Pieces of Broken China

by Dean R. Blanchard

  Meanwhile, Eileen and Carmen were twenty-five years into the Twin Sisters Inn. Business had been brisk since the first day they opened the restaurant doors.

  Eileen and Carmen had graduated from high school the same year and in the same class as Clarence. The three of them had always been friends and were there for one another. When Clarence’s wife died, he came to Eileen and Carmen for their love and support.

  * * *

  Eileen and Carmen sat on wooden chairs at a large round table in the far corner of the eatery. A cardboard tent with reserved scribbled over it sat in the middle of the table. Clarence sat between the two women. They gathered here every Monday morning for breakfast. Clarence took their grocery orders for the week.

  On the table in front of Carmen lay a resume from one of her night cooks, Louis Thayer. He had worked for them less than a year, and now he asking to be a breakfast cook.

  Carmen said, “One of our evening cooks was ready to have her first child. I told her to take as much time as she needed before she came back to work. I hired Louis to fill her position until she came back. I have never liked male cooks.” She paused. “I’m supposed to have a meeting with Louis this afternoon about the breakfast cook position.

  He has an attitude with female authority. I’ve been around plenty of male cooks just like him.”

  Carmen stood up, stretched, and glanced at her watch. She bent forward to examine her white tennis shoes and brushed the pleats of her pastel slacks and then straightened her white smock with all its shadow of stains on it. “I’m going to call the references he has listed on his resume before I meet with him this afternoon.” Carmen held her glasses to her lips and blew on them. She took a napkin off the bar and wiped her glasses clean.

  “Call me if you need anything,” Clarence said as he gathered up the food order. He took one last gulp of his coffee. “Let me know what you find out about Louis.”

  Click went the black ball against the stainless steel wheel at the cook’s window.

  * * *

  After the lunch rush was over, Carmen picked up the cordless phone in the kitchen and called Louis’s references. An hour later she walked out into the dining area and sat on a chair at the round table. The dining room staff finished cleaning off the tables and chairs. They turned chairs upside down on all the tables while the floor was being swept and vacuumed.

  Carmen shouted out to Eileen, “He lied to us!”

  Eileen walked over to the round table. “About what?” she asked.

  Carmen said, “He held all the positions he said he did on his resume all right... while he was in prison.”

  “How did you find out?” Eileen asked.

  “His past employers let him go ‘for personal reasons,’ so they told me. When I came into work this morning a message was left on the answering machine in the kitchen. He must have called after closing. He said Louis was a dangerous felon.”

  “He?” Eileen asked.

  Carmen said, “I didn’t recognize the man’s voice.”

  At that moment Louis Thayer walked into the restaurant dressed in his cook’s uniform. When he noticed Eileen and Carmen at the round table, he walked up to them.

  Eileen reached over and squeezed tightly onto Carmen’s hand.

  Carmen faked a smile as she tapped the side of Eileen’s foot with her foot. With a side glance, she whispered, “Go along with me.”

  “I’m here for the breakfast cook’s position,” Louis said as he sat down on a chair across from them.

  “I called your references you listed on your resume. You certainly have the experience that I need in the kitchen.”

  “When can I start?” Louis asked Carmen.

  “Tomorrow morning. It’s the slowest breakfast of the week.”

  “If I do okay, can I be one of your breakfast cooks?” he asked.

  “We’ll see,” Carmen answered.

  Eileen’s heart pounded against her chest. She was about to hyperventilate as Louis walked toward the kitchen.

  “Why didn’t you ask him about his time in prison?” Eileen asked.

  “Why didn’t you?” Carmen questioned.

  They were interrupted as Clarence walked into the restaurant from the hall that led to the back door.

  Eileen exploded, “You should’ve been here five minutes ago!”

  “I had to use the bathroom.”

  Carmen scooted over to another chair as Clarence sat down between them.

