vomit.
"alejandro's name is not really alejandro"
working at a restaurant means working under the constant
threat of being yelled at. being
yelled at by customers for food taking too long, being yelled at by managers
for customers’ food taking too long, being yelled at by cooks for asking why
your customers’ food is taking too long. it is a relatively high stress environment (at least
compared to emergency rooms or fire departments), and, for some reason,
everyone’s coping mechanism is rage. (also, everything is your fault).
being yelled at by a customer or manager or cook feels
awful. you know that you shouldn’t
care. because, after all,
it’s just food. and if those
people really needed their meal to appear in front of them quickly without any
chance of imperfection, they would have stayed home and made it
themselves. and, if you are like
most servers, delivering strangers food isn’t something you really want to be
that good at, anyway. but still,
being yelled at makes you feel inadequate—and stressed out for fear that this
time, it will cost you’re your job.
(it never does, which means you get to stick around long enough to be
yelled at the next day).
it is a friday night, which means a busy weekend crowd,
which means a high volume of orders, which means a large margin of error, which
means a considerable chance of being yelled at. i’m on edge because my body has learned to always be on edge
in restaurants, even when i am in one to eat which makes dating hard. there is a constant flow of people
pushing through the door. as soon
as one table is cleared, it is immediately re-sat with fresh hungry faces. the crowd of customers standing at the
bar waiting to eat refuses to dwindle.
by complete chance, i am not making any mistakes. more importantly, the kitchen isn’t
making any mistakes, the management isn’t making any mistakes, and the
customers are all drinking, so no one is yelling at me. the hours pass relatively painlessly
because it is so busy. by the time
the crowds clear out and i have a moment to use the restroom (check my phone),
it is ten thirty—a half hour until close.
a party of two saunters into the now nearly empty
restaurant. everyone hates them,
simply because they happen to be hungry so close to the hour where we can shut
the doors. because of this, they
get impecable service—sat, watered, drinks, food, all in minutes. everyone wants to get them out as soon
as possible.
the late-comers order a bowl of soup and a plate of
vegetables. it arrives quickly
and, by ten fifty, they are sitting in front of two mostly full dishes—having
already nibbled for a few minutes before throwing in the towel. i go in for the kill.
“would you like me to box these up for you?”
the late-comers nod their heads and i feel like i’ve just
had sex with an angel—complete joy. they will be out by eleven and i will get home at a reasonable hour.
i go into the back area to box up their meal. another server is occupying the boxing
area, refilling ketchup bottles. so i go back to the dining room with the mostly full dishes and place
them on the service station—a counter where we keep the computer, clean dishes,
bus bins, and stolen beverages. i can box them up out there because the restaurant is so empty.
i return to the boxing area to retrieve the boxing
accoutrements. when i arrive back
at the service station five seconds later to pack up the food, i see alejandro,
the busboy, finish clearing the mostly full dishes into the bus bin. my stomach petrifies and falls out of
my body through my asshole.
why did i leave those plates there? used plates on the service station
always means “finished.” the
restaurant is empty, managers are swimming around like sharks looking for
someone to yell at. the kitchen closes in five
minutes. the only two people in
the restaurant are waiting expectantly ten feet away from me. this is one hundred percent my
fault.
my body freezes in the way that animals’ bodies freeze when
they have been caught by a predator—a rush of adrenaline paralyzes the muscles
to keep them from feeling pain as they are eaten alive.
alejandro notices my distress.
alejandro is a mexican busboy. we are not close like he is close with the other busboys or i am with the other servers. this
is not because he is mexican or a busboy, or because i am not mexican or a
server. it is because the servers
and i became close through commiserating about our love lives, and the busboys
seem to have gotten close through making fun of the servers in front of our
faces. (also, the language barrier).
alejandro notices my distress and without hesitation,
mumbles to me, “what was it?” i tell him what it was and he runs back to the kitchen. i follow him like a duckling trying not to get separated
from its mother on land. alejandro
calls over to the chef and the two communicate in clipped spanish for a few
seconds. the chef turns around,
yells something to the line cooks, and resumes cleaning the stove. alejandro returns to the dining room
to stack clean glasses at the service station. i walk to the edge of the kitchen—where it meets the dining
room—and stand.
two minutes later, i hear a bell. i walk over to the shelf where the prepared food waits to be
ran to the tables. i see a fresh
bowl of soup and a plate of vegetables packed in separate boxes in a plastic
to-go bag.
i feel like i have just had sex with two angles, and we are
all sure enough about our sexual health status that we don’t have to use
condoms—complete complete joy.
i bring the food to the customers in what has ended up being
an appropriate amount of time. i tell them that i am sorry for the delay (to cover my ass), and they smile to put
me at ease and get me to go away. i bring them their check. they pay, they leave, i breathe, and i find alejandro. he is stacking clean glasses at
the service station.
i want to show him how grateful i am for his random act of
kindness. i want to buy him a
drink, or take him out for pedicures, or go thrift shopping with him at the brooklyn flea, or do any of the things that i do to show the people I love that
I love them.
i start by saying thank you in a way so sincere that it
trumps the sincerity in which i would have thanked my mother for birthing me
were i able to speak as a newborn. i do owe him my life—or at least my shitty restaurant job. he smiles, says that i am welcome, and
tells me not to do it again.
alejandro returns to stacking glasses. i start to count our cash tips. the managers continue to swim around—hungry.
--
why is american cheese called "american cheese"?
No comments:
Post a Comment