Bill did not change his shirt. He carried everything upstairs for Mary. He left her in the storeroom while he made the first trip up the stairs and he found her still sitting there when he came down for the second trip. He took a moment to kiss her on the lips before he took the next trip up. By the third and last trip she was gone.

He was checking the round and the sauerbraten when Mary came back into the kitchen. Bea was busy making her list for what needed to come up from the storeroom for her station.

Mary walked over to the coffee urn and drew herself a mug of coffee. For the time being, the kitchen was quiet. Only the exhaust fans gave off real noise. The dish machine was silent. Dishwashers did not get in until ten when the transport van arrived from downtown. She stood by Bea a moment. Bea was cleaning iceberg lettuce in her sink.

“Lord have mercy,” Mary said.

Bea looked at Mary over the top of the glasses she wore.

Mary didn’t say anything. She stood on Bea’s station, away from the heat, and sipped her coffee. Then she reached into the sink and pulled out a piece of lettuce which she chewed. She took another and dipped it into Thousand Island dressing before chewing it.

“I’m tired, Bea. I’m tired, and my black ass is dragging. Sometimes I just want to lay down and not have to ever get up.”

“I hear you,” Bea said. “You just need your coochie serviced.”

Mary sighed, a deep, heavy sigh. “If only it was that simple.”

“It is that simple. Take that boy to the Upper Room and use him till it hurts so much you can’t bear it no more. Get drunk, fall-down drunk. Then let yourself rest. Then start all over again till you can’t put your legs together to walk.”

“I wish,” Mary said.

“Only you can make that wish come true. That boy only twenty. He’s like the energizer bunny.”

“You crazy.”

“You got to keep your head and your heart out of it. Remember back when you first learned to please yourself. All you wanted was the sensation, the release. Well, go get that, girl.”

“Lord have mercy.”

“What’s good to you is good for you. That’s what Robert would say. He may not like all this, but that’s what he says and he does what he wants.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Mary said.

“Girl, one time in your life, go for pleasure. It’s a free shot. He got a girl. He’s gonna be gone. You know what they say. It don’t mean shit to a train.”

“Maybe you right, Bea.”

“I know I’m right. You want it, go get it.”

Mary went back on her station. No. It wasn’t like that for her. She didn’t know it, but in many ways she and the white boy were very similar. Like Bill, for her it had to be about anger. She could do what Bea said if she were mad enough, angry enough at the white boy, angry enough at the world, angry enough at her kid, not only for what he called the white boy, but for his being right about her staying away from him.

She had to be angry, steaming. Then she had to turn it into a what-the-hell, an existential decision reached by reasoning that it didn’t matter either way. And really, when she thought about it, in the long game it didn’t matter either way. She wasn’t a virgin. He was already fooling around. No matter what she did, everyone else was gonna do what they did. So…

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The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

When Bill had placed the round in the roasting pan, Mary noticed he’d spilled meat blood on his shirt. They’d been through this before, how spilling blood on yourself was a bad omen in her eyes, so she insisted upon Bill’s changing the shirt. That was the second thing she told him.

“You roll a joint?” she asked.

“No,” Bill said.

“You need to change that shirt. Roll one while you’re down there.”

“You okay?” Bill asked.

“Fuck it,” Mary said.

Bill was taken aback. Mary never used such language. Mary scolded him and Henry Lee for using it, and that was all the time. He looked at her. He thought, and he thought it was a crazy thought, that she was about to cry.

“I’ll roll one soon as I get a coffee. You want one?”

“No,” Mary said. “And stay away from that bimbo over there.”

Bill drew himself a coffee and headed directly downstairs. The only thing he said to Bea was to play him 854 in the numbers. Then he said to play 749 for Mary and not to tell her because he would pay for her.

Bea just nodded as she scratched her breast through the open dress.

Downstairs, Mary didn’t even bother to go into the deep freeze. She sat on the counter like she always did and lit up there.

“What about Tommy?” Bill asked.

“Yeah, what about him?”

“You need anything from the storeroom?”

“Yeah,” Mary said. “You on your knees.”

“Damn it, Mary, you’re scaring me.”

