Coming next month on Amazon, the second in the series, the second hundred Bill Wynn outtakes.
By Peter Weiss
It snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed some more. Bill did trip and it didn’t matter. They were so s!ow Bill and Marie could have both disappeared from the kitchen and not have been missed for long periods of time. Only two waitresses worked, the two who lived closest to the restaurant. Bill was too blitzed for most of the evening to worry about how he was getting home. Mary, Bea and Henry Lee left as soon as Jimmy got in. The west side did not bother to come for steaks and decided they would simply use up whatever they already had.
Winter. But then, by the weekend, the streets and highways were cleared. The city settled into its usual harsh winter pattern of bitter cold with brisk winds and an overall sense of barrenness that didn’t seem to pervade other cities in winter. Or, as Bill thought about it, the city had all of the bad parts of winter with just about none of the good parts.
Ohio State did play three straight home games, Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Not that Bill particularly cared, but they won all three and were having a good season thus far. Their having a good season meant good crowds at the games. Thursday and Friday saw early dinner rushes before the games and a late push afterward. Saturday was a gangbuster day. They got busy after the game cleared out and they stayed busy all night.
Bill was doing his best to keep Bea at bay, but she was getting antsy. Being busy was a blessing since no one had time to really fool around. Even Bill and Mary were all about business. Henry Lee and Marie were too.
On Saturday, when Alfrieda came with the van to pick up meat for the west side, she was perky and pesky. She bothered Bill every chance she could get. That was whenever Henry Lee was not around, like when she was behind Bill going up the stairs while he was carrying meat trays. Then, when they were on the van and he was stacking the trays he’d carried, she felt him up shamelessly. He repeatedly told her to cut the crap, but the more he said something, the more brazen she was.
All the waitresses worked Saturday night. The poor business days they’d had on the snow nights were quickly forgotten and the university basketball crowds more than compensated for the slow nights. Everyone worked hard and everyone was about business. Even when it slowed down late Saturday night, everyone was too tired to mess around. The waitresses ordered their dinners and quietly sat to eat. The cooks rested in the hall. Marie sat on Bea’s stool and read the paper.
Lorraine came in around eleven with a beer for Bill. He had not gotten high at all and he had not had any bourbon. When he knew they were going to be really busy, he played it straight for the most part. It was bad enough when they fell behind. It was worse when it was because he was messed up. Bill didn’t ever want to give Drenovis a reason to get on his case. If Drenovis wanted to start stuff, Bill wanted to be sure he could give it back and was not in any way vulnerable.
So mostly the weekend, beginning with Thursday that week, was all business. It was fast-paced, even hectic. At times it was frenetic. Bill and all the cooks earned their pay and then some. The waitresses made out like bandits. The dishwashers ate steaks and had unlimited sodas. Bill made sure they were well taken of and had everything they needed. Jim complained again, several times, about not having a beer when he saw Bill drinking one.
“Really think you’re something,” he said to Bill. Jim was more agitated than usual and once again Bill sensed something was festering.
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“What do you have to do for the afternoon?” Bill asked Mary. He stood close by her by the screen door, close enough so that she could feel him against her. He felt her shift on her feet so they were not touching.
“Nothing too much,” Mary said. “I got enough of just about everything until tomorrow and I’d rather start fresh tomorrow when we have more business. This way you can throw away a lot of the leftovers tonight without wasting much.”
“Think we have enough prime rib?” Bill asked.
“I think we should use up what’s there. If we run out, we run out and that’s best.”
“Henry Lee and I don’t even have much meat to cut,” Bill said. He leaned in close to Mary and whispered in her ear. “I think I’m gonna trip.”
“I think you are tripping,” said Mary. “And don’t be coming around rubbing all over me, either.”
“What you mad at?”
“What was you and Bea doing in the store room?”
“She was getting salad dressing. I was rotating stock that should have been rotated and re-stacking what I had to move to get to it.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“Well you can bet on it.”
“The bitch.”
“It’s not her I like.”
“But you still hit it, don’t you?”
“It’s easier than not. Turning her away is gonna make a fight I don’t need to fight in here right now. Give me a little time to put her off.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course. You’re the only one I care about. You know what I mean. I care about Lorraine, but that’s different. She’s different.”
“Why you care about me?” Mary asked.
“If you have to ask, you really are stupid,” said Bill. “And I know you’re not stupid.”
