On the River
Short story
Like most Wednesdays, a short story today. Enjoy, and if you are new here, welcome. Best, Tom.
Danny dragged the 55 gallon plastic garbage can across the kitchen to the back door, which he bumped out of his way with his back end and then, using one leg as a sledge while hoisting the can a half inch off the ground, maneuvered it to the door of the incinerator. He tied off the bag and then managed to extract it from the can and in it went. In a few moments, the large pieces of prime rib fat that he’d scraped off the dinner plates would ignite, and the fire would rage until there was nothing left but grey ash.
Over his shoulder he heard some shouting; angry voices were arguing in the parking lot. He opened the gate and, as he suspected, it was James the cook getting the drop off from Malinda his wife? girlfriend?, it was unknown. James was tanked, a problem for a diabetic, and he was adamant that he was fine, that work was no problem, “baby, you know me better than that, ain’t nothin’ for me, this job, I got it.”
Malinda shot back “Yeah, you damn well betta have it, cause I don’t want no man outta no job, in my house.” She started creeping ahead, yelling at James to close the “damn door;” James made the turn to grab the door and walk away, but the turn was more than he could handle. He fell backwards, his shoulders and head finding the rear side panel of the car just above the wheel well. Malinda stopped on a dime and raced out to inspect the car, her eyes filled with fury.
“Oh, you’re a damn sight, a damn sight, get yo ass up off’n the ground, boy,” she screamed, running her hand over the car to feel any unsightly damage. James didn’t move or respond. Malinda grabbed his shirt and tugged it around this way and that, but nothing, James was out cold. She stood straight up then, hands on hips, and spied Danny standing by the gate watching the proceedings.
“Call a damn ambulance, James got diabetes, he gotta go to the emergency room. You hear me, call an ambulance, I gotta go to work. I ain’t got no time for this mess.”
Danny went back into the kitchen. At the end of the cooks line there was a window into the club office. He knocked a few times until he got the secretary’s attention. She scooted over on her office chair and opened the window just enough to hear him.
“Hey, uh, call an ambulance. James the cook passed out, he’s on the ground in the parking lot. I guess he’s got some diabetes thing, and drunk, too.” Danny told the secretary, who listened without blinking.
Danny turned around and walked into the Chef, Rob. “What you doin’ back here?” the Chef asked him.
“I had to tell Rose that James is passed out in the parking lot and needs an ambulance,” Danny responded.
“He’s what?,” Chef yelled, and he ran out the back door and into the large garbage can that Danny left there in his haste to tell Rose to call an ambulance. He let out a barrage of cussing and spitting while he limped over to James, who was in a pile in the middle of the parking lot driveway. “You can’t just leave a man in the damn driveway, Danny!”
Danny and Rob leaned over James, to see if he was still alive. Yep, he was breathing, and you could smell the whiskey stank, too. “He can’t drink, the damn fool, he’s diabetic, man, it’s gonna kill’em,” Rob said.
Art the general manager of the club walked up now. He was a nervous man, forever straightening his tie when in a tight spot. “What happened?” he wanted to know.
“Malinda the screamer dropped him off, and then he passed out, fell into her car, and we just called the ambulance,” Danny told them.
“Ok, well let’s get him out of the driveway for chrissake,” Art said.
“Yeah,” Rob agreed, and everyone took a limb and started to drag James’ large body to the other side of Art’s black Audi, out of harm’s and eye’s way.
Members were leaving after lunch regularly now. A foursome of ladies came out, and several deuces of business men. “How was lunch?” Art asked each party, straightening his tie one or twice, the three of us standing between two cars like pigeons, trying to look careless. “Don’t lean on the car, Danny!” Art barked in a low voice.
Danny turned and noticed the fat in the garbage bag had started to melt and the fire was shooting three feet out of the door of the incinerator. He ran over a took a shovel to get the door closed. He took a garden spade in the other hand and managed to clamp the door shut, but the fire was really raging now; hopefully it wouldn’t climb up the stack.
“That fire’s gonna get into the stack, Danny!” Rob said, standing behind him watching the last second save. “Damn fire department gonna be here next.” In the distance they could hear the ambulance coming. “Go ahead and finish up the dishes Danny, there’s no reason for you to be out here,” Rob said, always looking out for the boys who worked in the kitchen, just high schoolers.
They had to drag James out from between two cars, and got an earful from the paramedics about having moved the body. A small crowd of twelve or fifteen members stood off to the side, hearing and seeing it all. As soon as the paramedics took over completely Art walked over to explain who James was and what he was doing on the ground between two cars. He alternated between brushing his tie and the hair above his eyes, his nervous ticks heightened by the crowd’s scrutiny. They dispersed but Art could hear the discontent. “I’ll call the Admiral later and get out in front of this,” Art thought.
