Skull Cap

            As the beginning of fall neared and the restaurant geared up for the anticipated annual increase in nightly business, new staff members began to appear with numbers great enough to warrant investment in paid orientation meetings. Some of the new hires were seasoned food service industry types who already knew the lingo and when and how to siphon alcohol without getting caught even before they’d already found another place that was ready to hire them. Others were so green that they stared blankly at wine descriptions as if confounded by complex mathematical formulae. Jered, the slight-but-sturdy young man who always wore a gray-and-black checkered knit cap when not attending to tables, seemed to be as experienced as they came, but without the malicious intent.

            He spoke little to the other servers (which seemed strange to some of the more obnoxious butterflies in the server staff) and even less to the back of the house (which was greatly appreciated), but what he did intimate about his experience and knowledge was impressive enough. For example, he knew about how geese were tortured in the process of pâté production even before Jux had the opportunity to explain it to him. He knew and consistently employed the proper pronunciation of “bruschetta.” He even knew what tannins were and somehow managed to explain it to customers without sounding pedantic or pretentious. 

            It wasn’t just what he knew; in fact, Jered was especially impressive for the way he executed his duties. He always scraped the leftover food from plates into the garbage before setting them onto the dish station. He filled and rolled napkins with the meticulous swiftness of a heart surgeon. His average tip percentage hovered up at the top of the server chart at around 24%, a full two percent higher than Packie’s (which was itself inflated because Packie was such a prick about taking the best tables). When new dishes were introduced to the menu, he could be heard accurately describing them to customers and fellow servers alike.

            Again, Jered was usually pretty quiet, and it seemed as though the only things he was comfortable talking about were those directly related to his capacity as a server at a nice little restaurant. He didn’t spend any energy engaging in the petty dramas and exchanges of gossip that emerged in whispers at the server’s station. He didn’t comment on the way the line cooks arranged the food or opine whether it was more proper to describe the consumption of soup as an act of eating or drinking. He really didn’t, as a whole, say that much at all. That was nice, and it was something that the line cooks in the back of the house found immensely appealing in a server.

            But Jered was always at the restaurant. That was his major flaw. No matter what time of day or night during that holiday season, with the skull cap on for maintenance work or off for table service, someone was sure to see him about the premises. Some of the other servers chalked it up as work-ethic brown-nosery, but the owner and the kitchen staff appreciated his efforts. As a result, he was given as many shifts as he was allowed before being, by law, considered a full-time, benefits-eligible employee. Still, it seemed like he was always there.

Guy with Dustbin

            “Who the fuck is that guy out there?” Jux asked, entering the kitchen from the bar and slipping his Juka Juice apron over his head.

            “You talking about Dome Piece?” Danny asked, peeling pears near the stoves. The pot of red wine, water, sugar, and spices on one of the ranges was producing a pungent sweet scent that thickened the air all around. “He’s for real,” he added, looking down at his work with wide eyes.

            Jux nodded, pushing his palm up into the pressure nozzle at the sink so that a directed spray of warm water cascaded down over his soapy hands. “I know he’s real,” he said, “considering that I just saw him out there. Crystal isn’t even here yet and he’s already sweeping the house.”

            “Let’s not complain about someone out there doing their job,” cautioned Chef Jessup with his gloved hands deep in a bowl of lobster and seasoned goat cheese.

            “Oh, I’m not complaining,” Jux said. He waved his hand in front of the towel dispenser’s motion sensor and, finding no result, pulled at the protruding end of paper a couple times until enough was out that he could use to dry his hands. “Goddamned Brian,” he muttered. “Is he just fucking with us with this thing or what?”

            “Trying to conserve paper,” Jessup said. “I could be wrong, but I think he’s trying to cut corners a little bit. He is the owner.”

            “Yeah, I get that,” Jux said. “The problem is that it doesn’t work. He might as well just take it down.”

            “Then we’d use more paper towels,” Jessup said.

            “I’m about to bust that thing open and just take the whole roll and wipe my ass with it,” Danny said.

            “Don’t do that,” said Jessup.

