David Alan Dedin
Yummy, Yummy, Yummy
Thirteen
Yummy, Yummy, Yummy
1991
“I need some HELP here!” Alan yelled down the Checker’s server’s alley, causing both cooks and serving staff to look up. He was standing by the corner, motioning for nearby employees to make room. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s all bring our hands together for the one, the only…Derek!”
“DEREK!” everyone yelled at once, like Norm entering Cheers.
Derek came into the kitchen like a rock star joining a stage. He was taller than Alan but shorter than Patrick, and he had one of those bodies that every dude envies: slender, solid, and defined in a way that never seemed to require a gym. The Bradley Boys made no effort to hide their love/hate towards Derek’s perpetual 30” waist, and they all patted his back when he passed, in obvious awe of their idol.
We are not worthy, we are not worthy…
Derek’s hair was a mullet that had evolved into something spectacular, a cross between Cinderella’s Eric Brittingham, and the goddamn MGM lion. He shook coworkers’ hands with genuine empathy, then gave Big Tim a two-fingered salute – which the cook happily returned, from behind the heat lamps.
“Where have you been, Buddy?” Alan asked, taking over the tray that Bill had been garnishing in the expo window.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw you,” Patrick added, procuring the oval platter from Alan, and lifting it high in the air. With all eyes on Derek, Alan discretely pocketed the fake ticket’s soft copy. “I have to get this food to the floor,” Patrick told Derek, “but it’s really good to see you” –
“Welcome back, Derek!”
“Wel-come back, wel-come back, wel-come baaack,” the cooks sang in unison – like the refrain to a 1970s sitcom – before Big Tim shut them down.
“Back to work, people!”
“Can you run this?” Bill asked Jackie, pointing to another completed dinner tray.
“Sure,” she said, taking it. Bill replaced it with an empty one. Alan and Derek garnished it together. “So, seriously…where have you been?” Alan asked him.
Derek smiled, ladling peppercorn as he quoted a country song happily: “I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride. With sword and pistol by my side…”
The kitchen fell silent as Sharon passed like a prison guard. Her blazer today was the color of headcheese. Derek resumed in a whisper as soon as the heels were out of earshot. “Many a groupie lost her panties to my staid … many a virgin shed her lifeblood as I”-
“Stop!” Alan warned him, grinning. “Do NOT finish that sentence.”
Derek grinned back, pausing for effect:
“Brayed.”
Alan watched him hoist the tray onto fingertips, in a way that made it twirl, like a Globetrotter’s basketball. His eyes then followed Derek’s perfect bubble ass through the kitchen, then disappear around the “CORNER!” The meaning of brayed hit him the moment Derek was gone. “That’s disgusting!” Alan yelled to deaf ears. Derek was a master of time-delayed double-entendres.
“That IS disgusting,” Guinevere said from behind, eating a French fry off Bill’s next tray. “My Schnookums’ brays sound nothing like a donkey’s, and to imply otherwise is simply untrue.” Alan could smell her Glemby conditioner before he turned around. Her hair was stunning today. She had clearly just dropped a solid $140 at A Cut Above in Northwoods.
“My Schnookums’ brays sound more like a stallion’s,” she continued, “a mighty racing steed who can only reach his salty satisfaction within my sweaty, smoldering, smegma-seizing” –
“Language, Guinevere,” Rodney warned when he passed. “WE HAVE A FIVE TABLE TURN, PEOPLE!” He met Sharon with an inventory clipboard, and the two disappeared into the manager’s office. Alan hoisted the next oval tray. Gwen winked at him. “Strike a pose.” She begrudgingly waited to run the following order as he grabbed a tray jack and carried the food into the dining room – “CORNER!”
The restaurant was slammed.
“That fifty-two?” Laurie asked, seeing Alan as she came up the stairs. He nodded. “Tell them I’ll be right back with their soup,” she said, returning to the kitchen. He nodded again, then threaded his way through the dining room. He opened the tray jack in front of the hungry table, “Dinner’s served – OH SHIT!”
The table gasped.
As Alan plopped the heavy tray onto the portable, X-shaped stand, the jack buckled under the weight, sending plates sliding dangerously to the side. Alan hadn’t been expecting this, and his reaction wasn’t nearly fast enough to save food from hitting the floor. But a flash of hair materialized out of nowhere, and propped up the falling tray like Superman grabbing a plane’s wing.
