The Dishwasher

by Stéphane Larue

  My coffee grew cold on the rack of clean dishes before I could even take a sip. The night was unfolding without a snag. I left pretty much everything to Lionel, who peppered me with questions. The answers seemed pretty damn obvious most of the time, but his zeal and professional, concerned tone almost made it okay.

  Nick didn’t come back for a single smoke all night, and when it was time to pick up cutlery Denver or Sarah would appear, or I’d send Lionel up front. From the dishpit I heard Bébert riding Nick a few times, asking how it felt getting beat to the punch by the dishwasher. But all I felt, thinking back on the night before, was profound shame.

  Around eight someone rang at the back door. I opened. Vincent was in the middle of the alley in his Nautica puffy coat. His face lighted up when he saw me, like when you see a familiar face at a show. I left Lionel alone for a few minutes. It felt like I hadn’t seen Vincent in months.

  “It wasn’t too hard to find the place?”

  “No, it wasn’t hard. Where’d you sleep last night?”

  “On Marie-Lou’s couch.”

  He gave me my stuff: a t-shirt, a pair of boxers and a pair of socks, my keys. He’d stuffed it all into a plastic grocery bag, and passed it to me on the down-low as if it were an illicit substance.

  “What’re you doing after work? Want to come out with me. I’ll be at the Saint-Sulpice with my friends from Business Admin.”

  He talked with his head held back a bit, and his neck tucked into his shoulders, to protect him from the cold.

  “Cool. But I’m going out with the guys tonight.”

  I nodded toward the restaurant door, to show him which guys I meant. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, staring at me intently.

  “You sure?”

  Deep down I knew that enduring his business-school pals long enough to share a pitcher, and then catching the last bus home would be the best possible outcome for the end of this night.

  “I’ll probably get off late anyway.”

  “Your call, man. Phone me if you change your mind. I’ve got minutes.”

  He took his ungloved hand out of his pocket. I shook it, and then we bumped fists the way we had since high school. And then he took off, shoulders tucked even deeper into his jacket. I watched him turn the corner in the alley, and felt bad that I hadn’t paid him back then and there. I thought about calling him before he got too far away. I didn’t.

  I came back in to the humid dishpit. Lionel was filling a rack of dishes. He laid out pans and plates with an over-the-top precision. When he saw me, he wanted to reassure me, a big smile exaggerated the premature wrinkles that ran along his face; he said that he had “black friends” too, that they were “really cool.” I didn’t have it in me to come up with an answer so I just nodded and took a stack of clean pans out to the cooks.

  I leaned against the door of the service kitchen. Through the shelves of the dessert pass-through I could see Greg sitting at the bar. He wasn’t working tonight. He was having a smoke and chatting with Sarah. His friend Kasper was next to him, with a Bloody Caesar. When he took a sip, the band of his gold watch slid halfway up his forearm.

  The dining room was two-thirds full. I scanned it for Nick but he wasn’t there. Back in the kitchen Bébert was his old self again. His head was nodding to an imaginary beat. He was tending to the many pans covering his elements while singing Black Taboo lyrics right into Steven’s ear. Poor guy was doing his best to ignore him. His hands were shaking, and he was nervously wiping his forehead every two minutes. Vlad paid zero attention to Steven and Bébert. There were no orders on his side, and he was using the lull to clean his station. His face bore its usual, almost military expression of disciplined focus.

  Greg saw me and beckoned me over. In his non-work clothes he was even more intimidating. I went up to the computer. He asked how I was doing. Kasper lifted his glass in my direction. He remembered me. He had glassy eyes and a ready smile. Bébert caught Greg’s attention, with a voice like a foghorn.

  “Blue cheese in your pasta?”

  Greg gave him a thumbs up. I went up to the bar. Quietly enough so Bébert couldn’t hear I asked Greg a question.

  “Hey man. Do you know Benjamin Laurier?”

  He turned to me, with a slight furrow in his brow. His smile was gone. Kasper cleared his throat and gave me a dubious look. Maybe I should have kept that one to myself.

