THENASTYBITS (32 page)

So he gave the standard inspirational "don't worry, things will turn around" speech, complete with general hints and expressions of future goodwill. He did the best he could to look like he believed it, then slunk off to Rob's office to sulk with a cocktail.

"Chef de Cuisine: Paul Kelly" was what it said on the bottom of every menu—right below the words "Executive Chef: Rob Holland." Rob, he knew, had put that there as a way of acknowledging that it was Paul who did all the work, that it was Paul who was likely to be there should a customer ask to see the chef, Paul who did the ordering, the expediting, the scheduling, the setting of specials, and, increasingly, the dirty work of screwing people over when circumstances required. He lied to purveyors, telling them that the check was on its way; lied to customers who asked if Rob was around, replying "He just stepped out a few minutes ago" when, of course, he hadn't seen Rob in days. He lied to the food mags and VIPs, loyally insisting that "the chef designs every facet of the menu" and that he

"supervises every detail"; and, increasingly, he lied to the cooks. He lied every time he told them that things were okay, that they were "just having a few slow weeks." This was what a chef de cuisine did, after all, wasn't it?

When he found himself bridling at the prospect of committing some new outrage on behalf of Rob Holland Incorporated, Paul liked to picture himself as loyal underboss, with Rob as capo. You did what you had to do. Once in, never out. Semper fi, Cosa Nostra forever. Someday, he'd have his own chef de cuisine and would leave the scrounging, the hustling, the lying, the bloodletting, and the bulk of the cooking, to him. That was the way it was. That was the way it would always be.

He didn't mind toiling in obscurity. That wasn't the hard part. He didn't need his name on the damn menu. When he and Rob had started out at Red House, a thirty-five-seat storefront with no liquor license on the Lower East Side, it had been just the two of them and a dishwasher. Rob had worked saute, Paul was at the grill. When things got jammed, the dishwasher would step in and help plate the veggies. The kitchen had been cramped, swelteringly hot, and caked with ancient dirt. Roaches had streamed through every crack in the grease-browned walls and the floor behind the ranges, and the dishwasher hadn't been cleaned in thirty years. But Paul had never felt so pure.

Merry Motherfucking Christmas, thought Paul, squeezing his temples between thumb and forefinger. Poor bastards, he thought. Poor me. Poor Rob, even. Rob, who only wanted to be loved. Paul didn't—just couldn't—hold Rob's rather meteoric rise against him. Okay, maybe he wasn't the greatest chef in the world. But he was a good cook. And to Paul, that was what mattered. As silly and as sad as all Rob's social climbing, star-fucking, and ass-crawling might be: the TV Boot Camp where Rob had assiduously studied the fine art of simultaneously cooking and being telegenically charming, the dermabrasion to remove the evidence of an adolescent bout with acne, the ever-changing hair styles, one day straight, one day spiky, and suspiciously fuller these days at the crown (Jesus! Was he getting plugs?), the voice coach, the elocution lessons, the personal trainer, the constant sucking up to those miserable fucking shakedown artists at the Institute for Fine Food. Where were they now?

Paul winced, thinking of all the whoring they'd done together, all the times Rob had put on his smile and floated and sucked up to Mortimer Hitchcock, the egotistical reviewer-slash-professional extortionist who published the ubiquitous
Hitchcock Guide to Restaurants.
More free food. More command performances at ridiculous charity events designed to do nothing more charitable than pump more gaseous air into Hitchcock's already bloated ego. An eight-cylinder hoodlum in the guise of an erudite diner, his face absolutely wriggling with corruption—he could probably teach the Genovese crime family something about coercion. Taste of Tribeca. Taste of Times Square. Taste of Gramercy Park. The ludicrous and thankfully short-lived "Res-taurantgoer's Manifesto," an attempt by the loathsome author publisher to elevate his status to more Jeffersonian heights. And Food Week! More bite-size portions of free food, more freebies. Chefs all around the city had to dumb down their menus, discount chicken or salmon for a bunch of cheap, useless shut-ins in cat-hair-covered skirts and basketball sneakers who'd just as soon be sucking down the early-bird special. What was that line in
Taxi Driver}
"Someday a big red tide is gonna come and wash them all away"? Paul hoped so.

Jesus it was hard. It was probably hard being Rob Holland, who'd had to figuratively (or literally) French kiss all of them. Paul, though he'd been working without a day off, sixteen or seventeen hours a day, for three months while Rob worked the room, took day trips to the Hamptons and Aspen and Paris, wouldn't have traded places with him for any amount of money or fame. He just couldn't summon any animosity. Because Rob could cook. Because even now there was something of a little boy in Rob, so desperate for affection and respect, a yearning, Paul thought, for the day when the kid from Revere could look at himself in the mirror and be happy and proud of what he saw there.