            “Or do it in the privacy of your own home,” Jux added, tossing the saturated paper towels into the trash. “Anyway, it’s about time they hired someone who was ready to do the job. Most of these fucking servers are so full of themselves they can’t even last the night because of anxiety attacks. We need more people like him around here, people who are not oblivious to what’s going on around them and understand that there is some bullshit work to be done. He should be lauded, publicly, so that the others are inspired or at least shamed into some actual work.”

            “Ok,” said Danny, nodding and looking down at his pears. “I get you. I don’t go to church and shit, but I like the way you preach.”

            “So what am I on?” Jux, somewhat flushed, asked Jessup.

            “We need some crostinis,” the chef replied.

            Danny stifled a laugh and started dumping the cored and peeled pears into the pot.

            “All right,” said Jux.

            “Or you can work on the lemon tartes,” Jessup said, grinning and looking back toward Danny, who smiled and closed his eyes and shook his head.

            “I’ll do the crostinis,” Jux said. He sighed and went back out into the front to get baguettes from the freezer.

            The dining room was vacant and very quiet. Occasionally there was the rush of a vehicle down the street outside, but otherwise there was just the sound of the light slanting through the tall windows through the agitated dust of a floor recently swept. Jux peered through the bar area toward the little room that was sometimes used for special gatherings and saw nobody, so he crossed through the bar toward the server’s station, expecting to find the new server there, but, again, there was nobody. He passed the server station and crept down the short walkway lined by cabinets and then the glass-fronted freezers were there at the left and the secondary cheese cooler, now used for storage, at his right. He skirted the cooler and looked back into the dining area, now near the server station. The front doors looked bolted shut and nobody seemed to be around, so he sighed and turned back to the freezers.

            The main freezer had glass doors, and it was in there that they usually stored the frozen parbaked baguettes. He opened up the left side and reached up and took a couple of the long, cold tubes of bread from the box, which was collapsing from the weight of a sack of frozen strawberries sitting on top of it. He made a mental note: the frozen strawberries need to be moved. He didn’t move them at that moment because he was working on the crostinis and when he was ready to shut the freezer he did and he turned and there was the new server, sweeping into a long-handled dustbin by the server station.

            Jux was a bit startled, but he didn’t drop anything. The server was focusing on the task of sweeping, so Jux navigated back through the servers’ station and through the bar to the back of the house.

            “Fucker snuck up on me,” Jux said as he slid the baguettes into the salamander to thaw.

            “I know, right?” asked Danny. “I was taking a piss earlier and when I opened the door he was right the fuck there with his dome piece.”

            “Was he sweeping?” asked Jux.

            “Yeah,” Danny said.

            “What time?” asked Jux. “I mean, when did this happen?”

            Danny shrugged and poked at the pears with a pair of tongs. Cooking. “Earlier.”

            Jux inhaled and then exhaled, looking at the clock on the wall. “Whatever,” he said before shaking his head. “That’s a nice cap he’s got, though.”

            “Hell yeah,” said Jessup as he dumped the slop of lobster and seasoned goat cheese onto a long baking tray. “I got to get me one of those.”

            “I’m a ask him where he got it,” Danny said with serious determination. Then he added, with drawn-out syllables almost like a little song, “Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Skull Cap Revisited

            A bit later, after Jux had dumped a tray of burnt crostinis into the garbage and started on cutting up another baguette and Jessup was fingering the cheesy lobster slop he’d made with the hope of gaining some inspiration from the fingering and Danny was straining out the poached pears, Jered entered the kitchen and immediately, wordlessly, expertly, and thoroughly cleaned his hands at the sink near the exit to the bar. All three of the kitchen crew stared at him as he somehow managed to coax two lengths of paper towel from the photovoltaic automatic dispenser without even raising a hand in attempt. He dried his hands and tossed the used paper towels into the garbage and then looked at them with a subtle genuine smile.

            “What’s the soup today?” Jered asked.

            Danny abandoned his pears and walked quickly out through the storage room and to the dock. Jux shrugged and looked at Jessup.

            The chef considered things for a moment and then briefly looked down at his mess and then said, “Farm-Style Lobster Bisque with paprika and cardamom.”

            Jux stared at him and then at the slop he was manipulating and then back at him and then over at the server, who was still wearing the gray and black checkered knit cap.

            “Sounds delicious,” said Jered. “What makes it ‘farm-style?’”