  “How about you. You know him?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  Kasper was listening, with his hands crossed over his empty glass.

  “How do you know that dude?”

  I could no longer hear Bébert clowning around or pans clanging on the elements or the customers chattering.

  “He’s a friend. My ex works for him.”

  Something had changed in Greg’s face. As if he’d just recognized someone.

  “Really. . . A friend.”

  He looked at me for a long time, looked me up and down from head to toe, shaking his head slightly. I wanted to retreat to my dishpit. Not because I was unreasonably extending the amount of time I could spend out front next to the dining room without a valid reason, but because Benjamin’s name had made Greg react, and I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing.

  “A friend, hey. That’s a good one.”

  Greg counted us with his fingers.

  “Sarah. Shooters.”

  “Belvedere?” she asked.

  “Yeah, five Belvedere. And one for that crazy mofo,” he said, pointing at Bébert. And one for little fighter here.”

  Sara chilled the vodka in the shaker, then filled five shot glasses and handed them out. Greg picked up two, and put one in my hand.

  “Here man. This one’s for you.”

  “Uh, I don’t think Séverine would. . .”

  “I don’t give a fuck what Séverine thinks. You’re doing a shot with us.”

  Greg took me by the shoulder. His bony hand gripped mine like a bolt-cutter.

  “So you know the Laurier brothers. Small fucking world.”

  I never found out exactly how Greg and Benjamin had known each other, and I never could say for sure if that worked in my favour or not. One thing was certain: the man’s curiosity was piqued. Maybe in a good way.

  From the other side of the pass-through Bébert yelled “Cheers, bitches.” The people sitting at the end of the bar looked over at us like librarians eyeing a group of rowdy teens. The vodka went down without burning. I didn’t even make a face. Sarah poured back her shot like water, then practically danced off with the empty glasses. She went around to see all her customers, smiling all the way, keeping it light. Kasper was checking her out. Greg answered his cell. He was done with me.

  I went back to the dishpit with a light heart. Lionel was mumbling away, telling stories. Dude had no problem carrying on a conversation with his pots and pans. I would gladly have left him to close, if he knew how. I felt like I was running on empty. My muscles were still cramped from my horrible night.

  My pager buzzed. A voice message. I hoped it wasn’t Alex. I thought about the night before, and promised that, starting tomorrow, I’d get myself straightened out for good.

  The night crawled by. The restaurant was dead. Lionel insisted on doing everything. I was bored.

  Later, Bébert and Greg came back to the dishpit to smoke while I got on with on my close. They were speaking in code.

  “That’s not how it works, man,” Greg was saying. “Just be patient. You’ll see, it’s worth the wait.”

  I pretended not to listen. Greg asked Bébert if he wanted to go to Stereo. He said maybe, depended who was DJing. Greg set off on a series of stories, without answering the question. It ended with a story that felt only half true, with Ziggy breaking some dealer’s face against the washroom door.

  It only took me forty minutes to close, and I was really dogging
it. Maybe letting Lionel do everything all night was making me soft. When I came down to punch out, Greg and Kasper were still in the same spots at the end of the bar. Bébert had joined them. They were arguing with Sarah about the best after-hours clubs. If there was a place in town where fun could be had after three a.m., Greg seemed to know about it. Discreetly I took a seat next to them for my after-shift beer, observing the people around me and the room. Bébert was running on 220 volts now, and wouldn’t shut up about how thirsty he was. Greg paid his bill with a wad around eight times as thick as my own, full of red bills with some brown ones as well. It now seemed pretty clear that he was more than just a busboy. I was naïve to have believed it. Sarah kissed him on the cheeks, and told him to be careful. They put on their coats. As they passed by, Bébert put me in a headlock.

  “You coming?”

  Half an hour later Greg parked his Monte Carlo on Ontario near Saint-Denis. The car reeked of hash.

  We weren’t far from the Saint-Sulpice. I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t run into Vincent.

