Jimmy came back just after Caesar left. He surveyed what was going on, watched Caesar’s back as he was walking away. He only came back to teach Bill how to clean up and his instructions were clear. Never start before the room closed, ten on weekdays and eleven on Saturdays. Always do it slowly so that it took an hour and a half. That way they could take another half-hour changing and punch out at midnight or one A.M.
This was good for Bill as he thought about it. His calculations told him he would regularly get ten hours overtime during the week and at least eleven hours, all overtime, on Saturdays. So… Saturdays were at least sixteen and a half hours’ pay. Weekdays were eleven. If the hourly wage wasn’t as good as he’d hoped for (and it was significantly better than the hourly wage he was getting in Columbus), he was working sixty-one hours and getting paid for seventy-one.
In the end, when all was settled, he would work more, much more. Jimmy G would push his cousin Jimmy the banquet chef to utilize Bill as much as he could on banquets and Bill would show everyone that not only did he know how to cook and carve, but that he could also learn new things and new routines quickly.
The chef would indeed learn that Bill was worth standing up for.
“We don’t really have to clean anything,” Jimmy G said. Then, “Caesar bother you while I was gone?”
“We had a little thing,” Bill said. “He went to touch some food and I smacked the table with my tongs, told him not to touch anything.”
“Ay,” Jimmy said. “He get mad?”
“Pissed off is more like it.”
“I say good. But not so good for you.”
“Eighty-nine more days probation,” said Bill.
“Me and Jimmy and Victor make sure you’re all right. Don’t get too crazy.”
Bill wanted to ask what the deal was with the whole family thing in the kitchen. He thought about it, decided not yet. Instead he asked Jimmy about the cleanup.
Jimmy motioned with his hands and face, the gestures that signal “Easy.” Then he said, “We start in a little while. You take a little break. Have a smoke. Take a leak.”
Bill didn’t want to take a break. Bill didn’t work like that. He preferred knowing exactly what he had to do and getting it done. He preferred having everything done and then chilling out. But Jimmy clearly was into his taking a break, which he did as soon as Rosie’s order was gone and he was sure there would be no more orders.
First he went out by Kalista and took himself a Diet Coke. Right there by the soda fountains he drank a good part of it and lit himself a cigarette. Then he set down his glass and headed off on a stroll to the bathroom. He knew where the bathroom was because he’d gone there once before when Jimmy was still in the kitchen. He would learn, soon enough, that there were many other bathrooms and that some of them had walls that could tell stories.
Back in the kitchen, Jimmy, with a big smile on his face, told Bill that he didn’t really have to clean anything. Every night they had a cleaning crew that came in and scrubbed down everything. Mostly, Jimmy told him, all they had to do was wrap the food stuffs neatly, put away what they could in their own walk-in, which was situated right next to where Bill worked at the Garland, and then take the meat, fish, sauces and any other things that needed replenishing back to the main kitchen.
In effect, then, cleanup was a matter of reversing the steps they’d taken at set up without having to prepare anything.
A piece of cake.
