The Buffet

“What’s on the menu today, boss?” The words are a hiss on the griddle, and he turns to his fry boy, eyes hanging like bloodhounds.

“Same old.” It’s all he can manage to say, when his yellowed jacket is buttoned so tight against his skin. A picture appears in his head- Houdini facing a crowd on the Harvard Bridge, iron chains strapped across his chest- and instinctively he digs for a deep breath in the dark neon of the Starship.

Ramon recalls how he used to feel, staring out at the big-breasted women as they take off their bedazzled panties and shove dollar bills between their cheeks. The word he could recall was alien- hopped up on pinkies of white, everything felt alien, but especially these women, the way they slithered around poles and touched each inch of their torso as if there were buttons underneath the skin with gray men inside, piloting the flesh until they collected enough samples of green to return home.

Today is different, as if the lights are finally turned on in this eternally black shoebox. He can see the mole on Candy’s nose, the wrinkles that Blossom wears on her cheeks and arms and thighs, the way Rosey limps when her left stiletto presses upon the floor. Ramon is desperate, and he fingers his front pocket for the little bag of magic that dutifully awaits him in times like these.

He pulls it out, slipping his right pinky into the bag, his nail half an inch long, and lifts the substance to his nose. Ramon begins to close his eyes, as he always does (it brings the high on quicker, he used to tell his sous chef), but something stops him before he inhales. It’s a man hovering at Ramon’s buffet. He’s in a poorly tailored suit, much too boxy at the shoulders, and has hair that curls over his eyes. Ramon calls these the “weak businessmen”- the ones that do business behind the phone, over the internet. The cave people. They were a staple population at the Starship.

This man, as if blinded by his own orange foliage, is sniffing the buffet. Ramon blinks, making sure he hasn’t accidentally taken the coke and hallucinated the event. But he confirms the man is sniffing, and not just one dish. Every scoop of scrambled egg, every prong of bacon, he sniffs. He hits the lobster, the steak, the cold hamburgers that wallow in their cheesy grave. He smells them like a released prisoner at a farmers’ market. At the end of the buffet, he takes one final whiff of the chicken and walks away, foodless, back to his seat at the stage. 

“What a wacko, boss,” his fry boy says, picking the plaque from his teeth. “We used to have a kid like that at school. Joe the Nose, we called him. Always sniffing in class. We would throw…”

Ramon stops listening. He’s staring at the buffet in front of him, the tin canisters of his creation. His ears begin to get hot, and his nostrils gain an extra inch of breathing room. He knows what this feeling is, and it rises within him like steam, serving his widowed father eggs in the morning, having him push them away all his life. At forty-two, he knows he’s too old for this, too old to take dejection so personally. He’s had a successful career! He’s front-paged Cooking Light two months in a row, for Christ’s sake! And yet he knows what he’ll do next. He washes his hands under the faucet, the cocaine dissolving in the heat, and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows.

“Johnny!” He says, authority a long-dormant muscle he’s been waiting to stretch. “Check the produce drawer. I need four green chiles, two tomatoes, and two yellow onions.” Ramon is already pulling out the cutting board and a fat-faced skillet. “Bring me a dozen eggs, too.”

Johnny, not used to obedience, follows without comment. He puts the ingredients on the right of Ramon. “What you got planned, boss?”

Ramon grabs Johnny’s shoulder. He’s spindly as a wire sculpture, and his hand seems to jostle the entire frame of the man.

“We’re making Ande Ki Bhurji. This isn’t Hot Pockets.” He grips a little harder. “Can you handle it?”

Johnny nods, and there’s something in his broken-tentpole stance that tells Ramon he knows what’s going on. Ramon pushes through. “Dice those vegetables- seed them all. Bring them when you’re done.”

He moves quickly, a reminder of how placid Ramon has become in his advanced age. However, as Ramon hunts through the spice drawer, he sees the opposite effect in his hands, which seem to speed through canisters in a lightning way.

He sees Turmeric and Coriander, grabs both, and begins to close the drawer, before grabbing Kasmiri Chili Powder and smiling at the thought of the man’s nose imploding under the heat.  He loots some salt and pepper, and hunts for some butter and oil. Meanwhile, Johnny has finished dicing the onion. Ramon sweeps the trimmings into a bowl and tells him to continue chopping.

Back at his station, the pan is radiating an exfoliating heat upon Ramon’s forehead. As beads of sweat pedal across his brow, he lets the skillet scream as he drops a mix of oil and butter across its face. On the side, he’s cracking eggs with octopus’ fingers, two at a time. The kitchen is becoming its own melting pot of noises, the percussive thunk of knife against oak, the splat of egg against egg like a bass drum, the sizzling pan ripping a guitar solo. It very well could be a phone call from an ex-girlfriend, the way it makes his heart flutter.