The snow started to fall again as the lunch was ending. The lunch was abysmal and Tommy was clearly unhappy. He came to the table where Bea, Henry Lee, Mary and Bill were eating. His first question was quite simple, about how much food they had left over. Mary looked down into her plate when she told them they hadn’t sold much of anything. The steamship round, she told him, would be enough for the next day so that they didn’t have to cook another one. The lunch special was hardly touched. She was thinking about what she could make it into for a special for the dinner.
Henry Lee reported that they hadn’t sold many steaks either. He said he didn’t have to cut much for the evening and that he would talk to Robert about what they needed over on the west side. He said he couldn’t imagine they needed much over there. He said he didn’t want to get too far ahead in the inventory, but that they could probably make up some of the lost business over the weekend when Ohio State was playing basketball at home. That of course would depend upon whether or not it snowed anymore.
Bill, as usual, ate very rare roast beef with lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayonnaise on a hamburger bun. Mary and Bea ate tuna fish salad sandwiches. Henry Lee ate a steak. Like any good meat cutter, he would make sure to get an extra steak out of one of the top butts to make up for the one he was eating. Here, at Suburban, the cooks really looked out for the owner. Altogether, this was a small operation, two stores, and the kitchen crews were pretty much interrelated. They knew as a unit that their livelihoods depended upon the success of the restaurants. None of them wanted to lose their jobs. They might complain about how hard they worked, how little they were paid and what a pain in the ass Drenovis was. But despite the snow, life was good.
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Bill should have supposed that Mary would get pissed. It started when he and Bea came up the stairs together even though Mary knew Bill was helping her. Bea was simply gone too long for her liking, and she supposed, she would tell Bill later, that they were fooling around in the storeroom. Whether it was actually the case or not didn’t matter at all.
Being pissed didn’t stop her from getting high or from sitting on the counter with her legs crossed at the ankles watching Bill and Henry Lee make the hamburgers. She swung her legs as always, and at one point she got up to get herself a good drink of bourbon. While she was up she handed Henry Lee the bottle and waited while both he and Bill drank so she could put the bottle back in the drawer before she sat down.
Then it was time for lunch. Or, it was almost time for lunch in that Bill and Henry Lee still had to cart up the meat for the service and Bill still had to do the inventory of French fries, fish, onion rings and anything else that was needed for the service.
“You did start the potatoes baking, right?” Bill asked Mary.
“No I’m stupid,” said Mary.
“Well we know that,” said Bill.
“Keep it up, boy.”
“You two gonna fight?” Henry Lee asked.
“I ain’t fighting,” said Mary.
“Me either,” Bill said.
“Good,” said Henry Lee, “cause I don’t want to hear no shit.”
Bill was busy breaking off the bleu cheese and gouging holes into what would become the bleus. Not only did he not like eating bleu cheese, but he did not like touching it either. He did not like the smell. He did not like the feel. He did not like anything about it.
Bleu cheese would not be the only food he did not like to eat in the kitchens. However, he would discover that if he wanted to get his paycheck he not only had to handle the foods he didn’t like, but he also had to prepare them and even taste them. Sweetbreads and liver were two of the things that could easily make him puke if his paycheck had not depended upon him tasting them. Then there would be other things he disliked doing, like messing with live stuff such as lobsters and trout from a live fish tank. Regarding those, he would learn that the best and most efficient way to deal with them was to do the killing quickly and cleanly.
Killing trout was a whole story unto itself. One was not accepted as a cook in one of the restaurants he would work later on in his career until one could easily capture the trout and artfully kill it without mangling it. In another place he worked, one was not accepted as a cook, stupid as it seemed, until one could open a beer bottle with the backside of a knife.
Bill learned all of these things. Bill, as a cook, learned many things, most of which he would have been better off never having to learn.
As always of late, Bill pulled the baked potatoes from the convection oven two at a time in each hand. As always, since that first day as cook when he burned his right hand, he felt almost nothing in his fingertips there. But the potatoes were the proverbial hot potatoes for his left hand. Meanwhile, Bea, Mary and Henry Lee were out in the hall. Henry Lee was telling Bea to close her legs when Bill walked out. Mary was standing by the screen door looking out into the snow. The snow had finally stopped, but the weatherman, as per the radio, were predicting more snow later in the day. They didn’t think, as Mary related it, that it would be another significant accumulation.