  We were meeting friends of Bébert’s at a bar I’d never been to. Normally that kind of thing made me nervous, but nothing was intimidating when you were rolling with Greg and Bébert. Greg just kept going on about how he couldn’t believe I knew the Laurier brothers. Each time I clarified that I only actually knew Benjamin, and each time Greg acted like he hadn’t heard.

  The bar was like a less punk version of Foufounes électriques: big, dark and smoky, with the smell of old beer clinging to the floor. It was packed with people in their early twenties. Years of partying had left their mark, from the walls to the furniture. We made our way through the crowd, advancing in Greg’s wake. He must have been the oldest guy in the place. We found a table near the back where a big group was celebrating a birthday, or maybe the end of term. Whatever it was, it was loud. Greg asked what I wanted to drink, then headed off toward the bar. He shook hands with the bartender, kissed the women on the cheeks. The guy literally knew everyone. He came back with a round of vodka shots. The waitress brought our beers. He gave her a fifty, said it was cool. We threw back our shooters. The booze hit me hard and fast. My mouth was already starting to feel pasty when Bébert’s friends showed up. One was Doug, who was built like a retired UFC fighter. There was another guy in a Yankees cap with a big diamond in his ear, a gold chain over a white t-shirt and Chinese characters tattooed all up his forearms. Bébert introduced everyone. The guy in cap was Mick or maybe Mitch, I didn’t quite catch it. He and Greg immediately fell into a conversation I couldn’t follow in my exhausted state, with the blaring music. It looked serious and not exactly above-board.

  A Foo Fighters song was blaring, the only one Marie-Lou liked. I flashed back to weeks we’d spent together in her tiny apartment, eating Lipton soup and watching movies until we fell asleep together. The last night at her house I’d stayed up staring at her shoulders and white neck in the darkness. At that moment, stretched out beside her in the heart of a timeless night, I was happy. And when morning came I’d held her tight. It had been so long since we’d done anything together. The next morning Marie-Lou was especially happy, and relieved to hear that Vincent would let me stay with him until I got back on my feet again.

  Greg was getting worked up now, drawing an imaginary map on the table as he explained something to Micky-Mick-Mitch. Every now and then Bébert joined in, leaning over toward them on his elbow, as if he were sharing secrets with one or the other. His voice carried over even the din, but I couldn’t really pick out more than a word or two. Kasper stayed quiet and cool, hands crossed over his stomach, as if the die were cast and all that was left was to sit back and see where it would land. He was barely touching his beer. I was drinking mine too fast. The waitress came to see if we needed anything. The guys having their little meeting ignored her. I ordered another pint and went to piss while I waited for her to come back. The place was getting even more packed with suburban skate punks mixed in with people I saw around Cegep sometimes and a different crew who rocked polo shirts and white baseball caps and weren’t above drinking straight from their pitchers.

  When I came out of washroom someone gave me a shove.

  “Good times, man? Partying away the money you owe me?”

  I turned around, unsteady on my legs. I was drunker than I’d thought. It took me a moment to recognize Rémi’s square face, and another to see he had a buddy with him.

  “Fuck you, man,” I said, trying to slip between them.

  His friend, who was clearly of the football-playing persuasion, shoved me against the wall. I sized him up: tall, blond, body of a gorilla with the face of a Cabbage Patch Kid. The people around paid us no mind.

  It sounded like Rémi had been practising his lines in anticipation of the day he’s finally run into me. He started off with threats, which were as convincing as you’d expect from a guy who’d never fought in his life. He pointed at the ATM flashing away in the back of the room, behind the people and the cloud of smoke, and ordered me to take out as much as I could. I didn’t have time to answer, or was too surprised to even think about answering; I just stuttered like a moron while Rémi got all up in my grill and stared me down. Then I heard Greg’s high-pitched voice, tinged with just an extra hint of menace. Greg pushed in between me and my old roommate, and Rémi backed off. He and his blond gorilla weren’t looking so tough now. A second later, Bébert thundered in.

  “What’s up?”

  Bébert pushed me away from Rémi and stood next to Greg, who turned to me.

