Monster's Chef (6 page)

Unnaturally silent.

I had far too much time to mull over everything, until mulling became so unappealingly tedious that I couldn't mull if I wanted to.

Turned down the volume and slipped into a state of stultifying boredom. I never suspected spending the foreseeable future in beautiful seclusion would drive me fucking nuts. Maybe I should have had an idea that this wasn't a life for me. Bridget might be a bitch, but she was right about this soul-poisoning Lair; it made you want to drown in a river of fine Santa Ynez wine.

I WOKE UP DREAMING
of Elena again, remembering cyberstalking her back when I could use the computer at the halfway house. I prowled through her Facebook page, seeing the man she was with, a buffoonish, long-haired idiot some years younger than me, with a ridiculous shit-eating grin. My heart ached as I saw them together, arm in arm, a fucking couple. Seeing the photo of her making gumbo, in the kitchen I used to cook in, probably using my Sriracha sauce, photo shot by
him
. I imagined pounding him into the ground, repeatedly, endlessly. I couldn't hate her, but I certainly could hate him. I researched this loser and discovered he was some sort of homeopath, a healer, which made me hate him even more. I wanted my wife, my life back. I wanted to forget all of it. Get a do-over, that's all I wanted. But what I got were lucid dreams of holding the woman I loved and left for a crack pipe.

ON THE BACK STEP
of the kitchen, with a big metal bowl between my legs, I was absentmindedly shelling peas while listening to
Rastaman Vibration
, fantasizing that I was trapped in a beautiful Babylon, when I saw her by the pineapple sage, sniffing at red blossoms, shooing away bees: a very pregnant blonde who looked almost comic, that thin with such a belly! I waved to her and she glanced up. She looked alarmed and hurried to the private entrance of the mansion that the hired help could not, under any circumstances, use. As soon as she disappeared a powerfully built black man appeared. He wore baggy linen pants and a white shirt so tight that if he flexed his muscles it would burst. He turned and looked at me; his face expressed nothing.

But I got it, another indication of this “lay of the land” warning: Don't even look in the direction of Monster's wife.

Or you might have a brother man come calling.

I WANTED TO TELL MANNY
the groundskeeper what had happened, but I didn't know if I could trust him, or anyone at Monster's Lair.

Once or twice a week Manny came by the kitchen for fruit juice. I enjoyed his visits, and the distraction from the monotony of doing very little. He watched happily as I cut watermelon and put it into the processor with sugar and a little lemon.

I served it to him in a frosted glass, and he seemed to be genuinely impressed.

“It's good,” he said, “almost like what you would get in Mexico.”

I had returned to chopping carrots when I saw him glance at me.

“You like working here?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I can't say I like it, but I'm almost used to it. This place . . . I don't know what to say about this place. It's so quiet; sometimes I go a whole day and not say a word to anyone. I'm not sure why Monster needs a personal chef. He hardly spends any time here. Hear he's in Poland trying to get an amusement park built. There's really nothing much for me to do. Sometimes I get stir-crazy with hardly anyone to talk to. It's like I'm serving a prison sentence in solitary confinement.”

Manny nodded.

“Yes. They paid for us to come to work, but there isn't much work. But for me it's good. I've worked hard all my life and now I get paid well to not work too hard. The drive home, it's hard, the drive to Lompoc, but I don't mind. I don't like to stay here nights. My wife doesn't like to be alone, so I only stay when the weather is bad and I don't trust the road,” Manny said, and looked nervous for a second and then continued in a barely audible voice, “I try not to stay here after dark.”

“Why?”

Manny didn't answer and refused to meet my eyes.

“But as long as you're not here at night, you're okay with the job?”

“I make good money. I'm able to put aside money for retiring. I've already had a home built in Baja for when I retire. I can't complain about this job. It's been good to me.”

“You work over there in the forbidden courtyard?”

“Forbidden courtyard, that's what you call it?”

“Yeah, it's a joke to myself. What goes on over there, what do you see?”

