Behind the swinging door

I quit that crappy landscaping job after about 3 months. Just never went back. It was a crappy thing to do and my Dad made me go back and talk to the guy that owned the place. He was actually one of my Dad's customers. His name was Dave and he was actually a really cool person, very intense though. He forgave me for abandoning my job. He knew I was just a dumb kid trying to figure things out. Gave me some good advice though. "Do what you love for a living. Then it won't seem like work." He wished me well and I was grateful for the conversation and the fact that my Dad had made me face the music.

Right after that I got my first job in a restaurant. A friend from high school was working as a kitchen manager at a family steak and seafood restaurant on the shore of the local lake. He got me a job as a prep cook. My first day was spent peeling shrimp. I was positioned in front of a large 3 compartment sink with a red plastic shrimp peeler tool and 50lbs. of shrimp floating in icy water. I'd never peeled shrimp before but by the time I was finished with that first 50lbs. I was pretty expert at it! While I was working away at the shrimp I took in the surroundings of the kitchen. There were four guys on the hot line cooking. All of them were a year or two older than me and had graduated from the same high school as me. They had a great camaraderie. They had the radio blasting a local rock n' roll station. Out of the corner of my eye I'd see columns of flame jump from the grill, plates clattering, the chaotic ballet of line work in full swing. Cute young waitresses came in and out of the swinging door that led to the dining room. They waited on the other side of the line with their hands on their hips, smacking gum, little aprons around their waists stuffed with pens and order pads. The dining room was another world beyond that door. The two areas of the establishment could not have been more different. In the dining room order reigned supreme, employees on their best behavior. In the kitchen it was chaotic and primal but with a rhythm and trajectory that immediately made sense to me. The guys on the line were like cowboy gunslingers with their spatulas and tongs. They dealt in steaks, lobster tails, hush puppies, slinging food from their hips with impressive speed and accuracy.

At the end of the night I helped the guys clean the kitchen. It was a team effort. Everyone wrapped up their food products and stashed it away for the night in coolers. Out came buckets of soapy suds and scrub pads. The whole stainless steel monolith got scrubbed from top to bottom and then wiped clean with bright white cotton towels. Then we swept the floor with brooms from one end to the other. Next came the water hose and not cold water but piping hot. Brian (the friend who had hired me) manned the nozzle and guided streams of scalding water across the terra cotta tile floor. He sprayed beneath all the equipment, got all the corners and nooks and crannies. Then we took a scrub brush and scrubbed it down, every inch. Afterwards we rinsed the deck free of suds, squeegeed off the excess and allowed it to dry. Brian asked me to help him haul the trash up to the dumpster at the top of the parking lot. We loaded bags into the back of a beat up old pickup and went to the cavernous, stinking box. He had the radio on in the truck. Always music. He parked the truck on the opposite side of the container of the restaurant, killed the lights. I began to get out when he said, "Whoah, slow down....We got some smoking to do." With that he pulled out a big fat joint, lit it, took a big long drag and passed it to me. I smiled and took a nice long hit myself, blew a streaming cloud of smoke out the window. I didn't know it at the time but I'd found my niche. I'd found my place. We tossed the trash into the dumpster and went back to the sparkling clean kitchen. Already it was beginning to feel like home.