Burn, Baby, Burn by Michael Seale (Chapter 1)

 

Chapter 1

 The beginning  

Sixteen years later…

I stood in the mid-day sun as it glinted off the chrome from my old Pontiac Sunbird which set alone in the alley.  A tumble of freshly cut wooden logs blocked my path to the graffiti littered grey door. The alley behind the restaurant stunk of trash, cigarettes, and piss, I noted. I knocked on the metal door, thinking that they should clean the shit off of it. The sound thudded dully. Nervously, I looked back to my junk car. It needed repairs, just as much as I needed money. Hopefully, I’ll catch on here, I thought. I hate starting new jobs. Learning the ropes and so on. There is always some prick that thinks he is God’s gift to the culinary world, bragging about how he is the best. I went to knock again as the door swung briskly open.

"Yeah?" a disheveled cook snapped. He couldn't have been older than twenty, I thought. 

"Hey, I'm Mike…” I waited, as he stared back at me. Waiting another beat as he watched me with his bloodshot eyes. The heat of the sun baked the alley as our stand off started.

“I'm starting today. Tom told me to come to the back door.”

"Yeah, Tom's not here yet." He stepped out and lit a cigarette, sitting on down one of the larger stumps. "You can change downstairs. I'll be in a minute."

Walking into the darkened hallway, I found the stairs to my left. I noted that they swam in the shadows of the kitchen lights while a perfume of drying bunches of herbs filled the air. The green, brown boughs of sage and rosemary hung in from the rafters. At the bottom I waded through the empty carton boxes which lay strewn about on the bare concrete floor. The lockers were to the left. The cellar doubled as a locker room and prep kitchen. Towards back of the cellar was a band saw, a walk-in refrigerator, a few stainless-steel prep tables and a small freezer. There were two empty lockers with doors open. I changed into my chef whites, grabbed the black knife bag which I had brought and ran back up the stairs. 

The other cook waited by the back door. He had on a stained dishwasher’s shirt and his wrinkled apron hung loosely. He looked as though he had slept in his clothes. Maybe he had, I thought. 

“First up, we gotta stack the wood,” he said a bit too cheerfully. The unwashed cook turned and was out the door again. A cigarette was between his lips again before I walked out.

"So, you're the guy, Tom was talking about." he said over his shoulder.

"I guess so. Where's he at?" I asked.

"He's always late. But so is Bill. They'll be in before lunch. I’m Ollie by the way." Finally, offering his name and a bit of kindness.

It didn’t take long to get the wood piled up next to the back door; which actually covered up some of the idiotic graffiti. Giving the alley a little nicer of a look than before. Mike threw his third cigarette butt down on the street and stomped wordlessly into the kitchen. 

The kitchen was clean and smelled of food; I noticed a few dirty plates and wineglasses from the night before were still on the dish station, but other than that the kitchen was spotless. A mise en place list lay on the hot-pass, there wasn’t much on it, the list read:

Pasta dough

Port wine vinaigrette

Chocolate Whiskey Ice Cream

Gnocchi

Polenta Cookies

Risotto

Balsamic Reduction

Wild Boar Bolognese

Soup? Onion?

The hum of the ventilation bored its lonesome song of droning dullness into my ears. Orientating myself, I glanced around the kitchen. The gleam of the florescent lights reflected off the stainless-steel tables and counters. Black rubber mats covered the terra cotta colored floor. In the middle of the kitchen sat the hot-pass, facing the entrance. There they stacked white porcelain plates high on the top shelf. A metal spike with last night’s tomato sauced stained tickets sat next to a small printer. I stood in the open doorway and watched Ollie as he turned the CD player on. An obnoxious metal band that I am happy I had never heard of before began screaming into my ears. The speaker was next to Ollie's head. He immediately started bopping to the music. 

He waved me over to him and the annoyingly loud speakers. Ollie smelt like yesterday's fryer, old oil and French fries, and BO a combination of odors I am surprisingly used to. I judged his overall personal look was that of a young man that has spent the last month or so in a perpetual state of hungover ness. Or perhaps he had never really sobered up enough to be hungover. But that was the way for a lot of cooks in our business; I thought. Either alcohol or drugs or sex or all three got us at some point. I know which way I am headed; I thought.

"So, let's get started, uh… Mike, right?" Ollie said. 

He pulled out a handwritten, stained recipe from a black binder next to the speaker which blared the horrible music. 

"We'll start with the polenta cookies. The dough needs to rest for a bit, and then we can get to the other stuff."

