by Alan Glynn
‘Kate.’ I go over, pull out the chair next to hers and sit directly in front of her. ‘Kate, what’s wrong? Is it the assignment?’
‘No, I gave that up after twenty minutes—’
‘Well look, who cares, it doesn’t—’
‘No, I could do it, I will do it. I just couldn’t concentrate. Not today.’ She uses her sleeve to wipe away the tears. Then she looks straight at me. ‘I couldn’t get it out of my mind, Danny, that image . . .’
‘What—’
‘Those two guys lying dead on the floor of a freezer. With their heads smashed in? It’s . . . it’s insane.’ Her face crumples again.
‘Oh Jesus, Kate. I’m sorry.’
She takes a deep, gulping breath. ‘It’s not your fault. And you had to tell me. It’s just that . . . I don’t—’
She stops here, uncertain how to proceed, and looks away, over my shoulder, as if the rest of her sentence might be somewhere behind me, on a Post-it note stuck to the fridge, or scrawled across the wall. In blood.
‘Kate,’ I say, feeling sicker with each passing second, ‘what?’
She looks back at me. ‘I don’t think we can just . . . unknow this. It happened. You saw it. It was covered up, and that’s wrong.’
‘Kate . . .’
‘Kate nothing. I mean, you didn’t invent it, did you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Well, then. We have to do something.’
‘I thought we had this conversation yesterday. I don’t have any—’
‘Danny, look,’ – she reaches for a sheaf of papers beside her laptop – ‘I’ve been online all day, looking stuff up, printing articles. It’s crazy, I know, but just bear with me.’
As she flicks through the pages, I catch a glimpse of the Gideon logo on one of them, and my stomach sinks. She pulls a single page out and studies it for a second.
‘Okay, get this,’ she says. ‘Over the past fifteen years there have been nine separate whistle-blower cases involving Gideon – and we’re talking everything: fraud, contract violations, falsifying accounts, whatever, but also instances of sexual harassment and even human trafficking – nine, and those are just the ones that have come to trial. They’ve got pretty damn good at defending them too, because with the first couple they ended up incurring huge fines, but after that—’
‘Kate, stop.’
She does, but only for a second. ‘These people are unbelievable, Danny, and they’re getting away with it. I mean, Jesus, from what you told me, they’re literally getting away with murder.’
‘Kate . . .’
She turns to the laptop and clicks something. ‘Look at this.’
I look. It’s a YouTube video. She hits play, and as we wait the standard one or two seconds of dead time for it to start, I sigh loudly. But it comes out sounding more like a deep shiver. Of dread. Which is also how it feels. Kate doesn’t notice because she’s too intently focused on what’s about to appear on the screen. This turns out to be a talking head on some studio panel, a middle-aged guy, beardy, academic, bifocals on a chain.
‘So, these defence contractors,’ he’s saying, ‘they’ve developed quite an attitude. I mean, it’s not just that they think they’re above the law, which they often are, it’s that by aggressive lobbying, by packing government advisory committees, and by other frankly less than ethical means, they think they can actually make the laws, shape them, customise them to their own requirements. We’re talking about billions of taxpayer dollars being funnelled into a sector that isn’t accountable, that isn’t part of any chain of command, a sector that operates outside the jurisdiction of the United States and is therefore free to formulate what effectively amounts to its own foreign policy. So real reform is needed here, you know, and I think people should start demanding that reform, they should contact their elected representatives, they should get on the phone—’
‘Kate, who is this guy?’
‘—they should send emails, texts, tweets, whatever it takes, in order to—’
She taps the space bar to pause it. The beardy man freezes, silenced mid-sentence. Without looking at me, Kate says, ‘It’s Harold Brunker, he’s a law professor at NYU. He represented some of the Occupy people after that thing on the bridge. He’s—’
‘A law professor?’
She looks at me. ‘Yeah.’
‘And what’s this?’ I nod at the screen. ‘What’s he on? Some kind of news show?’
