Sad Iron Blues

Chapter 2

“Table Forty Three! Runner!” chef Turner yells at the food runners. They’re all standing straight as ironing boards because it wasn’t an hour ago that they were screamed at for their amateur behavior. Chef believed that rapping a ruler across the back of the hands and knuckles was the best way for the message to sink in. He rode his cooks with an imaginary whip; he was a slave driver reincarnated from the pits of hell. I began to wonder if he was an abused child, and this job was the only way he could get back at the world.

One of the food runners looks at his ticket, steps up, and scoops the oval tray with stacks of entrees topped with stainless covers and disappears through the double doors. Off to the Other Side, as it were, where the well heeled guests will rave about how delicious the food is while diamond rings and pearl necklaces glitter in the candlelight. They’ll leave a nice tip for the waitress, but will never know or care who actually made their dinner tonight. And why would they? Cooks are the unseen servants who lurk in the shadows behind closed doors, the last people on the planet that anyone paying to eat in a restaurant would like to talk to, for any reasons.

“Hey man,” Paul said. “you’re running low on soup. It’s in the walk in.”

“Alright,” I say. “give me a minute.”

I hurried through the plates and forced myself into a pit stop.

“Do it right, guys, or you’ll do it twice!” chef Turner says. “We’re puttin’ out the best food in town! You know the prices on the menu!”

He was trying to rally the crew. The cooks didn’t need to be yelled at to work any faster, I was sure of that. Adrenalin starts to pump naturally when the tickets are screeching from the printer like rabid vultures, swooping and down and picking the flesh from your nerves without mercy. All it usually takes is a double espresso shot and a few cups of coffee to get any of these cooks in the proper frame of mind for the rest of the shift.

Paul held the station for a moment while I pounced into the giant walk-in refrigerator to get some back up soup. I was a little startled to see Mike, standing there with a bucket that looked like the ones these people store their soup in. He glared at me with pure hate. That’s when I put it all together. Mike heard Paul telling me that we were running low on soup and he beat me to it. Now, as he tore the plastic from the top of the bucket, I knew something was up. Hatred streamed out of his narrow eye sockets, and evil mottled his greasy skin.

“Give it to me.” I say, reaching out.

Mike turned away, hiding the bucket behind his bulking stomach.

“What are you doing? What’s up? Give me the soup!” I blurt out.

As he turned back around, he poured most of the soup on the floor. When there was only a dozen servings or so left he tilted the bucket upright and put it down.

“Hey, new kid,” Mike said, spitting at me through his dull eyes. “go fuck yourself.”

“What?”

“You won’t last long. Get fired or quit.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Turner’s Gestapo?”

Mike didn’t answer. He was overweight, balding and probably miserable with his life; besides, what could he say? He stepped out of the walk-in, lumbering out, breathing heavy and nervous, leaving me to deal with a puddle of potato leek soup. I was over it. Heating the soup was my first priority. Half of the soup was now a mess on the floor, but it would have to be cleaned up later.

I dumped what was left into a pot then threw it onto the burner with the flame cranked all the way. After a quick stir, I hurried back to my station, and my feet slipped on the greasy rubber mat. Oil was under the sagging mats, their honeycomb patterns filled with crushed scraps of food, causing the floor to sway with every sloshing footstep. I had to brace myself, and had to get my hand down on something or I was going to hit the floor. As put my hand out, I noticed that it was heading for the flattop as I struggled to regain my balance. I clenched a fist and put one knuckle down on the searing metal flat top, felt the heat and used that little piece of my body to regain my balance, and hopped to get moving before somebody kicked me out of the way. A rosy knuckle for the ride home. Grabbing a box of salt, I sprinkle the mineral to the ground to sop up the oil slick.