Manny smiled broadly. “You signed that paper. We're not supposed to talk about what we see.”

“But I've yet to actually see anything. Other than a couple of quick stops, Monster has been gone for most of the time I've worked here.”

“Good for you. It's nice when he's not here. When he is, Security is too
bravo
. You don't need these to work here,” Manny said, pointing to his eyes, then to his ears.

“Ears either,” I said.

We laughed, and then I stared at him for a minute, hoping that maybe he'd let something slip.

“Those young boys are everywhere. They uproot plantings and break things, but you can't talk to them. No, Security won't let you stop them from doing a thing. He wants them to do what they do, and make the mess they make.”

“Me, I don't see much. I stay in the kitchen. I've never seen Monster anywhere near the kitchen. Security comes for his meals and that's that. They give me a list of things for the week he might be interested in, and I try to figure out how to make it palatable.”

“What does he eat?”

I hesitated for a minute. Those confidentiality agreements were very explicit.

“Me, I don't see much, either.”

“Oh, come on. Tell me. He eats bugs and rats and drinks blood?”

“He might, but I'm not saying.”

“Amigo, you can tell me, and this tale will stay in this kitchen.”

“You tell me something about the woman, and I'll tell you something about what Monster eats.”

“
Sí.
That's fair,” Manny said with a solemn nod.

“Most of the time, I don't make him anything. I get notes about his ideas about food theory, but I hardly cook anything for him. Once, when he was back from tour, he asked for eggs and toast for breakfast. He wanted the eggs to be poached, just so, in white wine from the Santa Ynez Valley, and he has to have toast baked fresh each morning from organic whole grain flour from France. He's obsessed with genetically modified food and doesn't trust American flour. He never touched the eggs or the toast. He ate the butter and jam, mixes it together and spoons it out of the jar. Far as I know that's pretty much what he lives off, and that's why he looks like shit on a stick, ghastly pale. Mostly I cook for his wife. I suspect it's kind of an experiment; I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect he feeds her what he thinks would be the best and healthiest, but for himself he goes to McDonald's for Big Macs.”

“Oh,” Manny said, dejectedly, as though he had counted on confirmation that Monster snacked on raw monkey brains.

“Okay, about the woman.”

Manny looked about the room as though we were being spied on.

“She can't talk.”

“What do you mean she can't talk?”

“She is . . . How do you call it in English? You know, those people who can't talk. Deaf?”

“No, deaf is when you can't hear. You mean she's a mute?”

“Does that mean she can't talk?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“She can't say a thing. Once she got lost on the grounds, not really lost, but Security was busy with Monster and the kids. They didn't see her take the hillside path, the one that washed out, and she fell, hurt her ankle.”

“What happened?”

“She cried, but no words. I ran down the hillside from where I had been pruning trees. I asked whether she was hurt in Spanish and English, and she started with her hands and fingers, and I got nervous and called Security. I didn't know this lady, but from the way Security acted she had to be somebody important. One of them used his hands the way she did, and they helped her into one of their golf carts and took her away.”

“I saw her yesterday. I didn't say a word, but I made eye contact with her and she walked away. Then this muscle-bound black guy comes out of nowhere and does his best to stare me down.”

Manny nodded. “So you met Mr. Thug?”

“Mr. Thug? Is that Monster's assistant?”

“Yes, that's him.”

“I don't call that meeting someone. I mean all he did was stare at me, like he wanted to beat the shit out of me.”

Manny shrugged. “You need to keep away from Mr. Thug. He's trouble.”

“Trouble? I wasn't trying to make conversation with him. I wave to Mrs. Monster, she leaves, and he comes over and mad-dogs me.”

“Mad-dogs you? Yeah, that's a good description of Mr. Thug. That's why you should stay far from him.”

Manny finished the juice and nodded his thanks and headed out from the shelter of the kitchen into the bright and harsh afternoon sun.

