The big sauté pans, maybe three feet by three feet if not slightly bigger, took up one whole stove each. If any one of the crew were working alone and were in a hurry they might have worked two pans simultaneously. That was a feat in and of itself.
Working one pan, in actuality, was hard enough. Working two pans meant working double-speed and then some. Two pans at once meant no leisure time at all. By the time you filled one pan and half of the second it was definitely time to start flipping the breasts in the first pan. With luck, if the oil were not too too hot at the start, you might get to fill the second pan before starting to flip. Two pans meant constant work and never letting your eye off the chicken breasts.
Working two pans meant constant flipping. It also meant no mistakes.
Sometimes cooks and chefs laughed to themselves. It seemed stupid, right? What kind of mistake could anyone make flipping a chicken breast? But there were many.
First and worst was splashing grease and burning yourself. That could happen lots of ways.
Dropping a breast as you went to flip one was one way. Putting a flipped breast down the wrong way was another. If the grease splashed and hit your arm, that meant an immediate blister.
Burns and blisters sucked which was why they wore long-sleeve chef’s jackets here.
The job wasn’t just flipping one breast. Each pan held about 30 breasts, sometimes more or less depending upon the size of the breasts and how tightly you put them in. So you were working at least two and a half dozen breasts at once, twice that if you were working two pans.
At Suburban they wore short-sleeve kitchen shirts. Bill could hold out his arms and show a host of burn scars, more like brown spots and stripes up his arms. At Suburban they never had to sauté on such a large scale. Most of the burns on his arms happened from fryer grease popping or from touching the top of the Garland when reaching inside the broiler. The stripes were on the top of his arm mostly, but he striped the underneath part of the arm too by touching the bottom of the broiler when reaching deep inside, and he did this often.
Other mistakes in the big sauté pans were not getting to a breast in time and having to hurry or dropping one flipped on top of another. And of course the worst was if you burned one or two breasts, or even more. This did happen and it was a great unhappiness. It meant losing some stock sometimes and it certainly meant having to change oil and/or pans in the midst of the work. Once something burned it was really hard to get that taste out.
They sautéed. As they worked they were in their own worlds yet together. They talked and they joked and they tended to what they were doing, one pan each, each one working carefully, painstakingly cautious so as not to get burned or burn the chicken.
It worked out to three pans apiece. They could do one and then a second with a quick skimming of the oil in the pan but for the third pan it was start all over again. Choices there were to empty the pan, scrape it then put fresh oil in it or to scrap the pan altogether and get a fresh one. They all decided on that latter choice, especially since they did not have to wash the pans.
While they were waiting for the oil to heat up again for that last round of frying, they stood smoking and chatting. Jimmy Banquet Chef offered what he called the last drink for the day since it was starting to get toward time to be setting up for The Falstaff Room.
By Peter Weiss
Six months into the Biden whatever-you-call-it, are you happy yet?
From energy independence back to energy dependence, and on our enemies too.
Oil and gas prices up—well you know how much—dramatically to say the least. Begging OPEC to increase production as a result of soaring gas prices and by supporting Russia’s pipeline while closing ours causing our European allies to be dependent upon Russia for at least the next 20 years.
Open support of our enemies and lack of support for our allies.
Lifting of sanctions on China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others. Telling Democracy/Freedom seeking Cubans they are not welcome here and will be sent back to Cuba but openly welcoming anyone who might support the Democrats through our southern border which is wide open. And that of course includes those with Covid, those who are gang members, recidivist deportees and political terrorists from all over the world who can get to Mexico.
Tacit and open funding for the drug cartels and human traffickers, no matter how it happens, and then certainly turning a blind eye on it because we know Biden knows it.
Collusion with Facebook to suppress conservative voices, no matter how they frame it. Censorship, pure and simple of anything negative toward the Democrats openly directed by the White House.
Two systems of justice: one for the left and BLM and one for anyone merely suspected of leaning right.
