any difference,” he said, “but she got stuff going on. Truth is we spent last night together and talked most of it through. We talked but we didn’t do anything.”
“Your choice or hers?”
“It was kind of mutual, more my choice, if you really must know.”
“Shit,” Henry Lee said. “You spent the night with her and didn’t do nothing? What kind of crap is that? I’d have I didn’t hit it in a flash.”
“We all know that,” Mary said.
“Neither of us is going anywhere,” said Bill. “And it’s not like I don’t have anyone here to fool around with.”
Bill put his arms around Mary’s neck and drew her face to him. He kissed her softly then he reached a hand to her knee and slid it up her thighs.
Mary clamped her legs shut stopping his hand where it was. She pulled back from him and pushed him away from her.
“Fooling around?” She looked at Bill. “Fooling around?” she said again. She hopped down off the counter, didn’t say anything more. Almost like she was in a huff, she walked over to the hooks where the Arctic parkas hung. She took one for herself and put it on. Then she asked Bill for his lighter.
“Sure you don’t want to join me?” she asked him.
Bill didn’t want to but she had made him feel as if he should. So without putting on a parka, he lit the joint then followed her into the deep freeze.
“I thought you really cared about me,” she said when they were inside.
“What makes you think I don’t?” Bill asked. “You know how I feel. I’ve said it over and over and I won’t stop saying it.”
They did puff-puff-pass except Bill did more passing then puffing. He was pleasantly high and did not want to overdo it. “I’m gonna trip tomorrow,” he said.
“Bea be looking for your ass,” Mary said.
Bill smiled at her. “I’d hide out if I could,” he said. “Maybe I can evade her long enough for it to be time for her to go home.”
By Peter Weiss
originally posted March 1, 2018
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 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. Those 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.
By Peter Weiss
originally posted inn February 2018
And the winner is…
Why, it’s President Obama.
Yes. He’s the big winner and the more we move through the Trump presidency and see what’s happening with the country, the more apparent it becomes.
So let’s get it out now. Go on and call me racist. It’s not okay. It’s just the flavor of the day. But be really careful because as it stands now the word is being so overused that it is starting to have no meaning whatsoever. And when the word racism ceases to have meaning, we will have a real nightmare.
Obama is the winner because as President he accomplished precisely what he set out to do. From even before day one, he said he would fundamentally transform the United States of America. And that is exactly what he did. But stupid us, we didn’t have the wherewithal to ask into what he was going to transform it. Or, we were as stupid as Nancy Pelosi deemed we were when she told us a bill had to be signed to see what was in it. That was possibly the most ridiculous statement ever made by a Speaker of The House, although there are assuredly many to choose from. It’s remarkable how truly stupid we were as an electorate. It’s positively remarkable that we have let ourselves be led into where we currently are.
So what did Obama mean by fundamental transformation?
He started his political career in the home of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weatherman Underground, a self-professed communist and dissident whose longtime mate, Bernadine Dohrn, served seven months in jail for failure to cooperate with a Federal Grand Jury regarding the 1981 Brinks Robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead. Dohrn, also a self-professed communist and dissident, was an active and ardent fundraiser for Barack Obama.
Obama spent twenty years in the church of Reverend Wright, a noted anti-white, anti-Jewish pastor who was much more than just Obama’s pastor. He was a mentor and adviser and friend.
The point of mentioning Obama’s associations is to set the context into which Barack Obama the man fits. As the saying goes, “show me a man’s friends and I’ll show you the man.”
Add to the picture someone who has gone under the radar for so long that it is mind-boggling, Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Top Adviser and personal aide for his entire presidency and long before that too. Judicial Watch reports that her father, maternal grandfather, and father-in-law were “Hardcore Communists.” It further reports that as a product of her roots she maintains ties to hard-core communist and extremist organizations. She currently lives with the Obamas in their DC home and serves in his transition to post-president life as…
So Obama is the big winner, first and foremost because he got himself elected. Kudos to him for that. And he did it twice. But therein begin the controversies. In many ways Obama was not what he was presented as, although to his credit, he understood that like no presidential candidate before him in our time, he could actually say what he truly believed, for as a black man and a Democrat he carried the media in his pocket and that racism word in his holster as a tool. Anyone crazy enough to speak up against him and about his connections was obliterated by that R word.