‘It’s . . . I don’t know, it’s just . . . a clip I came across, it’s—’
‘Great. A clip on the Internet.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘A clip. On the Internet.’ If I wasn’t so tired, I’m sure I’d be able to do a better job of muffling the contempt in my voice. Shit, if I wasn’t so tired, I’m sure I wouldn’t even be talking.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means . . . learn how to code on the Internet, Kate, fine, that makes sense, maybe, but the law? You think you’re going to learn about the law by looking up random websites and watching fucking YouTube clips?’
‘What?’
‘You heard the professor there. This is a private corporation that gets to make up its own foreign policy. So you can be damned sure that at the very least all of their lawyers went to actual law school.’
The look I get for this is one of momentary incomprehension. It’s as if my statement has to be translated from another language. Except that it doesn’t.
‘Jesus,’ she whispers, after a long silence.
I’m immediately sorry and want to say so, but I know if I start, the words will catch in my throat.
‘Anyway,’ she goes on, a little shakily, ‘my ignorance of the law is hardly the point.’ She turns and flips the laptop closed. ‘Man, they really did a number on you over there, didn’t they?’
She walks past me and goes into the living room.
*
The next morning things aren’t any better and we’re giving each other the silent treatment. I don’t know what I can say without making the situation worse. Because the thing is, I really want this job at Barcadero. It’ll be a chance to claw our way back a little. But taking it will effectively preclude me – preclude us – from voicing any criticism whatsoever of Gideon Logistics. And after last night, how do I break that to Kate?
Though maybe the job won’t work out – maybe this Yannis guy chugs down a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, shows up for work, and I’m back at square one. At least in that case I’d no longer feel the need to be so defensive. And hypocritical. And like an asshole.
On the subway, I stare vacantly across at my reflection as it flickers in and out of visibility. I know it’s just a job, but I’d like the regular pay cheque, and I guess I wouldn’t be unhappy with the step up in prestige either. At the same time, I briefly imagine how I’d feel if Stanley were to tell me this morning that Yannis is fine, that he’ll be back tomorrow, that two shifts is all I’m getting.
Actually, I’d probably be okay with that. I might even be relieved. It would mean I could look Kate in the eye again. It would mean I could stop lying to her. So, as I walk the three blocks to the restaurant, I convince myself that this is what’s going to happen, and that when it does I’ll make the necessary adjustments – I’ll express disappointment, but be professional about it, I’ll use the momentum (and maybe some of Stanley’s goodwill) to try and find a new job elsewhere. And then I’ll go home and patch things up with Kate.
I arrive at Barcadero and the place doesn’t seem as frenetic as it did yesterday. The atmosphere is a little muted. There’s none of the usual banter going on. With Pablo I’m guessing it’s a hangover, but they can’t all be hungover. So maybe it’s that someone is in a mood and the whole kitchen is affected. I’ve certainly seen that happen, though I’m not familiar enough with everyone here to be able to read the signs with any degree of confidence. Nevertheless, things grind into gear and before long I’m totally focused on precision-dicing some
pork for a ragù.
After a while, Stanley shows up, catches my eye from across the kitchen and indicates for me to follow him. I wipe up around the prep station before taking off down the dimly lit hallway that leads to the cramped office at the back. It’s clear that Stanley is just as downbeat as everyone else is, and when I see him slumped at his little desk I get a weird feeling.
Without looking at me, he says, in a quiet voice, ‘Nadine, our accountant, will be in later and you can talk details and stuff with her, but I’m just going to go ahead now and slot you in for all of his shifts, okay?’
When I don’t respond, Stanley eventually turns to face me. Up close like this, I can see that his eyes are red and slightly raw-looking.
‘Stanley, no one has said a word to me this morning. I don’t know what—’
‘Yannis died,’ he says, and his face contorts a little. A tear runs down his cheek.
‘Oh shit, Stanley. I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah.’ He wipes his eyes with his sleeve and sighs loudly. ‘Two years he worked here, almost from the beginning. He drove us all crazy with his stupid jokes . . . but he was a real sweetheart. Everyone loved him.’