He did, however, resent that it had been left to him to break the news about the bonus situation. It made him feel even more complicit in all the madness and stupidity. And Christmas. It had to be Christmas. He sat there, holding his head, feeling like a Vichy French shopkeeper—in bed with the enemy. Where
was
Rob? He wished he were here now to reassure the crew, to inspire the troops at this particularly desperate moment, to send them home proud, still eager to return tomorrow. Rob could make them feel that they were doing God's work, that things would turn out okay. Rob could have talked to them all and it would have been better somehow.

Where was Rob? Right now? Where was America's sexiest chef?

In the filthy, fetid locker room where the cooks and waiters changed at the end of their shifts, the kitchen crew lingered uncharacteristically long. Usually they performed what minimal ablutions they thought necessary before rejoining the civilian population: a quick washing of hands, a perfunctory scrubbing of armpits, a heavy application of deodorant or patchouli, a little foot powder into the socks, maybe some gel in the hair—then away with the food-encrusted clogs and the knife rolls and the pilfered stacks of side towels stuffed into the bin with the checked pants, aprons, chef coats, and they were gone. They did not drink at the Saint Germain bar. No employees at the bar was the rule, even on days off. As Rob had pointed out many times and in typical style, "Who wants a bunch of smelly cooks talking loudly and indiscreetly a few stools down from them? Who among even the most foodie of foodies
really
wants to rub shoulders with the people who actually cook their fucking meal? Nobody. That would destroy the illusion! Motherfuckers wanna picture a bunch of smiling industrious movie Frenchmen back there. Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Charles Freaking Boyer in a motherfuckin' apron. They want to think that I, the chef, am back there laying hands on every damn meal, personally—every damn side of veg. Believe me, they do
not
want to see your debauched, butt-ugly, cholo, white-trash faces associated in even the most subliminal way with anything they put in their mouths. It's like the bathroom, right? I'm an owner. I could piss in the dining room if I wanted to, roll right up on table twelve and take a nice long leak right into the potted plant there, but you notice? I sit in that hotbox downstairs and do my business under the petrified snotballs and the graffiti just like you. Why? It's not some kind of democratic solidarity shit or anything, me demonstrating I'm still like some kind of man of the people. It's because the very last thing the customer wants to see is the chef coming out of the John. In the customer's mind, I never take a dump. That's the way they want it, brothers and sisters. Don't matter I come out of that door with my hands glowing pink and dripping from a vigorous washing, they do not want to think about that. They see me and they see a bathroom? The illusion is destroyed. Reality intrudes. First rule? Cooks don't exist except in the mind. Rule two? The chef may
be
an asshole—but he does not
own
one." That was Classic Rob.

Tonight, the cooks were not running out the door like they were escaping from a burning building as they usually did. Tonight, most remained. The Poblanos left at their usual pace, wry smiles and knowing looks for those staying as they disappeared off to Queens en masse. They'd been through this before. Let the silly
gabachos
fret over the inevitable. Shift was over. Not another minute to be wasted here. Let the foolish
norteamericano
youths spend their hard-earned money on overpriced drinks, while surrounded by unlistenable music, talking all the while about
trabajo, putas,
the bosses,
los pilotes.
Time was precious and they'd spent absolutely enough of it already in the Saint Germain kitchen thank you very much.

Michelle, in sweat-stained sports bra and checked work pants, recognized the look the Poblanos gave them as they passed through in single file as nothing less than pity.

"Zees is an abomination," complained Thierry—for about the tenth time in ten minutes.

"How long you been with the company, Thierry?" asked Michelle, annoyed. "Four fucking months? Only a communist cheese monkey like you would expect full bennies after four months. What? They're not paying you enough? Are your checks bouncing or something? Suck it up, bitch. You got no rights."

"Eet is not right," muttered Thierry, who was already planning on calling his mother in France from the kitchen phone to complain about this latest injustice, this latest outrage from the detestable Americans. "I don" care what you say. In France—"

Michelle cut him off, "In France, you'd be working a split shift at some shithole patisserie in some shithole little village in the fucking mountains, making lopsided motherfucking tarte au pomme and sweeping the floor after your mom, okay? Suck my dick with that 'een France' shit."

"Man's correct for a change. It's not right," said Kevin. He'd worked at Saint Germain from the beginning, wrestling ranges and equipment in the front door, struggling through the near disaster of the "soft" opening, working loyally, tirelessly at the saute end, his attention to every tiny brunoise of carrot or leek the same as if he'd been defusing a live nuke, and this,
this
was the thanks he got. The previous year the standard bonus had been a week's pay. He had counted on the same this year. He had bills to pay. The overpriced apartment in Dumbo, the money he owed to his X dealer, the cable TV, the high-speed Internet connection, credit card payments for the presents he'd bought for his little brother back in Cleveland, his girlfriend, his mom and dad. He'd overspent, counting on that bonus, wanting to impress, and now he was in the shit. It was fucking Christmas, man! What was he supposed to do now? "This blows," was all he could muster. He sat there shirtless and forlorn, tugging on the fuzzy little soul patch on his chin and chewing nervously on the filbert-size silver tongue stud that deformed his speech slightly, then finally added, "Fucked
up.
Thass all I gotta say. This is fuuucked up."

