Lobster Solidarity

Owen gazed at the mountain from the safety of his blue Dodge Shadow. The day was warm and clear and he had time to kill before work, so he came here to look at the mountain.

And there it was.

His job was only a month old and he still felt apprehensive when he reported for his shift every afternoon. The restaurant didn’t serve breakfast or lunch. Only dinner, so Owen had to go in at three pm to help with the prep work. The restaurant opened at five.

But he didn’t want to think about that now. It was still too early to be this anxious.

The mountain was relatively small but it was huge to him. He wasn’t used to seeing mountains (he grew up on flat land). These mountains were intimidating, ageless and adamant. Borne of tectonic violence and glacial-carved sculpture. Sometimes he hated them. They surrounded his new life like stoic, fundamental gods. 

Owen drove home to hide from the mountain. He wanted to drink a beer or two before work. He needed to calm his nerves.

His home was still strange to him. All his stuff was there but he still felt like a burglar whenever he opened the door.  He had been wrenched from one life and location to another. Like a shove on a map. His mother had urged him out of her house. His habits scared her. 

On the traumatic day he moved, she gave him a kitten as a housewarming present. It was a long-haired, tortoiseshell cat to keep him company since he had no human friends. His mother had rescued it from a farmhouse and it came with fleas. Owen bought a flea collar and it did the trick. The kitten was okay now and seemed to like him. He had not named her yet.

His beer was in the refrigerator. He had discovered a wonderful local brew called Klondike Ice. It was strong alcohol-wise but tasted deceptively light and crisp. He caught a buzz from just one serving. Klondike Ice had kept him company for the first three months he’d lived among the mountains. He’d remained deadly drunk for those three jobless months and then, when his savings began evaporating, he sobered up enough to start applying for rotten jobs. That was when he landed the gig at the restaurant, cooking at a fancy steakhouse called The Metropolitan Ox. 

Owen lived in a cramped, dilapidated wing of an old colonial house surrounded by flower gardens. His eighty-year-old landlady, Rose, lived in the main house and she left him alone for the most part. They had a deal that if he would mow the lawn, she would cut the rent. Owen’s mother had arranged it all.

Owen looked at the clock: 2:33. He had time for one more Klondike Ice before work. His bowels ran cold at the thought of what he was about to endure. He was still the new guy, still proving himself and making mistakes. Nobody was sure of each other yet. 

Owen hadn’t worked in a kitchen in over fifteen years. The Chef almost didn’t hire him due to the gaps in his resume but they were desperate. The summer season was upon them.  

Intervale was a bustling tourist town, what with the mountains and woods and rivers and lakes and all. The businesses got busy. Traffic snarled the streets. Tourists were ubiquitous, snapping pictures of nature’s majesty.  

So, at the woefully late age of 33, Owen was thrust back into the hateful food service industry. He was a lowly line cook, again. He tried to console himself with the happy fact that at least he possessed the rudimentary skills to save his life. Was saving it now. 

So, yeah.

Owen finished his second beer, belched, and returned to his blue Shadow. His commute was about three miles. It took him five measly miles to get to work. Jesus, he was there already. 

Jake was standing by the kitchen door, smoking. Jake was the sous-chef and he was as big and intimidating as the mountains that surrounded them.  He stood tall and rugged and young, in his twenties. A tough-looking football player with broad shoulders and a shaved head. He looked like the sort of high school bully that had threatened and harassed Owen a million years ago. But Jake was not a bully. He was pleasant, well-spoken, and wise for his age. Owen honestly liked him, once he got to know him.

They greeted each other with friendly nods, silently acknowledging their unpleasant predicament. Another work day. Again.

Owen didn’t smoke. He walked into the kitchen. The smell met him like a roar.

He punched in, swiping his ID across the machine. He was on the clock now good god. He had to find the boss. He was suddenly thirsty.

