When I first stepped on I never thought it would be forever. Or,what felt like forever. Or what felt like a career in Faustian flawsand grime. But it has this tricky, mad undertow I didn’t understandat first. One of many roads to nowhere in this world, which comedisguised as runways to higher tomorrows. The gimmick got me.
Winking bulbs, screaming vents. You need specialized footwear here.You need to wash workwear in a separate load due to its villainousgrease. Senior members will ruthlessly remind. You must learn howto resorb the body’s complaints, fashion stout leather insides outof soft tissue. And end of shift rewards? You convince yourself that
cold enough liquor is nearly worth it. Changing out of your soiledshirt and pants, endorphins tingling pyrotechnics under egged skin,you tear a cigarette to pieces with such fiendish lungs…Years passlike that. Too easily. How? In hindsight, it was a slick amphetaminewash of a dream that landed me here. Reposed atop an overturned
milk crate. Years into what I’d thought was going to be a small matterof getting by until fame and fortune hit. They never tell you the otheroutcomes. Not the far more plausible, heinous results of randomness.I do a roll-call of all the other cooks in the world: Ricky, Fin, Justino,Petra, Mickey, Ana, Faustino, Toni, Juan, Jose, Alex, Hen-dog, Mel-dog,
et cetera. The last of a dwindling breed. Half-dead, sweaty reckoners.We press on. Against the peripheral threat of a spiritual mutiny.Against the brevity of each day and its gathering boil. Against and awayfrom all the damned blood-flecked edges. Then Ricky pops round, goonishgrin on him, to ask me, “How many holes is too many in a pair of shorts?”
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