Justice Department and IRS targeting of those leaning right and using the Intelligence agencies to discover (by spying on them) who these people are.
Hyperinflation, especially on most needed items like food, oil, gas, clothes.
Handouts based upon skin color by executive order (now being challenged in court).
Joe Biden: head of the dirtiest, most corrupt political family in history. Silly me! I thought it was the Clintons.
And so it goes.
By Peter Weiss
After Bill, Victor and the banquet chef breaded all the chicken breasts for all the parties and wrapped and put away what they weren’t going to sauté now, they washed and cleaned up their station then went to smoke a cigarette.
Bill was already mostly sober as they stood smoking. They’d stopped by room service to get themselves double espressos which they carried in coffee mugs. Then they stood there away from the prep part of the kitchen. They smoked. They sipped the black, somewhat-thick coffee. Victor and the banquet chef talked some in Greek and then they both spoke to Bill in English.
“Nothing much will change for you when your probation is over,” the banquet chef said.
“Kalista thinks of you as one of her own babies,” Victor said. “That’s the best you can do in this place.”
“I think she’s great,” Bill said. “She’s been great to me.”
“She likes how you cover for your lazy partner.”
“She likes how you stand up to Caesar,” Victor said.
“When we slow down in banquets,” the banquet chef said, “the chef’s gonna make sure you keep most of your extra hours. That’s good for us, good for him and good for you.”
“Idle hands,” Victor said. “How’s your little banquet waitress?”
Bill hadn’t seen Beverly in a little while and this, altogether, was not a bad thing from his point of view. Not that it mattered – in the scope of things it was just another thing that didn’t mean much in the world. It’s biggest significance was the implication in his marriage, but she was already one of many. In and of herself, she was neither here nor there.
Thinking of her, feeling as he was, Bill wished – just for a moment – she was there today. He knew, and he had felt this before at different times in his short life, he was on the edge, dangerous of sorts. Not dangerous dangerous. He knew he wouldn’t do anything dangerous, not hurt himself or anyone or even anything. But as he thought about it and he saw things, he was starting to think that Millie, who was there today, and Edelgarde and Rosie from The Falstaff Room needed to be careful. No telling what he might do. No telling who he might do it to. Whatever he was gonna do, and he didn’t know what yet himself, he might do it to all of them.
Maybe I should be careful, he thought.
“Cat got your tongue?” Victor said.
“I was thinking,” Bill said.
“Both of you better start thinking about those chicken breasts, Jimmy Banquet Chef said. “The chef won’t want to come in tomorrow and see us all backed up.”
“Where’s my partner?” Bill asked.
The banquet chef and Victor looked at each other. “Should we tell him?” Victor asked.
“Might as well.”
“Sleeping in the chef’s office,” Victor said. “That’s why it’s dark.”
“Why you hesitate to tell me?” Bill asked.
Victor and the banquet chef looked at each other again. Neither one said anything.
“I know the score,” Bill said. “I’m cool with it. Last time I’m gonna say it, but I’m just as happy working alone, so it’s all good. Besides, I truly like Kalista and I’d do most anything for her.”
“See,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said to Victor, “that’s why our sister likes him so much.”
Finished their cigarettes and the espresso, the banquet chef served them each a double shot of whiskey. Then they went about doing the sauté. Since they were alone together, they each set up their stations. This meant gathering the big, big-ass sauté pans and the tools with which to do the sauté.
Each of them ready, each of them watching and helping the two others also, they stood waiting for the oil to heat up.
By Peter Weiss
Bill remembered the aftermath of the breading that day with Mary. He remembered how he was not out of it but strangely focused on strange things. One of them was an uncontrollable sexual urge and a devil-may-care, what-the-hell attitude. Bottom line of that attitude was that he just plain didn’t give a shit.
He knew that no matter what he did they weren’t gonna fire him. He knew he could do just about anything, actually truly just about anything, and they would tolerate it. They would tolerate it because he was attached to Robert at the hip and he could do his job better than almost anyone.