The story seemed straight enough, and though I didn't know Manny well, I had no reason to doubt him. I wasn't surprised that Monster would be interested in a woman, though I assumed he was gay. Being filthy rich made anything possible, though. I was surprised he'd be interested in a mute. I figured him for the kind of star who would require a perfect trophy wife so he could have perfect trophy children and they all could live in his weird little kingdom of monsters. Maybe I had to reconsider him; he wasn't a totally lunatic superstar, seeking perfection in everything in the blind hope that perfection would rub off on him.

 

SPICED BHINDI AND EGGPLANT

SERVES 4

   
4 ounces bhindi (okra)

   
3 to 4 cloves garlic

   
Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)

   
3 shallots, peeled and diced

   
½ teaspoon cumin seeds

   
4 ounces mini eggplant, chopped

   
1 large heirloom tomato, finely chopped

   
¼ teaspoon turmeric

   
Salt

   
½ teaspoon smoked paprika

   
¼ teaspoon garam masala

   
½ teaspoon coriander

   
¼ teaspoon fresh Thai chili, minced

   
1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped

   
Juice of 2 limes (freshly squeezed)

A few hours before cooking, wash and drain the bhindi; remove and discard the heads and tails; and slice the okra into
1
⁄³-inch rounds. Also beforehand, slow-fry the garlic in EVOO. Remove and mash the garlic, reserving the EVOO.

When cooking begins, warm the reserved garlic oil in a nonstick pan or wok over medium heat and sauté the shallots. Add the cumin seeds and when they begin to crackle, add the garlic; sauté for 30 seconds.

Add the bhindi and eggplant and mix well. Cook on medium heat, stirring often, until the eggplant and bhindi get color, about 7 minutes. Add the tomato, turmeric, and salt; cook until the tomato is tender, about 2 minutes. Add the paprika, garam masala, coriander, and Thai chili and mix well. Cook for about 1 minute over medium heat. Toss in the cilantro. Add the lime juice.

Optional: Garnish with micro cilantro.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER BREAKFAST I USUALLY TENDED THE
herb garden. Mornings were pleasant as I warmed in the sun, smelling rosemary and thyme in the air, on my fingers. Mornings made Monster's Lair seem a good place to work and my life sensible, though there're only so many times you can rearrange a kitchen, sharpen cutlery, clean and reclean surfaces so as to make them antiseptic. Eventually, I had a dozen kinds of yeast, six kinds of salt, more kinds of vinegar than I would ever need. I made sure to stock up on all the trace elements that the chemistry of Living Food required: talc of mustard seed, pregnant nut extract, dried blackberry juice.

Though I told myself I would not mull, it wasn't humanly possible to escape doing so. I came to the conclusion that the real reason for my job was to be a placeholder and keep the kitchen occupied because Monster could afford me, and since he had the money, he had to have a chef. And if that chef, even with an arrest record, once was somebody, he needed me on his payroll.

I was an ornament on the Christmas tree of his success.

Monster became more a presence than a real human employer. Some nights I'd see lights flash by as a caravan of limos made their way onto the grounds. I thought then I'd get the call to be ready to serve Monster, but it didn't come. Maybe he brought home takeout or stopped at the Carrows off the 101, but I doubted that.

I worked for a ghost, an invisible man.

But in the mornings unease about a ghostly employer felt silly.

At night it was a different story. When it's dark and cold and the fire dies down in the hearth, yeah, imagining what went on in that mansion wasn't pleasant at all.

I heard a gate open and turned from tending the herb garden to see Monster's wife, now heavily pregnant, meandering in the rose garden. Her nurse, a big-haired white woman, hung back, fumbling with a magazine on a bench beneath a tree. Monster's wife slowly cut roses, smelled each one, and dropped them into a wicker basket. Hand on her back, she waddled from plant to plant, taking a stem or two. She had to be maybe eight and a half months' pregnant, and she looked striking, with her blond hair glinting gold in the gray, moist morning air. She stopped the trimming of roses and stared at me.

I stared back. I wasn't supposed to, not after that situation with Thug. I didn't want that fool causing me grief.