Dishwasher

by Pete Jordan

  It made no sense. If her house had been on fire and someone arrived in fireman’s gear raring to put it out, she wouldn’t have stopped and asked him where he saw himself in five years. She’d get the hell out of the way and let the pro do his job. I figured the same should go for dishwashing. She had dirty dishes and here I was. So what if I was disheveled, in raggedy clothes and had a stink that preceded my arrival in the room?

  When she was finally done with the interrogation, I asked, “So, I’ve got the job?”

  “I still need to talk to a few other candidates, first,” she replied.

  Candidates? I was looking for dish work, not the presidency.

  Well, if there had been an election, apparently I’d failed to win her vote. After I left the restaurant, I never heard from her again.

  With no jobs in town, I broke down and hopped across the border to dish at a waterfront lobster house in Kittery, Maine (#8). I borrowed K. J.’s car for the ten-mile/twenty-five-minute trip to work. Even though the drive time was shorter than my stroll-across-town commute to the Fish Shanty had been, it was exhausting to travel so far to dish. So after making the trek just three times, I returned just once more—to pick up my pay.

  A few days later, K. J. and I were eating at a local hole-in-the-wall diner so cramped it was remarkable it was able to hold the dozen small tables and four counter stools that it did. The diner had been the first to receive my flyer since it seemed like a decent place to dish. It was cozy and oozed character. Plus, K. J. had convinced me to suspend my ban on eating out by claiming this place served portions huge enough that the leftovers were a full meal in themselves.

  On this particular day, something about the diner’s dish dog struck me as odd. In her late twenties, overweight and clad in sweats, she looked more like a babysitter or a Dairy Queen cashier than a pearl diver. It wasn’t merely because she was female—I knew plenty of great dishgals. But there was definitely something off about her. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

  While I was trying to decipher her, the dishgal suddenly stomped out of the kitchen, her face flush.

  “Wench!” she yelled at a waitress. She pulled off her apron, threw it down and charged out of the packed diner.

  Whoa! What panache! What timing! How could I have ever doubted her qualifications!

  She was a magnificent dishwashing specimen!

  Grinning, I sat admiring and appreciating the scene I’d just witnessed. Ditching the place during the morning rush, leaving a diner full of stunned customers and soiled dishes in her wake. That’d show ’em!

  And wench? Who called anyone a wench?

  She was awesome!

  Then it hit me: The show had to go on.

  Before anyone even had the chance to call out, “Is there a dishwasher in the house?!” I stood and crossed the diner. Right inside the kitchen doorway, the boss-guy was hunched over the sinks, already busy with the dishes. I could’ve kept my mouth shut and watched him sweat it out. But my need for work outweighed my need to see him suffer.

  “I’m a dishwasher,” I told him.

  He looked perplexed.

  “You…want to work?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “How do you know we need a dishwasher?”

  “I just saw what happened,” I said, pointing in the direction of the front door where the Dish Mistress was last seen.

  “And you say you’re a dishwasher?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Alex!” yelled one of the two cooks who were frantically manning the stoves. “Just hire the guy!”

  “Okay,” the startled boss said. “Job’s yours.”

  He handed me an apron. In less than four minutes, I went from customer stuffing my face to employee busting the suds.

  Diving right in with the dishes was no problem. Following the lead of the two cooks—Danny and Ricky—was more challenging. They moved so swiftly, and we shared such a small dance floor, that I kept bumping into them. But, little by little, I learned all their steps and got into the swing of the place.

  But then an order came in and Danny called it out to Ricky. Danny repeatedly shouted, “Waffle! Waffle!” until Ricky turned to me and said, “Dishwasher, you gotta make the waffle.”

  “I don’t know how to make waffles,” I said, playing my ignorance card.

  Ricky pointed to the waffle-maker next to my sinks.

  “Just pour the batter in and close the lid,” he said.

  Since he wouldn’t take my word for it, I had to prove it to him. For the next few hours, each time a call went out for a waffle, I’d pour the batter in and close the lid. Sometimes I’d open the lid too early and serve up the waffles gooey, or I’d open it too late and make sure they were burnt.

