clavus

I worked weekends as a dishwasher at a busy restaurant. I just helped the regular guy handle the extra load on Friday and Saturday nights. I guess that made the Assistant Dishwasher.

The regular dishwasher, the Chief Dishwasher, was a leathery old man. called "Doc." He looked about 70 years old, but he could have been one hundred... or fifty. His nationality was impossible to discern, but he spoke in that clipped, not quite perfect accent I associate with American Indians.

Washing dishes is a shitty job. The work is hot and wet and stinks. No matter how fast you go, you are always behind. Plates, pots, cups and cutlery pile up at an impossible clip, and you can’t get it clean fast enough to please anyone. Guaranteed, whatever you just washed isn’t needed, and whatever you aren’t washing yet is what the kitchen just ran out of.

Doc never seemed phased. In fact, he loved the job. We’d be way out in the weeds, covered in grease and gunk, and he’d look over at me and smirk. “Best job I ever had,” he’d say, then lay into a soup pan with steel wool.

Best job he ever had.

“What did you do before this?” I asked, wiping the marinara sauce off my cheek.

“You’d never believe me if I told you.”

To tell you the truth, Doc irritated me. Washing dishes and complaining go hand in hand, and it was no fun to complain with him around. When one dishwasher says, “That fuckin sous chef yells at me one more time for ramekins, and I’ll give him a stack of ramekins... right up his ass,” the other dishwasher is supposed to respond in kind. But Doc was unflappable. He’d grin, reach into the frothy sink and start cleaning ramekins.

I asked the kitchen staff about him. A couple of the older guys, told me that Doc was actually a doctor in his previous life. A line cook pulled his sleeve up and showed me his arm.

“See that?”

“What? Your tattoo?”

“No, asshole. You see how I have no hair growing on my arm?”

“Ya.”

“That’s because I burned it off. There was a grease fire. All this burning grease got spilled all over me. My arm, my chest, down my legs. I got burned bad. I should be coved in scars. Dead maybe. But I’m not. Doc fixed me up.

You got a problem with Doc? Cause if you do, you got a problem with me.”

I told him I didn’t have a problem with anybody. The line cook thrust a scorched pan at me like a challenge. I tool the pan and walked back to the dishwashing station without comment.

The next weekend I asked Doc about it. “I heard you fixed up Julio when he got burned.”

“Julio likes to exaggerate.”

“Is it true you were a doctor before you were a dishwasher?”

“You could say that.”

“How does a guy go from being a doctor to being a dishwasher?”

“How does a guy go from being a dishwasher to a pain in the ass?”

Fine.

We washed in silence, whittling away at the mountain of soiled dishware before us.

The night wore on. The torrent of filthy plates and spoons slowed as the dining room emptied. As the last of the diners were getting their checks, the kitchen started its evening ritual of shutting down. Instead of cups and bowls, we washed the chafing pans and racks. At one o’clock, we were done. We were done, but the work was never done. Whatever was in our sink was left for the morning crew to deal with.

Sisyphus.

I stepped into the night air and breathed. I could smell the detritus of a hundred unfinished entrees on myself. Doc hit the door a beat behind me.

“I wasn’t a regular doctor.”

“No?” I tried to sound casual as I turned to face him, but it came out sounding snide.

“So what? You were a freelance gynecologist? A proctologist looking for an opening in your field?”

He straightened out of his slouch just a little, and Doc smiled. Not just with his mouth. It was like his face unfolded and lit up. His whole being lit up. And suddenly, I felt good The fatigue in my shoulders evaporated. My feet stopped hurting. I found myself smiling too.

“No, smartass, I was a medicine man.”

“You mean like a shaman?”

“Ya. Like a shaman. A witch doctor. Whatever you want to call it. That’s what I did.”

“And that was worse that washing dishes?”

“Ya.”

“Where did you... practice?”

“Someplace that doesn’t exist any more.”

“And now you are a dishwasher.”

“Best job I ever had.”

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This is the first of four chapters. I wrote it in about an hour. If anybody is interested, I'll post the rest of the story when it pops out.

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Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

Elphaba

I love it! More please.

The_Jazz

Please keep it coming!

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Sultana

I'd like to read more, if you'd like to post more.

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"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

amonkie

Definitely good stuff... I'll be waiting to see the new

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Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

Journeyman

Clavus, you never disappoint. Looking forward to the rest.

healer

That's some great story-tellin' clavus. Thanks for sharing it - I'll be on the lookout for the rest.

Made me laugh like a little kid.

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Disco Stu

please....please....you have me begging for more

Coppertop

Please sir, may I have some more?

treewoods

ummmm...didnt you say there was going to be more?

clavus

whoa. Holy shit! I forgot all about this thread. I didn't mean to leave everybody hanging.

I'm taking drugs (not fun ones) and they sap my energy, ambition and creativity. I'm getting better. I should be able to write my way out of this mental fog soon.

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Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

DonovanDuVal

Nice. One of the key things in writing is intrigue. That certain something that makes the reader want to turn the page. Given the responses that you have above, and of course adding this one to their number, I think that you can safely say that base is covered.

No pressure on the delivery time either. I'm not taking drugs and still I can find that my energy, ambition and creativity is sapped.

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"I've been Donovan DuVal. Take care of yourselves, and each other."

JStrider

awesome so far!
can't wait to see the rest!

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-=JStrider=-

~Clatto Verata Nicto

bermuDa

Great story-telling, reminds me of my days as a hydro-ceramic engineer. More, please!

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I am the very model of a moderator gentleman.

little_tippler

We want more! Great start there. It reminds me a little of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", but the guy is a window washer instead of a dishwasher, and a regular doctor instead of a shaman. Would love to read more.

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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

clavus

PART 2 is up. Sorry for the delay. I wrote the chapter that I had in my head. Then I threw it away and wrote the chapter that just popped out uninvited. It's better, I think.

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Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.