“My kid,” Mary said. “Eddie. He gonna be seventeen soon and he giving me crap ‘bout you. Called you a cracker and told me stay away from Mr. Charlie.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bill said.

“Lord have mercy,” Mary said.

Bill took a couple of hits on the joint but he left Mary to smoke most of it. When she was done, when they’d walked into the hall, Bill asked her if she wanted a drink. Mary nodded and so they walked back inside the meat room. It reeked from the weed and Bill prayed Tommy was busy upstairs.

He watched Mary take a long drink then looked into her eyes which were now glazed over. She was messed up. He’d never seen her like this before though she had seen him messed up lots of times.

“You know I could do the cooking today if you want and you can chill out.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Mary said. “Eddie’s right you know. I should stay away from “the man.”

“Get out of here,” Bill said. “ Don’t start that crap with me.”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want,” Mary said.

She led Bill into the storeroom and bolted the door from the inside. “Here’s my list,” she said throwing it at Bill as she plopped herself onto a three-case-high stack of canned tomatoes. “You get the shit.”

While Bill started gathering things, Mary reached up her dress and took down her underwear. She left it around her ankles and swung her legs as she always did. Bill laid out the stuff, a bag of onions, a bag of potatoes (not for baking), meat base, chicken base, a sac of rice, three number ten cans of green beans, a jar of oregano, three big heads of garlic, a bag of sugar, a box of salt, a bottle of vinegar and more. Bill put what he could into an empty box and lined up the rest by the box. Finished, and only then, did he turn to Mary. He’d wanted to turn sooner. He’d wanted to say something to her. He’d decided to simply leave it and her alone.

The first thing he saw was her drawers down by her ankles. The next thing he saw was her face, an expression on it he’d never seen before, one he could not read. Hurt? Angst? Desire? Anger? Fear? He didn’t know and couldn’t decide.

“Mary…,” he started to say, but she reached and put a finger to his lips.

“Get on your knees,”  she said, “and don’t say anything, white boy.”

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The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

The last thing Bill did every night was empty the grease drawer on the Garland. A full grease drawer, or one un-emptied, was what had caused the fire out west that day Bill was doing the lunch with Robert and Alvin, that day he hooked up, not wanting to but by coercion, with Alfreda.

Alfreda had been relatively cool with Bill since that day. She had her moments when she would cop a feel of him while he stood out in the hall and she was waiting for the meat to be loaded into the van. She would goose him every now and then when he was leaning over in the van putting a tray of meat on a lower shelf. Sometimes she would ask him if he remembered the time they were laid out on the floor of the van, her on top of him doing the do. Sometimes she’d remind him that she was getting due for a repeat performance. Sometimes Bill, when he was feeling particularly perky, desired a repeat encounter. Alfreda was quite different from Mary or Bea or Norma, even from his fiancé.

“I don’t want you feeding the waitresses filet mignon,” Tommy said the next morning when he and Bill were alone in the meat room.

“Okay,” Bill said. He wondered how Tommy knew. He knew Norma would not have told him and he surely didn’t.

“Mary’s making a sauerbraten for the lunch special,” Tommy said.

“I know,” Bill said. “I brought it up yesterday, took it from the freezer to unthaw.”

“Tomorrow is braised beef tips, so make sure you and Henry Lee cut them when you make the hamburger and cut steaks.”

“Got it,” Bill said. “Anything else?”

“Not really,” Tommy said.

He watched Bill as he carted half of a steamship round out of the walk-in. Henry Lee had cut it the night before and left it ready for Bill to carry up. Sometimes they slow-roasted it overnight. It depended upon whether or not they had some to start off with the next day. The round took about six hours to cook, so it was the same six hours if they started it at six in the morning or left it from midnight to six in the morning. If they did it in the morning, they did it at a higher temperature since they were there to monitor it.

Tommy went up through the front stairs. After he left the meat room, Bill opened the drawer where they kept the bourbon and took himself a drink. He had brought an acid tab and he was planning to take it, but he wouldn’t do that until after the lunch service. He was hoping he could coax Mary into having some fun in the quiet of the afternoon. He was hoping maybe they could have a dance in the party room with the doors locked and no interruptions.