After the ambulance was away, Rob came back into the kitchen. He walked over the dish area. Danny was just finishing the final cleanup.
Rob looked at Danny, “So she saw him pass out and fall into her car, and she just drove off,” Rob said, searching Danny’s face for enlightenment, “What the hell are people thinking?”
The door to the dining room swung open. Art quickly surveyed the scene and resolved “I need some help outside, in front,” and was just as quickly gone.
“What the hell does he want, now?” Rob asked Danny.
“He wants me to help on the roof,” Danny said.
“THE ROOF,” Rob exclaimed.
Danny walked around the dish station and out the dining room door. Rob walked back behind the cook’s line to the window by the office. “What the hell is Art doing on the roof, that boy is only 16, he can’t be working on the damn roof?” Rob asked Rose.
“I don’t know, says there a leak to fix,” Rose answered, glancing up from her typewriter.
“What the hell is that guy thinking?” Rob said, to no one in particular. But Rose took the question for herself. “People ask me that all the time, and I still don’t have an answer,” Rose said, and then, glancing over her shoulder added “he won’t be here much longer, the admiral is not happy.”
Art had brought up the supplies and tools. He set the ladder against the roof line and had Danny carry up four 5 gallon buckets of tar and some hand tools and then Art followed him up the ladder. On the roof, Art showed Danny how to open the buckets using a screwdriver first to lift the tabs, and then a hammer to pop the lid.
“Look I need you to spread out this tar all over the flat area here” Art said, motioning to a small section of the roof. It was a flat area about 50 square feet.
“Once you pour out the tar, you use this squeegee here to spread it evenly,” Art said and then as a demonstration he poured about half a bucket out and just as the streams lightened into thin wisps a gust came up from the river and blew tar all over the the legs of his light blue summer suit. Art jumped out of the way, and that movement caused a gulp of tar to land on his shoe and his arms to rise in defense against the black devil and now it spread across his jacket, his white shirt and some even got on the crotch of his pants. Danny looked for a place to hide. Art dropped the bucket on its side and some jumped up and went right over his head in a small act of mercy. Art flew to the ladder and down he went, cussing and spitting like mad.
Danny figured he had the job sorted out as well as he could and didn’t want to have to return. So he poured the rest of the first bucket out and gave the squeegee a turn. After a few minutes the rest of the tar was spread across the flat area. Danny left the buckets to rest upside down in the last untarred area, and he sat down to admire the view of the river. There were already boats leaving the marinas along the river. The sky was blue and the wind rippled over the river. You could see the folks at the park across the water in Windsor. It was nice to see a boat leave under motor, and then watch the men raise the sails and catch the wind, leaning the boat to the side as the captain yelled instructions that you could hear but not make out clearly. The pulleys clanked against the hollow steel masts until the sail caught the full wind and the boat cut a quick, quiet line through the waves.
Danny brought down the empty buckets two at a time. Then he finished the last squeegee from the ladder, and brought down all the tools. He put everything away and cleaned off the tar that Art had left on the ladder. When he went back into the kitchen, Rob walked over.
“What he have you do up there, Danny? You got to tell him ‘No’ when he asks you to do that stuff,” Rob explained.
Danny told Rob all about what happened as plainly as possible. It hadn’t occurred to Danny that the whole episode was hilarious, but Rob broke out laughing so loud that Rose and Helen both came to the window and wanted to know what was so funny. Rob grabbed Danny’s arm and walked him back to the window and made him tell the office girls what happened. They laughed themselves silly, and then just as they calmed down Art walked into the office, reeking of gasoline. He had huge brown spots all over his suit, tie and shirt, and the crotch of his pants was destroyed. It was worse than Danny remembered it. Rob and the girls could not contain themselves. Rob was clapping his hands wildly and yelling “Oh wow, man!” over and over. The office girls were crying, and gasping for breath. “Ahh,” they exclaimed and then bent over like jack knives for another go at it. Art was as red as could be and stood astonished to be the center of this spectacle. He grabbed his car keys and marched out the door, running his hand over his now spoiled tie.
Things calmed down after a while. All the bartenders and waitresses came into the kitchen eventually and Rob took over telling the story. Finally, Greg the front of the house manager, came in. He’d already heard the story from the office girls. Danny meanwhile put away the rest of the dishes and finished up his work for the day.
