Dishwasher

by Pete Jordan

  Over the previous week, I’d envisioned this moment dozens of times. Yet it’d never occurred to me that I’d be unable to thank the man who’d taught me so many tricks of the trade. It was inconceivable to leave him without saying good-bye.

  But the plane wasn’t going to wait.

  Sonny was leading 43-42 in our buck-a-game domino tournament. So I pinned a dollar bill to his bedroom door along with a note that read: “Sonny, sorry to ditch you, but I have to go. Here’s the dollar I owe you from dominoes. Take care, Pete.”

  Sonny’s wish for me not to write him letters from the outside was honored. But throughout that summer and the next few that followed, I anonymously mailed hot-rod magazines to him at the cannery. As the postmarks on the envelopes were from all over the country, maybe he didn’t know who was sending them. Or maybe because the postmarks on the envelopes were from all over the country, he knew precisely who they were from.

  9

  If You’ve Got Time to Lean…

  On the flight down from Alaska, I replayed over and over again in my head the image of the reception I’d get from K. J. How could it be anything less than enthusiastic? After all, I’d just bailed on a job and flown several thousand miles to be with her. But at the Denver airport, she looked disappointed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. Then, without much hesitation, she added, “It’s just that now you’ll be broke again.”

  She was right. A lot of what I’d earned in Alaska had already gone toward the student loan I’d received when I was seventeen. The loan had gone into default the month before so I’d paid it all off in a lump sum when I still thought I’d be lousy with money from working all summer. Now, I was not only broke, but by quitting before being officially laid off, I was ineligible for unemployment pay. Gone was my plan to come back from Alaska with enough dough to buy a cheap Kansan house.

  So, in Boulder and in need of a job, I went straight to the Russian Café on Pearl Street. While passing through Colorado, a couple years before, its window flew a “Dishwasher Wanted” sign. Back then, when I stepped inside, a middle-aged Russian-looking man walked out from the kitchen.

  “I’m interested in the dish job,” I told him, pointing at The Sign.

  He looked to where I pointed, nodded and said, “Aaah.” Then with a heavy accent, he asked, “You speak Russian?”

  I said no.

  My answer failed to impress him because he then chatted away—in Russian. Or was it English? Ruglish? Whatever it was, I couldn’t comprehend it.

  A couple of times he interrupted his speech to bark commands—in distinct Russian—at various employees. Looking around, I considered what it would be like to work on an all-Russian-speaking staff and eat from the Russian version of the Bus Tub Buffet. My interest was piqued.

  While I was lost in thought, the head Russian continued to talk at me. And I continued to nod back at him, as I assumed he was explaining the job. But he rambled on and on. How much was there to say about a simple dish gig? Soon, his talk turned grumpy, as if he was grumbling about the weather or even bitching about his wife. For all I knew, he could’ve been ranting about how he hated non-Russian-speaking dishwashers, but did get a rush out of butchering and cooking them.

  The more he talked, the more agitated he became. The more agitated he became, the more I worried. The more I worried, the more I wanted to scram.

  As he rattled on, I inched my way to the door. He followed uncomfortably close behind.

  “You be here, right?” he then said in suddenly clear English as I reached the door. “You come back then?”

  Apparently, at some point in all my nodding, I’d agreed to a time and date to start washing his dishes. I nodded one last time and then slipped out the door and didn’t look back.

  Talking to some local dish dogs, my experience didn’t surprise them. The “Dishwasher Wanted” sign was a permanent fixture in that window. So for the rest of my time wandering around Boulder, I steered clear of that restaurant’s street. If the Russian ever saw me, I feared, he might chase me down and show me firsthand whatever it was he’d been grumbling about.

  But that’d been a couple years ago. Now, here I was, fresh from Alaska. I was confident that that The Sign in the Russian Café’s window would give me a better welcome than K. J. had.

  Alas, again my expectations were too high. No sign in the window greeted me. In fact, The Sign was nowhere to be found in the whole town. So I poked my head through restaurant back doors and asked around among my dishwashing comrades for any leads on jobs: again, nothing.

  Finally, a wanted listing turned up in the newspaper. I called immediately and was told to come on out. When I reached the place—a deli in a vast shopping center—the boss-guy handed me an application. While I was filling it out, he looked at it and noticed my false claim to have earned eight or nine dollars an hour at other dish jobs.

  “It’d be impossible to make that kind of money washing dishes around here,” he said. “Normally I pay my dishwashers five bucks an hour.”

  “Swell,” I said, too hard up to question the wage.

  “But I suppose I can pay you six bucks,” he said.

  “Swell,” I said again, earning the easiest raise a suds buster could ever expect.

  So I stopped filling out the application while he described how slack a job it was.

  “Lots of the time you’ll just be dicking around,” he said, probably not realizing he had a professional dick-arounder sitting before him. “The last guy was a lazy shit,” he continued, “but he never missed a day of work and you won’t find too many dishwashers in America you can say that about.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that he hadn’t found one in me.

  He finished by telling me to come in Saturday morning, adding, “But if you don’t show up, it’s no big deal.”