First devil’s chore he chose was walking in on Marie while she was in the ladies room changing. He did it on purpose having waited what he thought was long enough for her to have shucked her civvies. He and Henry Lee were cutting meat now, it being just a touch after four in the afternoon. He told Henry Lee he was gonna go do Marie. Henry said “Bless you brother, take her off my hands for a bit.”
To his content, Bill found Marie in her bra and panties.
“What the fuck,” she said. “Get out of here before I tell Mary what you doing.”
“Tell her,” Bill said.
“I will.”
“Give me a kiss.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Give me a kiss. You always wanted to anyway.”
“That part is true.”
It was true. Marie had tried to get with Bill lots of times and Bill had stayed away out of courtesy for Henry Lee. Marie was his squeeze.
“So give me a kiss.”
Marie stepped toward Bill, reluctantly at first, but the moment their lips met and he put a hand on her shoulder she melted into him. She not only melted into him, but she kissed him passionately.
Bill pressed into her, wrapped her skinny body in his arms. He was a horny, excited twenty year old male under the influence and not in his right head.
“Goddamn,” Marie said.
Bill didn’t know if it was from her feeling him against her, she in just her panties down there, or if it was from the kiss. Either way, he reasoned best as he could reason, it didn’t matter.
What he did do was lock the door behind him so no one else could walk in on them. If it were Bea, she’d laugh. If it was Henry Lee, he might join in. If it was Mary, she’d be pissed. Not only were they an item, her and Bill, but it had been tough enough for her to get him to finish the breading. He’d wasted a lot of time and she’d had to work around him.
They kissed more. They kissed a lot more. Without any hesitation Bill reached down behind her and into Marie’s panties. She spread her legs some and let his hand and fingers go where they pleased, where she’d been wanting them to be for a good while.
“I’m embarrassed,” she said when Bill’s fingers slid into her. “Look what you do to me, white boy.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” Bill said. “I’m not the least bit embarrassed.”
“I hate you,” Marie said.
“I hate you too,” Bill said.
That said from both of them, Bill went to work first. He told her he wasn’t going into her yet but it could happen some other time if she wanted it. She told him it was definitely in her plans.
Down on his knees, Bill took down her panties, looked happily at her completely bald coochie.
Marie leaned back against the sink and closed her eyes.
It would have been hard for anyone to tell who was tripping more.
By Peter Weiss
They say everything dies. When you’re young you generally don’t think about it much, if at all. When you’re older you start to see it coming closer. You start to see that everything does die and days are numbered. If death was something abstract and way off in the distance – you know, like Mars is out there but way out there in outer space – as death gets numerically and statistically closer it becomes more and more real, more concrete.
Some people will get the allusion in the title of this piece. Some people, most I fear, won’t. Probably many kiddos educated in today’s American public education system won’t know what an allusion is. After all, knowing what allusion is isn’t practical, won’t get you anything tangible. That’s good for them since when they bring up Jim Crow those people won’t have a clue about it and will believe them, which is precisely what they wanted and exactly why the title of this piece is so appropriate.
America, the USA, is the Norma Jean in the title.
They make it complicated. But it is really simple.
They speak with forked tongue and act with sleight of hand.
In his whatever-you-thought-of-it whispers not too long ago, Biden whispered that we’ll be getting substantial checks for child credit in the mail starting in July.
What Biden didn’t say was that that money won’t then be there for us come tax time next year.
If you actually pay taxes, which only about half of us do, your refund will be significantly less since you’ve gotten the child tax credit in advance. If you don’t pay any taxes at all your earned tax income profit from the Feds this year will be significantly lessened.
Sleight of hand: getting the child tax credit sounded good in that whisper, if a little creepy at the same time, but it won’t be good in the end for most people, and that’s mostly the people who really need the money or can’t handle money or have no sense of saving money for needed goods. In the end they will end up more needy.
We are living in evil times.
Our enemies are continually strengthening.
Here at home we have a Manchurian Candidate president and a laughing hyena vice president who is incompetent at best.
