By the time the first waitresses came in, the police were gone, the kitchen was in full swing and Henry Lee and Bill were busy making the hamburgers and bleus for the lunch. Mr. Bowman had okayed the cleaning company to patch up the skyline and completely service the dining room. Everything was being washed down, the floor power-vacuumed, the linens cleared and replaced. All dishes were being re-run through the machine. Overnight, the skyline would be replaced and reset. As quickly as possible, this would be put to the past. As unobtrusively as possible, business would go on. The fewer the customers who knew about it, the better.
Mary had gotten everything started as quickly as possible, Bill helping her. He had carted the round up and set it in the pan for her. He’d even cut the mirepoix to cover it with.
They’d all heard the screaming from downstairs.
“Goddammit. You did that on purpose.”
“It was an accident. Here, let me get you a towel.”
“Stay the hell away from me. You know how much this suit costs?”
“No but I’ll bet you’re gonna tell me.”
“More than you make in a week, you moron.”
“I may be a moron, but I’m the one with the college degree. You’re stupid.”
“You watch your mouth.”
“Who told you to stand so close?”
“You’re gonna pay for this.”
“You can kiss my ass.”
“I told you watch your mouth.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Bea and Mary had gone to the hall to hear everything clearly. Mr. Bowman was busy with the detectives, but he heard the screaming. Tommy too. He was going to go down to intervene, but Bea and Mary held him back.
Drenovis came up first. Meat blood covered the front of his suit jacket and was on his pants too. His white shirt and his tie were red as well. He was furious, his face as red as the blood on his clothes. He was wiping at everything with a clean kitchen towel he had helped himself to from the linen room.
Bill came up behind Drenovis. He was smiling, almost laughing, but he wiped the smile from his face as he turned the corner and headed into the kitchen.
“You need to change those clothes,” Mary told Drenovis. “It’s bad luck having blood on you.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“You don’t need to be fresh about it.”
“I’m not being fresh.”
“You better not be.”
“Or what?”
“Or you can cook your own lunch here.”
“Didn’t we just have this meeting?” Mr. Bowman stopped dealing with the detective and faced his crew. “Didn’t we?”
No one said a word. Mr. Bowman was referring to the fight they’d had the other day, the one that involved Lexi and Bill, where Bill had stood up to Drenovis and they’d all stood up for Lexi. Tommy just shook his head. He knew something had to be done.
“Now everybody, shut the hell up. Play nicely in the sandbox and get your work done. Drenovis, go get a clean suit while I finish up here. And don’t any of you make me address this again.”
That was that. No one said anything. Drenovis went out to the dining room and must have gone out the front door. Or that’s what Bill surmised when Lexi, still in her Fall jacket, came into the meat room. She was in tears.
“What’s the matter?” Bill asked.
“Drenovis. I ran into him in the parking lot. He told me he hadn’t forgotten anything and he was still going to fire me.”
“Pussy,” Henry Lee said. Then seeing Lexi visibly more upset by what he said, he added, “Not you. Drenovis. He’s a pussy. This is two times now he’s mad at the kitchen and took it out on you. Did you happen to notice he was covered in meat blood?” Henry Lee laughed. “Your boy over here did that. Just wish I was here to see him do it.”
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There was no figuring women out. Bill thought this not while he pleased Mary but shortly after, after he was dressed in his uniform, had popped another black beauty and was upstairs in the kitchen with everyone. The police were there now busy taking pictures and checking things out throughout the whole restaurant. Mr. Bowman and Drenovis were not there yet, but they were on their way.
Bill took himself a coffee, stood over by Bea’s station and looked over her shoulder as she read the racing page in The Dispatch. Tommy was telling the police they got only a few thousand dollars, but there was damage to the office, the safe and the skyline. Mary was drinking her coffee over by her stoves. She needed to get some things working, but without exhaust fans nothing could get lit. So she waited, made sure Tommy knew her situation, was becoming impatient because she did not like running behind.
When he finished his coffee, Bill went over by Mary.
“This sucks,” she said.
“Hell yeah. Let me know what you need from downstairs and I’ll start carting it up.”
