 |
| Pretty accurate, actually. Just replace 'bad' with 'Scheiße,' and you've got the idea. |
Cockroaches were a consistent problem in the restaurant I
worked at. Every night I had to pour a bucket of warm water and bleach into the
drains to keep them away. As the smell of chlorine rose up from the slats, my
thoughts would often drift toward the macabre. I pictured a company of the
insects toddling though the pipes beneath us. Maybe they had heard tales: a
rich stock of food and other spoils just waiting for anyone intrepid enough to
claim it. Suddenly, a chemical tidal wave sweeps them away, back down to
whatever murky hole they crawled out of. With that, the expedition meets its
end. Most would die, though some of the resilient bastards might live. I would
wonder if cockroaches had developed the capacity to seek vengeance, and if I
should sleep with one eye open and a boot tucked under my pillow.
I can’t remember what I hoped my first job would be. Maybe it’s better that way. What I do remember is that my expectations were low. Washing dishes and doing grunt work wasn’t impressive, but I was seventeen and earning my own money. By this measure it was enough. My father drove me to work and picked me up when my shifts ended, generally 11 p.m. or later. I’d come home smelling like grease and dish soap, my fingers pruned from pan scrubbing. Because it was usually a school night, I’d head straight to my room and fall onto my bed in a heap.
Chanterelle isn’t around anymore, but it was a tiny restaurant at the edge of downtown Eugene. Its entrance was at the end of a plain hallway, past another restaurant and a novelty store. The owner was an ambitious but naive man named Kurt who’d recently purchased the restaurant from its original proprietor and chef of 23 years, a towering German by the name of Ralf. It was this pair who interviewed me for the job. Ralf didn’t say much except at the end when he nodded and told me, his voice choppy and deep, “You seem like a good young man.” The next day I was asked to come in for training.
As it turned out, the replacement chef was there that day as well. He went by JP, a thin guy in his late 20s with a new wife and a taste for garage band music. During prep times he would blast The White Stripes in the kitchen, singing along with a raspy, east coast inflection that made him sound like a teenager. JP spent most of the day learning the menu with Ralf while I was shown the ropes by Isaac, a 30-year-old with sandy hair, who’d been washing dishes at Chanterelle for two years and was being promoted to busboy.
Isaac was a good tutor, though his dependence on the word “fuck” and its derivatives made for a colorful lesson. I tied on my apron and went through a dizzying routine of organization, sanitization and initiation. I was taught not only how to clean lettuce and operate a dishwasher, but also how to operate within this well-oiled machine that had retained pretty much the same clientele for over two decades. With time I got good at it, but on occasion that time took a turn for the wearisome or awkward.
When Ralf taught me how to make appetizer salads, he was very particular about every aspect of their preparation. He watched quietly as I plated one, then told me it looked like shit and to try again. I did, but it still wasn’t right. I was mixing in too much dressing and the salad sagged under the weight. Ralf grew impatient. He took the plate away from me and dumped the sloppy mess into the garbage. We started again, only this time Ralf decided to explain things differently.
I can’t remember what I hoped my first job would be. Maybe it’s better that way. What I do remember is that my expectations were low. Washing dishes and doing grunt work wasn’t impressive, but I was seventeen and earning my own money. By this measure it was enough. My father drove me to work and picked me up when my shifts ended, generally 11 p.m. or later. I’d come home smelling like grease and dish soap, my fingers pruned from pan scrubbing. Because it was usually a school night, I’d head straight to my room and fall onto my bed in a heap.
Chanterelle isn’t around anymore, but it was a tiny restaurant at the edge of downtown Eugene. Its entrance was at the end of a plain hallway, past another restaurant and a novelty store. The owner was an ambitious but naive man named Kurt who’d recently purchased the restaurant from its original proprietor and chef of 23 years, a towering German by the name of Ralf. It was this pair who interviewed me for the job. Ralf didn’t say much except at the end when he nodded and told me, his voice choppy and deep, “You seem like a good young man.” The next day I was asked to come in for training.
As it turned out, the replacement chef was there that day as well. He went by JP, a thin guy in his late 20s with a new wife and a taste for garage band music. During prep times he would blast The White Stripes in the kitchen, singing along with a raspy, east coast inflection that made him sound like a teenager. JP spent most of the day learning the menu with Ralf while I was shown the ropes by Isaac, a 30-year-old with sandy hair, who’d been washing dishes at Chanterelle for two years and was being promoted to busboy.
