"I see."
"It's hot in the kitchen and I'm having a bad morning. What can I say?"
"Well, you know what they say?"
"You mean, if it's too hot in the kitchen..."
"That's right."
"Sure. I shouldn't be in there, right?"
"That's right."
"I see."
It was one of those conversations, the ones with no point but were civil and polite and completely worthless, and they always ended in the worst way because you don't know how to cut off a stranger, trying to be polite and not hurt their feelings. I shoved some more food in my mouth and acted busy and hurried and all kinds of disinterested. It didn't work. He wouldn't leave. It's true.
"You ever have one of those kind of mornings?" he asked. "The kind where it seems like your life is just completely out of your control?"
"Yes," I said, my mouth full of egg and bacon. "I'm having one of those mornings right now."
***
El Diablo's real name was Ken, as indicated by a white rectangular name tag on his shirt, with red-stitched border and red cursive letters. He was bald and mean-looking, like I said, but actually, he was just a sorry, sad bastard. His exterior may have been ugly and threatening, but his insides were soft and gooey, filled with all kinds of sorrow and regret and pain and delicate emotion. Turns out, he was cuddly as a goddamn teddy bear. It's true.
Ken had one of those kind of mornings that you see in a convoluted, ridiculous, romantic-comedy movie, a series of events so coincidental and cliché that they bordered on ridiculous. But his morning actually happened to him, so it wasn't so much ridiculous as it was just kind of pathetic. It was one of those goddamn mornings that was completely out of his control, for sure, where his dog ran away and his water heater exploded and drained 40 gallons of water through his apartment, and his girlfriend (already upset with him about his affinity for red wine and supposed-drunken philandering) told him she was leaving and not coming back, and the hotel called him and demanded he be in to work early this morning, and to top it all off, he found a parking ticket on his windshield when he got in his car before driving to work. Then, on his way to the hotel, he shot the bird at an erratic driver who almost side-swiped his car and that crazy driver, so enraged from Ken's profane middle finger, followed him all the way to the hotel and confronted him in the parking lot, spitting at him and waving his fists for a fight, threatening to kill him. The poor chef, by that point, was so worn down from the morning's events that instead of fighting back (he looked, to me, like he could rip you to pieces), tears began streaming down his cheeks. He didn't know what to do and was so overwhelmed, that all of his natural defense mechanisms stopped working, completely withered away. He walked away from the enraged driver, teary-eyed and drained, and sat in the employees' lounge for thirty minutes, his hands over his face, his heart in his shoes. It was crazy to think that such a scary-looking guy had such thin goddamn skin, but he did. It's true.
"I tell you, after sitting in that employees' lounge for that long, all I could think about was that this was what my life had become," he said, looking me right in the eye with his goddamn red eyes. He looked like he was going to crack, crack right down the middle. "All my work, all my training, all my recognition, had culminated into a bout with road rage with a fool from Brooklyn who wanted to kill me for shooting him the finger. I was so fed up. I thought, my morning couldn't get any worse than this."
"You're right. It can't get any worse than that," I said, finishing the last of my exquisite omelet. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to have any more of this breakfast, would you? It sure was delicious."
***
Chef Ken took me on a tour of his kitchen, a fantastic, stainless steel place that looked as sterile as a hospital operating room. It's true. It was so goddamn clean in there that the reflection from the fluorescent lighting off the metallic counters and shelves about blinded me, almost like staring at the sun. He was as proud as a goddamn peacock about his goddamn kitchen. Turns out that when I told him that I was a writer (a soon-to-be-famous writer at that), he about shit in his pants and insisted that I take a tour of his facilities, marvel at what a goddamn fine establishment it was, and gawk at his snazzy set of Ginsu Knives and over-sized Cuisinart Mixers and larger-than-life rolls of Saran Wrap. It was all just too much to take. I mean, I was still pretty hungry and all I could think about was getting my day rolling and being ready for the evening's events and eating a goddamn nutritious breakfast. If Jason was with me, I'm pretty sure that Ken would not have invited us back there, since Jason is such a goddamn pig. He'd contaminate the place, for sure, with one touch from his grubby fingers. It's true. As Ken went on and on about his fantastic kitchen and how great a chef he was, I wondered what Jason was doing at that moment. He was probably farting up a storm, lying in bed like a lazy bastard, and dreaming of vanilla cokes and room-service cheeseburgers and piles of cocaine the size of desert dunes. And I guess, in a way, Ken's morning wasn't getting any worse, at least as far as I could tell. At least he wasn’t in as bad a shape as Jason. It's true.
