Appetizer

by Blane Thomas

  Though Corey’s name was not openly sullied, it did not take long for the connoisseurs in the fine dining community, and later the public, to know who was being criticized. By the end of that week, most food review websites, from the famous ones to even the ones who did not get much views, had demoted the Trainyard’s ratings from its usual five-stars to four.

  Ryan had to drink three glasses of whisky that night to calm his increasingly frayed nerves. The kitchen was run by the three chefs quietly. Their executive chef only came out of his room to scream at all three of them, Corey the worst, to ensure that every dish was perfect. But Gus and Lalitha did not understand what Corey did – it was not that the dishes weren’t up to par in quality, it was just that Corey had made the wrong person angry. Also by the end of that week, the Trainyard’s clientele had dropped by almost sixty percent. Lunch hour was not as hectic as it used to be.

  “This is all your fault, Corey!” Ryan spoke to him long after everyone else had gone home. They were in his office. “Theo will not answer my calls anymore. No one wants to speak to me! I am like a disease to them. Everyone is too afraid to associate themselves with me, for fear of what might happen to them if they help me!”

  Corey sat there looking at his boss. Pity ran through his veins, but he too had to bear this punishment stoically. He said nothing as Ryan continued pouring himself yet another glass of whisky.

  “And this is what you are going to do,” Ryan continued. “You are going to call Theo and apologize.”

  Corey’s eyes widened.

  “Oh yes, I don’t know the details. But there is only one reason we are being punished like this! It is because your incurred Theo’s wrath! So, you are going to make amends for this! RIGHT NOW!”

  “With all due respect, chef,” Corey spoke up, “… I will not do it. I have my principles.”

  “Fuck you and your principles!” Ryan roared. Spittle and whisky flew across the air, landing on the table in front of him, some also on Corey’s face. “Where were your goddamn principles when you went to judge those reality competitions? Where were the principles when you laughed with our famous guests when they came to dine here? WHERE WAS YOUR FUCKING PRINCIPLE WHEN YOU RODE THE WAVE OF FAME?”

  He had no answer. Slowly, Corey rose from his chair. “I’ve had enough, chef. All this ridiculousness of having to lick Theo’s shoes, to play this ‘game.’ I cannot do it anymore. All I wanted was to be a chef. A skilful one, not a successful one.”

  “I don’t care, Corey. I want you to apologize to Theo.”

  “It isn’t going to happen, chef. Ask me to do anything but that,” Corey insisted.

  “Then leave.” Ryan slammed the glass on his table. “I don’t have any use for you anymore. You can just go.”

  “C… chef?” Corey could not believe his ears.

  “You heard me. You are fired!” Ryan spat. “I have no use for subordinates who can’t do as I order! Pack your bags and leave my restaurant!”

  The man he had once considered a fatherly figure was no longer that. Ryan Nicholson now bore no resemblance to that round-faced man Corey had looked to as a mentor on the first day they had met.

  “But I am a good chef!” Corey pressed on.

  “I DON’T NEED A GOOD CHEF! I NEED SOMEONE TO SUCK THEO’S COCK, THAT’S WHAT I NEED!” Ryan bellowed mercilessly.

  It was the thought of not cooking that hurt Corey the most. Slowly, he got up to leave. The pounding in his chest would not cease.

  “Understand this Corey,” Ryan warned. “You know that this affects you, too. You are basically a pariah in the city’s fine dining circle! No one would want to hire you, at all! I am giving you a chance here, boy, to redeem yourself! All you have to do is call Theo and apologize to him. That’s all!”

  Corey took one last look at his former boss. His mind was made up. “Don’t you see, chef? I’m already redeeming myself.”

  Chapter 24

  He deftly flipped the egg with his spatula causing the yolk to sizzle under the hot, black pan. Casting the spatula aside, he reached for a plate and put two hash browns on it. Corey moved around in the cramped space, fully aware of its limitations and potential. Here he moved without undeserving eyes casting its judgment on him. Though the meals he prepared were simple, he never compromised on the precision of preparing a meal.

