Burn, Baby, Burn By Michael Seale (Chapter 8)

 

Chapter 8

Grunge is dead

“Nirvana is by far the best grunge band of all time, they started it all.” Bill stated to us all.

“What no way, I’ll give you they were there at the beginning, but they were never the best. Pearl Jam is by far the better band.” I replied.

“It goes Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and then Pearl Jam. “

“Are you fucking serious? There is no way you can put Alice in Chains in front of Pearl Jam. You know which band I always thought was underrated? The Lemonheads just listen to the cover Mrs. Robinson from Simon and Garfunkel or It’s a shame about Ray.”

“Are you to still on this?” Tom asked. “Grunge is dead.”

“Shut up, you’re going to tell us that grunge is dead. You wannabe. Look at you, you have no idea what good fucking music is.” Bill replied.

We all laughed. It was good to be back in the kitchen, everything more or less back to being normal again. 

Tom walked over to the CD player. 

“Don’t you fucking touch it.” Bill laughed. He had been playing Temple of the Dog.

“I’m sick of this shit.” Tom complained. He had a copy of A Tribe Called Quest in his hand.

Tom took the CD out that Bill had had on repeat for the last hour. A great album, but anything gets old if you hear it over and over.

“When do I get to play my music?” Ollie whined. 

“Your music is shit, “Tom said. 

“Ahh, let me see, whenever I have my polenta back, then you can play your music, ok, feltcher.” Bill said.

“What’s a feltcher?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I did. 

“No, no. You didn’t ask that. Oh, god no. I won’t be able to get the image out of my head for a week.”

I shrugged my shoulders I still didn’t know what one was. Bill laughed his high-pitched pig squeal of a laugh. 

“It’s when a man sucks cum out of the asshole that he just came in.” he said doubling over laughing. 

“That is the nastiest think that I have ever heard. Seriously, who does that?” 

Ollie and Tom groaned. Bill roared with laughter. He loved schooling us on everything nasty. He was only five years older than us, but we all looked up to him. That’s what made our kitchen so great. We all loved and liked different things, but we were brothers in arms in the kitchen, ready for anything.

I was making the Port wine Vinaigrette, which I love.  Minced shallots cooked in a bottle of port wine until it is as thick as syrup. Then strained and blended with a spoon of Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. That’s it, super easy, but great with our baby arugula salad, poached red wine pears, candied walnuts and a shaving of blue cheese. 

We bought the arugula from Ted, a farmer that grew it just a few miles down the road. He came in at least once a week, sat at the bar, ordered his salad, which we named after him. He always ordered a beer, a ribeye with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli rabe. We bought a lot of food directly from the local farmers. We also gave our scrapes back to the pig farmers. Not the cooked stuff or the stuff from the tables, but the peelings and shavings from stuff. 

The kitchen quieted down. Music played, Tom went downstairs to work on his ravioli. I was prepping the cold kitchen and Ollie worked on the risotto. Tom tried more and more to show him how to do things in the kitchen, Bill still pissed from the oil and the polenta incidents refused to acknowledge his existence. 

Bill said he had some things to do, so he had taken off for a few hours. He’d be back before service, which usually meant scoring some drugs or actually taking a nap. One of the two. It didn’t matter to me either way, because he would come back relaxed. 

Trish and Kimber were prepping the restaurant, the rest of the service staff would come in later. They would show up as soon as we cooked dinner for the staff. We ate together every night before service and not shit food either. Bill was the mind that if we ate well, that we would cook better and the service would sell more, I think that he was right. 

One time we ate house made Tagliatelle with truffles and fried eggs. Just to be clear, that’s not really the norm, the truffles left over from a special dinner that got canceled last minute; the old dude paid for the truffles and told Bill to let us eat them.  

Trish stood like a goddess at the bar, her hair lit up from the sun shining thru the front windows. It created a glowing halo around her; I was seriously smitten with her. It didn’t matter that she said we were nothing. Not now. Just looking at her, I knew she was the most perfect woman I have ever seen. 

I needed to talk to her. We hadn’t spoken since the last time she was at my place. Maybe it was better that way. She was with Bill now; they made it official, not that everyone hadn’t known already, but now they no longer hid their relationship. It hurt me, it really hurt. 

She was steaming the milk, probably making a cappuccino for herself. The restaurant would open in about twenty minutes. I had to talk to her; it was now or never. I could feign wanting a coffee.

“Hey Trish, could you make me an Americano?” I asked.

“Sure, Mike.” She replied. 

“How have you been? I’ve missed you.”

“Stop it, ok. What we did was stupid. Please don’t make this hard.”

“What I was just saying that I missed you? Is that so bad?”

“Yes, I am with Bill. So drop it.”

She walked away without making my coffee and left her cappuccino. I watched her walk to the back and out the door. 

Tom walked through the restaurant, his purification ritual. He would burn sage leaves, cleansing the air and the spirit of the restaurant before each service. If he wasn’t there, someone else had to do it.  Once we forgot and everything went to hell. Bill and Tom are both really superstitious. I don’t know if it worked or not, but it created an inviting smell though. 

I felt anything but relaxed; it gutted me. She wouldn’t even talk with me. It ruined my day. Kimber walked up to me, she knew all about our situation. She was so easy to talk to; she made everything effortless. I looked at her with sad eyes. 

“Just make sure she never tells Bill. He’ll kill you. Seriously, he dated a friend of mine a few years ago. They got really drunk, and she told him about this guy that hit on her. He went ballistic. He just about killed the guy. Thankfully, the guy hit Bill first. Otherwise he probably would have gone to prison. He spent three days in jail before he made bail.” 

“She’ll never tell.” I said.