I swallow. ‘Was it . . . the ulcer?’ I can’t believe I’m even asking him this. People don’t die of ulcers these days, do they? ‘Perforated, you said?’
‘We don’t know. His boyfriend found him last night, in their apartment. He was just . . . lying there.’ His face contorts again. ‘It’s fucking awful.’
I stand in the doorway for a moment, but it’s clear we’re done.
My walk back along the dim hallway to the kitchen is a long one. Yesterday I was covering for Yannis. I was anonymous, invisible. Today I’m replacing him. Today I’m the new guy.
I feel like I should be sending a text to Kate or something, but what would I say?
*
And so begins this new work regime in my life, which is not unlike the one I had before I left for Afghanistan – better restaurant, okay, and slightly better pay – but basically the same. It’s still kitchen hours, still kitchen work . . . nicks, burns, high heat, tempers, ego, shouting, mind-numbing repetition. A bit like a war zone. Unless, that is, you’ve ever fought in a real war zone.
At home, however, in terms of pre- and post-Afghanistan, things are markedly different. It’s my fault, but what’s going on between me and Kate is awful. The truth is, I’m losing her, and in a way I’m also losing me – losing that version of Danny that she allows me to be, the one who doesn’t have a label, who’s sane, who’s in control. That guy. So if I do end up losing Kate, what happens to him? Where does he go?
I have no answer, and with each passing day things just get more complicated. My final cheque from Gideon comes through, accompanied by a three-month unofficial severance payment, which is fucking great, but I find myself not mentioning this last part to Kate. My hours at Barcadero mean that I have fewer opportunities to mention anything to her, but when I do have a moment, my brain is usually fried and I’m not inclined to – which means it’s easier to just let things fester.
How this plays out on a day-to-day basis is that I get home from work in a sort of operational coma, and, depending on which shift cycle I’m on, early or late, Kate is either there at the kitchen table doing her coding stuff, or she’s out, or watching TV, or having a bath, or even already in bed. We talk, and are cordial, we deal with the small stuff – shopping for food, cooking, doing the laundry – but day after day the subtext gets buried that little bit deeper. Occasionally, a ripple of anxiety will surface. A violent item on the news will spark an unwelcome association, say, or a phone call from the debt-collection agency that now owns Kate’s student loan will detonate like an IED in the quiet of our living room. Or a simple sex scene in a movie we’re both watching late at night will serve as an uncomfortable reminder of how long it’s been for us.
The worst thing is that we don’t seem capable of going into reverse on any of this. I’m genuinely exhausted on a permanent basis now, and Kate has become more determined than ever to turn her coding MOOC into a job opportunity, so we are busy, we are preoccupied, we do have these brutal demands on our time – but how sustainable is all this over the long term? How compatible is it with the notion of our being in a serious relationship? And how corrosive is it to our periodically expressed desire to have a baby together?
*
As it turns out, things aren’t that much better at work. If I had a honeymoon period at Barcadero, I suppose it was just that first shift – those ten hours when I wasn’t the guy who was replacing the guy who died. But ever since then no one has been willing to see my presence in the kitchen as anything other than bad juju – snippy comments are routinely made, looks are exchanged, cooperation is withheld. This makes for a shitty environment. The work still has to get done, though, orders have to be filled. For my part, I can lock into an intense rhythm and hit a flow state.
There is one thing that helps. It’s the partial but clear line of sight I have from my prep station out into the dining area. During service, when the atmosphere in the kitchen gets too weird or toxic, I’ll glance through the pick-up to see who’s out there. I’ll go around the table, rotating my attention, filling in imaginary details, names, job titles. I’ve done it once already this evening, and now, with service in full swing and tempers fraying all around me, I do it again. I glance out and this time see just two people sitting there – a youngish-looking couple. The guy, from what I can make out, is a business type in an expensive suit, but it’s she who catches my eye. Most of the women who come to this place have that brittle, moneyed look, too tanned and coiffed, too much work done. This woman isn’t anything like that. Even from a distance, I can see that she has an ethereal quality, a natural beauty so intense that she looks unreal, out of place, almost like an alien.
