Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line (20 page)

O
UTSIDE
,
THE WORLD HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED
. T
HE SUN
took any trace of warmth with it many hours ago when it set, and now a frigid breeze twists the leafless trees up and down the street. The only sounds you hear are the crinkle of ice beneath taxicab tires, the distant twitter of bibulous partygoers, the muffled rumble of express trains passing under you.

You are standing at the foot of the loading dock when your ears pop—first one, then the other—and the pressure that the kitchen’s heat had been trapping in your head is finally released. As a result, the quietude becomes more expansive. The hushed thrum of silence gathers around you. The sensation is both satisfying and sinister. On one hand it makes you feel alive, free of the cage, at one with the outside world; on the other hand it makes you feel unsafe and alone and very far from home. You light up a cigarette. The wind picks up a bit. Something like a shudder stirs somewhere inside you. You exhale a billow of smoke and set off toward Sixth Avenue, where there are sure to be more streetlights and at least a few more people.

Against your better judgment, you decide to keep your word and go to the bar, if only to bid your colleagues a proper adieu immediately upon their arrival. Thankfully, everyone has agreed to eschew the neighborhood’s harder-rocking establishments in favor of the Inveterate—an industry mainstay. It’s the sort of place where fist-pounding footballers are scarce and forlorn hipsters are even scarcer; where there’s enough room around the pool table to play a comfortable game, and you don’t need to scream at the top of your lungs in order to be heard by the person beside you; where articulate barkeeps deal draft beers off the arm, and florid-faced locals nod their heads to tunes off the blues-suffused jukebox.

In the wintertime, the front windows of the bar are perpetually obscured by a mantle of condensation, which lends a pleasant softness to the hearthlike luminescence but makes it difficult to tell what’s going on inside. Only silhouettes can be made out from where you stand on the curb finishing your cigarette. By the looks of it, though, some of your favorite regulars are in there holding the fort. And past the brass draft taps and stacked bev naps, on the opposite side of the bar, can be seen the towering form of Peter O’Malley, the six-foot-six salt-and-pepper barman, who dishes out jumbo whiskeys in between fielding people’s problems.

Excellent
, you think. Pete is your favorite bartender.

He spotted you on your way in, and he’s already getting your drinks together by the time you find a stool.

“Petey-Pete,” you say, extending a hand. “What’s up, guy?”

“Hello, old friend,” he says, his deep voice betraying the faintest lilt of brogue. “How was your night?”

“Madness,” you say. “Like three hundred.”

“Oh, dear,” he says, skating a pilsner and a whiskey rocks your way.

“Thank you, sir,” you say, dropping a twenty on the bar.

“That had to be brutal,” he says.

“It was no walk in the park, I’ll tell you that much.”

He pours himself a whiskey to match yours.

“Well,” he says, raising the glass. “In the words of my father,
‘Is crua a cheannaíonn an droim an bolg.’
” He bangs his glass into yours and throws the liquor into his gullet.

“Right,” you say, taking a sip. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Aghh.” He winces. “The back must slave to feed the belly.” He winks at you and, noticing some needy customers down the bar, heads away. “Think about it,” he says.

The whiskey wants to come back up at first. You are incredibly dehydrated and your throat quivers when the astringent liquid hits it. A crisp light beer, though, is the perfect antidote—a refreshing splash of effervescence that lubricates the palate and the tongue. After a few seesaws between the two, you start getting a glow on and you begin to believe that the stiff liquor tastes like some toothsome honey and that the beer is merely fizzy water.

Your head starts to swim.

Your mind wanders back to the restaurant. Even though
you’ve been released from its bondage, it’s difficult for you to ever really leave. You sip your whiskey and picture what is happening in your absence.

Having covered closing before, you can easily imagine what Stefan is doing right now. This is
his
Zen moment in the kitchen. It is
his
temple now,
his
domain. Everyone else has left; he alone remains. He stands at the pass, arms folded, looking over the place like a king in the making. Where there was once a wild excitement, there is now a placid stillness. He reassesses the evening’s events in his head. He notes our moments of strength, reckons up our missteps, considers how we can do better tomorrow.

You signal Pete for another round.

He’s pouring your whiskey when you notice someone at the far end of the bar whose stooped figure your eyes come to rest on with attention. He is teetering on his stool, bent over himself as though he’s just had his ribs kicked in, feebly grasping at an empty glass. You squint in an effort to make him out. And then it hits you—it’s Raffy, of all people. And he’s razed to bits on beers and whiskeys again.
This fucking kid
, you think.

You grab up your drinks and storm over, ready to haul him over the coals.

It’s just in the nick of time that you’ve gotten Raffy out of the bar and into a cab. Stefan would have flipped out if he knew Raffy was here getting sluiced after his epic washout on the line. Who knows what sort of clash would have come to pass. But as it went, after a few craven attempts at levity on Raffy’s part, you were able to yank him outside,
jam a few bills into his unsteady hand, and stuff him into a taxi before anyone else showed up. And now, just as his cab careens out onto Sixth Avenue, Stefan, Warren, and VinDog appear across the way.

