the bubble dancer

I've worked odd jobs with bizarre people, but that first job was a doozy.

There was a little fish restaurant called The Captain's Cabin that had been there for about a hundred

years or more, and they were looking for a dishwasher.

One of my buddies worked there during the summer but had to leave because he was going to study philosophy or something at a college in upstate New York.

He said it was a pretty cool workplace because sometimes the cooks gave you beers after they closed, even if you were underage.

I figured that was my kind of place, so I went over there and filled out an application. The hostess, who looked like she'd been there for a hundred years or more herself, told me she'd see if the owner was

available to interview me.

I was nervous and needed something to do with my hands, so I picked up a menu and opened it.

There was a little message from the "Executive Chef and Owner."

I guess he wanted everybody who ate there to know who the hell he was.

His message began with, "Hi, folks." It was a corny way to start things off, but oh well.

"My name is Anton Cooper. I'm a self-taught chef. I've always been fascinated with food and people's relationships to it. To me, food has always meant love, and I always seem to have a very intense, visceral experience whenever I'm around it, whether I'm enjoying a three-course meal at a French restaurant or

making myself a Fluffernutter sandwich in my kitchen at home!"

Who was he kidding with that crap?

"I bought this restaurant two years ago because I wanted a place to hang my toque! Well, I'm pleased to say that my toque is still hanging here and that it is quite happy and proud to be doing so. As the great American chef and food writer James Beard said, 'Food is our common ground, a universal experience.'

Bon Appétit."

I have terrible memories of that phrase, bon appétit because the last person who said it to me was my grandmother, who said it just before serving me her infamous tuna noodle casserole. I ended up being rushed to the hospital with food poisoning.

The hostess returned a couple minutes later. Her breathing was kind of heavy, and she looked a little pissed off.

"Chef'll be out in just a minute," she said. "My name's Trudy. If you ever need anything, come see me," and she headed back toward where she had come from.

She said it like she was the one that ran the place.

I found out later she practically did.

About a half hour later, a big, burly guy with a buzz cut and a full beard came in from outside, holding a bandana and wearing a wrinkled chef's uniform with stains on the jacket and a few holes in the pants.

He looked pretty rough, like he had been hung over since 1969.

"Hey," he said. "I'm Anton. Have a seat."

But I was already sitting.

"Lot goin' on, man," he said, collapsing into one of the nearby chairs. “Lot goin’ on...”

Boy, his eyes were bloodshot.

I'm pretty sure he was either drunk or stoned or both.

And he smelled of booze, fish, and cigarettes.

I'm already not too crazy about fish.

I could sort of handle the booze and the cigarettes.

But it was the smell of fish that really made me want to gag.

"So you wanna be a dishwasher," Anton said.

Like it was my life's ambition or something.

"Well, I need a job, and a friend used to work here."

"Oh yeah? Who's that?"

"Jimmy Moreski."

"Oh yeah, Jimbo. He's a good kid and a hard worker, too. I hated to lose him. He's college-bound. Education is important. He'll do well..."

"Yeah," I said.

"Know anything about this business?" Anton said.

"I know about James Beard. He's my mother's favorite chef. She loves his recipes."

"Really. Me, too. Great improviser. Knew when to stray from a recipe."

"That's what my mom says," I lied. What the hell did I have to lose?

"Well, let me tell you a little about me and what it's like to work for me. I can be a real prick. I don't have time to hold anybody's hand. Depending on how I feel that day, I'll show you something once, maybe twice. But if you ask me a third time, I'm going to show you the door."

Jimmy had already schooled me on Anton. He said he could be a little ornery, but he was cool as long as you did your job and didn't ask him too many questions.

He told me some other things about him, too.

The only thing Jimmy didn't tell me about Anton was how much he loved to talk about himself.

He went on and on about all these cooking techniques and how he backpacked across France when he was seventeen and took classes with a four-star French chef who'd cooked for a royal family from Croatia, and blah, blah, blah.

I stopped listening to him after that.

What did I care if he'd won some cook-off in Seattle, Washington, for his braised veal and lamb shanks?

I was there to apply for a friggin' job as a dishwasher.

So I just sat there, like I always do whenever I'm forced to listen to somebody's vocal ejaculations, and thought about some memories from my childhood.

I must have thought about thirty or forty different memories before I started paying attention to Anton again, who was still talking.

"I mean, we're all pretty much f*****g cursed, aren't we? We all have demons and s**t wreaking havoc inside of our heads. We're dying a little daily, I mean, that's life, isn't it? What is that saying? 'Into each life, a little rain must fall?' What was that, from the Bible or something? I honestly think it's like totally

f*****g amazing that people live as long as they do, given all the pain and disappointment and bitterness and anger and s**t they're forced to endure, you know? Anyway, I'm off point. I'm a very passionate guy. I'm just lucky I found cooking. I have this saying. Well, I sorta borrowed it from somebody, but... Mine is

not to reason why. Mine is but to cook and die. That's my philosophy, man, right there."

And then he went into this trance or something.

He was just caught up in something.

Thinking about some memories from childhood, like me, who knows?

