Noy Holland - The Spectacle of the Body

I did doubles, since I was the new girl. The old girls were strictly evenings. They were Frenchies. Your Frenchies will never work lunch.

I was doubling, the day I’m talking about. The place was empty. I’d gotten slammed, but the crowd cleared out. You get your delinquent diners, sure, but this day the floor cleared out.

I checked the walk-in. I switched off the pot of coffee. Punched out. It’s a feeling — punching out.

But then the old stick started coughing.

The owner was gone and the head chef was gone and the old guy had gotten his own menu because the hostess had punched out early. It was hours before the Frenchies would come. Let’s face it, I’m gonna tell the old stick to get lost.

For starters, he sat at a six-top. There were two-tops all over the place. But they guy had to sit at a six-top. He was moving stuff around on the table.

“You expecting somebody else?” I said.

“I believe I’ll have Alfredo,” he said. “Yes. How is your Alfredo?”

“Listen,” I started to tell the guy.

“Or snapper. I haven’t had the snapper,” he said. “But, oh, now. Wait, now. I suppose snapper has those bones. I’m not supposed to have bones,” he said. “Something soft,” he said, “not too spicy.”

“Listen a minute,” I said to the guy. “Have you noticed the time lately? ‘Cause I already worked the lunch shift.”

“Lunch?” he said.

“It’s a quarter to four.”

The guy tipped up his wristwatch.

“I’ve got to get back for dinner,” I said. No over-time, etc. I mentioned the Frenchies and all.

“Frenchies?” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

“ Au bon pain, ” says the old guy.

Au bon pain , my ass, say I. I don’t speak French. The Frenchies come in and speak French and I don’t know a thing they say.

“I’m Swiss myself,” said the old guy. He put his hand out for me to shake it.

I didn’t get much of a look at the hand. His finger bent into my palm — what was left of his finger did. It was stubbed, blunt where the bump of a knuckle would be. The tip was silky. It was cool. I thought of the bones the boys threw in the bin outside the kitchen door. They were veiny, hacked-off shanks, balls of the balls and sockets. It moved, the finger, the stub of it, pushing around in my palm. I pulled my hand back. He held it.

“Oh, look,” he said, “marsala. I adore a good marsala.”

I pulled my hand back. I grabbed the menu. I tried to be French about it.

“And wine,” he said. “May I see the wine list?”

“We don’t have one,” I lied.

He tugged off his jacket. A bunch of fat veins popped up in his arms. It was the only thing fat that was on him.

“Something dry, then. Not red,” he said. “I can’t possibly have the red,” he said. “Something French, though. You know. Something oaky.”

“Oaky,” I said.

“And osso buco.”

“I thought you said marsala,” I said.

I could smell him. He smelled like something cooking — something sort of sweet to me, cooling. But I saw his skin looked grungy. He didn’t look a bit like he smelled to me. He had all those veins in his arms and all the skin between looked grungy. He looked scaly over all I saw of the guy.

“And bring me a dainty fork,” he said. “The daintiest fork you have,” he said. “I adore the marrow. Don’t you adore the marrow?” he said. “Oh, bingo, bring two forks.

“C’mere a sec,” he said.

I leaned closer. The old guy reached up his hand to me and he took a hold of the tie I wore that I — that all of us — have to work in. I put my hands on the table. He was just a light guy. I could feel how light he was. He lifted up out of the chair to me and then he dropped himself back in it again.

“That’s better. Oh, that’s an improvement,” he said.

He took his hat off. He picked a comb out of his pocket.

“Forgive me. I forget,” he said.

He pulled the comb through the clump of his hair so his hair curved over the marks on his scalp, a spray of red spots. They looked like BB holes, those spots, in his head. He had put some kind of stuff in his hair, some gel like some of the young guys use that made his head look greasy. His hair was silver.

“That looks good,” I said.

I brought him his wine and poured out a glass and pushed the bottle down in a bucket of ice. He pulled out the chair beside him.

“Won’t you be so kind?” he asked me.

I checked the clock for Frenchies.

“What the hell,” I said. I sat down with the guy.

“Here’s to us,” he said.

We clinked our glasses. The wine was oaky. Who’d have thought it could taste so oaky? We polished off the bottle. It was just me and him by then, and the Mexican boys in the kitchen. I carried the empty out into the street and dropped it in the bin outside. I got the wine list. I thumbed through the whites for the priciest one and brought it back to the table. I brought the food out. I brought two forks.

“Hey,” I said. I nudged him. “Hey, come on. It’s here.”

His hair had slid off to one side of his head and was spotting the cloth on the table.

“It’s suppertime.” I nudged him.

“Is this what I asked for?” He sat up. “Are you certain this is what I asked for?”

He smoothed his hair back, his fingers shining with the grease he used. The spots I had seen on his head showed through. They looked hot. They looked hotter, I thought.

“It’s osso buco,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. “So it is, so it is. Here’s to us,” he said. He filled our glasses.

I got a big pile of linen from the hutch and carried it back to the table; I was worried about the Frenchies. But I was feeling pretty good by then.

I started folding napkins. I got a little stack of them going. The guy picked up a napkin from the top of the stack and shook the creases out of it. He tucked it into his collar. His hands were shaking. He dabbed at his neck with the napkin. He dabbed at his mouth. A little spit bubbled out from between his lips. It was something. I had to give up on the napkins. He kept picking up napkins from the top of the stack and dabbing at something with them.

“I give up,” I said.

The guy sawed at the meat with the knife I brought and got a little chunk cut off. It took him about a month to chew it. You could hear him working the meat around with his tongue, his jaw making big, slow circles. Then he pushed it out into his fingers.

“ Incroyable, ” he said.

He placed the meat on the rim of his plate. Selected a leaf of arugula.

I mean, it went on. By the time he had spat out enough stuff to garnish the plate with a nasty crown, the Frenchies had started to come.

He put down his knife and his dinner fork.

“I suppose that will do,” he said.

He swallowed a little sip of wine. He poked the times of the tiny fork I had brought into the soft spot of bone and twisted out the marrow. He lowered his mouth to the fork, slipped the marrow off with his tongue.

“Nnnnrrhh,” he said. “Gaawww.”

It looked like he was trying to swallow. But that he could not.

The Frenchies took seats at the four-top.

The old guy pushed the lump out on his tongue and stroked it off with his finger. He picked up a napkin. He puked a little spot of bile into the bunched-up napkin.

I had started to feel pretty dizzy. One of the Frenchies said my name — something that sounded to me like my name. Maybe it was just some syllable in the language they were talking.

“ Au chocolat, ” said the old guy.

His head had started to wobble. A thread of spit swung down from his mouth. He gaffed me by the neck with his hand. I could smell the food he had chewed up. I smelled the marrow he had scraped out of the boiled shank of bone. I let him kiss me.