Kitchen fights.
Most of the ones Bill would see in restaurants were between waitresses and cooks and all because they were fooling around and got jealous or envious or pissed off. Add drugs to it… Most restaurants, at least around the time Bill was working in them, were riddled with drugs. So there was Wayne and Jackie, and later Bill would see Wayne and other waitresses.
Cocaine was the drug of choice. It speeded the cooks up. They sped, they worked, they sped more, they finished their shift and smoked weed. All the while they drank, liquor and beer and sometimes wine. Sometimes, if one cook was not coked up and the other(s) were, things were out of sync. Communication could become difficult. So sometimes, when it was going like that, the cook who was not coked up would get high.
Drugs messed up your head.
Personally, Bill did not fight much in kitchens. Since he’d never wanted to be a cook, never thought of it until he’d gotten busted and met Robert through the probation department, he never felt that his ego was invested in it. He didn’t desire power. He just wanted to work, make money, not have to think.
So…
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Bill said to Mary.
The kitchen was at a standstill during the plate hurling contest, but at least it happened before the service had started. Mr. Bowman never came back into the kitchen. When he came in to expedite, Tommy told them Mr. Bowman just left out the front door, not a happy camper. Tommy said he told him to make sure to order more dinner plates.
As Henry Lee cooked off the hamburgers and bleus for the start-up, Mickey swept the kitchen floor. Because he’d mopped the bus station in the side dining room, Paulie already had a pail and mop set up. He went right behind Mickey and mopped away any shattered porcelain that remained. The goal was to get it done, get everything back to order and get the meal started with no delays.
Bea stayed behind her station’s counter and did what she had to to make sure she was ready. She triple-checked all her food. Most everything had been covered so she was not a bit concerned.
Mary stood by Bill for awhile. In part, she stayed there to make sure it was all over, that Bea didn’t start it up again as she surely could have done based upon her mood and how pissed she was. Partly she was staking out her territory, letting Bea know she cared about Bill. Mary knew she now had a thin line to be walking and she needed to do it well. She knew it was on her to keep the kitchen together.
There would be no making peace with Bea. The fooling around between Bea and Bill was over. Plate-hurling punctuated that clearly. At best, for the duration of the time Bill had left at Suburban Steak House, there would be a truce of sorts, and unstated agreement not to mess with each other. Bill would be careful not to usurp Bea’s power. Bea would be careful not to boss him around. Was better to leave him to his own devices.
So Bill went about his business, not as if nothing had happened but not at all upset. If anything, he was pleased with himself for standing up to her, for standing up for himself. In this regard he felt a bit surly. It was clear his stock had risen, and since for every winner there has to be a loser, it was equally clear that Bea’s stock had fallen. The trick now was to let her recover because, and Bill knew this was the only reason why, his days there were numbered.
“May! What potent blood hath modest May,” Bill said to Mary as she stood by him. “Emerson said that.”