  When he had arranged the hash browns, beans, and sausages onto the plate, an unsupervised hand on the spatula reached for the egg, crowning the breakfast.

  “Order up!” he yelled. The breakfast platter was placed on the countered partition separating the kitchen from the dining room.

  He did not glance at the waiter’s hand reaching for the plate, already busy whipping a batter to be turned into a stack of pancakes. The morning rush hour was upon them. Blue-collar workers – janitors, cleaners, construction workers, mechanics and plumbers, came into the diner for their breakfast before pouring into to the river of rush hour in the city. These were people not fuelled by restaurant reviews or gratification, but a necessity to survive.

  The diner was situated two blocks from Corey’s apartment. He wore a casual uniform of a blue t-shirt and pants, adorned with a garish pink ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron round him that the boss had gotten from a thrift store. He no longer had the metallic, orderly mise en place containing all the necessary ingredients for cooking like in the Trainyard. Instead, the diner’s kitchen was a hullabaloo of canned foods, jars, paper bags, plastic containers for ingredients, and bottles in hard to reach places. No ‘yes, chefs’ or ‘staging’ was done here. All the food was assembled for its practical purpose – to nourish the backbone of the city for those who bore the weight of the upper-class society without much pay in return.

  After being fired from the Trainyard, Corey had found it difficult to be hired by any other fine dining establishments. No one wanted to hire him. In every interview, the executive chefs would take one look at his resume and smile politely before thanking him for coming. One had even said she just wanted to set her eyes on the ‘infamous Corey Littman.’

  Theo had made it impossible for Corey to cook in a reputable restaurant. The owners were too fearful of the repercussions of hiring Corey. Reviews and recognition were important to them, and Theo Devereux was the gatekeeper. Going against him was doom for even the most established restaurants.

  And that was when, after the thirtieth failed job interview, Corey swallowed his pride and asked for a job in the kitchen of a fifteen-year-old diner that was struggling to keep up with the trendy cafes in the city.

  The hours were long and it paid enough for Corey to scrape by daily. But here, he cooked and cooked well. By working in a simple diner, he was cloistered from the world of fine dining. He did not have to keep up with the latest reviews and trends in the Michelin Star restaurants. Here, his responsibility was to cook and to invigorate those diners who came in for a brief respite from their gruelling work. He did away with the incompetent coffee pot and ready-made roasted coffee beans that produced an unappealing pool of murky bitterness. He convinced the owner to buy pre-roasted coffee beans which he expertly roasted the night before, and brewed the coffee to perfection for the diners. The disorganized din that was the kitchen was quietened with his meticulous planning and all the ingredients were now within his reach. Corey kept the old plates and cutleries. He thought they added some quaint charm to the place. Instead of focusing on the décor to impress his diners, he focused purely on the food.

  For the first time in a long time, the diners now walked in with excitement. They weren’t like people rushing into a shelter from a rainy day. Instead they had a juvenile glow of kids running into a sweetshop. It was borne not out of necessity, but desire to enter the diner. They talked to each other and laughter filled the air.

  Aretha, the owner, noticed it too. “You are something, you know that?” She patted him on the shoulder one day. “I don’t remember the last time the diners complimented us for our coffee and hash browns!”

  Corey shru
gged but half-smiled as he helped her wipe the tables. They were closed for the day after a long, busy one too. Though he enjoyed his time in the kitchen, his entire mental faculty was focused on the task. As he now wiped the breadcrumbs and ketchup stains off the table, his minds could finally wander off to a goalless reverie.

  Where are you, Keith? If only you could see me now, in my bland uniform. I am wiping tables, washing dishes. Do I cook? Well, I don’t make intricate desserts or sear steak or fry salmon with butter anymore, but I make hash browns and porridge. Sometimes, diners request for extra pancakes too. They love it here. I love it here, too. I am cooking. No, it was not what I studied in culinary school, but I want to prove to you that I too can change.

