Cinco de Mayo plus a couple, a beautiful Thursday morning, a little later and a little bit before the lunch service.
Bea had been stewing and she was steaming. Henry Lee and Bill had finished their work down in the meat room. Finished, they smoked a joint in the deep freeze and drank some bourbon before they headed upstairs. Bill carried two trays, Henry Lee carried two trays. There were still two to come up and then the rest of the frozen stuff to make sure they could get through the service without having to make a trip down.
Despite Bea’s being angry, she and Mary seemed, from what Bill could assess, to be getting along okay. When he’d come up on his first trip, they were talking about something. On his second trip they were laughing together. On the third and last trip they were each doing their own work things on their own work stations.
So he thought nothing of it when Tommy came over to him and said something to him about something he wanted the dishwashers to do. It was a simple thing, really, a nothing thing. Tommy wanted Bill to tell the dishwashers that they had some cleanup on one of the bus stations in the side dining room. Then he wanted Paulie, the hyperactive kid, to mop and clean the floor on that station.
It was all simple enough, plain enough, a nothing-burger all together.
Bill was traying up the baked potatoes from the convection oven, same way he always did it, two at a time in each hand carefully placed into the steam table pan he would cover with aluminum foil. When he was done, he went over to talk to the dishwashers, to Paulie in particular to send him on the chores Tommy wanted done.
Bea watched that unfold. She stood on her station by her plate warmer, saw Bill talk to Paulie, saw Paulie shake his head as he listened, too emphatically, overly-eager to show he understood and to please, saw Bill return to working on the line, saw Paulie go about whatever Bill had told him.
Henry Lee had gone out the door in the back. Was a gorgeous day. He stood outside the screen door smoking a cigarette. He was taking in the beauty of the moment, the pleasure of being high and feeling mostly good.
Bill went up and down the line making sure everything was in place, making sure everything was set the way he wanted it to be set. This meant that every sauce had a ladle, things like the vegetables had an appropriate spoon in them (female spoon for vegetables set in liquid, male spoon for things not set liquid), and that all spoons and ladles were set for his being left-handed.
Then he was done.
It was early and he had time to go outside too, but before he could make it to the doorway Paulie came in from the side dining room and made the mistake of asking him a question from across the kitchen. It was a simple question. He looked kind of sheepish and apologetic.
“What was I supposed to do?” he asked.
Maybe it wasn’t clear who he was asking. Maybe Bea thought he was asking her. But she’d been left out of the loop on this one, so even if he were asking her she couldn’t answer. Even if she knew, because she’d been left out of the loop she wouldn’t have answered. Instead, for however steamed she already was, this totally set her off.
“Don’t be asking me nothing,” she said curtly to Paulie. She looked at him, saw him immediately put his eyes down and bow his head. He was not one to be rebuffed, not because he never did anything wrong, because he did, but because of who he was, what he was, a kid with very special needs.
Upon hearing Paulie’s question, Bill immediately turned back into the kitchen.
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