  But this strategy backfired. The cooks either threw out the waffles or sent them out to customers—who, in turn, often sent them back. Stuck redoing waffle orders meant that instead of making no waffles, I was forced to make twice as many.

  At the end of that first shift, Danny and Ricky and the three waitresses invited me to join them at the bar next door for their usual postshift drinks. After the unexpected day in the suds, I could use the refreshment. Danny bought me a beer, commended me on my sink-work and joked, “But we won’t talk about your cooking.”

  The two cooks, it was revealed, were married to two of the waitresses. The third waitress wasn’t related by blood or marriage to the others, yet she was still considered kin.

  “We’re all like family,” Ricky explained to me as he spread his arms out to indicate everyone at the table—including me.

  Unlike at the Fish Shanty—where my status as a foreigner in a small-town family restaurant branded me an outsider—at this place, by simply being an employee, I was considered a member of the clan.

  On this occasion, though, the family only wanted to bitch about the black sheep—the departed Dish Mistress. They described her with terms like “fucking nuts” and “crazy bitch” and tried to convince me that the terms were fitting. But I couldn’t bear to hear anyone denigrate my heroine. So after drinking just the one beer, I told them I’d see them in the morning and then split.

  After that, I was dishing for them almost every day from six a.m. till three p.m. The occasional waffling was offset by the quirky kitchen, the decent cash and—especially—the food. Danny and Ricky encouraged me to forgo the Bus Tub Buffet and order whatever I wanted from the menu. So every day I went to work with the goal of gorging enough food to not have to eat again until I was back at work the following day. And if I didn’t work that next day, then I really needed to sock it away to hold myself over.

  For example, on one shift I managed to consume: a garlic bagel with cream cheese, a bowl of cereal, apple juice, three strawberry-topped pancakes, a slice of cheesecake, orange juice, a Swiss/tomato sandwich, a bowl of fruit, a banana, a blueberry muffin, grape juice, a pineapple-walnut muffin, two brownie sundaes, a plain bagel with cream cheese, a plate of French fries, cranberry juice, milk, plus many handfuls of blueberries, walnuts, chocolate chips, chopped bell pepper, broccoli and hunks of cheese. Like a squirrel stuffing his cheeks with nuts to bury in the ground to get through winter, I’d stuff my face with grub to bury in my stomach. And it always got me through the next workless day.

  The only thing I never ate was waffles, because I’d have to make them. And I was still dragging ass on that front. In addition to under-and overcooking the waffles, I took to purposely spilling the batter all over the counter so that, by midmorning, we’d run out of the goo and waffles would be eighty-sixed from the menu.

  I also began just ignoring the “Waffle!” command. Five minutes after the rest of an order was ready to be sent out, when Danny would ask, “Pete, where’s that waffle?” I’d say, “Waffle? What waffle?”

  Since they were convinced that I was plain stupid, the cooks seemed to get more frustrated than angry. But that didn’t prevent them from still yelling “Waffle!” a couple times a day. If anything, it only made them yell it loud
er.

  That was, until one busy Saturday morning when Danny received a ticket and called it out to Ricky.

  “Mushroom omelet!…potatoes!…wheat toast!…waffle!”

  I cringed.

  But then Danny added, “Scratch that, no waffle!” To the waitresses, he shouted, “Eighty-six the waffles—Pete’s working today!”

  And that was that. Without using physical force, real or threatened—just good old-fashioned civil disobedience—victory was achieved. From that day on, I never made another waffle.

  I was still expected to join the postshift jaunts to the bar next door, though. But after nine hours of slaving over the sinks and forcing myself to eat as much as possible, come closing time, my mind was fixed only on lying down. Besides, after working alongside my coworkers all day, the last thing I wanted to do was rehash with them—in painstaking detail—all of the day’s events. So every afternoon, I opted out of the bar invitation via some excuse: didn’t feel well, had to make a phone call, K. J. was waiting for me….