  “What do these dipshits want? You know them?”

  “No. Never met ’em in my life.”

  My scalp was tingling. I could read the expression on Greg’s face well enough to know I’d better choose my words carefully.

  “They said I stole their beer.”

  “What?” asked Greg, leaning into the guy. “You calling my buddy a thief?”

  My former roommate’s face grew less composed the closer Greg got. Greg repeated his question. The gorilla was now looking more like an oversized guinea pig. I had the feeling that in their shoes I’d be shitting my pants.

  “Yo monkey, I asked you a question. You messing with my friend?”

  When Greg referred to me as “my friend” I felt a cloak of invincibility enveloping me. It all seemed unreal, like a nightmare with a happy ending. Despite it all I felt ashamed, and afraid for Rémi, but that didn’t stop me from actually enjoying the scene, at least for a few seconds. Rémi put up a hand to calm Greg down. Bébert chimed in.

  “You stepping to our friend? Yes or no?”

  I could see Rémi disappearing between Greg and Bébert’s shoulders. He had the expression of a little tyke whose big sister had made him watch a horror movie. He tried to explain, but Greg thwarted his every attempt to squeeze a word out. The football player tried to pipe in; that just pissed Greg off worse. Bébert had to step in to calm things down. He repeated Greg’s threats in calmer terms, adding that I wasn’t the one who’d stolen their beer and the smart thing to do now was to get the hell out of there. Greg pushed the big blond guy against a wall. He’d lost control a little and was in the mood to rough someone up. His every muscle was taut, he was almost quaking. Kasper showed up, followed by Doug. My heart was beating in my temples. I was paralyzed. Rémi said:

  “It’s cool, man, it’s cool. I don’t want any trouble.”

  His words were about as effective as dousing a fire with gasoline. I prayed a bouncer would appear. Shoulders and heads were amassing in front of me. Doug surveyed the scene with a satisfied smile. Rémi and his friend were suddenly outside my field of vision. I lost track of what was happening. I didn’t move, didn’t see them take off. I guess I imagined them leaving; everything was fuzzy. Bébert brought me back to earth with a pat on the back.

  “Dude, come get us next time.”

  I shakily walked over to our table to sit down. It w
as business as usual, as if nothing had happened. I was still all hopped up, just like after my fight with Carl. My nerves refused to settle and never would—not after a few more pints, not with a little fresh air, not even once we got to the next bar.

  I followed Bébert and Greg to the Stereo. The doormen let me in because of the company I was keeping, but didn’t seem especially taken with my outfit. I guess ripped jeans and lumberjack shirts hanging out of coats weren’t part of their dress code.

  The place was full and everyone was dancing away, as high as whirling dervishes. The crowd looked impenetrable. Behind a fortress of speakers a DJ was laying down techno with bone-shattering bass. They must have epoxied the wall to keep the paint from peeling off. Strobe lights momentarily revealed the individuals who made up this crowd, metrosexual guys in tight-fitting outfits, chicks covered in glitter. We worked our way through this jungle of undulating bodies, arms, and legs to the bar.

  Greg had a quick chat with the barman. When he yelled in the guy’s ear his jugular popped out. Bébert passed me a Red Bull.

  “Drink this, it’ll help,” I read on his lips.

  I surveyed the roomful of people dancing their hearts out on MDMA or other pills whose names I didn’t even know. I imagined you had to be high to whip yourself up into that kind of frenzy. Three girls appeared next to me, naked under short, light dresses. They were all three inches taller than me, with smiles sparkling as brightly as the jewels they wore. One of them asked me a question I couldn’t understand over the pounding music. It must not have been kind: all three burst into laughter and then they slipped off into the shifting magma of silhouettes on the dance floor.

  When I turned back around toward Bébert, Greg was gone. Bébert was taking in the room, sipping on a Red Bull. His cap was pulled down over his forehead, and his messed-up teeth gave him a sardonic grin. He sat back watching the people dancing. I was still struggling to parse what had just happened.