Undoubtedly, Obama was the big winner!
He fed Arlene a steak. She didn’t ask for it and she would have been happy with a piece of fried fish or a hamburger, but he wanted her to eat well. It made him happy to see her having something special, and she, like some of the other waitresses, was not one to ask for anything special.
Bill knew some waitresses who would ask for anything as long as it was special. They would sidle up to him, or any other cook for that matter, in a sexy, sexual way and wiggle their butts while they asked for whatever it was they wanted. Some of them would even pinch their nipples to make them show out to get what they wanted. These were the same waitresses who did these kinds of things at the tables to get better tips.
Arlene, Victoria, Lorraine and even Lexi were not ones ask for things special. Bill liked it that way because then he could select when to offer things to them without having to feel obligated.
He had never been with Victoria. He was never going to be with Victoria. He had only been with Norma because Drenovis had put her up to it to start some trouble for Bill. That had not worked out the way Drenovis had thought it would. He and Lexi had had some fun and if things kept on the way they were going, they were sure to have some more fun. Lexi was a fun girl. She was unshy about sex but she was not overly promiscuous. In fact, she had clear morals and she was not one to be going with Drenovis.
Lorraine was Lorraine. She was older, like Mary, even built somewhat like Mary, curvy, almost chubby, big-breasted and wide-hipped. Being with Lorraine and Mary, even being with Bea, was a wholly different experience than being with younger girls who were less curvaceous.
It didn’t work out with Norma. Bill finished all that he had to do upstairs but did not take a moment to go downstairs. He only went down once to pee, but he did not see Norma anywhere around. That was quite okay with him.
The last time he saw Norma, she had her coat on and was just about out the door. She was still in her waitress uniform and she came around the line to say goodbye to him. He was busy scrubbing down the line, making sure the stainless steel shined brightly.
“I’m heading out,” she said. “See you tomorrow?”
“Where else would I be?” Bill said.
“I’m closing tomorrow,” Norma said. “Victoria was supposed to, but Tommy asked if I would.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Bill.
“I hope you will,” said Norma. She blew Bill a kiss and disappeared out into the hall. Bill heard the screen door open and then slam shut.
Completely finished with all he had to do, he sat down in the hall and smoked a cigarette. That’s where Arlene found him. She had a dupe in her hand and when she saw Bill sitting and resting, he thought she looked at him kind of apologetically.
“It’s a deuce,” she said. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” said Bill. “I’m pretty well set for most of the rest of the day. I was about to go down to help Henry Lee cut some meat, but I don’t think he needs much help.”
“Tommy asked me to work tonight.” She smiled at Bill. “He also said he was working it out so that I could get more shifts. He said he was trying to get them all for me here.”
Bill did not stand up immediately. He took another drag on his cigarette before stamping it out on the floor. “I’m really glad,” he said.
“Me too,” Arlene said.
By Peter Weiss
Bill was alone in the kitchen. All the dishwashers were downstairs eating. The dish machine was shut off and the kitchen was less noisy than its normal. Mary, Bea and Henry Lee were out in the side dining room. Bill had been eating with them, but when an order came in he said he would take care of it.
He was at the Garland cooking the two steaks that were the order. He’d already put the French-fries into a fryer basket but he had not dropped them yet.
“Was I right or was I right?” Norma smiled at Bill as she came into the kitchen and stepped around to the Garland side of the line where the knife sheath was.
“What should I say?” Bill said.
“Don’t say anything. Just give me a nice kiss.”
Norma stepped close to Bill and kissed him. He tasted her tongue, a tongue he was familiar with, and they enjoyed a short but pleasant kiss.