I watched as he picked up a small bag of yellow corn polenta that was carelessly tossed onto the steel counter next to his station and inspected it. The bag was an off white cloth with red lettering in Italian, the only word I could read was polenta.

"Hm," he did his best impression of someone contemplating a hard algebra equation, his forehead wrinkled.  

"What's up?" I asked. 

"It's nothing, it's just... this isn't the polenta that we normally use." He put the bag next to the recipe and showed me where we could find all the other ingredients. We made our way through the kitchen, grabbing what we needed and then down the stairs to the fridge for the eggs and butter. 

The recipe was straightforward enough; my thoughts wonder a little. I hadn’t been sleeping good since they fired me from the hotel. My rent was late again. God damn it, I thought, when do I get a break? I can’t even concentrate on fucking recipe, what the fuck is wrong with me. My eyes rested on the still warm pizza oven, it was large for such a small a restaurant. I bet I could fit in there if I wanted to; I thought. 

“Dude, you with me?” Ollie asked.

“Yeah, sorry.” I turned my focus back to the cookies. 

As we finished mixing the dough and scraping it into a plastic container to rest, the backdoor open and closed with a thud. A slow, cheery whistle rang out before we saw the whistler. Bill strode past the kitchen door, thru the hallway and into the service corner. 

“Hey Ollie," he called out as he turned the coffee machine on. “What’s up?” 

Bill was tall, with long, I mean, long straight brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, he had dark brooding brown eyes; he looked a bit wild, a little rock star. I had heard that he paid his way through college being a Gucci model or something like that. 

"Hey, did I leave a small bag of polenta on the counter last night?"

Ollie looked at me immediately, with fear in his eyes. He didn't answer, or more likely he could not answer. His mouth hung ajar. He stared down at the plastic container with the yellow cookie dough in it. 

Bill poked his head into the window of the kitchen. A few stray hairs from his ponytail hung over his face. He was unbuttoning his denim jacket.

"Ollie? The polenta?" At that moment, the nearly empty white bag with red lettering caught his attention. 

"Bill, I thought you put it there so I would make the polenta cookies." Ollie said, finally finding his voice. It was mouse like under the noise that he called music.

Bill's face immediately turned a bright shade of red, his brown eyes were black. He looked like some hulking Neanderthal about to slobber and rant. I think I recoiled a little at the sight.

"What the fuck, Ollie," He yelled. "That was a fucking present, you asshole. A couple of guests brought that back from Italy for me. It's a fucking stone ground polenta from a 500-year-old mill in Italy." Spit flew from his mouth. I watched it land on Ollie’s arm.

"It was on my station." Ollie protested.

"You are such a fucking dipshit. What the fuck? Fucking cookies?"

"We looked at the list and I saw the polenta, so I thought that we should make that first."

"We?" 

Until that moment, I hadn't said a word. I was trying my hardest to blend into the shadows. I needed the job and getting roped into this situation would not help my chances.  

"Hey Bill, we met last week. Today's my first day." I said, trying to be as cool as possible, I didn't want to give away the fact that he intimidated the hell out of me. 

He didn't even acknowledge me. He only directed his death stare at Ollie. His breathing was loud and labored. His cheeks blazed red. The big man sounded like he might just explode right in front of us. Ollie huddled just out of hand’s reach from the newly formed cave dweller. The moment seemed to drag on for an eternity, none of us saying anything.

The backdoor banged open, breaking the tense silence.

"What's up, bitches?" Tom called out. 

"I'll tell you what's up," Bill called back without breaking his stare. "Tweedle dee and Tweedle dumb fuck here used up that polenta I got last night from the Jefferson's. They made fucking cookies with it." He turned and walked away without a word. 

From the service station, the espresso machine whined and hissed. Tom walked into the kitchen, his mangy looking dreadlocks hung over his face. His glasses were dirty as usual and clothes that were about three sizes to big hung off his lanky body.  

"Hey Mike, first day and you already pissed him off?"

"How is this, my fault? Ollie was showing me what to do. Shit, Tom, you know I need this job."

"Yeah, yeah. He'll get over it, anyway. He's probably still hungover from last night. Just play it cool the rest of the day." He said to me as he turned to Ollie.

"Tom, I didn't know." Ollie said with actual tears in his eyes, I guess I wasn't the only one needed the job.

"Fuck off,  you are such a fucking idiot. Turn that shit off." He said gesturing to the CD player. 