“Whoa, that was close!” Rob Vain exclaimed, somehow balancing a drink tray in one hand, and Laurie’s order in the other. He had overheard Alan’s swearing, and intentionally diffused the situation.
Nearby tables applauded.
“Sorry about the language, folks!” Alan’s heart was in his throat as he threw down the plates. The diners smiled and shrugged. It happens, buddy – just give us our fucking burgers. “You folks need anything else? Oh – Laurie is bringing the soup!”
“We’re good.”
“Enjoy your meals.”
With the empty tray under his arm, Alan returned to the stairs, where Patrick met him halfway. “I saw that,” Patrick said, smiling. “Tell Rob, nice save.”
“This one’s trash,” Alan told him, nodding to the tray jack and noticing Patrick’s open ticket book. His real tables were on one side, the fake orders on another. “We done for the night?” Alan asked.
“Almost,” Patrick told him. “Gwen has one more table in play, but she’s dropping the check now.”
“I’m done,” Guinevere called from the twenties, as though reading their minds. They watched her yell “corner” while entering the kitchen. Cheryl Bennish came out, running a plate of onion rings to the lobby. The two men looked at each other.
“We should get the tape now,” Patrick told him. He was referring to the one piece of physical evidence that required a team effort to retrieve.
* * * * *
Though the Bobcat was clearly a flawed system, it did keep a physical record of every transaction entered – including voids. That came in the form of a continuous spool of register tape that recorded servers’ individual transactions, even when the Interweb cable was removed from the wall. This was a problem that Alan & Patrick had solved early on, and as was often the case at Checker’s, big problems tended to have very simple solutions.
As the computerized system compiled the day’s sales into a tidy, tallied end-of-shift report, the managers saw no need to review the long paper spools – and tossed them into forgotten boxes, like socks into laundry. None of the managers – neither Sharon, Bill, nor Rodney – ever reviewed the daily tapes, which were always discarded when the boxes grew too full, in favor of saving the Bobcat’s far shorter data reports for corporate.
But those spools were still evidence – and they took a good 60 seconds to retrieve – which meant that the best time to get them was when the managers were out of the alley, and handling issues at tables, bar, or the hostess stand. At first the trio watched and waited for such opportunities to happen, but that proved too risky on nights where the restaurant ran smoothly. There were times when it was necessary to get Sharon out of the kitchen, and that meant that something big had to happen…a little disturbance, just large enough to cause misdirection.
It was Alan who got the idea a few weeks back, when The Phantom of the Opera had come to Peoria on tour…
* * * * *
“CORNER!” Ty shouted, coming into the dining room with lesbian brash – and a steaming oval platter balanced on her palm. She nodded to Alan but stopped on realizing she had forgotten to grab a tray jack in the kitchen – “Fuck!”
“Here,” Alan offered. “Take mine.”
“Thanks, roomie!”
Both Alan and Patrick’s heads cocked in unison, as they watched the unsuspecting server approach her table, and plop the heavy tray onto the broken jack –
CRASH!
One beat, two beats…
“AGGHHHHH!!!” Ty exploded, as diners broke into applause at her expense. Alan beamed triumphantly, though Patrick had to shield his eyes from guilt.
The Phantom strikes again!
Derek appeared from the twenties, a big grin on his face. “Thar she blows! She’s like Old Faithful… you can literally set a watch by her.”
“Did somebody just drop a tray?” Cheryl Bennish asked, popping her tits between the three, surveying the carnage of meat, gravy, and shattered dishes. She dismissed it immediately on seeing the perpetrator: “Oh – it’s just Ty.”
The safety cones vanished.
“The phantom of the restaurant,” Jackie joked, leisurely joining the trio from the bottom sixties. “I swear to God this restaurant has a ghost.”
“A poltergeist,” Derek clarified. “Most ghosts just lurk in the background.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Ty blubbered, her ass – filling out what were clearly men’s jeans – now facing the table while she bent over. The angry diners watched in disgust, as the ass went back and forth, while the temperamental waitress used her ticket book to gather mashed potatoes and fragmented platters into an ugly pile on the floor.
There was broken glass in their kid’s grilled cheese.