“Don’t know why I’m so horny,” she said. Then, “We haven’t been together for a good while. Wanna take care of me later?” She lifted the front of her dress almost to her panties.
Bill reached up there and copped a fast but full feel of her over her panties.
“That feels good,” she said.
“What time you get off?”
“Soon as I can eat and cash out.”
“Don’t know if I’m gonna be able to get free,” Bill said. He flipped both steaks. He had already rotated them on the one side to diamond-mark them and now the diamond marks, face up, were visible.
“I don’t want to wait around,” Norma said. “You working straight through?”
“Yeah, I have to.”
Norma held up her hand and wiggled her middle finger. “There’s always this,” she said. “Guess I’ll have to take care of myself.”
“It is what it is,” said Bill.
“I’ll stick around as long as I can,” Norma said. “Meanwhile, think about me and that finger. I might just do it downstairs.” She gave Bill a sly, sexy smile. “You know you can have me anytime,” she said.
Bill moved the steaks from one part of the Garland to another but did not flip them again. They were both medium-rare and so they were just about done. He wanted those diamond-marked sides to be beautiful, which he thought they were. Finished moving them, he slid down the line to drop the basket of fries.
The choice between Bea and Norma was no choice. It was a no-brainer. Although Bea was always there and always available, Norma was more beautiful, more sexy and much and sensual.
Bill plated the steaks. When they were set on the plates, he slid back to where the fries were cooking and lifted the basket. He could see they still needed a minute or two, so he set the basket back down in the grease and slid it to the other side.
Working a broiler was an art but so was working the fryers. Like the grills on the Garland, the grease in the fryers changed temperatures depending upon whether or not it was used. The simple act of sliding the basket from one side to the other where the grease was hotter helped them cook faster.
The fries done, Bill shook the grease from them and spilled them directly from the basket onto each plate. Done, he hung the basket back on the fryer hook, took a plate in each hand and set it up under the warmer lights. He tapped the bell gently, and walked into the hall where he sat on his milk cases and lit a cigarette.
A moment later he heard the order being picked up. He got up and checked to see that it went out okay. It was Arlene’s order. He just caught her walking out the automatic doors to the front dining room.
By Peter Weiss
They worked straight through, no breaks, no rest, the board continuously full. Tommy came into the kitchen right after the influx of orders and set up for expediting. By then Henry Lee had already cleared the board of dupes and collected them for Tommy.
Tommy went first to the coffee urns and took himself a mug of coffee. He stopped to talk to Bea to make sure everything was okay and everything was set. He did not bother to check in with Mary because Mary would have taken that as an affront. Bea was designated kitchen manager so he was supposed to check in with her. Mary, the prep cook, was simply supposed to know what to do and have it done. Tommy only checked in with her when he had something specific to discuss.
Bill and Henry Lee were hard at work. Because they were so busy Bill had taken to carving some of the round ahead of time. He was happy now that he and Mary had taken the fresh round out of the oven when they did so that there would be no need for him to stop in the midst of the flow of orders.
On they worked. Order after order, one after the next, like dance partners who had done the dance many times together before. Henry Lee cooked steaks and made sure the bleus and hamburgers did not run out. He slid over next to Bill when he could and helped Bill with all the side dishes.
Mary made sure they never ran out of anything. Frequently and regularly she came over on the line and checked everything on the steam table to see what needed replenishing. Each time she asked Bill if he were okay, if there were anything she needed to do for him or that he wanted her to do for him. Each time he reminded her that what he wanted her to do for him had nothing to do with what they were doing on the line.
Bea found herself working hard too. She had to replenish her salads several times, had to fill the dressings several times, had to send a dishwasher downstairs once to bring up fresh bottles of salad dressing. On top of working her station, she had to make sure the waitresses did not give away the store, that all the pie and dessert orders were appropriately-sized and properly served.