  After Carmen explained to Clarence what had happened, he said, “One of my employees is a felon, too. He works for me in the green house. My staff keeps a close eye on him.” He was absorbed in thought for a moment. “I’ve seen those two guys together around town at times.”

  Carmen continued, “After we closed last night, a man left a message on my answering machine in the kitchen about Louis’s time in prison.”

  Clarence said, “I wouldn’t put it past that guy. He gets paid on Friday. I’ll include a pink slip with his check.”

  Eileen asked, “You would do that?”

  Clarence looked at Eileen and said, “I don’t run a union shop.”

  Carmen said, “I told Louis he could start tomorrow morning because it is the slowest breakfast of the week.”

  Clarence’s eyes opened wide. A grin broke onto his face like no grin Eileen or Carmen had ever seen before. Clarence said, “I’ve never taken my staff out for breakfast.”

  “How many people are we talking about?” Carmen asked.

  “Fifty. That doesn’t include their families. I’ll invite them, too.”

  Eileen looked at Clarence, “That’s a lot of money out of your pocket.”

  Clarence answered, “We have an employees’ slush fund for picnics, bowling nights, and other social events.”

  * * *

  The following morning before dawn Louis Thayer met Carmen at the back door of the restaurant. He turned his back to her as she punched a code into the security lock inside the doorknob.

  Carmen turned the kitchen lights on and began to set the kitchen up the way she wanted. Louis quietly followed her lead. She was taken aback by his attention to detail.

  Moments later, Carmen unlocked the front door to the restaurant.

  “I usually do breakfast alone. Sometimes Eileen helps me during a rush,” she said to Louis as she walked back into the kitchen. She turned the thermostat on the heat lamps mounted inside the cook’s window.

  Louis assured her, “I’ll be okay.”

  Carmen was surprised as he kept up with the tickets on the stainless steel wheel. She put garnishes on the breakfast plates and set them in the cook’s window. She made certain that the cook’s station had plenty of backups.

  The dining room staff delivered the breakfast promptly. Eileen greeted customers with fresh coffee as they sat down at their tables. Soon Carmen noticed Clarence come into the restaurant with a large group of people.

  Louis never looked out into the dining room. He kept his focus on the orders as they came into the kitchen.

  Shortly Clarence’s orders bunched up on the stainless steel wheel.

  Louis showed no signs of panic or hesitation. At one point Eileen stepped into the kitchen and asked Louis, “How you doing in here?”

  “Doing well,” Louis said. He glanced at Carmen and said, “We make a good team.”

  Carmen gave Eileen a broad smile and thumbs up as she remarked, “He’s good.”

  After the breakfast was over, Carmen helped Louis clean and set up the cook’s station for the noon meal.

  “Where did you learn to cook like this?” Carmen asked Louis.

  Louis leaned up against the cook’s station. He wiped the sweat off his brow with a smudged trowel he used to wipe down the grill after he had cleaned it. For a moment he stood quietly as he stared at the kitchen floor before he looked at Carmen and said, “I was incarcerated in the state pen for five years. I spent four of those years in prison camp working in the kitchen.”

  Louis was shocked when Ei
leen walked up to the cook’s window and asked, “Why were you there?”

  Carmen stood next to Louis and teased him, “Eileen hears everything that goes on in this place. She has better hearing than vision.”

  Louis stood sideways and said, “I used to have a violent temper toward female authority. I was trained by a lot of cooks... chefs... while I served time. I used to think male cooks were stronger and more focused.” He pitched his towel through the air like he was playing basketball. The towel landed inside a hamper at one end of the kitchen. He turned to the two women and said, “I don’t believe that stuff anymore.”

  “What changed your mind?” Eileen asked.

  “Anger management.” He sighed and added, “I’ve always had male authority in my life.” He looked at Carmen and asked, “How did you find out about my time in prison?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before I hired you?”

  Louis said, “You wouldn’t have hired me.”

  Eileen walked into the kitchen. She looked at Carmen and agreed, “He’s got a point there.” She looked at Louis and asked, “Would you like to stay?”