“I’m soooooo sorry!” Ty told the customers.
“Can we see the manager, please?” the table’s pissed-off wife demanded.
“That’s our cue,” Alan told Patrick, causing the four gawkers to spin towards the kitchen together –
But they all gasped at once.
Sharon had been standing behind them, God knows how long. In the dim light of the dining room, she looked like she had horns –
“Don’t everyone help at once,” she growled.
As if overhearing, Mia flew round the kitchen corner like a bat leaving a cave, bus tub clutched below. The tiny fetish doll zigzagged between everyone, then flapped towards Ty’s table – and a problem that now required Sharon’s immediate attention.
“But I said I was sorry! I’ve been so depressed lately, and it’s hard to focus…”
“Ma’am – or Sir – or whatever the fuck you are, just get us the manager!”
The four bolted for the kitchen as Sharon’s black heels descended the stairs, stopped, pivoted, then made deliberate clicks towards the troubled table.
Sixty seconds later, the register spool had been replaced.
* * * * *
“Can you help me zip my dress?” Guinevere asked, a few hours later, standing in the bathroom of Alan’s apartment. She was balanced on one heel – cobalt blue, to match her sleeveless dress – and tugging at her panty hose, before pulling the other shoe on. Alan came up behind her and closed the fabric from behind – zip! He then made her hold her arms outward while he tugged the dress downward and perked up her breasts with his hands. Once finished, he turned her towards the mirror –
“Wa-lah! My Schnookums is ready for Bam-Bam’s bouncing barbell.”
Sipping her zinfandel, Gwen looked at her reflection, frowning at her stomach. The dress looked great, but it was a tad snug in the middle. “I’ve put on weight. This didn’t feel this tight the last time I wore it.”
“Buy another one,” Alan said. “Get a size up.”
Gwen choked on her wine. “Okay…that is not helping.”
“Everyone will be looking at your hair,” Alan told her. “No one will notice the dress. Especially in the bar.”
“Oh – so, you are saying I’m fat?”
“No, I’m saying you’re voluptuous.”
“That’s fat.”
“Voluptuous means curvy.”
“So, you’re saying I’m…curvy?”
“In all the right places,” Alan assured her, taking Gwen by the waist and staring at her big eyes. “And, if my Schnookums does feel a little” – he chose his words carefully – “robust, as I said, everyone will be looking at” – he twirled her bangs with his fingers – “this…incredible…mane…of hair.” He mouthed a silent roar towards her lips.
She smiled.
“You’re the only person allowed to talk about my weight,” she told him, pecking his cheek. He took her place in the mirror while she gathered her makeup and disappeared into the living room. He remained in the bathroom for a few minutes, touching up the rooster comb. Alan heard Gwen pop a CD into the player. He smiled when he recognized the selection:
“Arrrrrre you gonna’ take me home tonight?”
Alan brought his drink into the living room, where he found her sitting on the couch, legs crossed, lighting a cigarette. The rack system’s red LED’s bounced in time with the music, which now played Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls softly. He leaned in the doorway and took in the scene. Guinevere’s features were fluid with moving shadows, caught in the glow of a nearby lava light. Both of them could hear Ty crying behind her bedroom door, unaware of her volume as she was likely wearing headphones.
“I’ve got a chrome plated heart…”
“What time do you want to leave?” Alan asked, coming forward and lighting his own smoke. His apartment took up the second floor of a red brick, Chicago-style two flat, and its rooms were spacious, with dark woodwork and tall ceilings. He could see both his and Guinevere’s reflections within the window glass. He watched Gwen sip her wine.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she told him. “I’m just going to sit at the bar until Dan gets off.”
“When is Bam-Bam getting his own car?” Alan asked.
“Soon, I hope.”
“Why do you keep letting him borrow yours? It feels like he’s taking advantage of you.”
“He is,” she admitted. “But I’m taking advantage of free drinks at his bar, so it’s a wash.”
“Do you think he ever cheats on you?”
“Where did that come from?”
“I mean, Dan’s a good-looking guy and he bartends all these late shifts,” Alan explained. “And if he’s got your car, he knows you’re not going to just show up unexpectedly.” Alan stammered slightly. “I don’t know, Gwen…it just kinda’ feels like a control thing.” He watched her exhale smoke as she thought about this.