They are being “run,” not guided or led, by a greedy, power-hungry political party that is in cahoots with globalist multi-billionaires who control our media and our technology. Or, that party in conjunction with those greedy multi-billionaires feed us false narratives only to enrich and empower themselves.
It is really simple.
Capitalism, Democracy, police, white supremacy and systemic racism are not to blame here. They are straw issues presented by them continually to divide and subterfuge us.
Greedy, power-hungry technology and media multi-billionaires with global personal economic interests have gotten into bed with greedy, power-hungry politicians on the left. The demise of America is in their best interests, not the best interests of the 99% of regular Americans.
So Good-Bye Norma Jean.
Kudos to Barack Obama who has accomplished what he said he would, the fundamental change of America.
Nobody said it would be a good change, even a change for the better.
America is on its deathbed, so Good-Bye Norma Jean.
By Peter Weiss
Bill remembered the time with Mary, that one afternoon at Suburban when they were going about breading shrimp, pickerel and onion rings.
Wasn’t the only time he was high. Wasn’t the only time he was tripping. Wasn’t the only time he was high and drunk and tripping. But it was the time he and Mary had put aside to do the breading for the rest of the week.
Actually Mary hadn’t put away her time. She had put away his time. She had planned it so Bill had time to do the breading while all she had to do was help set him up, watch him and help him tray everything the way she wanted it for them for the line.
Bill already knew everything anyway. Bill was a quick study, smart and very organized. Mary knew this about Bill. She also knew he was meticulous, not just in his cooking but in his other activities too. That was one thing she liked about him and her together. He was painstakingly thorough.
Bill and Henry Lee had been drinking and smoking pot all morning straight up to the lunch service. They had beer stashed in the hall for when there were lulls during the service so they could go to the hall and drink. Bill had brought some acid to work with him and thinking they would have a slow afternoon, not much to do but the breading and some meat cutting, he popped a tab right at the start of the lunch service.
He’d figured it would take awhile to come on, probably hit him right about when he was standing with Mary doing the setup for the breading. But it didn’t quite work that way.
Henry Lee happened to see him pop the tab.
“Goddamn,” he said.
“Fuck it,” Bill said. “Sometimes I just fucking hate life.”
“Yeah, well, ain’t that a bitch,” Henry Lee said.
“Like I said,” Bill said.
The acid came on much sooner than he’d thought and right in the middle of the lunch rush he found he was tripping. It wasn’t a lot at first and he functioned. But toward the end of the service it took all the concentration he could muster just to do the slightest work well.
Henry Lee helped much as he could. He didn’t want Mary to find out and he certainly didn’t want Bea to find out. Bea was a wild card. She would be livid and no telling what she would do.
He knew Tommy was hip to it because Tommy, the assistant manager, was shaking his head as he watched Bill fumble around. Tommy was expediting. Twice he asked Bill if he was okay. Twice Bill said he was fine, that he felt sick, a little dizzy. Tommy asked if he had to cover Bill for the night. Bill said he’d be okay.
He was okay. He made it through the service. He was messed up at lunch for the staff and he was fully tripping as he and Mary set up for the breading. Several times he reached up under Mary’s skirt and several other times he just plain felt her up up there. Twice he kissed her right in front of Bea. Part of that on some subconscious level was spite, not to make Bea jealous but to piss her off.
They watched Bill, Mary and Bea did, while he stood over the breading station for about an hour just staring into the egg wash and not breading anything. Several times Mary went out the side doors into the side dining room to get coffee for her and Bill. Bill drank the coffee she brought him, but it wasn’t changing anything.
Finally she said what she said, which was “Boy how long you plan to be staring into them eggs? You plan to do any breading?”
Breading was a mindless chore, why Bill could, fairly drunk at the moment, not only bread the chicken breasts with Victor and the banquet chef but be lost in his thoughts too. His hands, experienced hands, moved without need for his head.
By Peter Weiss
“Jesus Christ,” Millie said.
