This week we have another delightful and hilarious piece by Reid Wright entitled "The Machine". Enjoy:
The Machine
I meander to work in a slouch with my head lowered, avoiding eye contact with passing strangers and trying to stay on my side of the sidewalk. I hide under my hood as I walk into the building, saying ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’, holding open the door for someone. I sneak to the locker room, where I undergo my metamorphosis.
As I button up my chef’s coat from bottom to top, my posture straightens, my gut sucks in and my chest sticks out. My shoulders broaden to fill their new container. As I roll up my sleeves, my forearms bulge and tendons tighten against the material. I remove my glasses and strap on my chef’s hat, tilting it smartly to the right like a beret. Lifting my head, my eyes narrow. No longer myself, I have become my alter-ego – The Machine.
The Machine bursts out of the locker room, storming down the hall, his hawk eyes darting about with gigawatt laser intensity, scanning the situation for potential hazards.
The Executive Chef pipes up cheerily from her office as he passes: “Oh hi, how are you today?”
The Machine gives her a dismissive wave over the shoulder as he marches on.
“Oh and about dinner tonight…” she titters on, but he is already gone.
Rounding the corner into the kitchen, The Machine halts.
Andrew is bent over the counter looking up at him; frozen in an attempt to wrap his own head in plastic wrap. This behavior does not compute. The Machine marches on.
The cooks had lazily gathered, and were exchanging jokes when he marched up
“Listen up men” The Machine barks in a grizzled voice. “We got a tough dinner and not a lot of time, so let’s move some food.”
The cooks scatter and The Machine begins to sling food, shooting splashes of seasonings, twirling knives and spatulas, and stomping around in an inhuman ultra-efficient mechanical ballet.
A bold young cook named Spencer approaches The Machine with a new test.
“Were taking a survey.” Spencer says with a sly smile. “Would you have sex with a dolphin?”
“Sure.” He replies after a brief computation. “As long as it’s ok with the dolphin.”
“Wow” Spencer says, impressed.
Respect. It’s all about Respect.
But where did this insidious creature come from? What forgotten broiling pit of hell would forge this dolphin fucking device? What kind of manic depraved demons would do such a thing?
I had just turned sixteen and I needed a summer job to pay off that car stereo. My Dad had a friend who landed me a job dishwashing at a pretentious restaurant called “The Metate Room”.
Sure what the hell, I thought, if I don’t like it I can always leave right?
When I had in eaten restaurants I had always imagined that behind those swinging doors that lead into the kitchen, there was a happy fat Italian guy in a mushroom hat lovingly cooking each order of food one at a time.
The kitchen was a sterile cave with tile floors and stainless steel walls and surfaces. Scary and rude people ricochet around like particles waiting to collide. Classic rock blasted through a small stereo, and there was constant shouting and swearing.
My little walled off corner of this subterranean world was called the “Dish Pit.” Although it wasn’t really a pit, it was more like an isolation chamber. There was a small opening through which people fed me their dishes.
About nine feet up on the back wall there was a small window. It was the only one in the kitchen. A thin sliver of natural light sometimes came through, to tease the prisoners of this sweltering inferno by reminding them that there was a free and spacious world outside.
My first few days I was slow and dainty with my work, careful to scrub and spray each dish. I was disgusted by the food sludge that accumulated and had a difficult time not getting nauseous.
“Just go faster man.” Said the guy I was working with. Dishes would pile up, they never seemed to stop coming. The people who brought them said nothing to me. I would go home around
I did this all summer. When school started up again, I came in after school and washed dishes until
I got to be so sleep deprived that one night driving home I mistook a cow for a dumpster. I remember my exact train of thought in that moment: Dumpster…Dumpster…Dumpster…Bovine…Oh shit. Luckily I swerved and missed the cow. Another night, my car was assaulted by a cloud of moths gleamed in my headlights. They turned into snowflakes. It was July.
The only way for me to get home sooner – I reasoned - was to work faster. So I got high on coffee and coke and went turbo. I had no strategy; I just worked as fast as I could.
My haste was eventually noticed by Brandon - the chef - who mistook my actions for loyalty and a good work ethic. He wanted to train me as a prep cook, which I found laughable considering I couldn’t cook anything that didn’t have directions on the box.
Working the dish pit had been my baptism in filth, my cleansing of ideals that could only survive outside the kitchen; like purity, hope, and the assumption that underneath it all, there was someone holding a safety net for your health and sanity.
I could now be accepted into the heart of the kitchen, which is kept beating by cast-away derelicts in white coats. I was about to join the world of the cooks.
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