There was barely enough soup for us to get through service, only half of a gallon or so. Maybe the last guests don’t order any. I felt like I was in a washing machine on the spin cycle, bracing for a serious beat down from Turner. Nobody seemed to notice the walk- in soup hijacking just yet. I ran to the faucet and poured some water into a metal bowl, then added it to stretch a few extra portions from the pot of soup. I turned down the flame so the soup wouldn’t burn, gave a good stir, and went back to work.

Chef Turner was on my back. He was yelling about the wasted soup on the floor as his giant hands stabbed the tickets onto the metal spike. I’m going to catch the wrong end of the stick, the way Mike intended. No matter how bad things get, I’ll find myself enjoying cold beers and fresh cigarettes in the crisp mountain air. That’s something that can never get taken away.

“What the hell did you do?” Chef boomed in my face. “That had to be a hundred dollars of soup! Are you out of your mind? What in God’s name have you done? Jesus! If we run out of soup, I swear I’ll fire your ass!”

I was between the devil and the deep blue sea, and wasn’t sure what to do. I decided to leave Mike out of it, because, on this ship or on any other, I would rather walk the plank as a man than get shoved off like a coward. I was going down no matter what.

“I spilled it, Chef.” I said, noticing the other cooks laughing down the line, beyond the towering chef standing over me. Looks to me as though Mike and the other cooks run the place behind the bosses back. If that’s the case I’ll be on my way. I’m not a whiner or a snitch, and would rather jump overboard than come back. Might as well drown with my pride intact, if nothing else. Tomorrow, though, I start working in the morning with a different crew, and probably won’t see these people except when the shifts trade over. And my main problem, regardless of how I feel, is that I’m desperate for a paycheck. Chef Turner walked away, then came right back like a boomerang.

“That soup is gonna sit in there until you clean it up!” he yelled. “Get it? I don’t give a shit when, but you gonna mop the walk at the end of service!”

“OK, chef.” I said. “OK.”

“OK?” he stared at me. “No, it’s not OK! If I didn’t need you so bad I’d send your ass out the fucking door! You’re lucky to have a job!”

Chef Turner went back to expediting and left me alone. The squall has passed and I’m back to hustling the hot appetizer station, working with a crew that probably hates me by now. Mike didn’t like me from the start, I thought, and the others didn’t seem to want me around. Maybe I showed up at the wrong time and took the job that Mike’s friend was promised. That would explain why Mike is trying so hard to get me to quit; his friend can take my position and they can be happy campers. They were like little kids with a tree house; a club of neighborhood kids too busy with their passwords and secret handshakes to get a handle on the real world. They didn’t want me in the club, but tonight they needed me.

I have no idea what the morning crew will be like, but know for sure that my beef with Mike might get my ass beat to the curb quicker than a broken pony on race day. I might not get fired, but they also might make it bad enough to quit. I’ve heard enough sabotage stories to know that anything can happen. Your beautiful pesto might disappear the moment you need it or your knife vanishes without a trace, even though it was engraved. If the cooks working next to you decide that you are not part of their team, then work can become unbearable overnight.

When I was in New York with chef Mckinnis, there was a cook who had an ego so big it was like an invisible crown had been mounted to his head. He thought his education at some culinary school entitled him to god- like status. I had almost expected him to walking through the doorway sideways, so he wouldn’t have to remove his pride. He didn’t last long. Chef McKinnis kept making him stay late for one reason or another until he snapped. He talked back and got himself fired.

On his last day the sautŽ cook pretended to trip and dumped a pint of Vietnamese fermented fish sauce all over the pompous bastard. Rotten fish guts ran down his neck and bled through his cotton T- shirt. We all knew he was going to smell like rotting fish guts for days. That smell doesn’t wash off easily. Things happen when people don’t like you. We never saw him again. Chef had to mail his last check to the address he left on the application.