He drops the onions in, and immediately that sultry caramelizing fragrance greets him. He doesn’t have time to enjoy it- there are eggs to beat, and with a whisk, he stirs along with the tempo, like a conductor waving his ivory sticks. His tongue begins to peak between his lips- “Ramon’s feeling the music!” his station chef used to shout upon observation- and he knows the assessment is apt. He’s feeling everything, from Johnny’s tapping foot to the thumping moans of Stardust’s personal dance, from the acrid, greasy walls of his kitchen to the empty-plated patron that won’t ever stop sniffing. He feels it all, and it fuels him.

Ramon whistles, a short flute through his bottom teeth, and Johnny appears, cutting board in hand. He scrapes the diced amalgamation into the pan, and the kitchen erupts in wet pops. Ramon moves to the refrigerator. “Keep it going, young man!” He can see Johnny smiling as they dance around one another.

Ramon bends his knees at the opened coven of freon. He liked to do this at rush hour in his old shop- it was his Harvard Bridge, his own trick for unstrapping the chains. He takes a breath, feels the ice in his lungs, and starts to shop. He sees ginger- he grabs it. A few cloves of garlic. Some sprigs of cilantro and a lime. His hands are full, and he clicks the door closed with his heel.

“Johnny, cutting board.” The kitchen is almost a closet, so it takes only a lean from Johnny to place the board and knife on the opposite workstation. Ramon drops his goods upon them and yells “Cut these up!” The men switch stations. In the transition, Ramon notices the stretch of red under Johnny’s eyes, the sweat collecting at his chin. It’s Ramon’s turn to smile.

The vegetables are sautéed, a hot melting autumn, and Ramon adds to the portrait. He’s using his fingers, pinching his spices and flinging them, each splash a hit of a high hat. This is his big moment, and he knows exactly who he’s playing for. He inhales, feeling the scent curl inside of him like some long-forgotten genie, and with closed eyes, he flicks some more chili powder into the mix.

Johnny is behind him again, and this time he moves without instruction, his skinny arm dragging down the cutting board. The ginger and garlic go tumbling in the concoction, and Ramon stirs it once, twice, three times. Everything is together now, and Johnny turns away, his eyes watering. “You could smell that from Paris,” he says with a laugh, and moves back to his station.

Ramon pulls the bowl of eggs and pours it into the dish. That sizzle is back again, a shock of electric, and yellow pulp begins to crust up on the edges against the heat. Ramon moves the spatula, letting the colors mix into a culinary lava lamp, and watches as the eggs begin to set. He wonders how this man likes his eggs, but he realizes he already knows.

Johnny’s back again, just as Ramon scrapes the meal into a tin container. They split the last ingredients-Johnny tears leaves of cilantro as Ramon squeezes the lime, the juice running down his palm in big pulpy drops. Then, the two men stare at what they created in silence. Ramon knows good food, and Johnny does not, yet they are thinking the same thing.

“Let’s try it,” Johnny says, and he turns to grab a fork. But all he hears is the clang of the double doors as Ramon starts to walk across a neon carpet to the sniveling man. “Hey!” Johnny yells, and he looks out the porthole window. Ramon can’t hear him. He’s back on that alien planet that he’d forgotten, the one where women fly, and men watch like moonrocks. Only this time, he has an anchor to clutch onto, and he locks his fingers around the burning metal, eyes locked on his orange man.

The man turns at the sound of his footsteps, and stares at Ramon as he drops the tin dish on the cocktail table. At this angle, Ramon can finally make out his pupils, and they are what he expects- cloudy blue, lost, same as his fathers. The man puts a hand up to learn of his visitor- Ramon grabs it with calloused grip.

“I’m the chef. My name is Ramon.”

“Hello, Ramon.” The man is inquisitive. His eyes barely blink.

“I made you eggs. I hope you like them.” And with his other hand, he lifts a spoonful of egg onto the man’s empty plate.

He doesn’t say thank you. Instead, he smells. Deep, hungry. It’s Houdini’s head breaking the surface, arms unbound. The air seems to expand in his cavernous suit. Finally, there is no breath left. He exhales silently.

“It’s delicious,” the man says, and he picks up his spoon for the first bite. The man says no more- his eyes are locked on his meal, empty but sensing more than Ramon could ever understand. Ramon watches him eat for a moment, the topaz eggs collecting at the corners of his lips, until Ramon himself has gotten his fill. Then, he collects the rest of the food and walks to the kitchen.

Ramon feels lighter than he has all his life, and he’s afraid he’ll float away from the floor and the strippers and this crazy place he’s fallen into. But he doesn’t. His next step is into the fluorescent kitchen, and as soon as the double doors swing into stasis, the hum of the strip joint gearing up for a new dancer, he is gone.