“Okay.” She walked over to the menu board and looked at the day. It wasn’t as if she didn’t already know it, but she wanted to refresh her memory and make sure she didn’t forget anything. She took up a scratch pad and pencil and made a list for Bill, then she went to her walk-in and looked at her upstairs shelves to see what she had. She crossed off one item from the list and Bill went on his way.
Bea came in the storeroom while Bill was gathering things. She was dressed in her bra, half-slip, panties and shoes. She had the kitchen dress on but wide open. “I need all dressings if you got time. And if she didn’t put it on your list, we need a bag of onions.”
“What’d they get?”
“Our virginity.”
“Seriously.”
“That is seriously. Police say they been hitting places out here. Same every time. In through a skyline, blow out the safe, out the back door. They always eat, only take cash and never leave fingerprints. They got us for today’s startup money. Tommy says it was about four grand cause he had some deliveries to pay for.”
“That isn’t too bad.” Bill watched as Bea buttoned up her dress.
“Could have been worse. Anyway, no one got hurt.” Bea stepped over to Bill and copped a feel of him. She was totally unshy about it, laughed, pinched his cheek with her free hand. “I’m taking the French dressing,” she said as she withdrew.
“Okay,” Bill said. He watched her take a bottle of French dressing from the case and head off.
He made two trips upstairs for Mary and was in the midst of the third and final one when he heard the exhaust fans kick in. As he reached the kitchen he saw Drenovis and Mr. Bowman huddling with Tommy and the police. Bottom line was they had no clues, no leads and the cops were pretty sure they weren’t getting these guys until they finally made a mistake. Real deal was he would never hear anything more about it.
Drenovis came in the meat room while Bill was taking out the steamship round. Henry Lee had cut it last night, so all Bill had to do was carry it up and set it in the pan for Mary.
“Don’t think I’m forgetting about that shit with Lexi, or whatever her name is.”
Bill was just about to sling the tray the meat was on up to his shoulder. He put it on a cutting block instead. “I got stuff to do.”
“Sooner or later I’m firing both of you.”
“I heard that before. Ain’t you got nothing better to do?”
“Don’t think Robert’s gonna save your ass either.”
Bill didn’t say anything. He looked at the meat tray and saw the blood that had dripped from the meat and collected on the tray. He looked at Drenovis’ suit. He looked from the suit to the blood to the suit several times before he reached for tray.
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Late November chill permeated the air. Smoke came from their mouths with their breaths. Bill sidled up to Mary and pinched her on her butt then said good morning to everyone. Tommy asked if they were ready. He opened the door with his key. Bill went down the hall and switched off the burglar alarm. Mary and Bea behind him, he proceeded into the kitchen. When he flipped on the lights, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Get Tommy,” he said.
“What’s up?” Mary asked.
“Take a look, but get Tommy.
“Aw, shit,” Bea said. “Tommy,” she called out loudly in her deep, smoker’s voice.
They came in from the skyline in the dining room. What Bill, Mary and Bea saw was that they had taken the time to make themselves sandwiches and apparently had stayed in the kitchen to eat them. Remnants from three sandwiches were on Mary’s counter. So were six bottles of beer, all empty.
Tommy found the broken skyline glass. He also found the office safe blown open. The office was a mess and would need some repair, but Tommy had taken the cash with him and made a late-night deposit, something he almost always did. Since the dinner had been so busy, it was a good thing he hadn’t been lazy.
“I’ll make some coffee,” Bea said.
“Don’t touch anything,” Tommy said.
“I’m going down to change,” Bill said.
Bea handed him her keys and he and Mary headed out of the kitchen into the hall.
“Hey Tommy,” Bill called out when he saw the back door was open.
Tommy appeared a moment later. “Maybe they were too full to climb back up the skyline,” he joked.
“Why climb?” said Bill. “Look how easy to get out.”
“Shit,” Tommy said. “I’ll call the police and Mr. Bowman. “Do whatever work you can without touching anything. Don’t light up anything and leave the exhausts off until after the police are here.”
Even before he changed clothes, Bill took a shot of bourbon from the bottle in the bourbon drawer. He felt like a dog each and every time he messed around, and he felt like a dog now. But that did not stop him from doing what he did, and the drugs helped him not have to deal with it. The acid tab was in his locker and he was planning to pop that bad boy around eleven so he would be able to put up the lunch and enjoy the heavy tripping in the lull between lunch and dinner. That might have to be delayed, he thought.