“Happy?”
“God yes.”
“Feeling better?”
“I am now. All good. Gonna get some black coffee and go back to work happy and cheery.”
“You owe me big time.” Bill leaned in over Millie who was still not naked but fully exposed in the chair. He kissed her on the mouth long and hard.
“Jesus Christ,” Millie said again when they were done kissing. She made no attempt to cover up. Instead she showed herself proudly.
“You really think I’m gorgeous?” she asked.
“Definitely,” Bill said.
“Can you come back later?”
“Don’t think so. I’ve already been gone too long and they’re gonna razz me pretty good.”
“I can take care of you real quick.”
“I like you owing me.”
“You know you can have whatever you want, whenever you want.”
“I know,” Bill said.
“What are you gonna tell them?”
“Who? The boys? That Chloe gave you whiskey for us and we had a few drinks.”
“That it?”
“You bet.” Bill leaned in again kissed her again. This time when they were done kissing, Bill helped her up from the chair. He wanted to make sure she was steady on her feet.
Standing with her, he kissed her some more and as he did, he helped himself to a generous and prolonged feel of her all over.”
“They gonna believe you?” Millie asked. She did not move from his touch. She moved herself into it, helped him with her movements to find what he was looking for, what she wanted.
“Not for a second,” Bill said.
“And…?”
“And what?”
“And don’t stop.”
Millie, while they stood there, took Bill’s hand and led it to her, to where she wanted. She reached up and kissed him all the while they stood there, all they while he touched her.
“Maybe I will stop by later,” Bill said.
“Three-thirty,” Millie said. “You’ll be set up and will have some time before the room opens. I’ll be happy to pay off.”
“You have no idea what I might ask.”
“No matter what, be okay with me. Whatever it is.”
Bill kissed her one last time, watched as she put herself together and then led him out making sure the coast was clear.
“Three-thirty,” she said.
“If I can,” Bill said.
They were waiting for him in the main kitchen. Jimmy Banquet Chef and Victor were setting up to sauté chicken breasts. Jimmy G was sitting by the chef’s office smoking a cigarette and reading the Greek newspaper.
“Don’t mind the lazy one,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said. “He’s always gonna be lazy.”
“I’m not saying anything,” Bill said. He went first to read the banquet board, to see what they had for the rest of the week. When he had read it, studied it, he turned to the banquet chef and Victor and said, “Easy week.”
“Breakfast, lunch and one dinner tomorrow,” the banquet chef said. “None of them big. Then a quick lunch and two dinners the next day. Nothing the day before New Year’s Eve, but New Year’s Eve day is gonna be a bit crazy.”
“You can help us with the breakfasts and lunches. Dinner in your room is gonna be very busy.”
“Too bad for us,” the banquet chef said. “No New Year’s celebration for us.”
“Double time,” Victor said. “I’d rather make money anyway.”
“Me too,” Bill said.
“All right,” the banquet chef said, “let’s get this show on the road.”
Because it was quiet, because they were drinking, because there was no real hurry to do the work, the three men did everything themselves. First they stood and breaded the chicken breasts. They did this together in a line, each one dipping and handling one part of the breading, first man taking the chicken breasts from the trays, last man, which was Bill, traying them up again.
Tray after tray, they breaded all the breasts that needed to be done. Before they started to sauté, they smoked a cigarette and had another drink.
By Peter Weiss
Her being drunk was not a bad thing, Bill thought. His getting more high – he was used to drinking and so he was high, not drunk – was a good thing too. Owing her wasn’t bad either.
Wrong-think was bad and he was steeped in it. Self-pity was bad and he was steeped in that too. He didn’t quite know it or feel it as self-pity at the moment, but sometimes he did. Today he just felt crappy and he didn’t know why. All he knew was that he had no reason to be feeling crappy and that by any ordinary circumstances he should be feeling absolutely super.