            Jessup shrugged. “Goat cheese,” he said, regarding his delicious mess with a new appreciation. “It’s artesian.”

            The server nodded and then made a show of a huge sniff. “I sense rosemary and cinnamon,” he said, looking at the wall.

            Danny was back, peering curiously from beyond the threshold to the back room like a spectral gnome.

            “Yeah,” Jessup said, “there’s rosemary in it. The cinnamon is from the poached pears.”

            “Understood,” said Jered. He nodded quickly and turned to leave. Then he stopped and looked back at Jux, staring straight into the eyes. “I need to finish sweeping the area near the old cheese case.”

            Jux stared back at him and nodded senselessly until the server turned away and exited to the bar.

            “What the fuck was that?” Jessup asked. He shook his head. “Is that guy even real?”

            “I need a smoke,” Jux said, heading out back through the storage room to join Danny.

            “Real or not,” Jessup called after him, “you got to admit that’s a cool fucking toque he’s got.”

            “What?” Danny cried.

            “His little hat,” Chef Jessup said, wiggling a forefinger at the side of his head.

            “The dome piece,” Jux offered.

            Danny shook his head. “That ain’t a dome piece.”

            “Skull cap, whatever,” Jux said.

            “Back in Ottawa they called that a ‘toque,’” Chef Jessup said.

            “What?” Danny asked.

            “Toque.”

            Danny nodded gravely. “I’ma call him Toucan Sam from now on,” he said. “You watch.” He turned to Jux. “Seriously, though, I thought about what you said, and I see the error. I said ‘dome piece’ earlier but the hat isn’t a dome piece. ‘Dome piece’ just means head.”

            Jux stared at him. “Really?” he asked. He looked around. “Huh. So you were calling him ‘head.’”

            “I was calling the bitch ‘Dome Piece,’ motherfucker,” Danny said. “The little Toucan Sam hat was part of the reason, but there’s also his forgettable fucking face I just wanna pinch.”

            “His name’s Jered,” Chef Jessup said as he scooped some slop into a deep sixth container.

            “Dome Piece?” Danny asked.

            Jessup nodded and tapped the edge of large metal spoon on the rim of the steel pan.

            “Yeah,” Danny said, looking around. “Jered.”

            “Weren’t you going to ask him where he got his cap?” Jux asked.

            Danny looked at him. “You know what?” he asked. “I’ma ask him right now.” He balled up a service towel and crossed toward the exit hallway, tossing the ball ahead of him where it hit the edge of the linen bin and flopped against the wall and fell to the floor. “Tom Chambers, bitch,” he said, scooping it up and dunking it in before heading out into the bar.

            Crystal and Teatree were chatting by the corner computer near the dessert tray displaying sweet end-of-meal options in various states of decomposition.

            “Where’s Toucan Sam?” Danny asked as he approached, scanning the empty front of house, the tables and chairs all prepared but still awaiting the opening.

            Crystal and Teatree stared at him for a moment. Then, Teatree glanced at Crystal and then looked over toward the private room curtained off at the southern end of the restaurant by the wine wall that led to the bathrooms.

            “He’s setting up for the murder mystery dinner,” Teatree said.

            “Thanks,” Danny said, skirting the bar and heading toward the wine wall.

            “Toucan Sam?” Crystal asked.

            “Ask Jessup, my love,” Danny told her.

            “You wish,” Crystal called back.

            As Danny approached the curtains hanging from rings on a bar across the threshold of the veil, he slowed his pace and crept carefully to peer between gaps in the fabric.

            “You really think that’s going to be fun?” Teatree asked Crystal.

            “I know it will be,” she said.

            “But Tati’s going to be running the show,” Teatree said. “He’ll probably show up with a Poirot moustache painted on his lip.”

            “He’ll probably just manage to make himself look like Hitler, then,” Crystal predicted.

            “Shh,” Danny hissed with a finger at his lips. He then swept the curtains aside.

The server Jered was frozen in mid-napkin-placement in the brilliant rays of afternoon sun refracting through the tall windows looking out on the light rail and central library. He remained motionless for a moment before slowly reengaging the placement of the napkin and moving in preparation to set another top.

“Do you need my help with something?” Jered asked.