Mary had gone with him into the meat room. She took a small sip of the bourbon, and then she kissed Bill, holding him tight. “I’m horny.”
Bill kissed back. They stood there a moment before he took her hand and they went to the linen closet. He opened it with Bea’s keys and watched Mary take herself a kitchen dress. He took a pair of checkered, kitchen pants and a short-sleeve kitchen shirt. He also grabbed two aprons. Then he took Mary’s hand again and led her into the ladies’ bathroom.
“A quickie, for you,” he said.
He watched Mary get undressed down to her underclothes, then helped her onto the counter by the sink. He kissed her long and hard, their tongues playing with each other like old friends. They were old friends. He and Mary were old friends. Unlike with Lorraine just a few short hours ago, he didn’t need Mary to tell him what she liked or how she liked it. He knew this from experience, knew exactly what to do and how to do it. He also knew they were pretty safe. Tommy wouldn’t be coming downstairs anytime soon, so the only one who might disturb them was Bea. If she did, it wouldn’t matter a bit.
“Come on, baby,” said Mary leaning back against the mirror and positioning her legs. “Help a girl out.”
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Remember the gorilla in Trading Places? Well that was Al Franken, the Senator from Minnesota who licked Obama’s shoes. Literally, that was him. He was the actual actor. In real life, he’s really no better than a gorilla. Feed him bananas and he’ll vote the way you want. As silly as he was in the movie, that’s how silly he is in Congress.
Do you know Master Politician Pelosi, of the self-praise stinks clan? Or teary-eyed Chucky? He’s from the weep-for-effect clan.
Yes, these are our leaders.
But this is not about them. Truly, they are despicable. They are unconscionable liars and they are hypocrites who are mostly immoral, self-serving beasts. Why they keep being elected is beyond any sensibility whatsoever.
But really this is not about them. This is about the elephants in the room.
I know. Maybe it’s a mixed metaphor. Maybe not. Turns out, though, as far as our leaders go, there’s not much difference. They’re all a barrel of monkeys.
This really is about the elephants. McConnell should be ashamed of his inability to rally his majority and pass repeal and replace. You know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, shame on us all and a pox on your house. Now it’s on to tax reform and smart money says Ryan and McConnell don’t perform here either.
Then there’s John McCain. It’s clear that his personal dislike of President Trump is more important than his responsibility to his job. Ditto with Lindsay Graham. Ditto for Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and on and on.
So the Senate’s approval rating, which was under ten percent, sits now at about fifteen percent. The Republican voters, according to a recent poll, aren’t angry at President Trump, but they are angry at Congress and they blame Congress for nothing having gotten done.
Here’s the overriding metaphor for our wonderful Republican representatives: sixty times they overwhelmingly voted to repeal and replace Obamacare when their vote was symbolic and meaningless because Obama was president and they didn’t have the votes to override his veto of any bill they would send. Then they punked out of doing what they were elected to do when they have the power to do it simply because of their own individual personal self-interests.
What a bunch of goons. What a bunch of loons.
So we come to the bottom line. Our government no longer serves the interests of the American people. The Republicans, like the Democrats, are all monkeys dancing for the bananas thrown at them by the big money interests. They adhere only to the tenets of Social Darwinism. Their only goal is reelection. They will say and do anything for that and spin their actions in the finest, prettiest jargon they can pay their publicists to write for them. Overall, they are filled with hubris and driven by greed and selfishness.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. In Shakespeare (although the monkeys in education have deemed he no longer be read, minimizing and marginalizing one of the most astute recorders of human nature ever), wisdom and truth come from the clowns, the jesters and the blind. Not that President Trump is any of those, and whether you like him or not or agree with his policies or not, he is surely right that we must drain the swamp. Getting rid of the barrel of monkeys, in this case the elephants in the room would be a good start.
Term limits are certainly in order.
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Lorraine was waiting in the parking lot. They had agreed Bill would follow her to her friend’s house where they could be undisturbed and comfortable. He wondered if she was gonna get cold feet, but apparently not.
“I want the full service treatment,” she said when they were sitting on her friend’s sofa.
Bill laughed. He put his arm around her and drew her close to him. “And what’s that?” he asked.