  Would you allow me to see you? I am trying to redeem myself, Keith.

  But do not mistake my working in a diner as a closeted shame. I am proud. We run this place out of a necessity to nourish people. And in doing so, I am learning why you cook. You cook as a form of communication. Words do not need to be exchanged when you send out a plate of food to a diner. The language is different but the message is the same.

  In the Trainyard, I often worried if my dishes would be beautiful enough. I wanted them to validate my existence, to tell me that I am the ‘best damn chef in the whole wide world.’ But here, they don’t care, not in that parochial sense. I am not calling the diners here simpletons, no I am not. They get me. When the coffee is changed, when I fry the hash browns to glow a golden brown under the light, they don’t have to reach for their phones to take a picture or write a review; all the validation I need is in their eyes. And when they leave with a smile, I have done my job as a chef.

  No, Keith, they are not actors, singers, famous writers, TV personalities, or high-rolling bankers. Most of my diners over here probably have never had more than three digits in their bank accounts at the end of a gruelling month. Yet they smile at the good. They are grateful.

  I don’t need their validation, Keith… And…, I don’t need yours, either.

  I just want you to forgive me. And take me back.

  Please.

  “Corey!” Aretha’s voice broke through his daydream.

  “Huh?”

  “Leave the plates, I’ll clean them all later.” She smiled. The lines on Aretha’s face was more pronounced when he first met her. The diner had not been doing well, losing their diners to nicer cafes along the street. But that all changed when Corey walked in. He was the best employee she could have ever asked for.

  “Thanks, Aretha.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  A deep sigh escaped her lips as Corey walked towards the back where his bag was kept. He stopped in his tracks and saw her glancing out the window. All that was visible was her thin, harsh profile. Arms and legs thin and lean from carrying trays of food, running from one end of the diner to the other. The wrinkles on the sides of her mouth were permanently etched in her face, a memory line from smiling for fifteen years at patrons. Tonight however, she looked wistful.

  “Everything good?” he asked her.

  “I… I think so, Corey,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if we will ever keep this place up and running.”

  Corey did not offer any reassurance. Though diners poured in, they were still operating at a loss. Try as Corey might, they could not compete with the trendier restaurants that were overcharging their patrons for an even more mediocre cup of coffee. What they had however were reviews and recognition. Aretha was an old-fashioned lady who did not know how to play that game.

  He bade her good night and walked out of the diner into the cool, night air. His clothes still had the mild, but perpetual smell of eggs and batter. A whiff of his t-shirt told him that laundry night was upon him. Two steps away from the diner and Corey froze in horror. Theo Devereux was standing in front of him, under a streetlight in a simple coat and jeans. Corey had never seen him dressed extremely casually. In the months that Corey had not seen or heard of Theo, he had been at peace. The sight of his enemy made the old fear return again. Like a prudent mouse scampering past a snoozing cat, Corey walked towards Theo.

  Theo stood there, leaning against the streetlight, holding a cigarette in his hand. An amused smile was etched across his face as he saw Corey standing there.

  “Thought you could just fade into obscurity, didn’t you?” Theo called out to Corey. He paid no attention to the pedestrians walking up and down the street. He revelled in his power at the moment. No matter where he stood, Theo was accustomed to be the person in power. He was drunk in his own vigour.

  Corey clenched his fist and took a deep breath. “Theo has no power over you now. You don’t owe him anything!” Corey thought to himself.

  He walked over to the taller man who was taking another deep inhale of his cigarette. When Corey walked closer, Theo deliberately blew the bittersweet smoke in his face.

  “What do you want?” Corey asked quietly.

  “Step away from me, Corey, you smell like a low-class kitchen boy.” Theo flicked his fingers at the air repeatedly. “I just came to see if the rumours were true, that the once famous young chef was now reduced to a diner cook! Imagine my surprise!”