***

Here’s what I know about the restaurant and the team. Tom was the sous chef and Bill was the chef-owner. They had worked together the for few years now, first in the hotel where I had worked also but after Bill had been summarily fired and now here at Bill's own restaurant, Verdura. 

The restaurant hadn't been open a full year yet, but the reservations packed the place. The menu was simple but refined. It was getting Bill and the guys’ great reviews. The Post had written that they single-handedly put Great Barrington back on the culinary map and that it was the closest thing to a New York City style restaurant outside of the City itself. 

Bill and Tom were the team, Ollie was the one trying his hardest to break into it and Gustavo was along for the ride. Goose as everyone called him was the backbone of the kitchen, when he showed up. He was definitely the hardest worker of the team, doubling up on dish and the pizza station.

But I found all of this out later on. The only thing I really knew was, they needed a cook, and I needed a job. I just got fired from the hotel I had been working at for the past two years. Actually, all three of us had our asses handed to us from the same hotel, the same manager, just at different times. Tom for being too drunk to work most of the time, Bill for threatening to beat the shit out of the overly gay chef de service, for complaining about some dish that Bill had sent out, and I got canned for fucking a guest in the weight room. But that is a story for another time.

As good as it was, it got me fired. I mean the chef tried to save my job but the gorgeous woman’s old dude was a super-rich guy that liked to make a lot of threats. So they fired before me, for the happy coupled could even check out. Being that I knew Tom from our time together at the hotel, I called him up and just like that I was in. 

***

The dinner service ran smoothly. Ollie showed me the ropes on the salads and desserts, Tom worked the sauté station and ran the pass, Bill on the grill, and Gustavo covered the rest. The restaurant was slammed per usual; they said. But everything more or less went smoothly. Aside from a few growls and polenta jokes from Bill, everyone was in good spirits. Of course, Tom had smoked a joint before service and Bill had begun drinking Gin Gimlets at six. By ten o'clock he was on his fifth Gimlet. 

"Alright, guys, that was the last ticket. Let's clean up." Tom announced. And just like that, Bill and Tom walked out of the kitchen. 

"I guess, the let's clean up, means we clean up." I said to Ollie. 

"Yep." He said as he walked to the bar. 

I looked at Gustavo; he was knee deep in dirty plates, pans, silverware and glasses. It looked like an endless supply of work to finish. He didn't even look up. He just kept his head down and did his work. 

Just then Ollie walked back into the kitchen with a pitcher of beer and few glasses. We drank our beer and scrubbed the kitchen clean. It is probably the job I hate the most in the kitchen, but we all have to do it. As we finished wiping and polishing everything, I asked Ollie where the broom was. 

"Don't worry about that, Gustavo does the rest. Right, Goose?"

"Cállate la boca," Gustavo replied. "culos perezosos ebrios"

"What did he say?" Ollie asked.

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. Gustavo laughed and continued his work. Ollie and I went out back to the other two. They were smoking and talking about the orders for tomorrow. 

"Hey, Bill, we’re finished." Ollie said, lighting up a cigarette. 

"Did you fuck anything else up? Like use the good olive oil to lube up your tiny dick."

Ollie turned bright red. "Go fuck yourself." He threw his cigarette down and walked away.

"Alright, see you guys tomorrow." I said and turned to follow the pissed off little cook back into the restaurant.

"Mike," Tom called out, "Wait up."

I stood by the graffiti littered backdoor; I watched them smoke as I dreamed of the beer I would drown myself in later. Tom walked over with his beer, tossing his cigarette down into the litter of butts which blanketed the ground. He smelled like an old ashtray wiped with sweat and old onions.

"You impressed Bill," he said. "He thinks he might tell Ollie to fuck off and put you in his place."

"Yeah, cool. Sucks for Ollie though."

"He'll be ok, Bill’ll never fire him. He'll just put you in charge and Ollie will have to deal with it."

Finally a break, I thought, as I changed into my street clothes and threw my whites in the locker; they’ll be more or less good for another day or two before they need a wash. After a quick cologne bath, I was up at the bar stinking of Cool Water, onions and garlic, the perfume of cooks everywhere. It seems no matter what I do, I always stink. 

Verdura's tiny bar was two deep, so I was off to the Cat. The Black Cat was my dive bar, it was just down the street from the restaurant. I planned to drown myself in cheap beer, listen to some fantastic music, and try my hand at the hot bartender I had been flirting with for the past few weeks. It was the best place for a future alcoholic just like me.