“How explicit do I have to be?”
“Completely. Tell me your deepest, wildest wishes and I’ll do them for you. It’s not like we’re gonna be dating and spending a whole lot of time figuring out what each other likes.”
“You always so direct?”
“I’m usually shy.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true, but circumstances warrant directness here.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not like the others. Because for most of them this kind of stuff is just a goof. For you it’s got a whole other thing to it.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
“For you it’s like getting up after a serious fall. Or that’s what I think anyway. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“You’re close.” Lorraine stood up. “Let me freshen up. Wanna take a shower and get the funk off?”
“Sure,” Bill said.
It was well after three AM when he lay down next to his fiancé. He took another shower before getting into bed with her. That was to wash Lorraine off. His fiancé was deep into sleep. She only turned once to feel that he was there.
This was how it was most nights. He was gone just about the whole day every day, and while he was making a living, she was just about all alone. He came home late at night, some nights later than others. As she told it, this translated into her having her own set of friends, friends who she saw just about all the time. She and her friends ate together, went to movies on campus together, hung out. She hung out, Bill worked.
His alarm woke him at four forty-five. At five, after the snooze alarm, he rolled out of bed and into clean skivvies, jeans and a T-shirt. When he brushed his teeth, he popped a black beauty, and by the time he was in his car heading off to open up Steakhouse East, he was no longer lethargic. His energy was chemical and he would drink bourbon and beer to counteract the drugs, but that would be later. He would change clothes, grab a coffee, lace it with bourbon maybe, pop another black beauty. Then it was on with the day.
Speed, all around, was his drug of choice. For well over two years while he was in college, he took speed six days a week, three days up, a day off, three days more up. On the day off, he ate and fed his body nutrients. At night, to come down, he popped downers and drank white wine.
Life.
As he pulled into the parking lot, lots of things were going through his mind. He remembered Jim standing by the knife sheath and three times now his wanting a beer. He remembered Lorraine, the couple of hours they had last night. He remembered what she whispered in his ear while they were in the shower. He remembered fulfilling her every desire and watching her enjoy herself on one level while being conspicuously self-conscious on another. She was inhibited at first, but he’d addressed that. He remembered being immersed in her.
Damn I need a drink, he thought as he stepped out of his car and headed to the front door to meet up with Tommy, Bea and Mary. Boy do I need a beer. I need more than a beer, he thought. “You need your head examined,” he told himself out loud before he was upon the others and saying good morning.
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The way of the Democrats: appeasement hence dis-empowerment, keep repeating the lies because the media will report them, corroborate them and the public will believe them since they are unchecked, and then indiscriminately call anyone who in anyway disagrees a racist. Call anyone who disagrees a racist.
In school, red was the shameful color. When a student had a wrong answer or was in any way scolded or reprimanded and something in writing was sent home to the parents, the teacher put it in red.
But then those bastions of educational sensibilities, you know who they are, the wildly liberal education leaders (check out the UFT/AFT/NEA leader-darlings and Hammond-Darlings), touted the notion that using red was not good because it made students feel bad, chastised them, made them feel guilty.
And so the wonderful psychologists chimed in, the same ones who now testify like gods in Child Protective Services (CPS) hearings and trials, whose testimony as experts is accepted as Prima facie evidence, corroborating what the liberal leaders touted, that rather than call a spade a spade, we must not make anyone accountable for their errors because it is damaging to the psyche.
This pattern appears in CPS in the latter 1900s, around 1975, and in education in the 1990s. It is the pattern of using appeasement to deal with a problem or issue rather than working the problem or issue to find a real solution.
Now, getting near to 2020, we see clearly that it does not work, not in education, not with CPS and Child Welfare, not with Iran, North Korea, ISIS, the Chinese, the Russians… Need more be listed?
The Democrats have been using the technique of appeasement for a long time now and, of course, calling its opposition racists. Hillary Clinton relied heavily upon it, as does that native-American (not) Elizabeth Warren, as does the teary-eyed Chucky boy and the master politician Pelosi. They make the most ridiculous statements and the most illogical arguments (sign it to see what’s in it) and the moment anyone disagrees or challenges them, s/he is a racist, a xenophobe or an Islamophobe.