Mary had the roasting pan out and set up for Bill to put the round in. She had cut the vegetables to cover it with for flavor, and she would use the drippings to make the gravy. Hers, as it was laid out, was a busy morning. She had all her regular work to do, rice pudding to make for Bea’s station, the sauerbraten to cook as well as the round and the gravy to make for that too. So while she was busy working, she saw Bea with her dress only half closed, sitting on her stool. Bea was wearing her reading glasses and reading the racing page in the Dispatch. For a moment she felt angry, angry at Bea, angry at Bill, angry at her sixteen year old son, Eddie, soon to be seventeen, who had given her a hard time last night. She was just angry at the world and hoping Bill would roll a joint.

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The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

Henry Lee helped Bill carry up the last of the meat trays. The baked potatoes were done. The rib was out of the oven. Here at Suburban they cut the rib down as opposed to standing. Bill would learn that no high-flying restaurant would ever do that. But Suburban had really great meat suppliers and especially wonderful prime rib, no matter which direction they cut it in. So as he was taught here, he set it on the long cutting board attached to the steam table and covered it with a damp kitchen towel straight from the clean linens. Every other cut, here, got the bone.

At five-thirty, before she went down to change to her civvies, Mary came on the line. Her dress was mostly open already. The air coming in against her skin felt delicious. She didn’t care that Bill could see her bra, even her slip. He’d seen all of her anyway. She checked everything, made sure there was enough of everything. Seeing that the line setup was complete, she took Bill to the back, like every night, and showed him the reserves. This night, because the Bordelaise sauce was freshly made, Bill would have to put it into storage containers. He would do that later.

While Mary and Bea were downstairs changing, Grandma and Jimmy came in. Marie was already up on the pantry station. She started at four and left at eleven unless it was still really busy.

Today, she spent her first half hour downstairs with Henry Lee. They locked themselves in the female staff bathroom and did what they did. Bill finished cutting the meat while they played, and he thought nothing of it since Henry Lee had covered for him plenty. Neither one of them could say anything about the other. People in glass houses…

Mid-week there was no Lillian. Jimmy and Bill had learned to do the dance, or play the ballgame, however one chose to image it. Each night, in effect, was a new ballgame and if they made no errors they would win the game.

Mary, Bea and Henry Lee came up at six. Mary surveyed the kitchen and asked Bill if he and Jimmy were okay. They said sure. Since there were orders working, Bill could not move away from the broiler. Henry Lee skimmed the orders up on the board then told Bill he’d left a tray of each type of steak cut downstairs in case they got really busy.

Another night, another dinner to put up. Despite them all being the same, they were all different. The orders came in, the rush came and went, the late eaters came in. Bill and Jimmy fed the dishwashers. They went downstairs to eat and for the time they were gone, the exhaust fan droning was the major noise in the kitchen.

Since it had not been extraordinarily busy and since the dinner orders  began trickling in after ten, Jimmy left at ten-thirty. That’s when the waitresses started taking their dinners. Bill cooked them hamburgers or chopped steaks (really just bigger hamburgers with no buns) or fried fish. Norma came in for her filet mignon, which Bill cooked on the rare side, how she liked it. Later on, Bill would know waitresses who would get something special from a cook and then run out to show everyone else what they got, but Norma was cool. She sat in the hall on a milk case and ate there, where Bill could see her and signal her if Tommy were coming. She sat with her legs close together so she could balance her plate. Bill could not look up her legs though he tried. Tommy did not come in and she ate in peace, the steak, a baked potato and vegetables.

At eleven, Marie left. Bill was alone in the kitchen now since Grandma had gone out with Jimmy. He shut down half the charcoal grill. He got himself the scrubbing brush and a pail of grease-cutter soap mixed in water. He started on the Garland end of the line and scrubbed everything up to the steam table. Then he started breaking down the steam table.

The clean-up was a practiced routine. The final dance of the night, a slow dance it was, an intimate one, one to set everything in perfect order—the way it was supposed to be—to start the next day right. 

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The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

Bill left the bag of potatoes out in the hall. He took a sheet pan from the kitchen and filled it with spuds then placed them on the shelves of the convection oven. He did not turn the oven on.