Isaac was a good tutor, though his dependence on the word “fuck” and its derivatives made for a colorful lesson. I tied on my apron and went through a dizzying routine of organization, sanitization and initiation. I was taught not only how to clean lettuce and operate a dishwasher, but also how to operate within this well-oiled machine that had retained pretty much the same clientele for over two decades. With time I got good at it, but on occasion that time took a turn for the wearisome or awkward.
When Ralf taught me how to make appetizer salads, he was very particular about every aspect of their preparation. He watched quietly as I plated one, then told me it looked like shit and to try again. I did, but it still wasn’t right. I was mixing in too much dressing and the salad sagged under the weight. Ralf grew impatient. He took the plate away from me and dumped the sloppy mess into the garbage. We started again, only this time Ralf decided to explain things differently.
“How
old are you again?” he said.
“Seventeen.”
“Right.
You know women, and how you like to have their tits up?”
I
was deciding whether I should laugh or just nod silently when the 68-year-old
held up both hands and made a squeezing motion.
“That is how the salad should be.”
A
couple of weeks in, I walked out of the freezer with an armful of lobster tails
and saw JP prepping abalone, our most expensive entree. He dropped the
shellfish on the ground as I entered the kitchen. Not missing a beat, he
hunched over and scooped it up, a finger pressed to his lips in earnest.
Someone paid fifty dollars for it later in the night, and I walked back to the
sinks without saying a word.
Kurt came to me on a Monday holding a box of latex gloves and a flashlight. I tried my best to not appear incredulous, but I already didn’t like where this was headed.
Kurt came to me on a Monday holding a box of latex gloves and a flashlight. I tried my best to not appear incredulous, but I already didn’t like where this was headed.
“Hey
dude, I’ve got a job for you,” he said.
A
mouse had died somewhere in the bar over the weekend. I laid down on my back
and slowly panned the flashlight under the cabinets until I found it. It was
just within my reach, so I slid it out by the tail and set it in a paper bag
and threw it away.
I tossed out sacks of waste that weighed almost as much as I did. Oils and fats got poured into an aluminum container, which I would lug to the communal grease dumpster – a black cauldron full of God-knows-what that always smelled of bacon. Maybe they recycled the stuff into candles. Maybe it just got poured into a different, bigger dumpster. I got bruises and cuts and burns, and developed a foul vocabulary to help me deal with it all.
I was always on my feet, always moving. Breaks were out of the question even though they were a legal requirement. No one forced me to work through them, it was just too busy and I couldn’t afford to fall behind. At the end of the night, dishwashers were typically given a cut of the waiters’ tips. Depending on who was working that night, I’d pocket anywhere from three to fifteen dollars. Sometimes I’d get nothing. Regardless of what I received, I was always appreciative, and the staff liked me for it.
We kept the trash and recycling bins on the exterior of the building, and I always took my time out there while breaking down boxes or discarding empty wine bottles. A railroad track ran parallel to it, and if a train rolled by I’d wave at the passengers. Or maybe gossip with the employees of adjacent restaurants who were out on a smoke break. On quiet evenings I’d be able to hear music from the jazz club next door, so I’d linger for a while and listen.
That lasted for eight months, then I went to college and took a campus job. I like to think that the cockroaches are still at war with whichever poor soul has to flush them to oblivion. Or maybe they grew up and moved on, too.
I tossed out sacks of waste that weighed almost as much as I did. Oils and fats got poured into an aluminum container, which I would lug to the communal grease dumpster – a black cauldron full of God-knows-what that always smelled of bacon. Maybe they recycled the stuff into candles. Maybe it just got poured into a different, bigger dumpster. I got bruises and cuts and burns, and developed a foul vocabulary to help me deal with it all.
I was always on my feet, always moving. Breaks were out of the question even though they were a legal requirement. No one forced me to work through them, it was just too busy and I couldn’t afford to fall behind. At the end of the night, dishwashers were typically given a cut of the waiters’ tips. Depending on who was working that night, I’d pocket anywhere from three to fifteen dollars. Sometimes I’d get nothing. Regardless of what I received, I was always appreciative, and the staff liked me for it.
We kept the trash and recycling bins on the exterior of the building, and I always took my time out there while breaking down boxes or discarding empty wine bottles. A railroad track ran parallel to it, and if a train rolled by I’d wave at the passengers. Or maybe gossip with the employees of adjacent restaurants who were out on a smoke break. On quiet evenings I’d be able to hear music from the jazz club next door, so I’d linger for a while and listen.
That lasted for eight months, then I went to college and took a campus job. I like to think that the cockroaches are still at war with whichever poor soul has to flush them to oblivion. Or maybe they grew up and moved on, too.
