by Roger Elwood
The lamplit interior was a dim rose color. Booths with leather-stuffed seats were set around the sides, and several tables for four, some pushed together, filled the room. No other patrons had arrived as yet.
A thin, somewhat hard-looking, but attractive woman in her early forties, neatly dressed and carrying a number of menus, appeared out of the distant darkness. A variety of costume-jewelry necklaces hung around her neck and made a thin. dull, clattery sound as she approached.
She greeted him with a smile and the beginning of a bow forward. One? she asked pleasantly. “Or will someone be joining you?”
“One,” he said.
“Would you like the dinner?” she questioned. “Or the four ninety-five special.”
“I’ll have the special, he replied politely, and she led him to one of the booths. He nodded a warm thanks and slid onto one of the long benches that usually held two people opposite another two. With a sigh of comfort and the anticipation of a long, enjoyable meal, he sank into the stuffed hide and contemplated the white dishes and silver utensils as they were quickly but neatly laid out before him on a heavy red tablecloth. The plates and other objects seemed to glow against their dark background under the faint colored lighting.
“Dinner will start in a few minutes,” the hostess said. “You’ll be the first, so you’ll have a choice of everything from the beginning. People don’t start arriving for about an hour.”
“How nice,” he said as she went off.
On a table toward the center of the room, one of the men from the kitchen, wearing a stiffly starched uniform, was setting out hot and cold delectables in trays, pans, salad bowls, gravy boats, platters, tureens, and side dishes. Flames flickered behind his movements.
The sole dinner patron clasped his hands together on the table and bumped his knees together impatiently as he awaited the beginning of his feast. He anxiously watched as the food table was gradually filled for the evening with a heaping wealth of tasty morsels. At last, the restaurant worker returned to the kitchen.
The hostess appeared once more, and with a forced but well-performed cheerfulness, mechanically recited the procedure for the special. “You’ll find a pile of plates on the table. After you’ve used one, just leave it on your table and go back for another helping. I’ll take the used one away for you.”
“Thank you,” he replied, nodding with gratitude.
‘Then you may eat now,” the hostess said.
“Very well,” he replied quietly.
The woman disappeared again, and he arose from his table and proceeded through the soft dark atmosphere to the delicately fragrant heaps of food.
He piled a plate quite high with lobster claws and returned to his seat. In just a few minutes, he was back, taking a new plate and mounding that one with the same selection. When he returned to the booth, the other plate that had been filled with empty lobster shells had been removed.
After downing the second portion in the same short span of time, he went back to heap a plate with the remaining lobster.
When he reached his table again, the hostess was just removing the previous plate. “Don’t fill yourself up with one thing,” she suggested. “It’s all delicious.”
“Oh, I plan to eat everything,” he said, an almost mischievous glimmer in his distant eyes. “By the way, do you plan to put out additional lobster?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll tell them in the kitchen to bring more.”
By carrying a plateful in each hand, it took only four trips for him to finish up all the meatballs.
The large bowl of shrimps required about five visits, even with two plates, but it might have been more if he hadn’t thought of using the lettuce as a means of increasing the diameters of his carrying surfaces.
After he had eaten all of the escargot, herring, cold cuts, chicken, beef stroganoff, spare ribs, sweet and sour pork, vegetable chow mein, frogs’ legs, ravioli, lasagne, orange duck, the entire beef rib roast, fried rice, cole slaw, potato salad, macaroni salad, health salad, celery, carrots, olives, scallions, onions, cheeses, the full selection of bread that had been put out—in its entirety—and, of course, the relish, catsup, and mustard, and was patting his mouth with his cloth napkin, the hostess came to his booth. It was obvious that her face attempted to conceal puzzlement, wonder, and shock. She cleared her throat. “Would you like dessert now?”
“If I have the dessert,” he queried, “may I still go back to the main dishes?”
She closed her eyes tightly as if to dispel what she most obviously had imagined witnessing, and opened them again. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “There’s certainly no . . . rule about that.” Then she looked around the restaurant as if searching for help of some kind.
“Very well,” he said with a satisfied exhalation of breath. “Then I’ll have some dessert.”
He found the four cheese cakes delightful and regretted that no more had been set out. Perhaps there would be more later, he hoped. But he quickly forgot about the cheese cakes—at least momentarily—as he dug into the bowls of cherries, peaches, and baked apples, and everything else in the line of desserts—down to the bottoms of their bowls.
By then, two kitchen workers had appeared to begin refilling the entire table. The timing was perfect, and he was pleased. Just as he swallowed the last mouthful of napoleons, the table had been completely restored to its original state of plenitude.
He started over again.
Eventually, patrons began drifting into the restaurant, filling the booths and tables. Soon, only about half of the second tableful of food remained.
The evening’s original customer looked up from his plate and chanced to notice that the hostess, at the cash register, was in a heated discussion with a man who had just arrived. The man removed a coat and hung it behind the counter, looked directly across the room at him, then turned back to the woman to continue their talk, both of them with increased animation.