  He grinned at Carmen and said, “If I could be the kitchen manager.”

  Eileen winked at Carmen as she looked at Louis and joked, “I suppose you want to own the business, too.”

  “I don’t have the money.” As he walked out of the kitchen, he said, “Thank you for giving me a chance.”

  Carmen called out, “You’re entitled to an employee’s meal.”

  “Coffee would be fine,” Louis said as he passed by the cook’s window. That’s when he noticed Clarence at the round table.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked Clarence.

  Clarence moved a chair out from the table next to where he sat.

  Louis looked at Clarence and said, “They want to hire me.”

  Eileen filled coffee cups and went back into the kitchen.

  “Do you have a better offer?” Clarence asked.

  Louis admitted while he sipped his coffee, “No one’s given me a chance like this.”

  “They’re my best friends,” Louis heard Clarence say. “Those two girls have had their moments with staff. They’ve never fired anyone. They stand by their staff no matter what.”

  Troy’s Condition of Friendship

  Daniel Morgan lived on the fringes of life. He was always sparring with other guys, all in good clean fun. One night, just before my thirteenth birthday, he took me out for pizza. We joked and played pool and pinball machines until the pizza place closed. On the way home that evening we passed an older man in his early twenties, very feminine and smelling of woman’s cologne. He wore tight-fitting pants and a shirt that showed his chiseled chest.

  As he passed by us, Daniel grabbed him by his arm and swung him around, saying, “I don’t like queers.” I was shocked when Daniel knocked the man to the ground, kicking and screaming at him. I was so stunned by Daniel’s behavior that I walked toward my home. Soon I heard Daniel’s footsteps as he ran up to me and said, “I bagged the fag!” When he noticed my eyes welling up, he stopped walking and asked, “What’s the matter with you? I was just having fun.”

  Silently, I walked away. That could’ve been me, I thought. I had always had a crush on Daniel because he walked around me when we were alone with tight pants with a hard-on. I had been tempted to make a pass on him. Now, I was glad I hadn’t.

  * * *

  One evening while I was wrestling through the guts of a short story, my nostrils were filled with the aroma of Shalimar, the cologne my mother wore all her married life. My father had given it to her as a gift upon his return from Hong Kong, his first cruise away from home. Vivian Woo wore the same cologne. But this time Shalimar lingered in my apartment.

  I was so stunned by the aroma that I stopped what I was doing, turned in my chair, and stared at a small sea chest that sat on the living-room floor up against the far wall. It was the first piece of furniture I had lugged into my apartment the day I moved into the place, and there it sat unopened.

  I pulled the sea chest away from the wall, sat on the floor beside the chest, and opened the lid. Odds and ends, bits and pieces of my life lay before me. Trinkets from my cruises and photographs of family and friends lay in no particular order inside. I removed discharge papers, medals, and other service-related memorabilia.

  About halfway down, the aroma of Shalimar became stronger. Near the bottom of the sea chest lay a brown manila envelope, a pastel ribbon wrapped and bowed around its middle. I had never noticed the brown manila envelope and did not know it existed.

  My hands trembled as I removed it from the sea chest, untied the bow, and opened the envelope. As the contents of the envelope dropped into my lap, the aroma of Shalimar flooded my nostrils. Like my father, years before I had brought Pam, my wife, a gift during my first cruise to Hong Kong, a small bottle of Shalimar.

  Several black-and-white photographs and a penciled letter lay before me. My heart pounded against my chest as my eyes scanned the photograph, a picture of Pam and me taken during happier times. I lay the photograph aside and unfolded the penciled letter written to Gloria, Pam’s mother.

  Mom,

  David and I have decided to go our separate ways. We don’t fight, and there’s no abuse between us. I have known for a long time, even before David and I married, that there was something different about him. Not bad different, just different. When we make love, it is as if David isn’t making love to me. He never has. Mom, David’s gay. I want him to be at peace with himself. I will always love him.