On Amazon In A Few Short Days
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
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The menu called for a nice, thick cream of broccoli soup which Mary started as soon as she got upstairs and finished her coffee. Bea sat longer than usual on her stool sipping her coffee and reading the racing page in the Dispatch. She asked Bill if he wanted to place a bet or if he wanted to play a number. Bill did not play the horses, but he did play the numbers for both himself and Mary. Those number bets would end up in the hands of Robert who would hand them to Mr. Bowman. Robert was the numbers runner, why he had been busted in the first place and how Bill had met him when Robert was on his work detail. Mr. Bowman ran the game. He was the money man.
By 10:00 AM just about all the work for the day was done. The snow had settled into a flurry pattern and the streets were well plowed. More than a foot of snow had fallen. The University was on a delayed opening schedule, so morning classes were canceled. Bill had still not heard from his fiancé. He tried to call home several more times but to no avail. She could have called the restaurant, but there were no calls for him. Any call would’ve been forwarded to wherever he was at the time.
Bea met Bill downstairs while he was straightening up some things in the storeroom. He had brought up everything Mary needed for the rest of this day and for tomorrow as well. He and Henry Lee were about to start grinding meat for hamburger and making the patties and the bleus. She snuggled on him from behind while he was bending over straightening up a stack of stewed tomatoes cases. He’d had to move the stack in order to get to some things that should have been rotated forward but were not. It caught him by surprise when she goosed him, so much so that he almost dropped the case of tomatoes in his hands.
“Goddammit,” he said. “What the hell?” He turned to see it was Bea. She was already chuckling, her throaty chuckle, and she was reaching out to take a more intimate feel of him.
“So you slept at Mary’s, huh?”
“It kind of seemed like the best solution given the weather.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Where were her kids?”
“They stayed by her mother. Don’t ask me anything else cause I don’t know nothing.”
“I suppose all you did was go to sleep.”
“No,” said Bill. “We got high. We took some Quaaludes. I took a shower and then we went to sleep.”
“And that’s all you did?”
“Nope,” Bill said. “We slept, we got up, we cleaned all the goddamn snow off my car and we drove here.”
“So I guess you got some left for me,” Bea said.
“Some what?” Bill asked.
“Some something,” Bea said.
“I always got some something. But I got to help Henry Lee make the hamburgers. So maybe we could meet sometime later.”
“You putting me off boy?”
“Not at all darling. I just got some stuff to do.”
“Well I need some salad dressings,” Bea said. “Want to help me carry them upstairs?”
Bill could see no way out of it. So he finished straightening up while Bea watched him work. Then together they carried up the gallon jugs of salad dressings that Bea needed for her station. When he had helped her put them into their place, he checked the steamship round and checked to see that Mary had put in the baked potatoes. The potatoes were not in yet. He washed them and put them into the convection oven. Then he told Mary all she had to do was turn the oven on when she wanted to.
“What you doing, boy?” Mary asked.
“Going down to help Henry Lee make the hamburger. You want to get high come on down.”
A moment later Mary joined Bill and Henry Lee in the meat room.
In A Few Short Days
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with fat girls,” Mary said. Her work was mostly done for the day. She and Bill had locked themselves in the staff bathroom. Bill was leaning against the vanity, Mary was in his arms. They were kissing.
“You ain’t fat. Bea is getting toward really fat.” Bill’s hand had found its way there, or sort of there because he had stopped short of there and was teasing.
Mary shushed him. She spread her legs some so getting there was easier. “Meat on the bones is good,” she said. Then she reached around his head and pulled his lips to hers so she could kiss him and control the kissing.
“It’s supposed to snow,” she said.
“And?”
“Promise you’ll be careful driving home.”
“Maybe I should come over by you.”
“Maybe you should get with them fat girls. You could get paid and laid and kept plenty warm.”
“That is very cold.”
“You bet your ass it is. Now make me warm and creamy.” Mary stepped away slightly and lifted her dress. But just when she was about to settle Bill how she wanted him, there was a knock on the door.
“You got a call,” Henry Lee said to Mary.
“Goddamn,” Mary said. “Take a message.”
“It’s your mom.”
“Lord have mercy,” Mary said. “I got to get this.” She let her dress fall into place and opened the door. Bill followed behind her. She turned off to the party room where she could talk in private. Bill went into the meat room.