  But each excuse was met with an offered compromise: Take an aspirin, use the restaurant’s phone, invite K. J. along….

  Come November, the pressure really mounted. My coworkers were planning a huge after-hours Thanksgiving dinner to be held right there in the restaurant. My presence was expected.

  “C’mon, dude, you don’t have any family in New Hampshire,” Danny said. “Ya gotta come.”

  But I didn’t gotta and I didn’t go.

  If indeed I was a member of this restaurant family, then I played the same role in it that I did in my own. I was the quiet and disappointing son who gladly stuck around for the free eats but who didn’t stick around any longer than he had to.

  11

  Snowed In

  Upon hearing that some far-off ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains were so desperate to attract dish dogs that they paid almost double the minimum wage plus provided free room and board, I’d added “Rocky Mountain Ski Resort” to my new To Do list of places to work. Then my pal Colleen happened to land one of those jobs at a Montana ski resort and sent me an invite to come dish alongside her. In addition to the perks, the job location was high in the Rockies, out in the great outdoors, away from civilization…. It sounded like a nice change, so I wasted no time getting there.

  Leaving K. J. in California with a box of the “Dish Master” T-shirts I’d been silk-screening and sharing with fellow pearl divers, I told her I’d be back in a couple months. The 36-hour bus trip got me as far as Bozeman. In a borrowed pickup truck, Colleen drove me the remaining thirty miles up to where the road dead-ended at the ski resort in the Gallatin Mountains of Montana (#9).

  Since employee lodging cost $150 a month per person, Colleen and I decided that I’d just crash in her room—without informing the resort’s authorities—and split her rent. After I dropped off my duffel and sleeping bags in Colleen’s room in the employee housing, I was eager to stretch my legs and explore my new surroundings. Colleen pointed me in the direction of the main lodge. I walked alongside the road for a couple minutes, reached the lodge and poked about in the lobby. Adjacent was the building that housed the ski shops and restaurants and the cafeteria where I’d be working. I tried to mosey around outside some more but found it difficult. There were only a couple of short, wet streets lined chest-high with plowed snow. When vehicles sped past, they came with a gust of icy, wet air.

  Back at her room, I asked Colleen where was a good place to walk.

  “Yeah,” she answered. “There really isn’t any place to walk here.”

  “What do people do then?”

  “Ski,” she said.

  The next day at the cafeteria—where skiers stopped for a sandwich and a beer between runs—Colleen showed me the ins and outs of the job. She taught me how to pinch food and beer (a backpack was enough to do the trick), how to punch in/out another employee’s time card (to pad a friend’s work hours) and where to hide out for unofficial breaks (the seldom-used upstairs dining area was best).

  But Colleen couldn’t enlighten me on how to avoid the gig’s major drawback: bussing tables. Though the bussing didn’t entail much—just rounding up cafeteria trays and bus tubs of dishes about once an hour—it did bring me in direct contact with customers. If my dish guru Jeff had seen me out there breaking my rule about never bussing, his heart would’ve snapped in two. And as bad as it was to have to come into contact with customers, worse, these customers were wealthy snobs.

  During that first shift, I nearly collided with skiers as I carried trays across the dining area. It happened three different times. I had the right-of-way, each time, yet was cut off by a customer (males in their forties or fifties). To avoid a collision, I had to slam on the brakes.

  I didn’t understand. Did these rich arrogant pricks really expect me to meekly yield to them? Did they also expect me to curtsy while I was at it?

  Colleen told me I wasn’t crazy; she’d also had near-misses while bussing. That being the case, from then on I vowed to bus with a vengeance. During my second shift, I yielded to no one. Anyone who thought to cross my path ran the risk of being bulldozed by a slothful-but-determined dishman.

  While I was bussing tables early one morning, some lady asked me what time the shops outside the cafeteria opened. I told her I didn’t know.

  “You work here and you don’t know?” she asked.

  “Hey,” I said, “I’m too busy working to go shopping.”