* * * * *

Now I’m getting slammed. The orders have piled up like a train wreck. My hands are coated with buttermilk and flour while dredging jumbo shrimp and dusting them with Japanese breadcrumbs. Gobs of batter goop stick to my fingertips. I wrestle the goop off by scrubbing and dunking my hands into my bucket of bleach and soap water, rinsing the salty, oceanic smell of seaweed and raw fish. There’s no time to dry my hands. I toss more Tuna on the grill, pull the puree, sautŽ the spinach. Breaded shrimp keep going into the fryer in a never-ending cycle, while the kitchen heaves through the final weary storm of tickets and rushing waiters arguing over last minute changes in the orders. Another surprise pops out of the shadows. I’m pulling the plates down and double-checking the tickets. And still tickets continue to spit out of the little white printer perched on the stainless steel shelf above the station, heaving like palm trees in a tropical storm.

“Goddamn waiters.” Paul screeched. “Always changin’ shit around at the last minute. What do they think we are? Their slaves?” Paul grabs the strip of paper and separates the tickets along the perforated edges, sticking them into the long line we have collected. He has half a dozen Caesar salads lined up, and was matching them to other cold appetizers, then turns to talk with a food runner, and writes down the changed orders on his ticket with a black marker. I watch Paul hang the greasy, crumpled ticket back up on the track, blackened from the marker. His fingernails are a little long, and I wonder if he gets all that salad dressing out from under them after service; his nails have black moons of grime under the ridges. We’re running out of space, and blank plates are balanced on every flat surface available. A short little busboy, a high school kid, crouches down and shoves a few stacks of plates into Paul’s low -boy fridge; all the salads go out on ice cold plates. The stacks of oval, square, and round plates that I use are on a shelf above the fryer, where they get so hot that you have to handle them with a towel, or the flesh on your fingertips would melt off at the slightest touch.

“How hard is it for them to get an order straight?” Paul asked, then turned to me. “They do this every night of the week.”

“It happens in every restaurant, man.” I say. “You get slammed and if you can’t get faster then you go in the weeds.”

“You shouldn’t feel bad about the soup.” Paul said. “It’ll be alright.”

“What? How couldn’t I?” I say, lowering my voice and moving in a few steps closer. “It might be alright, but, between you and me, man, I didn’t drop the fuckin’ soup. That guy Mike did. Just dumped it out, told me I should quit.”

“Really?” Paul asked. “Again?”

“What? What do you mean by that? Again?”

“One day Turner’ll find out. He’ll get fired.”

“Who? Mike?”

I’d bet there have been a couple dozen cooks who have slid in and out of here because of Mike and Sam and Lord knows who else set them up for a crash course with chef Turner. I’ve seen it happen before. The easiest way to get rid of someone who doesn’t fit the mold is to frame them until something sticks.

“Tell me.” I said quietly. “It’s always a new guy who always drops something and gets in trouble, right? If they don’t like somebody, then they make ‘em look bad in front of the chef, right? They make ‘em look bad until they get fed up or fired, huh?”

Paul looked at me.

“Because I didn’t spill that shit, man.”

He didn’t seem surprised, but was reluctant to talk. I wanted to ask him if everyone gets burned by the fat man on their first day, but was too busy.

“And now the chef thinks I’m an idiot, and’ll prob’ly fire me. But you tell me to not feel bad,” I say. “Is that why you’re still makin’ salads after two fuckin’ years? You kept yer mouth shut and look where it got ya. Yer the kinda guy who’ll just take it, though, and eat the shit when its shoveled in yer mouth, like a kid that’s been picked on too long.” Paul doesn’t respond. He wouldn’t even look at me. Maybe I was too blunt. The conversation was over.

The printer grinds a terrible clacking sound as the paper spills out. More orders for appetizers flood over us. This place is a zoo, I thought, the way the tickets keep pouring in like water from a rushing faucet. My shrimp are golden brown now, ready to pull. I smack the baskets so the oil flies out, throw them into the big bowl, season, toss, and place to the side as more clean plates cover the line. The fryer oil looks like it hasn’t been changed in a year, and as the flour from the dredged shrimp dissolves into the bubbling cauldron, it begins to look like thirty weight motor oil. That’s the way it goes, I guess, when food costs are pushing the limit.