And of course, now a deplorable.
We all know what happened in 2016, how badly the Democrats and their way of the Democrats led them. We all know now, with North Korea and Iran where the way of the Democrats has led us. We all know where the way of the Democrats, the way of appeasement hence dis-empowerment, has taken inner cities (under their control for about 60 years), education, social welfare and the immigration issue. Thirty-two genders, really? Boys in girls bathrooms, really? Doctors having to treat a patient by how they identify themselves on the day of treatment rather than upon the biological reality at the time, really? Criminal illegal aliens not being deported, running free within our sanctuary cities and not being held accountable for their crimes, having more rights and benefits than legal aliens, non-criminal illegal aliens and yes, bonafide, tax-paying citizens. Really?
This is the way of the Democrats.
This is the way of the Democrats and it is leading us into the very destruction of our free society which is supposedly based upon free elections. But the Democrats undermine with their way of the Democrats any real attempt to understand the amount of voter fraud or even identify who is actually voting. The very pillar of our society, as Hillary termed it, the peaceful transition of power, is under siege right at this very moment (and by her too, which is the pot calling the kettle black.)
Truly, most of our politicians on both sides are despicable and deplorable (Congress with an 8% approval rating at times and mocking the President with about a 40% approval rating—which is a good example of why) and they should be kept in line with term limits. They demonstrate what has been said here many times, that man is by nature selfish and greedy.
Of course the Democrats will object to the use of the word man rather than look at the actual statement, and this is the true sense of the problem.
The dinner rebounded beautifully from the night before and Tommy found himself in the kitchen expediting for several hours. Lillian worked Thursday through Saturday, so she would be in tomorrow. Meantime, Bill was glad he hadn’t tripped. The last thing he’d done was get high in the deep freeze, again, just before he came up on the line for the service.
Like always, he had helped Mary finish her setup, not that she actually needed his help. He took out the baked potatoes, ever conscious of the lack of feeling in the fingers he had burned that first day on the line as a cook. All healed now, what was a big negative had turned to a big plus. He could hold really hot things in that hand and grab things other cooks shied away from or needed a side towel for. He carted over the prime rib and carried over the steam table pans when they’d been filled.
He did not deny himself. Between trips from the back to the front, he helped himself to generous servings of Mother Mary. After the first time, when she’d fought him, she relented and let him have his way. He’d take her in his arms, press her tight, reach up her dress in back and feel her behind. Or he’d come up behind her and grind on that soft, curvy structure she had back there while reaching in front to feel her breasts. Once, he’d invited her to sit up on the counter so he could kiss up her legs, but she’d smacked him upside the head for that suggestion. Or, what she really said was that he could kiss and lick anywhere he wanted when they were alone at her place or in The Upper Room. She did not stop him from kissing her lips, or her ear, or her neck. She tolerated him, sometimes looked at him in a kind of disbelief, the way she used to look at Yulie. When she stepped back and looked at him this way, she was simply acknowledging in herself that she was watching a man who was most all the time drunk and on drugs. Bill and Yulie had that in common, only Yulie was into shooting up too. Bill, although he had snorted heroin and smoked opium, did not shoot up.
Then she and Bea and Henry Lee were gone. Marie in her sunglasses, Jimmy and Grandma were in place. Waiting for orders to come in, Bill was fooling around with both Victoria and Lorraine. The quality of the interplay was different for each waitress—he was gonna do Lorraine after the shift—but with each he could have a real conversation, say whatever was on his mind without having to hold back. Both of them, in turn, responded honestly and candidly, not worried about being embarrassed or shouted out.
Just after Tommy left the kitchen, Lorraine brought him his first beer. By then, some of the early girls were already ordering their dinners. Jimmy stayed late. Grandma did too. Bill knew he was going to run behind all through clean-up. Then, as luck would have it, they had late customers. It was change-the-grease night, so of course the late customers came while Bill was changing the grease.
Bill fed both Victoria and Lorraine Supers. He kept an eye out while they sat in the hall and ate, cleaning up as they did so. He didn’t finish the grease till after midnight, He noted Jim hanging around the knife sheath while the dishwashers were waiting for their transport. This wasn’t extraordinary, but Bill noted it.
“Could sure use a beer,” Jim said.
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