"And this is our walk-in refrigerator, the largest in the city," Ken said, opening the refrigerator door and letting a rush of cold air out. "Would you like to go in?"
I looked in the cavernous cold room and thought of the crazy bartender from the airport back in Austin and how I was stuck in his beer cooler for what seemed like an eternity and his pot-smoking craziness and the nose-picking barflies and I felt like I was going to faint, what, with the rush of cold air and the bad memories and my grumbling stomach and all. It was all just too much.
"No, no, no, that's OK," I said. "Really, I'd rather not go in there. I'm extremely claustrophobic. But thanks anyway."
"Ok then," he said, closing the door. "Maybe some other time."
I followed him around to the cooking area and watched as he prepped the hot griddle with a large pad of margarine and a splash of olive oil. He then slid the margarine pad around with his index finger until it sizzled into a melted bubbly streak, then poured some eggs from a pitcher that was sitting in a bucket of ice below the hot stove-top. All the ingredients were separated into tiny glass bowls in a drawer at arm's length from him, chopped onions, parsley, bacon bits, sliced mushrooms, diced green peppers, grated yellow cheese. He was a goddamn professional, for sure. He grabbed a little of this and a little of that, and I noticed that he kind of danced and shimmied a bit as he cooked, a rhythm of some sort bobbing through his goddamn head as he combined the ingredients into a plastic prep bowl. He seemed to really like being a chef, bad morning from hell or not. It's true.
"You know," he said, swirling the chopped vegetables and meat with his fingers in the prep bowl. "You look very familiar to me. I don't know from where. But I'm pretty sure I've seen you before, maybe even met you before. I just can't put my finger on where or when."
"No, I don't think so," I said.
"I'm pretty sure of it. In fact, I'm more than positive."
"Maybe you saw the piece in Time Magazine about me?"
"Nope, don't read Time," he said, cherry-picking some more ingredients. "You want this omelet like the other?"
I nodded. The scent from his cooking was euphoric, the smell wafting up to my nose and dissipating my hunger pains. It was going to be another beautiful omelet, I could tell already. It's true.
"Maybe we've met in a past life," he said, completely serious. "Maybe we were friends in another age, or maybe we were mortal enemies."
"Probably enemies, I would think," I said.
"You think?"
"Most definitely."
He flipped the omelet on a clean plate with his spatula and handed me my breakfast. He then dropped all of his utensils into a bucket of water and turned off the griddle, untying the apron around his waist and dropping it into a linen bag. He was turning red again, only this time in the face. His face was as red as a goddamn beet.
"I'll have the front desk put your breakfast on your bill, Mister...
what was your name again?"
"Burchwood. My name is Simon Burchwood."
"That's right, Mr. Burchwood. Thank you for dining at Crumpet's," he said, patting me on the shoulder as we walked out of the kitchen. "It's always nice to serve people of such high esteem, people like yourself. Please come again."
"Thanks."
"And please forgive me for earlier, please. I was having a bad morning."
"Whatever."