Since he was back around where Mary was, he checked the prime rib again. This time he poked it with his fingers, once in the middle and once on each end cut.

“Maybe another half hour,” he said.

Mary was stirring a big pot of Bordelaise sauce. She had just put the pan of yellow rice in the oven. “The rice comes out in about a half hour too,” she said. “Tomorrow we need to make rice pudding for Bea.”

“Big whoop. I may be tripping again tomorrow.”

“That mean you going to be staring into things for hours like you did with the egg wash?”

“Maybe.”

“You scared me that day.”

“Wasn’t anything.”

“Why you do that to yourself?”

“Stretch my mind.”

“You mean fry your brain.”

“So who cares?”

“What about that girl of yours?”

“She’s got her own world.”

“Well, what about you?”

“Me? That’s a joke.”

“Boy, you don’t care about yourself, no one will care about you.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Yeah, it is. So figure it out. It’s a sad day when no one cares about you. And you just a baby, too.”

Bill looked to his feet. He wanted to say something, but he held it in. He wanted to tell Mary, and he would one time when they were at the Upper Room, that no matter who loved him and how, he never felt loved. He wanted to tell her, and he would that one time, that there was an emptiness in the well of his heart that never got filled. He wanted to tell her, and he would that one time, that he did not believe in love. He did not believe in love, he did not believe in justice or in right. He did not believe, not anymore, that doing good got you good. This didn’t mean to do bad or to do wrong, certainly not knowingly. But that moral arc some people talked about, Bill did not see it, could no longer see it, maybe had never seen it.

Bill turned to go downstairs. He’d been standing a protracted moment looking at his feet, Mary watching him look at his feet.

“Cat got your tongue?” Mary asked.

“Don’t have anything to say,” Bill said.

“Boy, you don’t have to clam up with me. You can say anything and it stays with me. Especially this stuff.”

Bill smiled at Mary again. “I’m gonna get high before I come up for the service. Don’t forget to take out the rib and start the baked potatoes. You want to get high, come down.”

Tears formed in Mary’s eyes. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him. She wanted to kiss him as if he were hers, to let him know that she cared about him. But she was conflicted. Truth was she was afraid. She knew it was stupid. He was taken. Maybe for the way he was that wasn’t such a good thing. But it was the reality. She wanted to say the hell with it and take a shot, but Mary, like Bill, was not one to just take a shot. She had to reason it out, like Bill did, and justify it to herself, like Bill had to. So they were stuck. Maybe it was better they were stuck.

Bill took a long drink of bourbon before he went back to cutting steaks. He had come down from being really drunk and was now maintaining his head, keeping himself comfortably high, how he would stay until about ten o’clock when he had to let himself get straight to drive home.

Upcoming:

The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

Bill gave the bottle to Henry Lee. Before he started cutting steaks, he said he had to take care of something upstairs and excused himself. He went up the front stairs, the stairs customers used when they went down to the customer rest rooms and the party room.

Out in the front of the house, he went to Tommy’s office and knocked on the door. When Tommy called out to come in, he opened the door, stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. Tommy was sitting at his desk.

“What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to say I was out of line before and I apologize.”

“I understand,” Tommy said.

“Do you?” Bill asked.

“I know you have a part to play and you’re finding your way. But remember, you’re a college graduate. I expect more from you.”

Bill shifted on his feet. There was nothing to say to that. He looked away, not making eye contact.

“The drinking and smoking marijuana is no good for you. But you’re right,” Tommy said. “I’m not your father or your priest. And I won’t even talk about the carousing.”

“I know,” Bill said.

“I hope you do.” Tommy smiled at Bill. “I have a part to play too,” he said.

“Well,” Bill said, “that’s all I came up for.”

“We’re starting two new girls this week,” Tommy said. “Do me a favor and leave them alone.”

Bill smiled. “I got steaks to cut,” he said. He turned and left the office, walked through the front dining room and into the kitchen. Only Bea was there and she was sitting on her stool reading the racing page again. He walked through the back, checked everything on the stoves, peeked into the oven with the towel-wrapped handle. The prime rib was in there cooking away.

