A Bird Named Moe
This was way back in aught-two, back in the heady days of coriander and cooking oils galore. I was a short order cook in a restaurant renowned for nothing at all. Not our jellied strawberry cakes, not our burgers, nothing. Our buffalo wings could kill you at forty paces, but there's nothing special in deadly buffalo wings. Everyone thinks their buffalo wings were deadly in some sort of way: either you're gonna get stuck to the plastic little tablecloth after chomping on a few or your mouth is going to be on fire after a few chews.
Or there was yet a third kind. The kind that did, literally, kill.
Like ours did that day.
It was a day like any other, for the most part. Now, I'm not saying I knew what was going to happen... not at all, in fact. You see, I don't do that foreshadowing stuff. I, you know, I just put my trousers on one leg at a time, like most people I know, get my sorry butt down to work, or, if I'm working the evening shift, or, perhaps, not working, I'll lie in bed with my trousers on. It's a different mindset, lying there with pants on, so I don't count it as loafing as such. It's almost like exercise. Well, almost, anyway.
The difference in the morning came when my postman came sprinting into my house as I was opening the door on the way out. He was barreling up the walkway towards me as I was shutting the door behind me, knobby knees and elbows flying akimbo. He looked like a little blue and darker blue old fashioned train engine, with his pistons lurching up and down. He bolted past and slammed through the as yet unshut door, which did slam all the way shut behind himself. Seeing as I was late for work anyway, I shrugged it off, asked him to leave the mail on the kitchen table, and headed off down the road to work.
I was running late, and was told so by my boss, Frankie. Sometimes we called Frankie Frankie "the Fin Master" because he had this fascination with fins. There was this one time, it lasted about a week, I suppose, where he was keeping all the fins he cut off of fish he was cleaning. He tucked them away in a little plastic tub he borrowed from the back room and kept it in the back of his little Toyota that he drove to work every day since he joined the restaurant, which was way back in 'eighty-nine. The reason he left it in the back of his Toyota was because he realised, as he drove home with the first day's worth of fins, all arrayed in this little wide-bottomed, shallow-ish tub that his girlfriend probably wasn't going to appreciate it. And she would sure as hell find it if he brought it in and put it in the freezer, fridge, basement, living room... just about anywhere in the house. So he left it in the car. Until about three weeks later, when it had attracted a pack of stray dogs (or perhaps made the pack of stray dogs, with the stink from the back of his car) and they dove into his car as he was attempting to squeeze in the door without letting them in and they ravaged the entire inside of his Toyota and he started bicycling to work.
He gave me a little grief, and sent me in to clean up the toilets. Apparently, some kid had thrown up in the ladies toilet. A code 14, we called it. It was better than yelling out, "Hey Moe, go clean up the puke in the ladies room!" where all the diners could hear you.
This wasn't particularly special either. Generally, code 14s happened every couple days. It's usually some little kid, sometimes some teenagers in horsing around, sometimes it's someone who shouldn't have gotten out and about of bed that morning. I swear to you it's not usually the food.
As is my habit, before I went about the task of mopping up the ladies room I popped my head out into the dining room. Sort of give them a glimpse of the people behind their food. Wave to the plebs and all that. I waved, and was just about to pop my head back in and get to mopping when I stopped, mid-duck, mid-smile, and looked at the far corner of the dining room.
There was some guy, never seen him before, splayed out on the table, head crooked awkwardly against the window and the wall.
The other thing I'd never seen before was the buffalo wing protruding from his chest, sticky sauce and probably a little blood oozing on the table. His eyes were out, lifeless.
We didn't have a damn code for that one, I tell you that much.
To be continued.... ?
disclaimer:
This week we take a break from both serials in progress in some form or another, in our fashion.
See you next week.
Or maybe we won't! Ah ha!
Probably will, though, if history is any judge. They just keep on a turnin', don't they?
Sure they do.