Suddenly, it seemed, the man appeared at the booth. Obviously, he was the manager or owner. He was somewhat heavy, wore a thin, pencil moustache, and was expensively dressed. He gave his guest a somewhat strained smile. “Are you enjoying your meal, son?”
“Yes. It’s really fine,” the boy answered cordially. He bit off half of a roll, swallowed it, then ate the other half.
“Is this your first visit here?”
“Yes,” replied the boy, who then swallowed ten meat-balls in succession without chewing. As he sat there shoving food into his mouth, a voice came into his mind over a distance of numerous light-years. The language was Earth/American/English, since one of the visitor’s recent personal training programs had been especially for the Earth project. The foreign planet from which he had come gave thousands of specific training programs geared to all inhabited worlds.
—How is everything going?
—Very well, so far.
—Do they have much more food left?
—Looks like a pretty well-to-do restaurant. They should be loaded with nutriment.
—That lobster was fantastic! Can you kinergize more? We took a taste here at the Administration Complex before Packaging took over.
—I’ve had almost all they put out on the table so far. I’m really enjoying this business trip. On the last planet I was assigned, they were lousy cooks.
—Good. But keep eating. Things have become worse here in the short time you’ve been gone.
—Try this sweet roll.
—I’ll switch over.
The alien tossed the soft, hot bread into his mouth and downed it.
—Mmmmm-hmmmm! Delicious!
—How’s the survival rate doing there?
—Very discouraging. We’ve got quite a bit of food coming in from all over the universe, but a lot of our own population is still dying off from starvation.
All of the long-distance conversation had taken place in an instant.
“I trust, young man,” the gentleman standing went on, “that you’ve sampled all
of our dishes?”
The customer held up one finger as he finished a sandwich and followed through with three others—each in several quick bites. “Yes, and I must compliment you. Everything is—out of this world!” After another long swallow, he asked, “Are you the owner?”
“Yes, I am,” the distinguished-looking man said. And then he added as gently as he could, but hardly with restraint, “You’ve eaten quite a bit. We have other patrons, you know.”
By then, some of the newcomers were up at the serving table filling their plates.
“But I’m a patron, too,” the alien said softly.
The owner sniffed. “Yes, of course.”
With that, the alien stood, slid half-bent out of the booth, and squeezed by the owner.
At the food table, the alien piled two plates high with food as the other patrons looked on with surprised smiles.
Within half an hour, the table was again empty of food, and one of the customers, an elderly gentleman, was at the cashier’s desk wearing an angry face and speaking strongly.
“There’s nothing I can do,” the owner told him. He was now without his jacket. His tie was pulled down, his dress shirt open, and his forehead wet. “That kid over there,” he said, pointing, “has been eating everything.”
“Yes, I know,” replied the other man between clenched teeth. “But that’s your problem. I’m paying four ninety-five each for two to take my wife here, and I expect to get all we can eat—not just a few tidbits! For what we ate before you ran out, I could have paid about a tenth of the price somewhere else.”
The owner exhaled. “Yes, I realize that, sir.”
“Look,” the man went on, holding one palm out, his fingers spread. “I’m a regular customer of yours. I come here because you give a good deal.” Then he waved the hand panoramically over the restaurant. “It’s the same with the other people here.”
“Yes, I understand,” the owner agreed, sweating even more profusely.
“Well, we want all we can eat or we’re not coming back! And I have a lot of other friends who patronize your place, too. I’ll tell them not to come back!”
“I promise you,” the owner said, “I’ll see that the situation is rectified immediately. Please go back to your table. Everything will be the way it used to be.”
Reluctantly, the man returned.
The owner went into the kitchen. There, the chef and his assistant in their white uniforms and fluffy hats were rushing about the tiled room, stirring here, seasoning there, filling platters as fast as they could. Even the porters had been assigned cooking jobs.
The owner put his hand on the chefs shoulder as he was about to dash off to further activity. “Can you get more food out there?”
The chef turned to the owner. His face was broiled red by the excessive kitchen heat and the deepness of the hue had been added to by overexertion. “I try to cook as fast as you need, sir,” he said. His tone was not apologetic, nor did it show any feeling of guilt. “But boy in there has hole in stomach. He eats and eats. I can only do the best I can. You want fix food for bigger restaurant, you hire someone else. Otherwise you pay more!”
“Look,” the owner said. “When I took you for this job, I didn’t expect a glutton like that. You’ve been with me for how long?”
“Five year.”
“Have you had to cook more than our normal quantity of food until this evening?”
“No. This I admit,” said the chef. “But tonight, she makes up for the five year.”
The owner patted him consolingly on the arm. “Just do your best,” he said. “I don’t expect you to do more.”
“My best?” the chef exploded, raising his shoulders up around his ears. “With what I’m supposed to do my best? No food?”
The owner’s neck seemed to stretch forward. “What do you mean, ‘no food’ ?”
“Is what I mean, no food!” He gestured to a counter with a meager pile of raw cooking materials. “This, she is the last. Except in refrigerator, the frozen poultry in crates. And this would take time to thaw. Also, too, the sides of beef on hooks, but they need cutting.”