On some level away from everything, if he looked at everything somewhat clearly, he had it made in the shade. Here was this gorgeous girl before him ready, willing and able, and she was not his wife either. That was the big dream of seven in ten married men. He was working, had money in the bank, had a good wife and…
He could go on.
“I am drunk,” Millie said, the third drink down. “See what you’ve done to me?”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” Bill said.
“And you’re not gonna,” Millie said. “I have to puke.”
“Ah, you’re fine,” Bill said.
“No. I really have to throw up.”
That said, she took off for the small closet-size bathroom there in the back.
And that was that.
Millie came back a moment later, disheveled and unsteady on her bare feet. She plopped herself into the arm chair and sat there, hair mussed, legs spread wide, dress partially opened bottom to top.
“You can do anything you want to me if you still want to,” she said.
“You look like shit,” Bill said. “You’re gorgeous, but you look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” Millie said.
“Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker,” Bill said. He laughed.
“I mean it,” Millie said. “Just use me. I brushed my teeth and rinsed out my mouth with Listerine.”
Some fifteen years later Bill would be with a waitress who would say the same thing. Of course he couldn’t know this yet and he didn’t know that he would hear the words and remember Millie. He would remember then what he did now and so then in retrospect he would know what the feelings were.
What Bill did with Millie was about his father more than anything else, about that what-he-would-come-to-learn-as irrational and misguided notion that you had to give in order to get, or worse, that you just had to give. Bill would not rationalize it, would not think it out. Maybe if he could have done that he would have acted differently, not just now but through his whole life.
Millie was sprawled out in the chair just about maybe almost fully conscious.
“You know you really are gorgeous.” Bill stood a few feet from her, before her. He reached down and opened the last few buttons of her house-dress, spread it apart, stood looking at her skinny, Marie-like body. For his own pleasure, he reached behind her, unhooked her purple bra and pushed it to the side so he could see her bare breasts. Then he reached under her and pulled down her panties, let them settle down at her ankles and on her bare feet.
“Am I gorgeous?” Millie asked.
“You bet your sweet ass,” Bill said.
He stood looking at her as if he were an artist getting ready to start working on her portrait. In effect, it was somewhat the same. He was indeed an artist getting ready to go to work on his canvas.
By Peter Weiss
Call me old fashioned.
I was taught that nobody owes me anything.
I was taught to work for my living.
I was taught to be responsible financially.
Being financially responsible meant not going to a paying school until I could get a work-study program that fully paid my way except for books. But I did have to work 30 hours a week while going to school and because I worked summers too I earned enough to pay for my books.
I was taught that I had to pay my own way for my dream. If what I wanted to do or be didn’t make me any money, tough shit, get a job so I could do it. No one owed me my own personal fulfillment.
I was taught not to live beyond my means. If I couldn’t afford something, I shouldn’t buy it. I was taught not to borrow what I couldn’t pay back.
I was taught in school. I was taught reading, writing and arithmetic. I was taught to think for myself. I wasn’t taught what to think, what to believe, etc. That stuff was clearly and purposefully left for my parents to teach me.
I was taught that feelings aren’t facts, that facts are facts and interpretation of facts are just that, interpretation. Or, two plus two is four. It’s not four sometimes. It is not four based upon who I am, what my beliefs are or where I live.
Call me old fashioned. I was taught that government exists to protect its citizens.
Bottom line, our government should do that, protect its citizens, and then it should get the hell out of our lives and leave us alone to be individually free and self-sufficient.
Yes, call me old fashioned. This new world, new normal stuff stuff…
Call me old fashioned.
By Peter Weiss
China is building its military and its economy. It doesn’t care about controlling carbon emissions. It is threatening Japan, Hong Kong and expanding in the South China Sea. It is intent upon controlling the world. And that doesn’t even mention Covid.
In one simple tirade and with the stroke of a pen Biden has made Europe energy-dependent upon Russia for the next two decades at least. He’s also empowered and enriched Iran (again), the world leader in terrorism.
Then he stands there in Europe and tells our military and the world America’s greatest threat is climate change.
