Jay Fox - THE WALLS

It's almost ten thirty at this point. I am to meet Tomas and Aberdeen in Williamsburg at a small club at midnight. I do not know the name of the act that we are going to see, nor am I too concerned about the set starting punctually. I know the venue well; I know I can make it into Bushwick, shower, and get back into Williamsburg without missing a single note of the set, as the place is, on a good night, twenty minutes behind schedule. Vinati is working late, and doubts that she will want to come to the show after her shift. The local tunnel becomes illuminated. The headlights will soon appear.

The incidents that followed my initial humiliation were as expected. I was removed into the kitchen, where I was allowed to eat before beginning the seven-and-a-half hours of work demanded of me. The staff was pleasant, but conversation was rather limited. None of them knew more than a few words of English with the exception of the head chef, who was Québécois. Almost all of the other workers were from South or Central America. Diego, the dishwasher whose shift I was to assume with his consent, was the only Puerto Rican on staff. The consensus among his fellow employees was that he was a total hard-ass whose mantra was maricón , which, the staff believed, said more about him than it did about the people with whom he typically interacted. I didn't really get this impression. He was a veritable faucet of gratitude when I spoke to him over the phone. The opportunity to take a catering gig had just come up, and it paid about three times more than the meager wages afforded him as a dishwasher, so he was more than willing to let me fill in for him with my request.

It was established early on that my Spanish was worse than the English of anyone in the kitchen. They would shake their heads when they came to drop off stacks of pans, laugh, and say a few adjectives — in either Spanish or English — to complement the nouns “bitch” or “whore” or “bruja” or a few others that I can't recall. Javier, the twenty-eight year old sous-chef on the cold side of the kitchen, was the nicest of the bunch. He gave me a cigarette about halfway through the shift. As we smoked, he asked where I was from; I asked where he was from. We tripped over words, laughed, and complimented one another's misogyny like soldiers sharing a foxhole. He was beginning a course in English, which he said was way more difficult than Spanish, and planned to eventually enroll at either Hunter or another CUNY school once he had some money saved up. He told me that he wants to own a restaurant in California, which is where most of his family is currently living. He also wants to travel, especially to Europe.

Before all of this, however, I was told to clean the two bathrooms, which gave me ample time to brood. As I was scrubbing the floor around the toilet of the men's room, I thought of a Latin quote that, for whatever reason, has always resonated in my mind. Et in Arcadia Ego . I am even in Arcadia. To me, it wasn't only the voice of Death, as some attest, but the presence of misfortune, ill luck, and perhaps even inevitability. It is the force of corruption manifested into a skeleton adorned in a black rope and holding a scythe as to indicate that we, the living, are as formidable as blades of grass to this imperious force. But that's a fairly banal way of looking at it, accurate as it may be. Personally, I tend to imagine Death as a naked skeleton that simply beats the life out of people with a clock that's been modified to also serve as a mace. The thought brought a morbid smile to my face throughout the day.

Anyone who has washed dishes at a restaurant knows that it is not as bad as it is made out to be in film and television. You rarely have to scrub all that hard because the water pressure of the…well, it's essentially a showerhead, is strong enough to wipe away most of the remnants of food that will not be eliminated by the washing machine. I can't see doing it every day, of course, but at least the time goes by fairly quickly. You are constantly finishing something, which reminds you that progressing toward the end of your shift. There are moments when the amount of dishes seems overwhelming, true, but you know that each dish brings you closer to freedom. I guess most jobs are fairly similar.

I think the one major complaint about the whole enterprise concerns the explosive water pressure of the faucet. Your shirt and shoes inevitably get soaked to the point where you can feel portions of your epidermis begin to detach from the rest of your body. There's also a smell that attaches itself to you, a stench that, however unequivocal, can only be described as conjunction of bleach, sweat, and cooking oil. Mix that with the garlic and the onions permeating from the pores in my hands (I did a little bit of prep work), and you get an explanation as to why the passengers on the downtown train are dispersed so unevenly. Even the guy begging for change refuses to come within a few feet of me. We catch eyes. He nods sympathetically before passing.

There is a klezmer band on the J-M-Z platform at Canal Street. I don't get to hear a complete song because a train actually comes within three of four minutes. The ride into Bushwick is not much different in terms of my being a pariah, but there are far fewer people on the train. My reflection is that of a transient, a nuanced bum, and I know that it’s best to try not to meet anyone's eyes.

Vocalists in various shades of senility sing along with songs that I faintly know. A guy in a once-classy suit with a martini croons along with Dean Martin; a lone mariachi takes on the higher harmony in a song made famous by Trio Los Panchos. The two eventually meet at the same door, as they are both getting off at the Marcy stop. And though there is a discernible amount of contempt between the two, there is also an odd sense of mutual respect. They leave.

The silence is momentary. A West Indian woman greets the train car with a voice that resonates throughout the car. She proceeds to proselytize in a thick accent. It's pretty standard stuff: the world is ending because people don't worship Jesus, Jesus is the embodiment of forgiveness, Jesus will not forgive you come Judgment Day unless you acquiesce to the teachings of a book in which he is quoted about six or seven times. The doors open. A bus comes to a shrieking halt at the corner of Broadway. The multitude of raindrops gives the impression of one continuous hissing sound. She smiles, says a blessing, and then hands me a pamphlet that outlines a series of tenets that even a Medieval peasant would have considered rudimentary and, well, stupid.

The rest of the ride is uneventful. I am forced to endure people's curiosity. It's frustrating, but understandable. As the train comes to my stop, I reach in my pocket to find that I still have the fifty dollars — actually fifty-three dollars — that I had when I entered the restaurant about eight and a half hours previously. I'm not sure if it was pity or if the waiter simply forgot. Either way, it feels almost like payday.

I am in and out of the bathroom in about fifteen minutes, and, contrary to what I initially assumed, the stench of half-eaten food, detergent, and soiled cookware did not prove to be indelible. My shirt, however, will probably have to go through several wash cycles. My hands are also still accursed by the odor of garlic and onion. It's not quite as bad as that stench of yeast that attaches itself to Subway workers, but I know that someone, at some point, will comment on it.

Jeff pops his head out from his room as I step out of the bathroom, and asks the predictable: “Where the hell have you been?”

“I've had two fucking crazy days.”

“Make that three, man. You woke me up Saturday night.” He looks contemplative. “Sunday morning, actually.”