In fact, I’m so distracted by her that at one point, chopping asparagus tips, I nearly slice off the top of my left index finger. There’s a tiny spurt of blood, but I manage to conceal it. I go over to one of the fridges where we keep a tin of Band-Aids. Taking cover behind the open door, I quickly stick two on my finger in an x-formation. On the way back, avoiding eye contact, I decide I’m an idiot and should just keep my head down in future. Because another slip like that – a more serious one, time spent at the ER, someone having to cover for me – all of that could jeopardise my position at Barcadero. But once I’m over at the prep station again, standing there . . . I can’t resist.
I raise my head and look through the window.
She’s not there any more.
That’s the second thing I notice. The first thing I notice is that I am.
The woman’s seat is empty, and the guy is sitting at a slightly different angle, looking in my direction, more or less. I have a clear view of his face, and . . . it’s the weirdest thing . . . I’m still chopping asparagus tips, but it occurs to me that I should slow down, that I’m not in full control here, that unless I want to lose a finger for real I have to actually pay attention to what I’m doing. So right now that’s what I do, I look down at my cutting board, at the kinetic blur of wrist and hand and knife. I slow my pace, eventually bringing the operation to a complete halt. After a moment, I glance through the window again, but I can’t believe my eyes . . .
Which I close.
At this point I become hyperaware of every sound in the kitchen, of Pablo to my left, slicing duck breasts and muttering continuously in Spanish; of Alex, our Australian sous chef over to the right, crucifying one of the line guys for putting too much seasoning in the soubise; of every whoompf and sizzle, every plate clattering, every unit humming and shuddering – and it’s in this simultaneously heightened and almost paralysed state, like some partial form of locked-in syndrome, that I open my eyes again, just a fraction, and look out . . .
And holy shit . . .
He’s still there, the guy in the suit, still alone, still facing this way. He’s not looking at me, not directly, but I’m looking at
him, and I can see his face, which is just like my face, remarkably so – the face that I see when I look in a mirror, or at a photograph.
It gives me a sick, dizzy feeling, and I turn away.
‘Danny?’
I glance down at my hands, which are shaking slightly. I’m still holding the knife. I tap the edge of it gently on the cutting board.
‘Danny?’
This is Alex. He’s standing by the pass now, next to Chef, but staring back at me. ‘The fuck, mate?’
I ignore him and look out again – I can’t not. The likeness is uncanny. I’m a little scruffy and need a shave, I’m pale, I could do with some proper nourishment, whereas this guy is tanned and chiselled and healthy-looking . . . not to mention that suit he’s wearing . . . but still—
‘Wakey, wakey, over there. Jesus Christ. Someone slip you a fucking roofie?’
It suddenly strikes me – because of the angles and where people are standing – that no one else here can see what I can, that no one else here is looking at what I’m looking at. And I’m glad. I wouldn’t want them to. Because this feels very personal.
Tapping the edge of my knife on the board again, I reach for the next handful of asparagus stalks. I then tear my eyes away from the pick-up window and glance over at Alex.
‘Quaalude,’ I whisper, mouthing the word very clearly for him to see. As I start chopping again, I hold his gaze. I wait for him to roll his eyes and turn his attention back to the production line. When he does, my eyes dart back out to the dining area.
But the guy in the suit is standing up now, facing away, and moving off to the right. The woman appears from the left, obviously back from the bathroom. She glides across my line of vision, and the two of them disappear.
I feel something next to me, a sudden movement, then hear a sharp intake of breath. I turn to Pablo, who’s staring bug-eyed down at my hands.
‘Pero ché coño?’ he says.
I look down. There are tiny speckles of blood everywhere, not only on my cutting board, but all over Pablo’s as well.