  Corey did not falter back. He stood his ground. “And I am not ashamed of it. And you have no power over me or this diner, Theo! We operate on a basis of necessity for patrons who don’t give a shit about reviews written by cheats.”

  “Oh, you don’t care about that now, do you?” Theo asked, smiling widely. “We’ll just have to see about that.”

  “What do you want from me? I am out of your life, and I have not done anything wrong!”

  “And that’s where you are mistaken, Corey. For if you still continue to cook in a place where I am powerful, you are defeating me. All the chefs, young or old, must fear me. That fact that you can still continue to hold a spatula and get paid irks me. Now, I don’t know where Keith is. Perhaps he has left this city for good, perhaps he is dead, but he is nowhere to be seen in this city anymore. And thus, I have defeated him. Now, only you are left.”

  “You will not be able to take away my need or desire to cook,” Corey snarled.

  “If I can remove someone as determined as Keith, you will not prove to be much of a challenge.”

  Corey did not wait to let Theo elaborate. He continued walking down the pavement without looking back.

  Chapter 25

  Corey got his answer the next day when he walked into the diner. He saw Aretha sitting by the counter with an odd expression on her face, a mixture of both intense joy and sadness. She bit her lower lip and her hands trembled a little.

  “Aretha?”

  He was perplexed. As sure as he was with the sun rising in the east, Aretha was always sweeping the floors at this time of the day in preparation for the morning rush. Seeing her without her broom was disconcerting. The quiet air swelled between them as she looked at Corey, unable to form the words.

  It was then that Corey realized that the lights in the kitchen were not turned on too, something she would normally do when she opened up the diner. In fact, the radio did not blare its old music. The place was as Corey had left it the night before.

  “Is everything okay, Aretha?” Corey asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She looked at him, her smile too forced. “Something happened last night, Corey. Just after you left, like maybe ten minutes…, no, five! Some guy walked into the diner. I told him that we were closed but he said he was not there to eat.”

  Corey sat on the stool next to hers without interrupting her story.

  “He…, I don’t know how to describe him. He had this presence about him that was rather…, odd? Like, he had sucked out the unimportant buzz out of my life. It was as though his presence made my existence much more purposeful. He spoke with confidence without having to raise his voice.”

  Corey gulped. He had not expected Theo to confront Aretha last night. He shuddered guiltily, unable to forgive himself if he had threatened her.

 
“What did he want?”

  “He just said he wanted to buy over this place. He knows that we have been struggling to let our balance sheets dance together at the end of the month, and he was willing to take this place off me, even buying it at a loss. He’s offered me enough money.”

  “Aretha… no…”

  The old lady nodded her head sadly. “I am a tired woman, Corey. I am just plain, old, tired. The money he has offered to me will be enough to carry me through the rest of my days.”

  “But, Aretha,” Corey tried to produce the words, but the air had been knocked out of him. He had known Theo to be a person who was unscrupulous when it came to matters such as this. But offering to buy out the diner just so he could not work there was a new low. Corey was disgusted. He was angry. Clenching his fist, he had to suppress the urge to reach for the coffee cup in front of her and throw it at the wall.

  Aretha fumbled with the hands on her lap as she looked out the window with the same forlorn expression she had on always. “I have accepted his offer.”

  His whole body felt numb. Though angry with Aretha’s decision to sell off the diner to Theo, Corey understood her reasons. She had fought against the tides of changes, and it had fatigued her battle hardened muscles.

  Disgust towards Theo overrode his mind. He could not fathom how low Theo would sink to in order to defeat him. The diner had been Corey’s only salvation in the last few months, and now it was as though his knees had been chopped off. There would be no freedom as long as he remained in this city.

  “I…,” he wiped away a tear. “I am happy for you, Aretha. It’s just a shame that you had to sell your diner off to a slime like Theo Devereux.”

  Aretha’s poignant expression was replaced with one of confusion. “Theo who now?” she asked.