  I did show up on Saturday and, sure enough, he was right: the job was cush. After my hardcore training in Alaska, while making Colorado #6, I was able to bang out the few dishes in no time. This left me with plenty of downtime.

  There’s a tired old adage in the restaurant world. It’s the justification mantra for busywork that goes: “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” But I had my own version of the adage: “If I’ve got time to lean, I’ve got time to sit on my ass.”

  I dragged a chair into the dishpit, pulled a paperback from my pocket and got to work dicking around. When the boss-guy found me sitting there and reading, he suggested that I instead sweep the floor. Apparently, his definition of “dicking around” was different from mine.

  So I swept the spotless floor, then resumed my sitting and reading. The boss walked in again and set a big bag of carrots on a cutting board.

  “Pete, since you’re not doing anything,” he said, “could you chop these carrots?”

  Me? Chop carrots? Cooks were people that dealt with food. The only times my precious hands touched edibles were when I was either eating it or scraping it off customers’ soiled dishes (which was often at the same time).

  “Chop ’em?” I asked.

  “Yeah, chop them.”

  “Should I peel ’em first?”

  “Yeah, peel them.”

  “Peel them like this?”

  “No, don’t peel away the whole carrot, just peel the skins.”

  “Oh, then what?”

  “Then cut them.”

  “Like this?”

  “No, that’s too thick.”

  “Oh, like this?”

  “No, that’s too thin.”

  “Like this?”

  “No, that’s too thick.”

  “Like this?”

  “That’s too thin again.”

  It was tedious convincing him of my ignorance. But in the end, it was worth the effort. After minutes of witnessing my inability to follow his instructions, he gave up.

  “Pete,” he said, “just forget it.”

  We came to an unspoken truce. As long
as I didn’t sit and read, he didn’t try to make me do anything remotely related to cooking. So in lieu of reading, I entertained myself by foraging through the Bus Tub Buffet. I also fooled with the radio, sprayed the spray hose aimlessly and ground up used lemon slices in the garbage disposal to make the dishroom smell nice and lemony. I made frequent pilgrimages to the drink machine to fill up on orange juice. One day I even established a personal single-shift record by drinking sixteen 12-ounce cups of O.J. (which left my scalp tingly and my brain woozy). And when all else failed, I’d sneak my book or a newspaper into the bathroom to read. Whatever the case, I always made sure to kiss the dishmachine after each shift, though I wasn’t as bold as I’d been in Alaska. Here, I made sure no one was watching.

  When K. J. left Boulder for college in New Hampshire, I decided to tag along. I figured New England’s dishes in the autumn were a sight not to be missed.

  10

  A Dishwasher for All Your Needs

  Upon my arrival in Dover, New Hampshire, I hit the sidewalks looking for a trusty “Dishwasher Wanted” sign. The outing in the charming, old town was pleasant. Up and down Central Avenue and past the old nineteenth-century mills that stood waiting to someday be turned into condos or offices, I surveyed every place that dirtied dishes commercially. But everywhere I ventured, no dishwashers were wanted.

  The next day, I covered the town again by foot. Again, no luck.

  Repeating my stroll every day seemed an inefficient way to keep vigil for a dishman’s departure. It was entirely possible that in the twenty-two-odd hours between searches, a sign could go up and another dish dog could easily snatch up the gig before I ambled by. If only I could somehow get to the restaurant owners before they even flew The Sign in the window. To let employers know that a new, available Dish Master was on the scene, I needed a direct line—a hotline!

  So I wrote up a little flyer:

  Has your dishwasher recently walked out on you?

  In need of an experienced dishman?

  Then call Pete

  A DISHWASHER FOR ALL YOUR NEEDS

  (Flexible hours/flexible pay)

  On it, I listed K. J.’s phone number. In the town’s restaurants, cafés and coffee shops I passed out the flyers. Most personnel accepted and read the sheet without comment.

  “Is this your resume?” one woman asked.

  “Yeah,” I told her, somewhat flattered. “I guess so.”

  At the Fish Shanty—a seafood joint—I handed a flyer through the back door to an old man.

  “You a dishwasher?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Aw right. Come in Friday night and I’ll put you to work.”

  Friday night—in state #7—my new stint began as they always did: I remained silent. In any new work environment, I didn’t know who was who. I didn’t know who obeyed the rules and who broke them; who snitched on late coworkers and who covered for them; who kissed the boss’s ass and who’d like to kick it.

  I never showed my hand first. Usually I stayed clammed up until someone like Sonny revealed himself and cued me in. But here, my poker-faced routine got me nowhere.

  “You’re the quietest dishwasher I ever heard!” one waitress told me.

  I wanted to tell her that she should’ve said, “You’re the quietest dishwasher I never heard.”

  But I was too wary to even say that.

  My coworkers were a tight-knit group. They all seemed to be related to each other. And as the foreigner in town, I remained the outsider in the restaurant, washing dishes in silence.

  Most of my interaction at the restaurant was limited to the patriarch, the old man who paid me every week in a bizarre ritual. I’d stop by the restaurant during the afternoon lull. The old-timer would go to the register, count out some cash and then motion me to follow him into the corner of the dining room. He’d glance over his shoulder and scan the empty restaurant to make sure we weren’t being watched. Satisfied that the scene was secure, he’d grab my hand, jam a clump of fives and ones into it and then force my fingers to make a fist around the dough.