Billy, the
commis-saucier,
said nothing. His situation was somewhat more desperate than that of his colleagues, he guessed, as he was already two months behind on his rent and the Christian-rock band he shared a Hoboken apartment with had been making some very un-Christian noises of late, labeling their containers of yogurt in the refrigerator and even suggesting they might throw him out on the street if he didn't come up with rent, and soon. He looked around the room, trying to discern who might be most sympathetic to his plight. Who might be inclined to lend him money, maybe let him crash on their couch for a while. Thierry? Forgetabout it. He was French. Kevin? Maybe, though he didn't look too sympathetic now, tossing a spinning boning knife into the air again and again and catching it by the handle. Michelle? She'd turn him down cold. He .was out of his league there and he knew it. He barely felt equal to the task of talking to her. Jimbo the garde-manger was a possibility, but Billy suspected he was gay. (There was no other explanation—in Billy's mind—for the music he liked to listen to in the kitchen. No, no way. He'd rather move back to Minneapolis than have to wake up to that music.)

"We got a pretty desperate situation here,
carnales"
said Leon, the pastry assistant. He liked to think he spoke Spanish, though the Mexicans nearly pissed themselves laughing every time he tried. "This puppy is closing, man. Finita la fucking musica. Stick in a fork,
papi chulo,
turn us over 'cause we are done. This place is going down."

"What do you think?" asked Kevin quietly, turning to Michelle. "How long do you think we have? I mean, we're on COD already. The dining room is fucking dead. How long till the checks start bouncing? How long till I gotta find a new job?"

All Michelle said was, "you do what you gotta do," then she kicked off her pants and struggled into her jeans. She'd been faxing out resumes for a month already, and with January coming up fast, when every cook in New York who'd been burned out by the holiday season or become pissed at the size of their Christmas bonus or other perceived slight would be looking for work at the same time and at the same places, most of which would already be laying off seasonal help. Situation not good. Closing imminent. The only places that had responded to her fax either wouldn't come up with the kind of money she wanted or, on further examination, were themselves already fast-approaching death. There was no point jumping from one sinking ship to another. She looked over at Leon and wondered if he could be trusted to keep the engine of a getaway car running long enough to get in and out with the take at a mom-and-pop liquor store, something she'd done briefly with some success with her old boyfriend back in her junkie days (she still had the jerk's chrome-plated Airweight .38 in her underwear drawer). She quickly banished such idle foolishness from her shrinking list of possibilities. The old boyfriend was in an upstate prison for exactly that kind of nonsense and Leon, sweet kid that he was, was too dumb to get out of his own way much less participate in an armed robbery.

Kevin finished dressing, sprayed himself in a cloud of musk, and headed for the door, muttering, as he passed Michelle, "God bless us—every fucking one."

Where was
Rob}
Michelle wondered if he had a Plan B. There had to be a Plan B, right? He wouldn't, couldn't just be taking this lying down. Rob was an ambitious young man and a smart one, smarter, she thought, than his abjectly needy, neurotic behavior would lead one to believe. She'd gone home with him once. Michelle remembered the incongruous details: the wall of books and old jazz records, prints on the wall that betrayed a somewhat more complex character than one would have expected solely from seeing his mug in the magazines or listening to him at the bar. It was too bad he was so awful on television, when television seemed to be what he really wanted.

And he
was
awful. Nothing helped. Not the hair, not the voice coaches, the media training, format changes, nothing. The TV people had even conducted focus groups, dragooning unemployed loners from every demographic into dark screening rooms, trying to solve the problem of Why America's Sexiest Chef Sucked On TV. When the cameras turned on, Rob stood

2
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there like a hapless lox, swallowing his words, moping uncomfortably like a downbeat Eddie Haskell, exuding nothing of the charm or the ability he conveyed in the kitchen, the dining room, or face to face over a shot of tequila and a beer. That he was a brilliant cook meant, of course, nothing on television. The focus groups deemed him adequately "likeable," but he scored low in the "sincere" category. He had no schtick to speak of. No catch phrase. He refused to have a sidekick or to submit to a band or some cranked-up hyperactive studio audience or even a funny sock puppet. The last thing the television audience of Bible thumpers, widows, spinsters, and horny divorcees (deemed likely to tune in by the pollsters) cared about, really, was how to make a lemongrass-infused grilled octopus salad with Thai basil vinaigrette and pancetta lardons. Hell, most of them lived a few hundred miles from the nearest pancetta and would probably rather toss off a rabid jackelope bare-handed than let octopus anywhere near their mouths. So
where was
he}}