$2 (Before Taxes)
BY R. Meadows
5:43 and the dinner rush is pouring in through the glass double doors of a bustling dine in. The pandemic is in full swing. The few remaining workers who weren’t laid off remain, no choice but to press on and make ends meet. They worked like ants, carrying a burden ten times their own capacity.
A lone young man looms over the four steaming fryers. His brow and eyes fill the gap between the bill of his company branded hat brim and matching cotton mask, obscuring all other features. His red and yellow corporate shirt displays a graphic on the back, words embedded in the guitar pick design which read, “Welcome to the family! Try our fried chicken!”
His apron and the thrifted, black khakis beneath are painted white with flour. Four sizes too large, he held them up with the string of his apron. His boots though, were new – relatively – He had gotten them at Walmart three weeks ago, $40. Well, before taxes.
Eeep, Eeep, The screen chirped as each new order found its way onto the monitor. Lines running red, packed so tight with orders that they were spilling off the screen. Eeep, it sounded, like an electronic bird in distress. The counter at the bottom of his screen continued to rise into the hundreds – five tenders per order, seventy orders in store, three times that many to go. With each Eeep he felt his heart dip.
He tossed a heap of raw tenders from the icebox, the syrupy pink blood, salmonella ridden, slipping between his fingers as he lifted them up and tossed them into a massive bowl of flour. Flour - Milk – Flour, the double batter process began again. With both hands, he tossed and rolled the tenders and quickly shook them free of loose flour before throwing them into the milk. With haste he patted each individual tender down back into the flour and quickly rolled them into the grease. The cheap wired earbud he wore in one ear assaulted his senses with heavy metal as he toiled away to the blast-beat. Another cook rushed past him toward the walk-in refrigerator at the back of the restaurant, “Off line Grill! Going for Restock!” The man shouted in frustration as he shoved by.
5:44, his hands moved like lightning. He rolled 40 or more tenders down into the popping grease, filling two baskets, and by 5:45, another 50. His hands operated in a rhythmic swinging motion as he chucked each one down into the adjacent baskets. Dry right, wet left, he mixed the once-battered tenders with one hand and patted the others down in dry on the other. The grease popped as each tender hit the surface and flung hot oil onto his arms, scalding already raw flesh and scars. He barely noticed the pain, fixated on his objective. Make bread. He thought to himself, a subtle joke he had shared with the host who was perpetually making rolls. Why hire a prep cook when hosts are cheaper?
Sweat rained down from the rim of his cap into his eyes. His mask was soaked and left a ring around his face where the wet cloth rubbed away at his skin. He blinked a few times to fight back the sweat and glanced back up at the screen. He pressed his lips together in hard focus, as he swung around to the plate station and flung his gloves off toward the trash can in the same motion. The grill cook pushed back by him carrying arm loads of sides and dressings.
With one hand he picked up four plates and splayed them out like playing cards across the counter beneath the heat lamp. With his eyes fixed on the screen, he grabbed ramakins from his left and honey mustard from his right, he filled them and left them on the counter to ensure they wouldn’t burn beneath the lamp. He tossed several sides of broccoli into the microwave, spun around, shook the tender baskets to keep them from sticking, and spun back around to plate out several sides of macaroni and fries. Low fries. He ripped around, opened the small freezer to the left of the fryers, and ripped a 5-pound bag open with his hands before tossing them into the baskets. 5:46.
He shook the tenders with one hand and put more plates under the heat lamp with the other. Sides, sauce, sides, sauce. Next, a whole basket of shrimp went down into the fryer from out of the freezer and he threw new gloves over the top of his burned hands, feeling the latex grip to his sweaty, raw skin. Back to the fryer; faster, faster, 40 more, 60 more, 80 more tenders into the grease. He shook the hell out of the ones already in the baskets. He looked down, the pan was empty. Every fryer was full.
“Outa tenders!” He shouted, kicking the Ice-drawer shut, he flung his gloves into the trash and stormed to the sink; hot water burst from the pipes and blasted the sweat, flour, and skin off of the back of his palms. He left the water running and stormed to the back of the restaurant like a madman. His boots, the soles already half melted and smooth, slick with grease, acted like ice skates across the red tile. He cleared the backhouse faster than an Olympic sprinter, the outsole of his boot hanging by a thread, flapping with each gargantuan stride. With a few huge leaps and a heavy slide, he put his left arm out for balance and braced his knees as he grabbed the door of the walk-in cooler with his free hand. Using the momentum, he flung the portal wide open and launched himself inside, straight from the 110-degree kitchen into the 30-degree cooler. 5:48. There was a break in the blasting drums.
He shook his arms and loosened his shoulders as he slipped into the cool air, his hair couldn’t stand up from all the grease and flour holding it down, but he felt the gooseflesh wash over him. He stared up at the unstocked racks and growled in frustration. Of course, why would a manager restock? Everything was frozen.
Pouncing back and forth on the ends of his toes he stirred up the energy to get back in the zone. The breakdown hit, the drums in full force, he struck the side of a frozen box full of tenders with an open hand, making his own carrying handle. He let out a roar as he swung the 40-pound box around and rammed the door open with his shoulder.