As he worked, Bill watched everything. He watched the waitresses, he watched the dishwashers, he followed the flow of everything that was going on in the kitchen as he could see it. Several times he asked waitresses to bring in sodas for the dishwashers. He also asked for beer for Henry Lee and himself. But he did not drink his beer. He gave it over to Henry Lee and he drank coffee instead. He had Norma make coffee for him. He didn’t have to tell her how he took it because she already knew.
Then it was just about over. Before they knew it, even though they actually knew it, it was one-thirty and the orders were starting to subside. Orders still came in, but the pace was slower, and they were starting to clear the board, as it were.
The dishwashers worked furiously. The dish machine had not stopped once. In the midst of everything that was going on on the line, plates were replenished so the plate warmers never ran out. Bill tracked when Mickey left the kitchen to head out to the bus stations. At the bus stations, Bill knew, he was replenishing silverware, cups, saucers and glasses.
“See,” Norma said, “I told you we were gonna get slammed.”
“Well, you were very right,” said Bill. “Make a lot of money?” he asked.
“I haven’t had a chance to check it yet,” said Norma, “but I’m pretty sure I did.”
Bill thought about Arlene. He didn’t mind working so hard when he thought about her making a lot of money.
By Peter Weiss
Even after the round was set in place and he had trimmed it down so it was ready to carve, Bill had time to hang out in the hall with Bea and Henry Lee.
As always, Bea was sitting on her lettuce cases. She was sitting with her legs spread, kind of letting the air from the outside cool in between up there. Henry Lee was sitting on the milk cases where Bill usually sat so Bill, in what had become characteristic of him, walked over to Bea. First, he kissed her once on the lips, forced his tongue into her mouth and forced her tongue to play with his. While he did this, he reached into the top of her kitchen dress, inside her bra, and pinched one of her big nipples. He pinched it hard and rolled it in his fingers.
“Don’t give me none of that shit,” Bea said. “You already gave Mary what I wanted. I don’t need nothing from you.”
“Shut your face,” Bill said. As he said it, he pinched harder. He knew he was hurting Bea and a perverse sense of pleasure ran through him.
He kissed her again, forced her to kiss back by pressing on her lips so hard that her head was almost pressed against the wall behind her. When he withdrew his hand from her breast, he reached up under her dress from the bottom and slid his fingers up her legs.
Bea made no move to stop him. She didn’t even bother to try to close her legs. Her tongue started to dance with his and her hands, both of them, reached to him, slid under his apron and inside the button-fly of his kitchen pants.
“Don’t pay no attention to me,” Henry Lee said. He looked on, not particularly interested in what they were doing but certainly not turning away because of it.
“We won’t,” Bea said.
“Why don’t you go downstairs?” Henry Lee said.
“We don’t need to go downstairs,” said Bill. He was still kissing Bea. His hand up her dress had found its mark.
“Damn you boy,” Bea said. “I am so pissed at you. I promised myself I wasn’t gonna let you touch me.”
“Doesn’t feel like you’re too pissed. From what I’m feeling, feels like you’re just about ready for more.”
Bea was about to curse Bill. She was about to tell him to step away, not that he would have because he wouldn’t have. If she had managed to get the words out, he would’ve stepped in closer, taken hold of her hands inside his pants and made her continue with what she was doing. He would also have doubled-down on what he was doing under her dress.
Bea wasn’t really doing anything much, just kind of fondling him. It felt nice and was maybe paving the way for them going downstairs sometime after the lunch.
Then they heard the bell ring. It had to happen sooner or later. Like lab rats in their cage, they got up and headed into the kitchen. Bill walked directly behind Bea, reached up her dress to take one last intimate feel of her.
In the kitchen, they found a dupe on the spindle. Henry Lee retrieved the dupe, called the order to Bill and they went to work.
Before they could even get to that first order, the waitresses marched into the kitchen, one after the next and then two together. Suddenly there was a whole host of orders being turned in. The orders came quickly and incessantly.
“We’re getting slammed,” Norma said. “It’s all coming in at once.” Norma smiled at Bill and Henry Lee and then went over to get salads. “Watch out,” she said. “I think this is going to be a really tough one.”