***
The sore in my palm that I got from falling in the parking lot at Cinammon's Big Boobie Bonanza back in Montgomery still wasn't getting any better and I worried for a bit about getting a goddamn infection of some sort. Not only was it making eating breakfast very difficult, having to hold my fork in an awkward position and all, but I think it was affecting my desire to write. I mean, I did attempt to complete my writing exercises on the plane, even though Jason was acting like a goddamn illiterate buffoon, and since arriving in New York, I had thought quite a bit about some narratives and new characters and future plots to explore and expound upon, etc. But I found my desire to get these ideas on paper to be lacking, and I felt it was on account of my sore hand. I mean, it hurt like all hell and it really was distracting me. It's true. I thought, for a second, that maybe I should see a doctor about it. But I also knew that that wasn't something I should have entertained at all until after my reading at the Barnes & Noble flagship store. So, in a way, it was pointless to even worry about it, so I didn't. It's funny how the tiny things that worry you can easily be forgotten, if you just put your mind to it. It's true.
I gobbled up my second omelet as quickly as the first, and found myself licking my goddamn fingers and smacking my goddamn lips and scraping the edge of my goddamn plate with my fork like a goddamn heathen. I mean, I was hungry as hell but I could see that the longer I hung around Jason, the more of his habits I was shamelessly acquiring. And that worried me, worried me to no end. Hanging out with a goddamn pig will do that to you. It's true. It's so much easier living life as a goddamn pig than living life as a decent human being, and I think Jason found that to be the case for him, at least. How easy is it to not worry about cleanliness and order and hygiene and goddamn manners and social skills and a healthy lifestyle in general. I decided right then and there that that, that right there, was Jason's problem, in a nutshell. Jason didn't want to have to work at anything, he didn't want to have to work on his career, work on his marriage, work on his house, work on his weight, he didn't want to work on anything at all. It's much easier that way, not doing a goddamn thing, because you find that life still trudges on, it still goes by without any effort, even though nothing much comes out of it. And he was very disappointed that nothing much was being made of his life, even though he put nothing into it, and the vicious cycle commenced. It was sad, it's true. But that was the reality of it. I kind of felt sorry for him, especially since we had been friends for so long, but you can only feel sorry for someone for so long too. Once you realize that someone has resigned to being a goddamn pig, and that they have decided not to do a goddamn thing about it, there's really nothing you can do. It's true.
I finished my breakfast and was wiping my hands and my mouth with my napkin when I felt like someone was watching me, which was weird since the restaurant was practically empty. I had that feeling, that feeling you get when someone enters a room just outside of your view, that feeling that I was being watched from behind. I could see in the reflection of one of the windows that there was a figure by the entrance to the restaurant, so I turned around to catch a glimpse of someone turning around and walking out the door, someone that looked a lot like Carl the Pimp. And since the nice lady behind the counter in the lobby didn't know of any Carl, I decided right then and there to verify that it actually was him, for my own sanity and all. I dropped my napkin and left the remnants of my breakfast for the lazy goddamn busboys and headed for the exit.
I caught a glimpse of Carl at the other end of the lobby, way past the check-in counter, which he definitely must have walked by, which means the lady behind the counter definitely must have seen him. She was still there, behind the counter, looking busier than the busboys in Crumpet's, at least busily doing nothing.
"Was that Carl?" I asked as I walked by the counter, slowing my pace but not stopping.
"Who?" she asked.
"That bellboy, the one that just walked by."
"I told you, sir, that there is no Carl here. But I do need to talk to you. There was a problem with your credit card. It's not accepting..."
"I'll be right back," I said, turning my hurried walk into a mild jog. I didn't have any time to talk about credit cards, not if I was going to catch up with Carl, who by the way, had vanished from the lobby. And pretty soon, I vanished from the lobby too. It's true.
***
I made my way through the only exit at the other end of the lobby and descended a few flights of stairs, following the sound of the echoing footsteps in the corridor, and wound up in the underground parking garage, maybe three or four stories down from the lobby. I could still hear the footsteps, though they were dimming fast in the distance, and I walked around a bit to see if I could find Carl. But my goddamn luck had run out. He was nowhere to be found. The sound of his feet hitting the pavement was soon absorbed into the other noises of the city, the sound of cars running and buses stopping and jackhammers and pedestrians and neon signs and urban decay and air conditioners wheezing and spinning and cooling. It can be sensory overload, if you really listen hard, if you really let it sink in. It's true. Carl was gone and it seemed that so was my sanity and all. I mean, it didn't seem too much to ask to be able to talk to him for a minute, one goddamn minute. I'm sure he would have had a few choice words for the lady behind the counter. I'm sure of it.