“What you need cut?” he asked Henry Lee.
“Nothing, really. Everything’s done. We could start on the inventory for tomorrow, but I think it’s gonna be real slow tonight.”
“You know, Columbus has some of the ugliest winters I’ve ever seen,” said Bill.
“Yeah well, what it is. Still if it snows like they saying, you gonna be sitting around.”
“So what should I cut?”
“Tops. But not too many. Then see what Mary needs besides what you were doing in the bathroom.”
Bill cut five top sirloin butts which yielded enough Boston strips and Tops for them for the next day. When the steaks were neatly trayed and fully wrapped, he cleaned up where he’d been working and went upstairs. Mary was sitting out in the hall. It was almost time for Marie to be coming in, almost quitting time for her and Bea. All her work was done except taking out the baked potatoes and putting the food items on the line. The prime rib was still in the oven.
“You got any weed?” she asked Bill as he got to the top of the stairs.
“Sure.”
“Let’s get high.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. My mom’s keeping the kids overnight. They’re saying it’s gonna be a major storm. Gonna start soon too. They’re saying we could have like a foot of snow by morning. You really should think about staying close by. Maybe Tommy close early.”
“Maybe I should come over by you.”
“Maybe you should.”
“What I get for it?”
“You might find me in purple.”
“Really?”
“Maybe.” Mary stood up from where she was sitting. She blushed red over her dark chocolate skin. “What I get for it?”
“What you want?”
Mary leaned in and whispered in Bill’s ear. When she was finished, she kissed him once on the cheek. Before he could see her face, she gingerly stepped down the stairs. Bill followed right behind her. He was calculating and scheming.
After they’d all gotten high in the deep freeze and helped themselves to a generous amount of bourbon, Mary sat on the stainless steel counter like she always did, legs and feet hanging over the edge, feet crossed at the ankles.
“Think they close early?” she asked Henry Lee.
“Just might if it starts real soon and comes down heavy.”
“They done it before,” Mary said.
“Never know,” Henry Lee said. “Never know about a lot of stuff,” he added.
Coming Shortly
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
Sometimes life really does get in the way. A few things have happened and I’ve been away from here. (I’d put a sad emo-gee, but I don’t know how.)
The good news: All is well, mostly.
The bad news: Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be delayed a little while, but not long.
So, Still Coming Shortly
The first volume of Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be available on Amazon soon. Thank you all for following the series and the blog.
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
All of the outtakes are autobiographical fiction. The workhouse outtakes are especially autobiographical. Bill Wynn first appears as the main character of The Kitchen Stories in 1979. The Kitchen Stories will be released later this year.
Enjoy!
Announcing:
The first volume of Fiction Outtakes, Bill Wynn: The First Hundred will be available on Amazon soon. Thank you all for following the series and the blog.
Please do pick up a copy of my already published works here:
Books by Peter Weiss.
All of the outtakes are autobiographical fiction. The workhouse outtakes are especially autobiographical. Bill Wynn first appears as the main character of The Kitchen Stories in 1979. The Kitchen Stories will be released later this year.
Enjoy!
Hindsight is 2020, so they say. Even though his fiancé’s father would never loan them money, at one point just after they were married he gave Bill a stock tip. The stock was sure to skyrocket overnight and Bill should put every penny he had into that stock. That would’ve been great if Bill and his wife had had any money. They took the hundred dollars that they could spare and put it into that stock. Literally, overnight the stock jumped from 5 to 40.
So there were problems festering. In retrospect, Bill would think later in his life he should have seen them, should have understood them, should have anticipated them and dealt with them. But he was only 20 and what do 20-year-olds know? He was 20, abusing substances, a boy in a man’s body whose life had already been upended twice. That meant that two times already his railroad track, whatever track it was supposed to have been, had been switched. Twice already he’d been taught that no matter how hard he tried he would never have control over things. Later in his life Bill would come to the conclusion that control is an illusion, something we all try for but few of us ever get. It was like the girl game. The more you tried to get a girl the less she wanted you. The more you grasped at control, the less control you had.