“Maybe it is,” she admitted, a grimace crossing her face. Standing up, she set her glass on the coffee table.
“You okay?” he asked.
“This damn dress is making my stomach feel funny,” she admitted. “I need to use the restroom before we go.” He watched her leave, closing the bathroom door behind her. While he waited, he used the dining room window as a mirror to adjust his tuxedo shirt, and straighten his leather vest. Ty stirred in the bedroom, flipping a cassette tape. A toilet flushed, followed by running water in the sink. When she returned, Gwen looked a little queasy, but smiled at Alan anyway.
“Ready?” she asked.
He nodded, grabbing his keys.
* * * * *
The late summer cicadas brought just a hint of fall when Alan dropped Gwen off at Gilligan’s Pub, waving goodbye and pulling away. Nelson played quietly on the radio as his pickup threaded through downtown, turning west on Adams Street and heading for his own destination, to what locals just referred to as “the Club.” Ten minutes later, he arrived in the bar’s parking lot and shut the engine. He took a few swallows from a flask before getting out, locking the vehicle behind him.
Alan lit a smoke while the whiskey hit his bloodstream.
* * * * *
The Club Peorian was the biggest gay bar in town, a three-story building in the bad part of Peoria, on the corner of Adams and Oak, across from The Julian Hotel – a well-known flophouse for transients. The Peorian Hotel itself had originally opened in the nineteen-forties, but after closing its doors two decades later, received a second life as a mod concert venue; in the late 1960s, it hosted such acts as Bobby Comstock, Joey Dee & the Starlighters, and even Chicago twice in 67’.
The counter-culture Club reached its pinnacle with Head East in 1973, then quickly faded into history as patrons took showers, stamped out blunts, and joined the Ordinary Average Guys who worked at Caterpillar Inc. Once the beats started squirting out babies – and trading their motorcycles for avocado-colored Vista Cruisers – the old Club Peorian capitulated to the modern world, as quickly as a Burger Chef surrendering to McDonald’s.
In 1978, the venue was remodeled again, this time as a discotheque, with the best dance floor south of Chicago. Throughout the 80s and early 1990s, the Club Peorian became the epicenter of local gay nightlife, ensconcing itself so firmly within the community that three additional gay bars – DJ’s Time Out, The Quench Room, and The Red Fox Den – were able to ride its coattails. Considering the city’s conservative Midwestern attitude, it was amazing that locals never demanded its outright closure; the new Club attracted a late-night clientele, feeding addiction, promiscuity, and a neighborhood filled with hookers, addicts, and bookstores with holes in the walls.
Now, in 91’, the Club was nearing its second, second-life pinnacle; disco was dead, Night Faces blew its dance floor away, and as AIDS had forced homosexuality into the open, more gay men were opting for the newer bars – and shying away from the Club’s unspoken cover charge of needing a good buzz before going in.
Another car pulled into the lot, taking the space next to Alan’s. It’s driver got out – a man in his forties, dressed in full leather – and nodded before crossing the street with confidence, entering the Club Peorian. Alan briefly heard house music when the door opened and closed. The old disco still had a heartbeat –
Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump…
A few minutes later, when his pupils had dilated into cat’s eyes, Alan tossed his cigarette in a puff of orange sparks, and followed the leatherman inside.
* * * * *
CRASH!
“AGGHHHHH!!!”
“The Phantom strikes again,” Laurie grumbled angrily the next day, running passed Alan and Guinevere to find Sharon in the kitchen. Gwen’s eyes shot to Alan’s. He knew what she was thinking –
“Hey – it wasn’t me, this time. Ty just drops trays!”
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! I had a really bad night at the Club last night…”
The Sunday lunch rush was especially entertaining today, as The Centrality and Supremacy of Jesus Christ – a local Baptist church – had decided to give Checker’s a try for both their post-sermon meal, and after-meal Bible study. Over half of nonsmoking had been taken over by three separate, large party groups – all of whom were dressed to the nines, with men in sharp suits & ties, kids in coordinating colors, and old black women with hats so large, their brims had gravitational pulls.
“Ma’am – or Sir – can we see the manager, please?”