I decided right then and there that it was time to forget about Carl the pimp and to get my day underway, to get dressed for the evening and call my publisher and my accountant and my wife and Samuel the Giant and all the other things I had decided to do while eating my breakfast. I walked back to the door where I came into the garage but when I tried to open it, it was locked. I couldn't get back into the goddamn stairwell. I tried to turn the knob and I banged on the door but it was no use. I was locked out. And I knew for sure that my goddamn luck had run out. I looked around for another door or set of stairs or an elevator, but there were none to be found, only signs overhead pointing to an exit that appeared to be up and around the turn at the other end of this level, level G2, whatever that means. It always seemed, to me anyway, that how the levels of buildings were named was a complete mystery, a goddamn conundrum for sure. I mean, why is it that some buildings call the first floor ground, and other buildings call the first floor level one? And some buildings have a ground and a level one? Without any floor-naming standards, how are you to know where to stop the goddamn elevator when you just want to get out of the goddamn building? It all was just too much to take, when all I wanted to do was get my day started. It's true.
I followed the exit signs and walked the length of the floor I was on (level G2), then turned and walked up an incline to the next level, level G1, and continued to follow the exit arrows. As I walked, I looked around at the type of cars and vehicles parked in the garage and was amazed to find so many luxury cars and SUVs, almost more than I cared to count. There wasn't a goddamn clunker to be found, not one like Jason's turd-on-wheels. I knew for sure, that once my royalty checks started rolling in, that I was going to buy my wife a new car, probably a BMW, or a Mercedes, something European and luxurious. She deserved it. It's true.
I was going to make my way up another incline to level G0 or level G1.2 or whatever goddamn number it was going to be when I noticed the hood of one of the cars up, and then a head popping up and looking at me. He was looking right at me, for sure.
"Hey you!" he said, pointing at me.
I looked around to make sure he wasn't pointing at someone else.
"Yeah, you," he said. "Come here, will ya?"
I reluctantly walked over to the car he was working on, a black Mercedes that looked like the ones that the goddamn Nazis used to tool around in during World War II. He was obviously a valet for the hotel, dressed in the standard maroon hotel-uniform shirt, complete with black shorts and black running shoes. He was sweating profusely, and smelled a little musty and salty. According to his name tag, his name was Mick.
"Here, hold the hood up. There isn't a support lever to hold it," he said.
"I have to be somewhere, right now," I said, holding the dirty hood with one hand.
"It'll just take a second," he said, maneuvering a wire somewhere, trying to plug it into something. "I'll give you a ride up when I'm done. I'll have you up faster than if you walk. Just hold the hood for a second..."
"OK. But I have to be somewhere important," I said.
"I heard you the first time."
***
It only took Mick a couple of minutes to get the old Nazi-mobile running, but those couple of minutes seemed like an eternity. I mean, I don't know a goddamn thing about fixing cars, but it seemed to me that he was just fumbling around, sticking things here and poking things there. I can't say much, though, because he got the goddamn thing running. If it was me trying to fix that car, we'd still be standing there like a couple of goddamn idiots, holding up a dirty hood in the middle of an underground parking lot. It's true. The Nazi-mobile seemed to be running pretty good, except for the smell of gasoline it was emitting. The smell got stronger the longer it ran. I was pretty sure that if we stood there long enough, the toxic fumes would have killed us.
"Get in," Mick said, slamming the hood down. "I'll give you a ride up."
We got in the car and the smell of gasoline was even stronger inside the cab. It was so strong that I about coughed up one of my goddamn lungs. I could barely breathe in there, so I rolled my window down to let fresh air in. Mick slowly pulled out of the parking spot and drove the Nazi-mobile at a blistering two miles per hour.
The Meteoric Rise of Simon Burchwood Page 22