“Huh glory!”
That’s what Robert said upon first seeing him in Bailey’s office that morning. Bill could never, would never forget.
Robert was roly-poly, a dark, dark-chocolate teddy bear. He was all in burgundy, head down to his feet. Only things not burgundy were his shoes. They were black dress-type shoes. Velvet, floppy, wide-brimmed hat, casual leisure suit, sport-coat-like jacket, broad-collared shirt, collar set outside the jacket, ordinary matching men’s slacks, no cuffs: all burgundy, dark wine, except for the shirt which was lighter, almost pink.
“Lord have mercy.”
That’s what he said next. Then he put his arm around Bill, drew Bill to him and said “Let’s go, baby.”
Robert led Bill down from Bailey’s office in the probation department section on the fourth floor of the City Hall Annex to an old fifty-four Ford woody station wagon and drove him to Suburban West. During the ride he explained that Bill would be a busboy at first, but as soon as possible he’d get him into the kitchen. That was the plan, plain and simple.
We plan, God laughs.
Bill remembered when they arrived. Robert led him into the back through the kitchen door. Once inside the kitchen, after the screen door had slapped shut with its usual clap-slap, he put his arm around Bill, called everyone around, said “This my baby so make sure you take care of him.”
And so it began. That’s how it began.
Alfreda, the prep cook and daytime pantry woman, Henry Lee’s wife, as Bill would later discover, was first up. Bill put out his hand to shake hands with her. She drew him to her, hugged him, kissed him on the cheek.
“Robert told me about you,” she would tell him several hours later, after Robert had told them all this was the nice white boy offered him the cigarette that day – Lord have mercy!
Not even a full week later, he met Mary, that was after he accidentally spilled soup on the customer who was so rude to the waitress he’d had to defend her. In the process of doing that, he’d gotten taken off the floor, into the kitchen as the pot washer. And that was just the first few hours of the first day.
That’s how the story went. You couldn’t make this stuff up without God in the picture, Bill thought. What was the statistical likelihood, the odds, that the person giving him a job would be the same person he’d seen in the City Hall Annex when he’d gone to see Bailey, his PO? What made him stop and offer the man a cigarette, virtually the only thing he had to offer in this whole world? What were the odds of them both having the same PO?
Odds nothing, Bill thought. God. God works His ways behind the scenes.
Maybe, he thought later that first day, when he was elbow-deep in pots, his arms and hands red, raw, scalded from hot water, maybe God just didn’t want me out on the floor in front of people. He could still remember how nervous he’d been out on the floor, his head filled with self-chatter, insecurity, fear and self-consciousness.
Goddamn.
Eleanor was the first waitress he would enjoy. He didn’t ask for it, wasn’t looking for it. The customer had been so rude to her, so crass, he’d just done what was natural to do under the circumstances. For that, she viewed him as chivalrous, protective, nice. And wasn’t but a short time later that she happily, willfully, gave herself to him.
You always remember your first crew. That’s what Mary said.
He met Mary the following Monday when Robert told him that they needed a broiler cook on the East side and they were going to train him.
Huh glory and Lord have mercy.