  Now convinced we were doing something that demanded utmost secrecy, I’d move my fist ever so slyly toward my pocket. It was usually when my hand was busy pushing the wad deep into my pocket that I’d remember to watch out for how he expressed his appreciation.

  “Good work,” he’d say and then send his hand to deliver a good-natured old-Italian-guy slap on my cheek. But he never did it right. Body parts that should’ve had no starring role in a good-natured slap—the side of his hand or his wrist—would box my ear or bang my temple.

  In a daze, I’d wonder, Should I sock him back?

  But because he smiled while delivering the blow, I had to give him a pass for being a clumsy old man.

  We repeated this routine for several weeks until finally, one time, as he went to pay me, he asked, “How much do I pay you? Four-fifty an hour? Uh, no, I mean four-twenty-five an hour?”

  His performance as an old-seafood-joint owner was usually worthy of an Oscar. But this lame attempt at ad-libbing was a stain on his career.

  “It’s five bucks an hour,” I corrected him.

  “Really?” he said. Then he grumbled while stuffing my hand with the correct amount. His own poor acting seemed to have thrown him off so much that he missed his cue to deliver his customary “good work” clap to my head.

  One warm autumn afternoon, I sat in the sun on the front steps and enjoyed a couple beers before my next scheduled shift. As the hour grew later, I grew more and more reluctant to kill my buzz by trudging off to work.

  If I walked over there right now, I thought, I could still be on time.

  Ten minutes and another beer later, I thought, If I left right now, I’d only be ten minutes late.

  Another twenty minutes passed and I thought, Leave now and I’m a half hour late.

  After one more beer, I ceased thinking about being late—or even about leaving for work at all.

  There were heaps of ways to flee a job. Some of them, like in the film Scarface, were dramatic. When the lead character, Tony Montana, starts to walk away from the restaurant where he’s been dishing in Little Havana, the restaurant owner calls out to him, “Hey, wha’chu doin’? There’s a lotta dishes to be washed!”

  “Wash ’em yourself, man,” Tony tells him. “I retire!”

  Then Tony throws his apron at the boss.

  That was one way to get an employer’s attention. But for me, on this night, I remained immobile. I assumed the old man would assume my absence meant that I’d retired from the restaurant—since that’s what I assumed.

  Now freed from what little responsibility I had in the world, there was a familiar rush, the one that I could only get by quitting a job. I relished it with another beer.

  Later that night, I talked to my dad on the phone. Learning that I’d gleefully dropped another job, he got upset. After almost thirty years at the same job, he was now enjoying his much-deserved and long-overdue retirement. He believed that days of leisure should be preceded by decades of drudgery, and he said so.

  When I tried to explain to him that the best part of working was quitting, he told me about how he’d announced his retirement. For weeks, he’d secretly cleaned out his desk, taking home personal belongings so that on the day the notion struck, he could up and leave with minimal fuss.

  Then one morning, he began clearing off the top of his desk. When his coworkers asked what he was doing, he told them he was going home.

  The boss came over and asked, “You mean you’re leaving at the end of the day?”

  “No,” my dad said.

  “You’re going home at lunch?”

  “No, I’m leaving right now.”

  The boss asked him to stick around so the company could throw him a retirement party. My dad didn’t want a party. He just wanted to go.

  And then he did.

  “Really?” I asked him when he was done telling me the story. “You did that?”

>   As his son, I couldn’t have been prouder.

  “You know that feeling you had when you left—that feeling of freedom?” I asked. “Well, I love that feeling so much, that’s why I’m always finding new jobs—so I can quit them!”

  He laughed—and I hoped he understood.

  After my farewell to the Fish Shanty, a call came from a restaurant where I’d left a flyer.

  The woman—who introduced herself as the chef—asked, “Can you come in for an interview this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  Cool, I thought, a new job to quit! But wait, what was that about an interview? Surely it had to be a mere formality. She’d ask if I want the job, I’d say yeah and we’d both be happy.

  When I met the chef at the restaurant, the contrast in our appearances was uncomfortably clear. Her face was caked with makeup; she had her hair done up and she was dressed in spotless kitchen whites. Meanwhile, I was unshaven, had ratty hair and wore clothes that had almost as much hole to them as fabric.

  But like a couple on a doomed blind date, we went through the motions anyway.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she said.

  “Well, I’m a dishwasher—” I began. Then I hit a snag. What else was there to say?

  “—and I can start right now,” I added.

  “And where do you see yourself in five years?” she asked.

  “Five years?” I pondered. “Washing dishes, I suppose.”

  “Where will that be?”

  “Wherever there’s dirty dishes,” I said smugly, tickled with my slam dunk answer.

  But it didn’t halt her persistent questioning. The inquisition soon revealed that she was more interested in a careerist for whom dishwashing was but a first rung up the job ladder. She wanted someone who wanted to be a cook someday. In short, she wanted a dishwasher who didn’t really want to wash dishes.