So there were problems festering. The one he would not see for many many years was the one with his fiancé. The ones that would surface more quickly were there at Suburban. The first had to do with Jim, the dishwasher who always wanted a beer, the dishwasher who’d been kicked in the head by a horse and was not quite right. The second was with Bea. Bea was more tricky than Jim. Jim was blatant. Every time he would see Bill drinking a beer, he’d say it would be nice to have a beer. Bill would tell him he couldn’t give him a beer and Jim would say that Bill really thought he was something. Sometimes Jim would tell Bill he had no clue of what being something really was. At one point in his life Jim really was something.
Control. Jim got kicked in the head. He would’ve been killed if one of the stable boys hadn’t been able to pull him out of the way and calm down the horse. There was never an explanation as to why the horse did what it did. It simply went out of control.
Bea was more in control than Jim. But at least Jim was who he was. Bea was the wolf in sheep’s clothing, all sweet and caring when she wanted to be, when she wanted something, when she wanted Bill. When she was horny she would do anything to have Bill take her downstairs to satisfy her itch. When she was feeling threatened by Bill’s liking Mary, she would be sweet and make sure Bill got everything he needed from her. Well, almost everything. But like almost everyone, Bea made the simple mistake of thinking that she was in control.
And so one day, not long after the new year, not long after Bill’s fiancé was wholly immersed in her UDC spring concert preparations, wholly immersed in her schoolwork and active in all the evening activities that the dancers attended, some of them not because they wanted to but because they were obligated to, Bill found himself approached by one of the dishwashers.
“I was wondering,” he said, “if you’d be interested in making a little money. I see you’re quite popular with the girls here. There are a couple of ladies who live in my rooming house that would like to meet a guy like you. They’d be willing to pay handsomely if you were to meet them.”
Coming This Week:
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Like any underlying problem, like any problem that is not addressed, it festered. Bea became more demanding in her sexual wants. The more it seemed to her that Bill liked Mary, the more she wanted to get in the way. If under other circumstances it might have been because of jealousy for Mary, in this particular case it was due to a power struggle, a power struggle only she seemed to feel.
For his part, Bill could care less. For most things in running the kitchen, he was happy to have her take the lead and let her have the responsibility. Most things she directed regarding the way the kitchen worked had little to do with the actual putting up of the meals. But there were times that Bill felt her judgment was skewed. It generally had to do with how she treated the dishwashers. Having been a pot washer, then a dishwasher, and being a college-graduate cook, he was painfully aware of the notion of being looked down upon. He compensated for this with the dishwashers by making sure they had everything he could possibly give them. This included steaks to eat, unlimited sodas to drink, and even cigarettes when he could give them to them. He also made sure that Drenovis didn’t bother them when they rested between rushes.
Bea didn’t always see things like he did. In fact, Bea saw things less the way he did the more he was with Mary. Bill’s liking Mary was a sore spot for Bea. Bill’s being able to do his job with ease also was a sore spot for her. So like Alfreda, Bea was becoming more and more a powder keg. Bill could see it. Mary could see it. Henry Lee could see it. And they all knew that sooner or later given the right circumstances powder kegs exploded.
Out in the hall Bea made sure to always sit opposite Bill and higher up. She made sure to always sit with her legs spread wide and a fat-ass grin on her face. At one point Henry Lee took to making comments to Bea, telling her to close her legs, telling her to leave the boy alone, telling her to go on and get some at home, telling her he was going to drop a dime to Mr. Bea.
That of course was a two-way street and Bea reminded him she could always drop a dime to Alfreda. Bill had been with Alfreda once, and Alfreda was wanting more. For the life of him, Bill could not understand why. He did not fancy himself as much of a lover, and when all was said and done, later on in his life he would come to realize that his desirability was based upon two things: first, he was white, and second, he was young. His being white was simply a matter of what would later be known as jungle fever. His being young simply meant he was ready at a moment’s notice.
For both Bea and Alfreda there was no power issue. Bill did not have control over whether or not they ate steaks or drank beer. What they did regarding everything in the kitchen was on them.
With waitresses, it was a different story. Bill had power over waitresses and he controlled what they had for dinner. So for them, giving some to Bill meant eating better and that was what they wanted. Bill had little regard for these types of waitresses. Bill had great regard for Lorraine and those waitresses who were working hard to support their children. After all, that was how he had started in kitchens, to be able to support his wife-to-be.
Regarding his fiancé, she was wholly immersed in the spring concert series even though it wasn’t even near spring yet. There, at home, with her, something was already festering too, but what was festering there would not come to light for some fifteen years.
Coming Right After Mother’s Day