I wonder what guests would think if they could only see these fryers, these grease traps packed with artery clogging fat. I’m used to it, I thought, as I spooned the wasabi cream and soy reduction on each plate. The food is something to be savored, of course, but people eat with all of their senses, especially their eyes. If it doesn’t look good, their instinct will tell them it probably won’t taste good. One of a restaurant’s secrets. But just because something looks good doesn’t mean it was handled that way; half of the fast food places and mom and pop shops in the country would probably go out of business by next week if the public was able to see how they go about preparing what’s on the so called menu. Frozen food and microwaves, deep fat fryers and bitter, stale coffee even when its fresh; the remnants of a cold war power structure.

“Table fifty seven!” Re-fire the entire goddamned table! Right now!” chef Turner yelled, pacing back and forth. “The food was dropped! Scott! Get that shit out, for Christ’s sake! We need those entrees right now, for table fifty seven!”

“Mike,” chef Turner said. “here, pull the ticket for table sixteen!”

“Yes, chef!” Scott barked as he pulled down a series of fresh sautŽ pans from the hooks above. The line is in full swing, the sous chef right next to Scott, saucing the plates as the go down the assembly line, getting the food out of the steam kettle and into the cool, distant chatter in the dining room. Chef Turner was huge. A tall, blonde Scandanavian that had, no doubt, once sailed the seas in previous lifetimes as a Viking, commanding his bearded swordsmen with thick braids like ropes hanging under horned helmets, searching continuously for villages and treasure and women to plunder in the name of Thor. This was his kitchen. And this kitchen was his baby, his one true love that gave meaning to his life and a reason to wake up every morning. Running this place must be like waging a war, I thought. No wonder chef Turner acts like a drill sergeant hopped up on steroids with his testosterone blasting through the roof.

A piercing scream and the sharp crash from shattering plates jarred my nerves.

“What do you mean you dropped the tray!” chef Turner screamed.

I couldn’t hear what the runner was saying, but I knew the cooks on the line were about to get jacked. When a tray hits the deck, the cooks have to work it out. The waiters apologize, and then walk away and let the kitchen bear the burden. The only time that might change is during a banquet. Back in New York I picked up a waiter job for a catering company, and after watching a few other people drop unbalanced trays, I learned how easily entrees can be lost in a single heartbeat. Chefs cry when food kisses the floor. If the plate isn’t going to make money, then someone should at least be able to eat it.

“These fuckin’ guys are droppin’ my food!” chef Turner screamed. He picked up a plate and threw it to the floor where it shattered.

“Where’s Johnny? Get that kid in here, have ‘em clean this shit up!” Chef stuck a broom into one of the food runner’s hands. “Runners!” Scott heaved. “C’mon! I got tables twelve, eighteen, fifty two! Take ‘em! OK guys, ticket fifty seven is a refire! Lets get it! I need two lamb, medium, two steaks, medium rare! April, see yer ravioli’s on that ticket?”

“I need two racks of lamb, well done, and one medium well, fire!”

“Fire! Two well, one medium well!”

“We’re pushin’ fifty seven!” Scott said. “We got two steaks, medium rare, halibut, one rav, one rack medium rare!” Entrees were reduced to code words. We were in the trenches, fighting back. Waiters shot the tickets through the computer.

I put my head down and kept my hands busy. Paul slid up next to me and told me how the food runner tripped and dropped all the entrees for huge table. Something like eight guests. That’s the last thing we need. It’s bad enough that the whole crew is sloshing through the weeds like a bunch of crocodile hunters down in the Everglades, up to our waists in murky water. The waiters keep firing tickets, one course after another and we don’t have a spot to breathe. I glance at the clock. About three hours till it’s over.

“Keep it comin’, baby!” Mike hollered.