The executive chef was a man named Barney (33). He was the first Barney Owen had ever met in real life. Barney was a TV character – a Fife, Miller or Rubble – not a real person.  

The Chef was also the tallest man he’d ever met. At 6’9” he towered over the rest of the staff like a benign giant. 

The Chef didn’t seem to be around. Owen put on his apron and baseball hat. The final cog in the crew was Alan. At fifty-three, he was the oldest member of the line staff. There were four of them. They manned the barricades. It went like this: Chef Barney worked the sauté station; Alan was the fry cook and made desserts; Owen worked the oven and made salads; Jake was the quarterback of the team and worked the grill and expedited the orders. The astonishing thing was how well they worked together. They actually complimented each other. Owen, working endless drudge jobs throughout his life, had never experienced such easy synergy. Once, the Chef compared them to the Beatles and Owen almost burst out laughing. That was way overstating it, but they did work well together.

The Chef plodded into the kitchen, instantly making Owen feel small. He was wearing chef whites with a monogrammed jacket and a red beret. The last restaurant Owen had worked at had been a casual affair. There were boiled hot dogs on the menu. The Metropolitan Ox was upscale, almost posh. They stacked the food on the plates and made pretty swirls with various substances. Owen learned about things like demi-glace, wasabi and béarnaise. It was another world. 

The Chef greeted Owen and then handed him the prep list. It had been written by Jake. Chef called it, “The prep list from Hell.”

“Here you go,” he said. As The Boss he could delegate the duties. Owen didn’t bother to resent this. 

He looked at the list, trying desperately to figure out which tasks were his to do. He didn’t want to ask questions anymore. He didn’t want to appear as unsure as he felt.

He started to make artichoke spinach dip. That he knew was his responsibility. Start there. 

He combined:

      Sour cream

      Cream cheese

      Shredded Mozzarella

      Parmesan

      Canned artichokes

      Frozen chopped spinach

      Salt & pepper

And then he squished everything together in a big silver mixing bowl and filled a dozen small ceramic crock pots with the gloppy concoction. 

The list continued:

He boiled shrimp for shrimp cocktail, grilled chicken breasts for the chicken Caesar salad. He roasted several pans of red bliss potatoes, pounded chicken cutlets for marsala and fra diavolo, made blueberry vinaigrette and pesto, marinated steak tips and pork. The pork was for a mysterious dish called voodoo pork. He made seafood stuffing: crushed Ritz crackers, chopped red onions, chopped celery, shredded lobster meat, paprika, melted butter and white wine. He had to resist taking a sip of the wine.  

It was a lot to do. After every task had been completed, Jake tore up the list and threw it away. It felt ceremonial.   

By five o’clock they were open. Owen was already exhausted. The nightmare was about to begin.

And they got slammed. Lost in the weeds. It was a massacre. Customers were lined up at the door, waiting for vacated tables. The waitresses scrambled and flooded the kitchen with orders. Owen worked in panic mode for five straight hours. He burned his fingertips over and over, pulling endless baked haddocks out of the scorching blast of the big industrial oven. Lots of breaded haddock, stuffed shrimp, and endless appetizers; nachos, personal pizza, bruschetta. The oven was filled to capacity for most of the night. Jake’s grill was piled with flaming steaks and burgers and Owen wondered how the hell he kept track of them all. It was madness. 

By the end of the night the kitchen looked like a bomb site. Owen felt a glimmer of pity for the dishwashers. It was their mess now. He took off his apron. Another shift finished. The whole rest of his life to go.

Owen, Chef and Jake headed straight for the bar. Alan didn’t drink. He also didn’t drive and rode his bicycle to work. Owen wondered if he’d had a drinking problem and lost his license but no, he was just a teetotaler who liked to ride his bike. He smoked though, which struck Owen as strange. He would learn later that Alan was a daft conspiracy theorist who believed cigarette smoking was beneficial to your health. “The Surgeon General is lying to you,” he’d say. He also insisted that milk was bad for you because of hormones or something. His lectures were difficult to swallow. He had a black mustache and gray hair. He looked unhealthy, like a dissipated, strung-out drug casualty from the 70s.