This was a quiet time. The dishwashers were not doing much,  mostly just hanging out. They had pretty much finished up everything and were waiting to get off work, waiting for the van to take them downtown. The dish machine was idle. The only noise in the kitchen was the deep base-like droning of the exhaust fans. Those fans ran start to finish, open to close.

Mary was sitting on the stainless steel counter in the meat room. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and she was swinging her feet to and fro.

Bill took a curved butcher’s knife from the knife drawer and honed the blade on a sharpening steel.

“I bet he was upstairs kissing up to Tommy,” Henry Lee said.

“I hope you apologized,” Mary said to Bill.

“What do you need cut?” Bill asked.

“He kissed up,” Henry Lee said. Then, “Cut some Kings and Queens.”

Bill went into the walk-in and came out with three tenderloins. These he laid out on his butcher block. Next he set up the scale and made sure it registered zero with nothing on it. He retrieved a boning knife from the knife drawer and honed it straight. He took the first one and carefully trimmed the veins and fat from it. When he’d trimmed all three, he began cutting steaks.

Mary sat quietly watching. She watched Henry Lee and Bill work. When Bill had finished cutting steaks from the tenderloins, she stood and headed for upstairs.

“I need a sac of potatoes,” she told Bill on the way out.

Bill acknowledged. He took the bourbon from the drawer and offered it to Mary. She sipped it and handed it to Henry Lee. He drank some and passed it back to Bill. Before Bill started on more tenderloins, he brought Mary the potatoes.

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The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

After the lunch, Bea, Mary, Henry Lee and Bill ate together in a booth in the side dining room. They made sure no customers remained in that room before they sat down to eat. Over in the west the kitchen sported a table where the help sat to eat. Here there was no room inside the kitchen.

Bill and Henry Lee ate roast beef rare on a hamburger bun with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Mary and Bea ate chicken salad, Bea’s special for the day. They shared a huge plate of French fries and another one filled with onion rings. Bill had Norma bring beers for everyone. She wasn’t too happy about being designated for it, but Bill didn’t care. Bill had learned that he could do just about anything he wanted with waitresses. He promised her a steak for dinner if she kept the beer coming and he promised her a Filet Mignon if she went to the liquor store for him. She couldn’t pass that up. She could already taste the first-class dinner.

Mary was the cook on call, so when the one late order came in—the waitress brought the order to their lunch table—she started to get up. Bill said he would do it, and since he was sitting on the outside, he stood and went into the kitchen.

First thing Bill did was put the hamburger and steak on the broiler. Then he went around back to check that everything was all right. Satisfied, he lit a cigarette and stood by the hall entrance to the kitchen until he had to turn the food. He flipped the burger but he only rotated the steak. This way, when he did flip it, the up side had diamond marks, the cross-cross. Last, he dropped two orders of fries and when they were done he lifted the basket so they would drain. He set up the hamburger plate, toasted the bun, plated the burger and the steak. Finally, he shook fries onto each plate, put the plates up on the shelf under the warmer lights and rang the bell for the waitress.

Bill stayed in the kitchen. Norma came in and he told her exactly what he wanted from the liquor store. He gave her money and since they were alone, he walked her out into the hall where he kissed her. She kissed back, maybe not so much because she wanted to, but because they still met from time to time. Bill reached up her dress and she let him. In fact that started her off so much that she helped him help her have a quick moment of pleasure. She kissed him afterward, one long passionate kiss, and she told him she could reciprocate later if he wanted. Then she went out the back door and off to get the bourbon.

When Bea, Mary and Henry Lee came back into the kitchen, Bill was cleaning the line. Henry Lee brought in Bill’s unfinished beer and Bill took a moment to finish it off.

“Norma go to the liquor store?” he asked Bill.

“Yeah. It cost me a filet mignon.”

“So what?”

“That’s what I say.”

“You better be cool,” Mary said. “Tommy knows everything.”

“And?” Henry Lee said.

“Mary’s right,” Bill said. “I know Robert won’t let anything happen to any of us, especially you guys. But we don’t have to push Tommy into a corner. He’s really a nice guy when all is said and done.”