The servers hated the church crowd, not out of racism (though that definitely was an occasional factor), but rather because black people in Peoria just didn’t tip well. A large church party could commandeer a server’s section for hours, preventing profitable table turns, and tipping only once at the lowest possible rate. It was Marty who said it best, when a caravan of Ichthys bumper stickers started unloading spumoni-hued dresses onto the sidewalk: “Danger, Will Robinson! A Klingon Bird of Prey has just de-cloaked in the lobby!”
Sharon – in teal – shot passed Alan & Gwen like a roadrunner, followed by Mia, Laurie, and a hot, steaming bus tub. The black-heeled manager quickly intervened before Ty could tell the parishioners any more about the previous evening’s Richard Marx impersonation. “It went like this: Hold on to the niiiiiights…”
“Hey,” Patrick said from behind. “Now’s a good time.”
The trio vanished around the kitchen corner and circled the Bobcat like soldiers on a target. One beat, two beats, the spool was taken, the deed was done, and the three dispersed amongst the servers.
“WALKING IN…ONE FRY, ONE ARTICHOKE!”
“I have three penis colitis in the window!” Marty yelled from the kitchen’s bar window.
“Those are my STD’s, baby!” Cheryl Bennish yelled back from the cold side passover, grabbing a plate of shrooms. She pushed her way to the bar, then placed the piña coladas onto a drink tray, next to app plates and cocktail napkins. “Hey, Marty…I need more maraschino cherries.”
A large glass jar appeared in the window – thump.
“I love those church people,” Cheryl told Bill, who was nearby at the expo window. She used her fingers to fish a handful of sweet red dots into a ramekin. “I know they tip for shit, but they’re sure fun to talk to.”
“Tip for shit is right,” Laurie complained, slamming an empty oval tray into the pile next to Bill. “Thanks to fuckin’ Ty, that table wants my gratuity removed. They said she made them feel uncomfortable.” Bill looked up on hearing this. “That means I’ll have worked all morning for nothing.”
“Now Laurie,” Cheryl said calmly, wiping her wet hand on a bar towel, “You just can’t look at it that way.”
“And why’s that?” Laurie snipped.
“Because people treat you the way you treat them,” Cheryl told her.
“I treated them well,” Laurie insisted. “I took their order, kept their drinks filled, and made sure their food got out on time.”
“You sure that’s all you did, Laurie?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“People like that don’t want a robot,” Cheryl explained. “They can sense if you don’t like them. They can see it in your face, if you want someone else in your section.” She looked the waitress over. “Very honestly, they can tell if you’re a bigot.”
Laurie scoffed. “And what are you? Some kind of nigger lover?”
Gasp!
“WHOA!” Bill yelled, dropping his tongs as spun towards the women. His eyes shot nervously towards Big Tim, but the line cook stayed neutral – though he was clearly waiting for what Bill was going to do next. The young manager went for Laurie, but Cheryl stopped him with a raised red fingernail – “Wait.”
The kitchen fell silent.
Realizing she had just crossed a line, Laurie chose to double-down.
“I asked you a question,” she told Cheryl. “Do you really like the Sunday crowd? Do you ever go to their church?”
Cheryl’s eyes narrowed – “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Really?” Laurie scoffed.
“Yes, Laurie…really. I don’t attend services – I honestly can’t keep my eyes open, even with all the singing – but I do attend their AA meetings on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and the second Sunday each month.” Cheryl paused for effect. “On Sundays, we like to go to a restaurant, like this. And we like to mess with servers like you.”
Silence.
“Cheryl, I…I didn’t mean…”
“Of course, you meant it!” – Cheryl’s chest was in Laurie’s face, now – “And let me tell you something, you wicked little brown-nosing bitch … If I ever hear that word out of your mouth again, I’ll meet you in the parking lot with a mother-fucking baseball bat!” The busty cocktail server twinkled like Jackie Gleason after a laugh –
“Are we clear, Laurie dear?”
The waitress bolted like a humbled dog.
Without missing a beat, Cheryl grabbed her tray, hoisted her jugs, and hummed All God’s Chillung Got Wing as she disappeared through the saloon doors. Big Tim smiled as sound returned to the kitchen. The MUZAK was now playing Tiffany. Sharon pushed Ty towards the office.
Alan raised his eyebrows at Patrick –
“We changed the spool too soon. I kinda’ wish we’d have waited…”