They started completely fresh the next day. Monday morning, like usual, Mary, Bea and Bill were in on time and started work. Tommy opened up like always and they went through the waking of the kitchen. They started coffee and headed downstairs to change into uniforms. Mary stopped at her menu board to refresh her mind about what she needed to do. Bea took an inventory of all the desserts before she went downstairs so she could tell Mary what she and Bill had to cook off in that area.
First thing Bill had to do was cart up a round. He was not surprised when he did not find one cut, so even before he went up to help himself to a coffee, he set about taking out a whole round and cutting it in half. Done with that, he wrapped the half he wasn’t going to use in film and set it back into the walk-in. Then he trudged up the stairs carrying the half-round they were going to cook on a flat meat tray on his shoulder.
Still before he helped himself to coffee, he and Mary set up the round and put it into the oven. It would cook now all the way until the lunch started, and maybe even a little longer if need be. Mary still had a little bit left over from Friday, and they could use that for the start, unless an order was specifically for rare-cooked meat.
Only when they had started everything that needed starting did Bill and Mary take time for coffee. Bea as per usual was sitting on her stool reading the racing page in the newspaper. Bill gave her ten dollars to play his and Mary’s numbers for the week and they all stood together by Bea drinking their coffee.
While they were there in the corner Tommy came in the kitchen. He poured himself a mug of coffee too and asked if they were all set for the day. It was an easy answer actually. Bea told Tommy that she had to do everything from scratch. She told him this was a good thing, that everything would be fresh. Mary said pretty much the same, but she added on that they had to do just about everything soup to nuts, meaning everything. She told Tommy that even most of the fried things were gone and that she and Bill would be spending a good part of the afternoon breading shrimp, pickerel and onion rings. She ended what she was saying with her usual, “Lord have mercy.”
Henry Lee came in at nine. From what Bill could see, he seemed a bit hung over. He was already limping on his bad leg and that meant he was in pain. That also meant Henry Lee would be hitting the bourbon early and often through the course of his day, and most likely they would be going out to the liquor store to buy a bottle.
So the morning wore on, Mother’s Day now just another day in the past. Tommy had an official count, 1547 covers, 1236 of which were steaks. Henry Lee’s response was a simple “Goddamn,” and Bill was awfully proud of himself since he only burned four of all those steaks he cooked.
By the time the lunch service started, when everyone was in and going about their work, including the dishwashers, Bill and Henry Lee had been drinking for several hours and had smoked two joints in the deep freeze. Mary had come down to smoke one joint with them, then very much unlike her, she took a good hit of the bourbon before she went upstairs.
Bill and Henry Lee, for the hour or so that they had working together, had done a good job of beginning getting the meat inventory up to where it should be.
Happiness was that it was a Monday and in all likelihood it would be slow.