Owen sat at the bar and ordered a 16oz beer. Chef did the same. Jake got a spiced rum and Coke. The bartender was a happy, semi-retired old man named Chester. Of course, thanks to Chester, everybody’s drinks were free (the owner wasn’t around). The three of them sat at the bar and for the first time Owen felt genuine camaraderie with his co-workers. So much so that when the bar closed and Chester went home, the Chef invited Owen and Jake to his place for additional drinks and, though it was out of character for him, Owen accepted. He wanted to be seen as a regular guy. His beer buzz had lowered his defenses. The alcohol and settling adrenaline imbued him with an ease and a friendliness he hadn’t felt in years. 

The Chef rented a small house within easy walking distance of the restaurant. The night was warm and there were lots of people on the street. Owen felt like part of the town now and not an itinerant drifter. The sky was so clear you could see the glittering wash of the entire galaxy.  

Looking at the universe, Owen felt large rather than small.

There was a cement fire pit in the backyard. They didn’t bother to start a fire but they stood around the pit, drinking bottles of Bud and bullshitting. Jake produced a joint and they passed it around. Ordinarily, Owen avoided cannabis. It made him nervous. But he felt good. They had pulled together in battle and now they were getting drunk together and it was a nice night and then the Chef said, “You guys hungry?”

“I could go for something,” said Jake.

Owen shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

And then the Chef pulled Jake aside and the two had a whispered conference. Owen suddenly felt like an outsider again. Excluded. The feel of the weed started to turn from a relaxed buzz to paranoia and anxiety. 

The Chef reached into his pocket and handed something to Jake, and then Jake walked away and disappeared down the street. The Chef returned to the cold fire pit.

The two men regarded each other. Owen was afraid to ask what was going on.

“You did a good job tonight,” the Chef told him.

“Oh yeah? Thanks.” So he probably wasn’t getting fired anyway.

“You stayed calm under fire.”

“I didn’t feel calm.”

“You never get over that. This helps.” He lifted his Bud.

“Yeah.”

“You drink a lot?”

“I try to keep it under control,” he lied, playing it safe. He felt like he was on probation. 

“Me too. I used to be a real bad alcoholic.”

“Oh yeah?” This was not a conversation Owen wanted to have. 

“Yeah. I quit for five years once. I used to go to AA meetings twice a week. On the day I got my five-year chip I went out and got fucking hammered. I celebrated five years of sobriety with a bottle of vodka.” He chuckled. “Anyway, I like to drink and I want to enjoy my life. I’m still young. I figure I can manage a few more years’ worth of damage. My liver is strong.”

“Yeah, me too.” Owen’s liver was probably scarred and enlarged. He’d started drinking at twelve.

Eventually Jake returned, carrying a big cardboard box. “Yo! Let’s go!”

The Chef turned to Owen. “We can trust you, right? What happens here stays here, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course.”

“Come on then. Let’s eat.”

Jake had returned to the restaurant and came back with stolen lobsters, steamers and two bottles of wine. He went into the Chef’s kitchen and started boiling the ill-gotten goodies. He also made garlic bread and corn on the cob. It was a seafood feast. A clambake without the sand. 

Owen was not a fan of lobster. They looked like big alien insects to him and he didn’t like the taste or texture of the meat. He wasn’t crazy about steamed clams either. He always bit into grit when he ate them. But this was different. He couldn’t ask for something else. He couldn’t be a picky eater in front of Jake and the Chef. God forbid he decline the meal altogether. That might weaken the solidarity they’d built between them.

His coworkers had trusted him with their larceny. He was finally part of the team. They felt like friends.

Owen ate heartily and with gratitude that night and in his old age he would regard it as one of the greatest meals of his life.