5:49 Two-steps from the door he slung the box another fifteen feet over into the stainless-steel sink with a loud BANG. He followed closely behind the flying box before it landed and then tore it apart. He slung the cardboard to the floor and dumped the protein beneath the water he had left running. Normally, hot water on raw product would be a health code violation, but he was certain all of this would get cooked in the next twenty minutes anyway.
“Where the fuck is fry-side!” He heard the manager yell.
He jotted around the corner and ripped the French fries and first set of tenders up out of the grease, “Tenders are Froze!” he yelled, then whipped back around.
With all of the might in his body he punched the frozen bricks of fowl flesh and felt the chunks separate beneath his knuckles. The hot water scalded his hands as he pushed one bag off to itself and beat the ever-living hell out of it, snatched it up, and spun around the corner. He grabbed a ten-pound bag and took off around the corner, leaving the rest beneath the running water. Back on the line, he refilled the icebox.
He forced new gloves onto his wet hands again and quickly ripped up the chicken baskets out of the grease. He snatched up the fry basket with one hand and reached over the counter for the pan. Heat from the overhead lamps left the pan scorching, but his calloused hands could hardly tell. He shook the fries and dumped them in, set the basket back in the grease, salted the fries, and tossed the container back up beneath the heat lamps. Immediately he opened another gallon bag and poured them in.
Over 300 tenders on screen, who knows what else. An ungodly number of orders painted his screen red. Eeep.
“Where’s this order for 43!” someone yelled from the other side of the counter.
5 to a plate, he bumped off eight orders, each one worth his hourly wage of $12.
“43! Right Here!” He bleated back.
He whipped back around to the tenders, slapped on new gloves, snatched a handful, and started battering again. With each blast-beat in his eardrum his hands patted down a tender; his right hand in the flour, his left hand in the milk, his feet swamped in grease, his shoelaces covered in gunk.
The world faded around him. Through his one earbud heavy metal played a soft, entrancing melody of chaos that matched his movements. His hands and attention were divided in 10 places, yet united in one task: Make enough money to continue paying for that 1-bedroom at the triplex.
“I need this order for 65 NOW!” A pair of gleaming eyes stared over the counter, the manager. “Right now, God-damnit! these people have been waiting for 40 minutes!” He didn’t hear a word.
“We need more fries!” Grill yelled, loud enough to hear.
He snatched up the fries, refilled the serving pan and refilled the baskets with fish and chicken.
“Sixty-five!” The woman screamed at the top of her lungs across the heat lamp. He turned his head. “Sixty-five, where the fuck is table sixty-five, I need it now!”
“In the grease, two minutes!” He shouted back. She rolled her eyes.
His eyes stared out blankly at the white wall as his hands labored away.
Flour – Milk – Flour – Fryer.
Sweat beaded down from his forehead into his eyelashes, his hat completely drenched. He let the breath out through his mouth into his mask and felt the hot air sweep around his chin. 1, 2, 3, 4…30…50. Shrimp, potato skins, fries, fish – everything flew into the grease. Every basket became a never-ending broil.
“Hurry up on those damn tenders, my table’s sick of waiting!”
“Order Up!”
“Spill on 37”
“86 orange Fanta!”
The shouting around him meant nothing to his deafened ears. He pounded the tenders into the flour and cast them into the fire. His eyes were fixed – wild – the only thing peeping out from behind his mask between his cap. Heat had scorched the leather from his boots, revealing the steel-toe beneath, his heel nearly pushing out of the back of the shoe as he planted himself firmly into the floor. His mask had slipped, he took long draw of fresh air; the smell of oil, sweat, and burnt flour filled his nostrils. 5:51
The chicken tenders rolled into the grease as he moved with rhythmic precision. His hands worked in ambidextrous unison as the flour flew around him in swirling puffs of smoke. He bit his tongue, and when he couldn’t stand it anymore, his lip, the coppery taste of blood fueled his rage. Faster, faster. “I need this Faster!” He heard the manager yell. Fucking Faster!
Flour – Milk – Flour – Fryer.
Into the grease, into the fire, cook everything. Cook the whole fucking restaurant into a crisp, golden brown. Let it burn; burn it like a wallet on the day the rent is due. Burn it like these brand-new boots that already need to be replaced. 5:52. Put me in this fryer, he thought to himself, I’m already halfway in. Let this cycle end.
He spun around and slung off his gloves, all baskets down full of food. He picked up a whole stack of plates and laid them out. He jumped all over the line tossing sides here and there, he reached back and shook the tenders. The first basket was done, and he raised it up. Grabbing a bowl of chipotle beside him, he tossed 4 orders and stuck them up on their plates. Eeep.
He looked up through a blur of sweat at the red screen and the tension swelled in his chest like a basketball trying to crush through his ribcage, Eeep. Like the heads of a hydra, for each order he cut down two more crept up in its place. He ripped up another basket of tenders and tossed them up onto the plates and into to-go boxes, seven more orders out the door, ten more quickly followed. Food flushed through the window like a breaking dam at 5:53, and the night was just getting started.