Out of the Pan

My first restaurant job was as a cook. A little dive off of Sahara. I never cooked before but the manager hired me anyway.

“You gotta fucking learn some time. Know what I’m saying?”

Juan was somewhere in his thirties. Half white, half Mexican. Had green eyes and thick black hair like a beaver pelt. Like me, he came from California.

My first shift was a “prep” shift. It was a very simple job. All I had to do was weigh and bag food. Vegetables. Meat. Rice. Mash potatoes. I did this for six hours while one Mexican dude named Arturo listened to a small radio (he listened to the news in Spanish) and a couple of black dudes, “T” and David, on the other side of the line listened to hip-hop through a boom-box with giant speakers.

It was awful. I didn’t understand Spanish and I hated hip-hop. I kept weighing meats and veggies.

“Reno, how was your first shift?” Juan asked chewing on a french fry.

“Good. But the radios need to be dropped in the fryers.”

“Ha! I knew I liked you. Good. Okay. Well, tomorrow your cherry’s going to be busted, man. Don’t panic. Go with it and learn. Can’t panic in this business.”

The next day I worked on the line with Arturo. Arturo had Indian-green eyes and straight white teeth. He was thin and his arms were cabled in thick veins. He was coated in cologne.

“We going to be beezie today,” Arturo said flashing his white teeth. I looked at the clock. In five minutes we opened the doors. My stomach turned.

“We got an ass-load of people at the door,” Juan said. He looked at me. “Say bye to your cherry.”

“T” and David started laughing.

Fuck, I thought.

Then we got a ticket. Arturo grabbed it and hung it up. Then another came and he hung that one up. Then another came. And then another. Suddenly food was sizzling. The fryers were crackling. The cooks were calling out orders to each other. Smoke filled the air. We were getting, what they say in the business: slammed.

“Dropped me two dinky wheats all day.”

“Two dinkies heard.”

One of the first things I made was a taco platter. Three tortillas heated on the flat-top. Sour cream. 4.5 ounces of chicken or beef. Lettuce. Mixed cheese and pico de gallo. Rice and beans. Extra charge for guacamole.

The first order wanted guacamole. So did the second one. Then I made nachos with extra jalapenos. Then more tacos. A phillysteak. A turkey sandwich. A fried-chicken salad. A grilled chicken salad. More tacos. Chips and homemade salsa.

I flicked some ranch dressing on my forehead. I dropped some bread. I burned my thumb on a skillet. My apron was painted in smudges.

“I toll you. Beezie, beezie, beezie,” Arturo said, hanging up tickets.

The people kept coming.

Smoke was in the air.

Grease was in my pores.

The day flew by in a blur.

After the shift Juan told me to sit at the bar, that he was buying me a couple of beers. I was wiped out. I needed a beer.

“So you think your going to stick around?” he asked.

“I think so. I like it,” I said.

“Good. This is a crazy business. But it’s a good crazy.”

He handed me a napkin.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“For the chunk of dried guacamole on your shoe.”