  I bolted for the bathroom, and as I lowered my face into the commode, my body wrenched, and my head throbbed with an excruciating, stabbing pain. Vomit spewed from my mouth, my nostrils. Again and again I vomited while my body convulsed, my eyes bulged.

  * * *

  A month had passed since my confrontation with Troy, and this silence was not like him. I returned to the Block & Tackle for a beer and to socialize but, more to the point, to find answers to Troy’s silence. I got more than I bargained for when my eyes fell on Sarah’s back. She was sitting at the bar where Troy always sat. As I slid onto the bar stool beside her, I noticed marks of dried tears on her cheeks.

  Sarah handed the Post Examiner to me. “I saved this for you.”

  On the front page of the Post Examiner:

  Young Man’s Body Discovered in Dumpster.

  Seated at the bar of the Block & Tackle, I read the gruesome story. Sarah sat quietly beside me rubbing my back. Tossing the newspaper on the bar, I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my face. I knew the young gay man.

  I’d met Troy a year earlier in the Block & Tackle, a straight bar sitting on the water’s edge on the north side of town. Merchant mariners and like-minded rugged sailors and would-be sailors liked to hang out there and listen to nautical yarns—some imagined, some real. I had retired out of the navy ten years before, and the Block & Tackle had become home for me. I, at least, understood the difference between a well-spun yarn and reality. I frequented the Block & Tackle on Wednesday evenings after work, because it was midweek and quiet. Rarely did I go to the bar on a weekend. One particular Wednesday evening as I sat alone at the bar, I noticed a tall Asian guy making his rounds through the bar.

  Eventually, he made his way to where I sat.

  “You alone?” the kid asked as he slid onto the bar stool next to me.

  I grimaced and then nodded as I drank my Guinness.

  “Want some head?”

  For a moment, I thought the young man was talking to someone else. After sizing up the number of people in the bar, I turned to the young man, blushed, and said, “Excuse me?” A silver ring rested against his throat held in place by a thin gold chain around his neck.

  “Want some head?” he repeated.

  “I don’t know who you are. How old are you?”

  “I’m Troy, and I’m twenty-eight. What’s your name?”

  he asked as he e
xtended his hand to me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, “Buy your own beer and leave me alone.” I nodded toward the front door and added, “There’s a gay bar two doors down.”

  He winked and grinned at me as he asked, “How do you know about Charlie Brown’s?”

  Through clenched teeth I said, “Because I’ve been there... it’s a gay bar.” I finished my Guinness, shot the kid a glare, and stormed out of the bar.

  * * *

  During the months that passed, each time when I returned to the Block & Tackle, Troy was there cruising, and eventually he came over to where I sat. The same conversation ensued, and I got up and walked out of the bar. One day I did not walk out.

  “You’re the only guy in here who will give me the time of day. I like you.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “So? Does that mean we can have a first date?” Troy smiled.

  “Why are you here? Why don’t you hang out with gay guys?”

  “They’re no fun. Besides, I prefer straight guys.”

  I choked down my beer as I replied, “You’re going to pick on the wrong straight guy during one of your night crusades, and you’ll wind up in an intensive care ward. Or dead!”

  “Is that you?” Troy asked.

  “I’m not a fighter,” I said and then blushed, realizing I had taken the bait.

  “A lover.” Troy grinned.

  I ignored his comment as I asked, “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a dishwasher,” Troy said.

  “Here?” I asked.

  “At the China Clipper.” He paused and then asked, “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Chinese.”

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “You’re buying dinner?”

  Troy stood and gestured toward the door.

  “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “To the China Clipper,” Troy said as he walked toward the front door.

  I never turned down Chinese food.

  Minutes later I followed Troy through the doors of the China Clipper, a Cantonese restaurant not far from my apartment. In fact, I had eaten there several times and recommended the restaurant to family and friends. As we sat at a table, an elderly Chinese woman approached. She spoke briefly in Chinese to Troy and then spoke to me in English.