Cooks always look different in street clothes. Without their chef whites, they shed that mechanical anonymity known so well to strict kitchens, and their real personalities come into focus. A ridiculous fur-rimmed parka accents Stefan’s survivor’s edge; a stately Crombie coat and scarf underline Warren’s decorum; shredded dungarees and a studded leather biker jacket make VinDog’s irreverence all the more obvious.

If you didn’t know better, you’d wonder what on earth this motley trio was doing fraternizing. But these appearances don’t deceive you. You see the linkage here. Even if you didn’t work with them you’d be able to tell. It’s a certain way of carrying oneself that secretly helps any cook recognize one of his own. An outward air of strength and mental toughness, tempered by some undeniable tinge of anxiety. It’s this juxtaposition of conflicting characteristics—which can be sensed in something as simple as a flash of the eyes or the flick of a cigarette—that helps us pick each other out, regardless of how we’re dressed.

“What up,” Stefan says as they join you on the sidewalk outside the bar. “I can’t believe you’re still here. I thought you were a goner for sure.”

“I told you I would be,” you say.

“Right,” he says.

“No Dev tonight?” you say.

“No, she’ll be here,” he says. “Her and a couple others’ll be right behind us. They had mad tips to sort out tonight, so they got held back.”

“Good,” you say. “I was worried Chef might have put her off earlier.”

“Nah, she’s all good. I talked to her after service,” he says. “She knows the rig.”

“Ah,” you say.

“It’s cold as balls out here,” he says. “Let’s get some fucking drinks.” He throws open the Inveterate’s thick wooden door and gestures for you to enter. “Age before beauty,” he says with a flourish.

“And pearls before swine,” you say.

By day we are craftsmen of military efficiency, by night we are scoundrels who need no greater excuse than a busy night of service to justify going headlong into the clutches of vice. And this particular Friday night—like all those that came before it, and all those that lie ahead—is no exception to that rule.

Stefan doesn’t waste any time. His first move when he gets to the bar is to line up a bevy of shots with a row of beer chasers on back.

“Ehhh, not me,” you say. “I’m good.”

“Shut it down,” he says, foisting the whiskey on you.

“Yeah, you’re starting to sound like Don Juan over here,” Vinny says.

“Eat a dick, Vinny,” Warren says.

“All right, fellas, get ’em up,” Stefan says, raising his glass. “To a great service, and an even better one tomorrow.”

“To the mind’s blind eye and the heart’s ease,” you add.

“Ah, Albee,” Warren says. “I approve.”

“What’s Albee?” Vinny asks.

“It’s from a book, asswipe,” Warren says. “You’d have to be able to read in order to know anything about it.”

“A cookbook?”

“No,” you say, sympathetically. “It’s a quote from a play by Edward—”

“Ah, who gives a shit,” Stefan says, slamming the glasses together in the center. “Just drink, you idiots!”

Every kitchen has its Lothario, and VinDog is ours. His rough edges have furnished him with an animal magnetism that no one has been able to explain. But it works somehow, and he’s all too aware of it. Immediately after the shots, he takes off reconnoitering for girls. After a lap or two around the bar, and more than a few good-looking options, he zeroes in on someone right in his wheelhouse: a well-upholstered woman done up end to end in tattoos and loud makeup. She sits alone on a couch out back of the bar, tapping at a cell phone uninterestedly, a pair of black fishnets crossed tightly before her, struggling to contain their fleshy cargo.

“Hello,” Vinny says, with sugary inflection. “My name is Matt.”

“Hi, Matt,” the woman says. “What do you do?”

“I am a chef,” he says.

“Oh, how cool,” she says.

She uncrosses her legs and invites him to sit down.

It’s not long before Devon shows up with a retinue of FOH staffers from the restaurant, including Rupert the new kid and Candice the true professional. They, too, look different in their street clothes. Elegantly dressed, well groomed, and sleek, you’d never guess that they just got off work. They look more like nine-to-fivers set to paint the town red than like restaurant people. But their pockets, freshly wadded with small bills, tell the real story. They made out well tonight and they are ready to throw down for some drinks.

But Stefan, being generous in an outmoded and financially perilous sort of way, won’t allow any of them even to think about buying their own drinks. He flags down Pete and orders a round for the whole group. Somewhere in the commotion, a fresh whiskey makes its way into your hands. When everyone has been served, another toast is proposed to a great night of service, and all tilt their heads back and let the booze in. Capsized glasses hit the bar with a ripple. Stefan grabs Devon by a belt loop and pulls her in.

“What’s up, sugar lips?” he says, laying a juicy one on her mouth.

“You know,” she says. “Same shit.”

She proceeds to peck him about the face with kisses.

“Aghh, Christ,” Warren says. “Pull it together, guys. We’re in public.”

“Y’all wanna shoot some pool?” Stefan offers.

“You know it,” Devon says, and she and he and the rest of the FOH crew head over to the table.