“He is,” Mary said. “I don’t want to mess him up.”

“You two too easy,” Henry Lee said. “I’m going downstairs.”

“See you in a bit,” Bill said.

He went back to work cleaning the line, breaking down the steam table, scrubbing the grills and the stainless steel and straining the fryers When that was done, he went to the back to see if Mary needed anything. She said she had everything she needed, so Bill sat out in the hall and waited for Norma. When she got back, she handed Bill the bottle of bourbon in a brown paper bag.

“I’m on a split shift,” she said. “See you later.”

“I’ll be here,” Bill said as he started down the stairs.

Upcoming:

The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life

Bill and Henry Lee sprang into action. Tommy called several more orders and laid out all the checks in the rows of towels he had set up for the expediting. Bill and Henry Lee worked as he finished calling.

Bill put one order of fried shrimp in each fryer basket, the pickerel on the counter by him. He put fries in a basket of the other fryer and dropped them. Then he dropped one order of shrimp. While the fries and shrimp worked, he sliced four roast beef dinners. He set up all four of them, three with mashed potatoes. The fourth he put fries on. By this time, the first shrimp was ready. He plated it, dropped the other order down, put the pickerel in the empty basket of the fish fryer and dropped it.

Henry Lee systematically plated what he had working. Bill set up the burger plates and the Bleu plate. They took setups, lettuce, tomato and pickle. The setups were laid out on a sheet pan in the reach-in box on the wall on the line side of the doors to the side dining room. He dropped another basket of fries, used the fries in the first basket to cover what he could of what Henry Lee plated. Tommy had not called any baked, so Bill knew they all took fries.

Tommy was calling more orders. Bill sipped his coffee after he’d put the sides on what Henry Lee plated, then he went right back into taking care of everything Tommy called. Henry Lee was doing the same for what came from him, and Bill listened for the sides, tracking what got what in his mind and matching it to what Henry Lee put up.

“See,” he said to Tommy. “I can do it drunk too.”

“You shouldn’t be drunk,” Tommy said.

“You ain’t my father,” Bill said. “Or my priest, for that matter.”

“But I am your boss,” Tommy said.

“Pick em up,” Henry Lee said. He purposefully broke in so Bill didn’t get himself in trouble.

“And?” Bill said. He remembered the first time Tommy had said something to him about being drunk, back when he was too new and too shy to talk back. Henry Lee had spoken for him that time. Henry Lee had taught him to stand up for himself. In no uncertain terms, Henry Lee had asked Tommy why he cared as long as the meals went up. When all was said and done, that was the bottom line.

“And don’t you take on those bad attitudes,” Tommy said. “Drinking and smoking that silly stuff is not good for you. Neither is not listening to people who care about you, and worse, treating them disrespectfully.”

“I’m not disrespectful.”

“You are beginning to develop that tendency.”

Bill turned away from Tommy. He was going to mutter something under his breath, but he held himself in check. Meanwhile, the coffee and the heat from the kitchen caused him to sweat profusely. Within moments he had sweat-soaked his shirt.

He worked the fryers, made sure everything down in the grease was okay. Then he sliced roast beef for the orders he had to cover. He pulled out the setups Henry Lee needed and set them on plates he took from the plate warmer by Henry Lee. He used the plate warmer by him, the one on the other side of the steam table, for the orders he had to plate.

Tommy called more orders and they worked the orders. Then Tommy called more orders and they worked the orders. The hustle and bustle of the two-hour, fast-paced meal went along. Waitresses came in and out from both dining rooms. Mary came to check the items on the line, to replenish what needed replenishing. With only the two of them, there was no time  for Bill or Henry Lee to leave the line.

Not even fifteen minutes into the real rush, Bill was completely sweat-soaked. His underwear was as wet as if he’d peed himself. In that same fifteen minutes he stopped being drunk. Tommy only made one more comment, that he could smell the booze coming out of Bill’s pores.

Upcoming:

The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide

Posted by Peter Weiss in autobiographical, Fiction, Fiction Outtakes, Kitchen Stories, Musings, Uncategorized Tags: autobiographical fiction, Fiction, Fun, slice of life