Amateurs wear chef Turner’s patience thin. He told me during my interview that he would rather fire a cook than watch them make the same mistake more than three or four times. “My patience is like thin ice.” he told me. “It cracks easy.” That’s from the old school, you understand, when a working man came onto a job and had three days to prove himself to the straw boss, or whatever he chose to be called. Back then, before the lawsuits, union demonstrations, and the labor laws, a man could have his future cut short in the space of an afternoon if he didn’t sweat hard enough.

Chef Turner gulped air and snorted it out through his nostrils. The veins in his neck bulged when he grinded his jaw.

“How long Scott? C’mon, lets get the spill cleaned up.”

“I got you, chef.” Scott replied. “OK! Runner! Chef, take these out!”

“Tables sixty and thirty one! Sell ‘em!”

“Grill!” Scott said. “Where ya at? I need my chicken!”

“Chicken, chicken.” Mike said, passing the meat down with his tongs. “Go!”

“Thank you!” Scott said as he ladled sauce. “Now I’m looking for the Halibut, sea bass, and a salmon to go with the lamb on this ticket! Ray! How long?”

“Two minutes, Scott.” Ray said..

“OK. And it’s going with two ravioli’s Pasta!”

“Two rav!” the pasta girl chirped.

“Sell it! Get that shit outta here before it gets cold!”

Food runners grappled the trays and heaved them away. No more singing and playing around. This was crunch time. The waiters were out there, sweet talking the guests, urging them with kindness to spend big money on wine and dessert and a wonderful time. Scott had to hold back a few tables in order to get the spilled table out. If those guests have to wait much longer, they are entitled to complain, and could start sniffing around for a free meal. Depends on how savvy the guests are, or how ruthless they want to be. The house was packed and there was a line mingling outside the door, from what I’ve overheard from the food runners. On nights like this anything can happen.

Scott was the quarterback, hollering at the cooks and forging the plan. But there was no time for a huddle. We call the plays in the middle of the action, like soldiers taking a beating, shooting their way out of a fox hole. Scott and the sous chef were running the show, shoving solutions at any problem that chose to rear its ugly, monstrous head. Johnny comes back into the kitchen.

“There you are!” chef Turner cried. “Stay here until your manager comes to send you home! As a matter of fact, just go clock out!”

Johnny pounced through the doors.

If the kitchen drags that table for another five minutes, then the guests could complain and get hooked up with complimentary dinners. No restaurant is in the business to feed people for free, and I could tell by the way our chef paced up around that he wanted, more than anything in the world, to make these people happy. Scott pieced the food together, taking items from other tickets. Chef was in the window, wiping plates, checking the garnishes, and whistling for a food runner. Looks to me like the White Shirts will make out alright, and will probably still get a decent tip from the guests, who are so busy talking at this point, they have no idea their food was cooked twice. Nobody is going to fill them in even if they ask, even if they have a feeling the food lagged.

A smile cracks across my lips as I begin to understand the way this restaurant is run. It was governed by this maniac like a pirate ship; there was an ad in the paper, and the captain hired me fine, but he wasn’t the guy who decided if I was going to stick around. The cooks choose the crew in this restaurant, and they didn’t choose me, for whatever reasons.

My guess is that chef Turner hires cooks knowing that two out of three won’t make it more than a few weeks with Mike or Scott grinding their nerves, like maize in stone bowl. They like it this way. A cheap labor pool backed by macho thugs with bad backs and ugly girlfriends. Like hiring indentured servants. It doesn’t really matter to me, I thought, since I could hit the streets and get a new job as easy as I got this one. There’s a restaurant on every corner and one of them is always hiring. When I get sick and tired of traveling around in total poverty, limping from one ski resort or golf club to another, I’ll look around and pick from a dozen other jobs that will hire me just because I have a college degree. One of these days I’ll get pushed out of cooking, to make more money if nothing else. It’s only a matter of time.