A couple minutes later he came out of it and looked at me with those bloodshot eyes and said, "So when can you start?"

I started the next day because Anton said he was desperate.

Too bad he wasn't desperate enough to pay me more than $5.50 an hour.

But what the hell? I got one free meal a day and two if I worked a double shift.

And occasionally, Peter, the sous chef, would give me a beer after work.

If he was in a good mood.

Which was rare.

Peter was one of those guys who'd started working in the restaurant business when he was about my age and just stayed.

When I met him, he was in his mid-thirties and looked like a stone that had stopped rolling because it had nowhere else to roll.

He'd come in, probably stoned, with a beer in one hand and a Camel stud in the other, always singing something by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, or Bing Crosby.

This was kind of funny because he didn't look like the kind of guy who'd be singing "Strangers in the Night," "You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You," or "White Christmas." 

He looked like the kind of guy singing something by Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, or Alice Cooper.

He liked those bands, too.

But he never sang any of their songs, just the ones by those old crooners.

I never had any problems with Peter.

You just had to watch his moods.

You had to watch Anton's moods, too, but I never really worked with him because he usually opened the restaurant and worked the lunch shift.

I'd get there around four.

He'd always be in his office, and the door would be locked.

One day, Peter took me aside and told me the reason Anton always locked the door to his office was because he was smoking crack.

That was one of the other things Jimmy Moreski had told me about Anton.

But I didn't want to tell Peter I'd already heard about that, so I just said, "Wow, really?"

"And he owes a lot of back taxes. He borrowed money from the old lady, the hostess."

"Trudy?" I said.

"Like ten grand."

"Are you serious?"

He said Anton still owed Uncle Sam something like fifteen or twenty grand.

And that he wasn't just smoking crack.

He was also selling it.

"And that's not all he's selling." He lowered his voice even more. All those rich, lonely widows coming in for lunch? They're not just coming here for his Yankee Pot Roast."

Then he walked away singing, "I'm just a gigolo, and everywhere I go, People know the part I'm playin'. Pay for every dance, sellin' each romance. Ooohh, what they're sayin'?"

I heard all kinds of rumors about Anton after that.

He'd borrowed money from a Mexican drug kingpin.

He was a white supremacist.

He'd killed a man.

He was f*****g the waitresses.

He was f*****g the waiters.

He was f*****g Trudy.

Apparently, the only ones he wasn't f*****g were me and Peter.

I couldn't have cared less if Anton was f*****g dead gay Mexican supremacist waitress.

We were cool as long as he cut me a check every two weeks, and it didn't bounce.

I was a dishwasher.

I wasn't there to start any s**t.

That's why people like talking to me.

They know I will just listen to them and keep my mouth shut.

One time, Anton practically told me his entire life story.

I'll never forget it.

Peter had called in sick, so Anton had to fill in for him.

I'd gotten there at my usual time.

Even from the parking lot, I could hear Anton screaming like a madman.

He was always good for at least one or two loud outbursts daily.

Someone or something was always pissing him off.

Especially the wait staff.

I didn't give it much thought.

Until I heard doors slam and saw Kim, one of the waitresses, making a beeline for her car.

"What's going on?" I said.

"Don't go in there," she said. "He's f*****g crazy!"

"What else is new?" I said.

She shook her head in disgust, got in her car, and sped off.

As I headed toward the side entrance that led directly into the kitchen, I could see Anton through the windows in the door, kicking and punching walls and throwing pots and pans and utensils across the room and screaming like a damn maniac.

It was funny. If only I'd had a video camera. Especially for the next thing that happened. I couldn't believe it. He actually started boxing with the wall.

The concrete wall. Just really punching the s**t out of it, looking like one of those  ramshackle boxers who were hired to throw a fight but changed their mind halfway through the third round.

"F****r, that's the last time you're callin' in sick! That's the last time, you stupid piece of s**t! I oughta fire your f****n' ignorant a*s! This s**t drives me crazy!"

Then he pulled his arm back and punched the wall as hard as possible.

At least it looked like it was as hard as he could.

I'm not a physicist, so I don't really know.

But after punching the wall, he doubled over and staggered for a few seconds before falling to the ground like one of his cakes.

I felt sorry for the dude; he was sprawled out on the floor and whimpering like a chef who'd just punched a concrete wall with his closed, hard fist because his sous-chef had called in sick.

I thought about calling in sick myself at that point.

But I would have been docked, and I was starting to like having a little walking-around money, so I played dumb and pretended I hadn't seen Anton punching the wall.

When I entered the kitchen, Anton looked up at me and shouted, "Get outta here! Lemme alone."

I could tell he was a little drunk.

"What happened, man?" I said, kneeling down beside him.

"F****n' Peter called in sick...and Bobby's on vacation."

"You alright?"

"Never better."

"Your hand looks a little messed up. You should go to the emergency room.

"I don't have any health insurance."

"They still gotta treat you."

"It's just a little bruise."

"You gonna be able to cook with your hand like that?"

"I've cooked with a broken arm; I can sure as hell cook with a hand like this."

