Modern American People

Hassan looked through the window out onto the street. His phone had just been charged and it was a full hour before he’d have to put his dinner vest back on, eat a small meal and brush his teeth in the restaurant’s bathroom.

“The are coming Tuesday, I think,” he said into his phone. “Yes, all the way in a day.” His mouth moved while his eyes scanned the passersby along 6th Avenue.

“No. they stop in Dubai for one hour. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye.” Hassan shut his phone and remained there, seated backwards on a chair from Table 11, crossing his forearms onto the seat back. I was a good distance from him, trying to fall asleep on one of the Hondo Bar’s leather banquettes. It was between the lunch and dinner shift and this was my customary time to lie down, shake out thoughts of my fledgling career and dream for a few minutes. The only indication that I got any napping done was the quarter-sized drool stain on my work shirt.

“Hassan!” I shouted across the twenty or so empty tables and chairs. “You’re family’s never coming home. You’ve been abandoned.”

“Hah?” He mumbled after craning his neck towards me.

“Just keep sending those checks,” I continued in a near yell. My volume was helping me wake up. “That’s all they want from you.”

“Be quiet, man.”

“Send them money. They can build a hospital there in Bangladesh and save that whole pitiful country from flushing itself into the fucking sea.” He didn’t say anything. He just kind of chuckled and went back to looking out at the street.

“What time is it?” I asked nobody in particular.

“Almost four o’clock.” Four o’clock was when the kitchen put out the staff meal. If it was chicken, it was undercooked. If it was pasta, it was accompanied with the most soggy vegetables imaginable. Such disparate crops as eggplant, orange bell peppers, broccoli rabe would be tossed into a vat of oily rigatoni and topped with some parmesan. Without fail, all the vegetables would quickly unite and form a new composite that I liked to call “buttervegeblob.” Regardless, I ate anything they put out with the relish of a starved homeless boy from one of those Christmas specials.

I rose from my booth cave and walked into the kitchen. I liked to do this when I was bored. There was Hugo, one of Hondo Bar’s cooks, putting the finishing touches on the staff meal. Hugo was a thick guy from Ecuador, I think. He looked like a History Channel recreation of a neanderthal, all hairy and stoic with teeth like studs. I called him El Caveman.

“Donde the food, el caveman?”

“Suave, man. Relax. Coming, coming.” Hugo said while he topped a stew of some sort with chives.

“Stop pretending you’re mucho busy, okay? Tengo hambre, man. Time to eat! You are mucho lazy, puto!” The kitchen guys loved calling each other puto. I loved calling them puto too. I think puto is a male whore. Funny that American guys don’t really have a word for that. It doesn’t even sound like an insult to me, but it’s the main currency of abuse among kitchen guys all over town. The way I was feeling that day, I would have love to be a puto for a little while.

I kept harassing him. “What is this shit? Pork? Because you know that’s no good for the Bengalis. Two reasons: One, because they are Moslem. And two, because they don’t eat shit.” I put my nose over the pot of stew. It smelled nice and spicy.

Hugo threw a slo-mo elbow towards my face. I followed his lead by tossing my body back into the espresso machine, shouting, “Oh My God! Mi nariz! My nose!” I clenched my face from this mock-injury and stumbled, cripplingly, towards a massive trash can and began miming the most violent vomit noises. I went on like this for twenty seconds while Hugo watched and giggled.

“This is not funny, puto. I am dying.” El Caveman kept laughing like a boy, picked up the pot of stew and left the kitchen. Left alone, I felt a momentary pang of embarrassment. I had just staged an elaborate fight sequence and all it got was a chuckle from a cook who spoke marginal English. I hated this place.