The Onion

The mayonnaise has not been made.

As the onion contemplates how long it will be until someone notices that the mayonnaise has not been made, it sees Chef Doyle trying not to cry.

Chef Doyle does not cry at work. In general, Chef Doyle does not cry at all, but the onion has no way of knowing that. We only know what the onion knows, and the onion knows that, for the most part, crying at work is frowned upon. The onion also knows that crying in a busy kitchen on a Saturday night is not helpful when the tickets are already piling up and the weeds are so high you feel like you’re in a Floridian swamp.

The onion has never been to Florida. It’s from Eastern Oregon. The restaurant is in Portland. The onion has no opinion of Florida, or Portland, or Chef Doyle crying. The onion has considered having opinions about crying people, but opinions seem dense and fibrous. An onion doesn’t have much room for anything but itself. It has memories and a few feelings, but the feelings are mainly about being an onion.

And concern.

Why hasn’t the mayonnaise been made yet?

The onion notices Chef Doyle avoiding making eye contact with Chef Marza. The two chefs seem to be maneuvering around each other in a way that almost resembles a dance. The onion saw two of the busboys dancing in the kitchen earlier while singing a song called “El Hombre Grande” before they were chased out by the chef with the mustache who the onion thinks of as Chef Mustache, because nobody ever uses his name. They just call him “Chef.”

Chef Marza wipes her brow, and a bead of sweat falls down onto the steel prep table. A head of lettuce is grabbed with a bit too much aggression, and she proceeds to chop it with a fervor the onion has not seen from the chef until this moment. Chef Doyle coughs, but the cough obviously (obviously to the onion) was meant to conceal a burst of emotion. The onion wanted Chef Doyle to cry and get it over with, but Chef Doyle excused himself from the kitchen instead. Chef Marza seems to note his exit, but it doesn’t deter her from the task at hand. The lettuce is dismembered. The onion feels sympathy for the lettuce. Someday that will be the onion. Not today, of course, because somebody has mistakenly placed the onion behind a rather tall container of salt, and it is almost totally hidden.

The onion knows the salt won’t spare the onion from its fate forever, but based on how often the kitchen is thoroughly cleaned, it’ll be a few weeks before they find it. When they do, it’s unlikely they will use it for food. It’ll go in the trash next to scraps and peels and an empty container of heavy cream. The onion isn’t sure whether or not it’s happy to be cast aside instead of consumed. An onion that’s eaten becomes something other than an onion. An onion made garbage is still, for the most part, an onion. It’ll wind up in a landfill or a dump somewhere, and it might be allowed to exist that way until it decomposes or sprouts. Most likely, it will sprout and the onion likes that idea. It likes it very much.

Of course that all depends on whether or not somebody moves the salt. There is so much salt in this kitchen. The chef in charge of inventory is not very good at his job. That means many things get ordered even when they’re not needed, and some things never get ordered at all. Good luck finding any parsnips in this kitchen.

Or mayonnaise for that matter.

At least, mayonnaise can be made. You can’t make a parsnip. Not unless you’re God. The onion wondered if it was God. Could God be an onion? The onion tried not to get too lofty. If you don’t have room for opinions about crying, you can’t have religion. You can’t have philosophy. You can’t have resentment either, which is nice. That means if you end up getting chopped, you don’t hold any ill will against the person chopping you. If Chef Marza moves the salt, sees the onion, and promptly dices it, the onion will not carry any bad feelings as it’s being decimated. The role of chefs is to turn the food into the cuisine. The role of the food is to try and make peace with itself as the knife comes down. Marie Antoinette may have had to find that same kind of peace, but the onion knows nothing of Marie Antoinette or the French Revolution, although it did overhear one of the chefs saying something about the American Civil War, because there had been a question about it at something called “trivia” the previous night. Apparently, the chef had done rather well at “trivia” and had won something called a “coaster.”

Chef Doyle comes back into the kitchen. There is some red under his eyes, but he seems to be composed. He walks over to Chef Marza and whispers something into her ear. She shakes her head and begins to peel a potato. Chef Doyle whispers again, perhaps repeating what he said the first time, and this causes Chef Marza to stop peeling the potato. She stares at him. She says nothing. Her lip is quivering. Might she cry? So much crying in this kitchen. The tickets are piling up. The busboys are coming in, but they’re not singing. They’re sweating. The chef who chased them out earlier is asking where the salmon is. Where is the salmon? There should be a salmon. The onion knows there has not been a salmon tonight. A salmon will have to be made. And mayonnaise. And who knows what else.

The onion sees Chef Marza say something with lips quivering, with eyes blinking and blinking hard, with a shaky hand. She says something, and Chef Doyle puts up his hands in a way that either says “I surrender” or “I’m so, so sorry.” The chef looking for the salmon is asking why the steak is cold. He’s standing over a plate of steak and he’s putting his finger on the steak and he’s determining that it’s cold. He’s screaming about it. He’s screaming “Cold! Cold!” and he takes the dish, and throws it directly into the trash. Chef Marza goes back to the potato. She is not affected by the screaming chef. Chef Doyle goes looking for salmon. Nobody does anything about the mayonnaise.

The onion settles into its spot behind the salt. It will be busy for another few hours, and then the tickets will stop spitting out of the small, gray machine that distributes them. The rags will come out. Light cleaning will be done, but no one will move the salt. Plans will be made to go to bars that stay open later than restaurants. Chef Doyle and Chef Marza will leave separately. The screaming chef will make himself a drink at the bar in the restaurant, and if anybody sees him, he’ll give them a look that dares them to say anything about it. The lights will be turned off. The night will be over. The restaurant is closed the next day and the day after that. The onion will not see any of them again until Tuesday.

What will the onion do until Tuesday?

The onion doesn’t know. There's uncertainty. There’s darkness. There’s the smell of cleaning solution and the persistence of garlic and oil.

All that would be enough to make anybody cry, but the onion doesn’t cry. 

It won’t. 

It can’t.

Crying is one thing the onion can’t do.