“So Chef,” Greg started, “what’s the plan for tonight. We have Tuesday races tonight, so there’s going to be an early rush of sailors for sandwiches and burgers. Any chance you could stay and help out? Greg asked, looking at Danny. This brought everyone back to the reality that James was in the hospital.
“Yeah, sure,” Danny said, happy for the overtime.
“OK, well take a break and get a fresh apron. Is there a fresh chef’s coat he can wear?” Greg asked, giving it a thought.
“Yeah, man, we got a chef’s coat just his size in the room, with James’s name on it,” Rob answered, happy for the help.
Danny got dressed in the coat and a fresh apron, which everyone embarrassed him about, calling out “look at the new chef.” Then Rob helped him get his station set up for the night, making large and small burger patties and loading bags of fries and frozen chicken into the freezer near the line. He also cut steaks after a short tutorial from Rob, and weighed them as he went to make sure they were exactly 10 ounces. He missed a little on the first one, but then he got it locked in and it was no problem. Rob was bustling hard now, he had to do his job and most of James’s as well. Then unexpectedly the admiral walked in the back kitchen door. He was in charge of the club for a three year stint after a vote from his fellow members. He was large Greek man who owned a local factory. He was still in his suit and tie.
“It’s Danny, right,” he asked.
“Yes,” Danny replied, stopping his work.
“Thanks for filling in, schools out now?” the admiral asked, aware he was talking to a teen ager, the same age as his own.
“Yes sir, just last Friday” Danny answered.
The admiral chuckled. “So did you do some work on the roof of the building today, Danny?”
“Yes, we went up there to spread tar on the flat area,” Danny replied.
Rob stood behind them, looking on, not laughing now.
“Well, you shouldn’t have been asked to do that, that’s a professional job, not for part time kitchen staff.”
“Yes sir,” Danny said again.
“No, it’s not your fault. But it won’t happen again,” the admiral said. “Are you playing ball again this year?”
“Yeah, sure,” Danny said smiling, remembering the game against the admiral’s son.
“Go easy on my boy Nick, now,” the admiral laughed. Nick ran for the Pointe’s North team and Danny lined him up a couple of times the previous season.
And that was the end of it, the admiral left the way he came.
Greg was right. With the fair weather the Tuesday races drew a large, hungry crowd. Danny cooked 60 hamburgers, a dozen or so steaks and one order of lamb chops, and fried several bags of frozen potatoes. Rob cooked all the fish and chicken, and sliced the prime rib.
“He’s a natural,” the waitresses complimented him to Rob, who was only too happy to have the help.
Rob asked Danny what he had on the broiler over and over again, keeping track of the orders. It all went pretty smooth and then it was over at 6:00. The sailors raced to their boats and two by two they left the marina and opened their sails to the stiff west wind that blew up the river, and the pulleys on the mast quit clanking as they fell under tension.
“Alright, Danny, thanks man, for everything, jumpin’ in,” Rob said, “and the laughs.” which everyone in the kitchen agreed had been a good day’s work.
‘I’m going to take a carryout ok?” Danny asked Rob, quietly. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Sure, Danny,” Rob replied.
Danny went to the cold station and made himself a very thick roast beef sandwich which he wrapped up with pickles and a bag of ruffle chips. He also took a piece of coconut cream pie, a favorite. His sack complete he dropped the coat and apron into the hamper and put on his sweatshirt. Rob was at the window talking to the admiral. Then he followed Danny to the timeclock.
“Danny, do you think you can handle the cook’s job here,” Rob asked. “It’ll be five days and forty hours until we can hire someone else.”
“Yeah, ok,” Danny said.
“And we’ll give you a little more by the hour, too,” Rob said.
“Ok.”
Danny punched out and walked to his old beater in the employee lot, wondering what a “little more” hourly amounted to.
He drove a few miles east, and pulled into a drive of a two story red brick house. His girlfriend Laura was on the porch, and jumped up happy to see him.
“I thought you were going to call me this afternoon?” she asked at the side window of the car.
“Work got a little crazy, today, sorry,” Danny offered. “Can you take a drive now?”
“One minute,” Laura raced up the steps and came back with a light jacket. She jumped in and as Danny backed out and turned he saw her Dad standing in the door giving him the once over.
“Your folks were ok about it?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, home by ten, though, no later,” Laura replied, playing with the radio stations.
Danny got back to Jefferson and made a right. “Let’s go up by the lake in the Pointes, ok?”
“Yeah sure,” Laura said, happy now with the radio and the waterfront plan.