“I can’t lose my best customers,” the owner muttered to himself. “Thaw out the poultry.”
“All?”
“Yes, all! I’ll be right back.”
The owner went directly to the hostess at the cashier counter. “Call everyone we know in the business around here and ask them to loan me whatever food they can spare. We usually help each other out.”
She got on the phone.
Within fifteen minutes, cars, trucks, and even cabs began to pull up before the restaurant. Delivery boys, proprietors, and cabdrivers brought large and small packages into the establishment, and the hostess rushed them into the kitchen, where the overworked chef, his assistant—and the porters—set upon the parcels with frenzy, opening them and tossing their contents into boiling pots and onto frying pans.
The kitchen became a factory. Steam filled the room so thickly that the area resembled a Turkish bath. The mingling odors of spices were so concentrated that they stung the eyes of the workers.
In due time, huge amounts of deliciously cooked victuals were on their way, at regular intervals, into the dining room. The patrons once more began visiting the food table to return and settle into their seats, chewing, cracking shells, tinkling glasses and utensils, and finally forgetting that moment—far in the past—when food was not available.
It was noticeable to everyone, however, that the young boy was spending more of his time filling his plates than he was at his own table eating the contents.
By twenty minutes to three A.M. most of the satiated patrons had left. The alien was still gorging himself.
Finally, at three o’clock, everyone had left the restaurant but the alien, who was still eating as if he had just arrived and was getting his first hungry mouthfuls down.
The owner, with a self-satisfied grin, went to the alien. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “We are about to close.”
The alien, chomping, his cheeks stuffed, pointed to the wall by his booth where, supported by a bottle of sugar, was the menu. He dipped his chin as the food slid down. “Your menu says. ‘All you can eat.’ ”
“But we close at three A.M.,” said the owner insistently.
—Earth law is Earth law. The menu says, “All you can eat.” Don’t let them push you out. We need the food here desperately. Every bit of food you eat saves a life on our planet!
‘Tm sorry,” said the alien shyly. “Your menu says All you can eat,’ and I haven’t eaten all I can.”
“But we close at three!” the owner repeated, the veins in his temples bulging.
“I’m very sorry,” replied the alien, raising his eyebrows understandingly as he ate. “I’m not done.” He continued filling his face.
“I’ll call the police!” screamed the owner.
“I’m perfectly within your—the law,” the alien said almost regretfully.
The owner charged off to the hostess, who had been watching from the cash register.
—You’d better eat faster. They may get you out of there.
—I’ve just got to hold out as long as I can—for our people.
Still shoveling food down his throat, the alien saw the owner unlock the door and rush off into the night, the keys dangling in the lock behind him.
The alien went to the sideboard and refilled his used dishes—he had to make do with the old ones because there were no longer any clean plates there.
He was halfway finished with his new helpings when the door opened and the owner appeared, a policeman following him.
The policeman, a neat, youthful member of New York’s Finest, was casually flipping his nightstick on its strap. His face seemed to bear an unbiased expression, as if he always weighed both sides of a dispute carefully; it gave him an air of reservation.
They came up to the alien’s table.
“This is the young man, officer. He won’t leave.”
Finally, the officer said, “How come you’re still eating?”
The alien swallowed a huge mouthful. “Because I’m hungry,” he replied, looking up blankly and packing his mouth with meat, bread, cheese, salad, pickles, and celery.
The officer turned to the owner who, practically in a state of hypnosis, was observing his unconcerned, ravenous customer. “Maybe,” said the man of the law, “he arrived here late.”
“Late?” the owner shouted. “He was here before everybody else!”
The alien swallowed the last bites on his plates. “The menu says, ‘All you can eat for four ninety-five,’ officer,” he explained. “That’s why I decided to eat at this place.”
The cop poked his cap back with his nightstick and looked at the other man. “He does have a point.”
“But it’s got to stop sometime!” the owner bellowed. “We’ve refilled that table with food numerous times and he’s still at it. Why, what he’s eaten usually keeps this restaurant going for at least three weeks!”
“We can’t very well haul him in,” said the policeman, “till he’s finished.”
“We can get him out,” the owner said as he was eased gently aside by the alien who was rising for another trip to the food table.
“You’ll have to file a complaint at the local precinct,” the cop said.
“Who’s going to stay here with him?” the owner asked, attempting to block the alien’s way. “My hostess has to leave.”
“I won’t take anything,” the guest assured him, before gently pushing through, “except, of course, the food.” He went off.
The policeman looked at his watch. “I’m on duty for another hour, so I can stay here till then. After that I can get a replacement for you.”
The owner let out a full breath of exhaustion. “Oh, all right.”
The policeman gave the owner instructions for getting to the station house, then sat opposite the returning alien to watch him eat.
The restauranteur left.
There was silence in the soft-carpeted establishment as the uniformed man sat and watched the alien travel back and forth, constantly refilling his plates and gorging himself.