"What about J.D.? He could come in and help."

J.D. was the pantry chef.

"I fired him."

"When?"

"Today."

"Why?"

"He pissed me off! He plated a dessert wrong. The Key Lime Soufflé with Raspberry Chambord. He forgot the f*****g garnish! The fresh raspberries and a thinly sliced lime wedge. It's a f*****g Key Lime Soufflé! With Raspberry Chambord, for Christ's sake! And he knows this! 'Well, I forgot to order the raspberries and the limes,' he says. Oh, that's great! That's beautiful! You f*****g moron! 'Well, people don't really know the difference.' Yes, they do, J.D.! They do know the difference. People are very well aware. They look at the dessert menu and see we have Key Lime Soufflé with Raspberry Chambord and assume that limes and raspberries are somehow gonna be involved, you ignorant f*****g moron! What, you thought you would just slip it by me without me noticing? Nobody's gonna be working in my kitchen and short-cutting it like that. I don't care how talented you think you are. I don't care how many f*****g classes you took at Johnson and Wales. You don't f**k with me, OK? This is my restaurant! Mine! And then he

came to me a couple of months ago, balling like a little girl. 'I need more money, man, I need more money, I'm barely makin' it on what you're payin' me, I gotta baby on the way, can't you give me some kind of a raise, something?' So I said, " OK, I'll give you a raise. But you're gonna start taking on more responsibilities. You're gonna order all the produce from now on. 'Oh, that's not a problem, that's not a problem, I can do that.' Can ya? Really? So why didn't you order the f*****g raspberries and the limes? 'I forgot, man, I'm sorry.' You know what? I'm sorry, too, but you're fired! I can't be dealing with that kind of s**t! I'm in debt up to my f*****g neck! Tryna save this place from going under! And I'm surrounded

by f*****g retards! What do you want from me, man? What the hell do ya want from me? You stupid jackass!"

Then he started crying.

That was a little awkward.

I mean, what do you say to your crying boss?

I've learned It's best not to say anything.

So I just sat there.

While he reminisced about his childhood.

Wow.

Forty-five minutes of him talking about his foster mother.

Which can be a hazardous thing.

Particularly when you're drunk and just about demolished your hand.

"I never felt she took proper care of me," he said, quietly weeping. "She was always leaving me in the stroller in the middle of the park while she went off and got a drink at a local tavern with a casual male friend or traipsing to the nearest twenty-five to fifty percent off sale at the local women's discount store. She seemed to always be leaving me somewhere by myself or with irresponsible babysitters.

There was Clare, a thirty-seven-year-old chain-smoking, alcoholic divorcee who sat around watching soap operas and game shows, eating Ding Dongs and corn chips, and drinking Old Milwaukee beer. Whenever I asked her for something, she'd look at me, sneer, and say, 'You gotta shoot, kid,' and go

back to doing whatever she was doing, which was usually nothing. Then there was Joan, a forty-seven-year-old chain-smoking, alcoholic divorcee who'd recently found God and spent the majority of her time reading passages from the Bible and telling me, 'God doesn't like little boys who don't obey their babysitters, and if you don't obey me, He's gonna send you straight to hell when you die.' But none of

them could top Lucy, a fifty-seven-year-old former stripper and wheat germ fanatic, who served me brandy and pot brownies during each visit and explained the facts of life to me by making me watch the films of John Holmes. 'Now ya see how big he is?' she'd say. 'Big?' I'd say. 'His winkee; he's gotta very big

winkee. See that?' 'Uh-heh?' 'Ladies like a man with a big winkee.' I'd never heard the term 'winkee'  used in that context before. I just assumed she was talking about the man's eyes, that he had big eyes,

and because he had big eyes and a big wink, I grew up believing women liked men with big eyes and big

winks."

A few seconds later, he was asleep.

At least, I was hoping he was asleep.

Just to make sure, I tapped him lightly on the shoulder and said, "Hey, Anton," he raised the index finger on his good hand to his lips, shushed me, and mumbled, "A few more minutes, Mom... I'm so tired... I'm so damn tired."

That's when Trudy came into the kitchen.

When she saw Anton spread out on the floor like that, she almost dropped the bag of groceries she was holding.

"Oh my God, what in the world?"

I told her what happened.

"My goodness," Trudy said. I was gone for twenty minutes. He sent me to the store to pick up some limes and raspberries. What is the matter with that man?"

Anton's arms and legs started twitching. "F**k 'em all," he said.

Trudy was really pissed.

She looked like she wanted to curse him out.

"What a total waste of a..." she said. "I begged him to see a therapist."

She could have said a lot more, but she just shook her head and let out a sigh that I felt on my neck.

"Well, we're going to have to close for the night. We have no choice. You might as well go home."

I told her I didn't mind hanging around for a while.

"There's no need. I'll stay with him until he wakes up. If he wakes up."

"Anything you want me to do before I go?"

"Pray like hell," she said.

The next day, I got a call from Trudy telling me not to come to work.

Anton had been arrested for tax evasion and possession and intent to sell and deliver drugs.

And I discovered the joys of unemployment insurance.