Grisly Jefferson Avenue in Detroit with all the sordid liquor stores and broken down buildings started to cheer up as they made their way east. As they entered the Pointes there were beautiful houses on either side of the road, now a boulevard. Then in a flash, the neighborhood on the south side ended and there was the lake, its light whitecaps breaking over the deep blue water. Danny drove on for another mile and then made a left and found a parking spot above the lake on a side street. He grabbed his sack and a blanket and the two of them headed to the water.
“God, I haven’t eaten all day,” Danny said as he stretched out on the blanket, half of the roast beef in his left hand, his right elbow propping him up. “What’d you have for dinner, Giordano?”
“Oh, the usual, you know, steak with peppers and onions, spaghetti, salad, green beans, bread,” Laura said, knowing this would make Danny jealous.
“You’re not getting any of this sandwich,” Danny laughed, trying to get even. “So what was there for dessert.”
“Oh, we didn’t have dessert tonight, Mom wasn’t up for it. I was going to make cookies but she didn’t want the mess, she said,” Laura mentioned.
“Well, nice guy that I am I’ll share my coconut cream pie with you,” Danny offered, smiling.
“For real, you’ve got coconut cream pie in there?” Laura asked.
They both reached for the sack at the same time, but Laura was a little closer and a little quicker. She grabbed it, but Danny was on her right away, wrapped around her as she screamed and laughed, trying to hold the bag away from him. “Ok, you can have the pie, but I’ll need a kiss then,” Danny said. Laura rolled her head back and to the side and planted one on him. It made him want more of the same but she was after the pie now.
“I’ve never had this before,” Laura said. Undoing the little box with the pie inside. “Wow, look at that, so pretty.”
She found the spoon in the bottom of the sack and filled it with coconut and whipped cream. “Mmmm,” she muttered, opening her eyes wide.
“Oh, that kiss just killed you, huh,” Danny teased.
“You’re running a distant second to the coconut cream, buddy boy,” Laura teased back.
Danny finished his sandwich and together they cleaned up the pie container. The wind was still chipper, gusting a little more as the sun got low in the sky. Danny found her jacket and put his own sweatshirt on, too.
“So what was so crazy at work today?” Laura asked as they settled in to talk.
Danny went over the whole afternoon for her; the cook, James, in the parking lot, with Malinda, then the incinerator, and finally the cream of the day’s events, spreading the tar on the roof with the manager, and on the manager, the big brown spots, the run out the door, the reaction of the staff. Laura rolled over laughing while Danny attempted again to tell the story plainly. He smiled at her, rolling onto her side laughing. Finally, after catching her breath, she wrapped her arms around Danny, “Why do these things always happen to you, Danny?” she asked.
“I’m open to new experiences?” Danny said, coming up with something original. They both laughed.
June rolled along much like it started. The club hired a new manager. Danny helped Laura get a job at the club, first in the kitchen on dishes, but the waitstaff quickly spied a winner and had her working out front. After work they spent the last hours before sleep at a park or on the waterfront. Danny always brought the food; sometimes a sweet, sometimes shrimp and cocktail sauce - a taste neither of them had ever tried before - and on a rare occasion a steak that was somehow never claimed, and once they even tried lamb chops. They talked about friends and family, music and concerts, and what comes after high school, sometimes they made out on the blanket. In early July they went to Pine Knob and sat on the blanket, smoked their first joint, shared by a neighbor, and listened to Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band never sound better.
Life settled down at the club. Danny was no longer the inexperienced rookie who gets a lot of runway, but a member of the cooking staff with responsibilities. Out front now, Laura became a popular girl around the club. She started spending her time off out on a boat with Nick, the admiral’s son, and his friends from North.
She saw less and less of Danny outside of work, and then not at all. Danny did the 12 to 8 shift, working alongside Rob on the lunch rush and working the broiler for the first dinner seating. When he left at night, the parking lot was full and quiet, the crowd inside raising a ruckus, a light breeze brushing the river while the pulleys softly clanked against the masts in the marina. Danny spent nights now with boys from school, most of them ballers, too. They drank beer and played basketball or tossed the football, talked about football season, which was getting close, and took midnight swims in the river. In the morning they often met to lift weights at the high school. Sometimes they’d ask Danny about that girl he met from Dominican High, but Danny had nothing to say.
Laura walked into the kitchen one Friday, expecting to see Danny, but there was a new man on the broiler station. “Where’s Danny,” she asked Rob.
“Football,” Rob said, too busy to explain.
It was almost two years later when she ran into Danny, just before Christmas, at the local mall. He was home from school. They talked a little, wished a Merry Christmas and moved on.