  She reacted with a look on her face that said, “Well, I never!”

  Then, a couple days later, some other crabby rich lady accosted me while I was gathering trays in the dining area.

  “Where are my gloves?” she asked me. “Where are my gloves?! I left them on that table a minute ago!”

  On the table indicated sat no gloves.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged and then started to walk away.

  “They were on that table! Where are they?!” She said it as if I’d taken the gloves.

  “If you left them on that table and they’re not there now,” I told her, “then I don’t know where they are.”

  “You don’t understand, they’re leather and very expensive,” she said. “I want them back!”

  She repeated the description as if to prove she could describe the gloves I’d apparently stolen. After telling her to talk to the manager, I retreated to the sanctuary of the dishpit.

  Twenty minutes later, I was back in the dining area. Lo and behold, I found a pair of expensive-looking leather gloves. Normally, I wouldn’t have given them a second glance. But because she’d done such a convincing job in selling me on these gloves’ expensiveness and leatheriness, I pocketed them. Within hours, they were mailed to K. J.

  What I liked about traveling was wandering through neighborhoods, looking at the regional architecture and discovering what made the places unique. But what made this place unique to me was its inability to allow me to explore. Outside, there wasn’t a lot for me to do except look longingly at the unwalkable expanse of snow-covered mountains. Who’d have thought the great outdoors could be so constraining? It was no wonder why the ski resort was so hard put to attract dishers!

  Actually, everyone else in the cafeteria’s kitchen—the other dishwashers and the cooks—took every advantage of the job perk that was totally useless to me: the free ski pass. If Colleen dished in the morning, she brought her ski gear with her to work. Then, within minutes of her shift’s end, she was suited up and on the ski lift to spend the rest of her day on the slopes.

  I had no interest in skiing. Or, more accurately, I had no interest in buying—or even renting—the necessary ski pants, coats, boots, gloves, goggles, cap, poles, skis, boards, etc. My desired activity required me to have nothing more than any old pair of shoes and a suitable surface on which to use them.

  Other options for spending my leisure time were extremely limited. I could hang out in Colleen’s room and read. But spending a couple hours cooped up in that tiny, poorly lit space always
got old fast.

  Or, in the main lodge, I could try to read in the lobby. But if I hated the presence of the customers while I was on the clock, then worse was trying to enjoy my free time while the snoots clomped about in their ski boots and vulgar outfits.

  Twice I used a day off to hitchhike the thirty miles down to Bozeman. But between the brief winter daylight and my poor luck with rides, those trips were of little satisfaction. One morning it took two and a half hours of pacing and shivering before I got picked up. By the time I reached Bozeman, I had only a couple hours to frantically wander. Then I had to make my way back to the town’s outskirts, where I paced and shivered while hoping to catch a lift back up the mountain before it turned dark.

  Eventually I developed my own ski resort pastime and it required no wearing of expensive, specialized gear. It didn’t even require shoes. At the end of my shift, I’d slip a few beers out of the cafeteria and sneak over to the outdoor Jacuzzi. There, I’d crack open a beer, strip down to my drawers and hop in with the snobs. If anyone was aghast, all the better.

  After being snowed in on the job for almost four weeks, I was met at work one morning by the boss-guy. He was grinning. I braced myself for whatever chicanery he had up his sleeve.

  “Pete,” he said, “how’d you like to be a cook?”

  It was bad enough I was bussing tables. Now this?

  The night before, two ski-bum cooks had bolted for some slopes in Colorado. Now shorthanded, the boss-guy was looking at me with the reassuring smile of a con man who’d found an easy mark. But I was nobody’s patsy.

  “No thanks,” I told him and started to make for the dishpit.

  “You sure?” he asked. Then he cooed, “It pays more.”

  No matter what the bait, it was still a trap—more responsibility.

  “I’m a dishwasher,” I said. “Not a cook.”

  He was stumped when I walked away from the deal. Hopefully he was even more so when, a couple days later, I walked away for good.