Danny watched him. “That’s a dope-ass cap you got on your dome piece,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

Jered paused and turned, smiling. “My girlfriend gave it to me for my birthday,” he said. “Back in Iowa, before we—I—we came here and, you know. I mean, I came here first, and we were having some relationship issues because she’s got this like skin tag on her shoulder that she thought was cancer—it isn’t. But, anyway, she finally came, too, and—”

“What?” Danny asked, frowning.

The server Jered resumed the placement of napkins. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I know it’s weird that I’m always wearing this toque because it’s so hot here, but it’s a habit I got into and I actually like the way it makes my head feel, even if it is hot.”

Danny was staring horribly at him. “What the fuck?” he muttered. “I just asked where it came from, bro. I don’t need to know all that about your girlfriend and your head temperature preferences.”

Jered placed the last of his napkins on a spot at the head of the table by the wall opposite the windows. “I think she got it from a thrift shop,” he said. Then he brushed his empty palms together and walked toward Danny at the curtains.

“Hey, that’s cool, bro,” Danny said, backing away with hands up.

“I’m going to place the menus now,” Jered said as he passed Danny and the curtains.

“Yeah, you do your thing,” Danny said, following him past the front of the bar to the table near the corner computer where Teatree and Crystal were still overseeing the front. Jered collected a stack of thin false-leather black menu folders from the table and began walking back toward the partially-concealed private events room beyond the curtains. Danny watched the whole time, and, eventually, he called, “Hey Jered, did you say ‘tuke?’”

Jered looked back. “It’s ‘toque,’” he corrected.

Danny shot a skeptical glance. “I don’t know,” he said. “You have to talk to Chef Jessup about that. He was calling it ‘toque.’”

“Yes,” Jered said. “‘Toque.’ Some people call it a skull cap.”

Danny stared at him. “They do.”

Jered stared back.

“Come on, now,” Danny suddenly said. “You do your thing.” He bounced his eyebrows and then made straight for the kitchen past the bar, almost skipping. As he approached the short hall corner he called out “corner” and dashed into the kitchen. Chef Jessup was scooping dry macaroni from a tall plastic container with a soup bowl and dumping it into a steaming stock pot and Jux was at the line slicing a long, cold loaf of baguette at a bias for another attempt at making toast.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you,” Jux was explaining. “Tom Chambers was on the Suns. The dude with the clear face mask was Bill Laimbeer, Detroit Pistons.”

“Huh,” Jessup said, briefly squinting up at the grimy ceiling tiles. “So why’d he have that mask?”

Jux shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

Danny cleared his throat ostentatiously and assumed a casual lean against the counter of the dish station.

“How’d it go with the dome piece?” asked the chef as he added another bowlful of pasta to the pot.

“No luck, my friend,” Danny said with a shake of the head. “That cap was probably made by some crusty old granny in Iowa.” He frowned at some moisture his service jacket had absorbed from the dish station.

Jux paused the slicing and stared up at him. “What?” he asked.

“He said his girlfriend got it from a thrift store in Iowa,” Danny said, flicking at his jacket. “Shit is probably handmade.”

Chef Jessup snapped the green cap back on the white plastic container and turned back to the range to stir the pot. “That’s disappointing.”

“He called it a ‘toque,’ too,” Danny said.

Jux was mid-slice, and a tooth of the serrated knife caught on a bulb of crust and the blade slipped and nicked the thumb of the hand he was using the hold the loaf against the cutting board. “Shit,” he said, looking down at the thumb.

“You all right?” Chef Jessup asked lazily.

Jux nodded, looking at the tiny abrasion in his flesh. There was no blood, but the knife had certainly left a mark. “It’s fine,” he said, setting the knife into the right dishpit basin and crossing to the rinse station. “Just in case,” he added.

“You got to be careful,” Chef Jessup advised.

“It just slipped,” Jux said. He looked at Danny for a moment and then began washing his hands. “Don’t you think it’s weird that, after everything, he calls it a ‘toque,’ too? I thought that was some Canadian thing. Maybe he was listening in on us.”

 “He’s weird, man,” Danny added.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Jux said. “Every time I turn around, I half expect him to be standing there with that dustbin.”

“He’s just trying to keep the place clean to the eye,” Jessup offered.

“Well, it’s creepy as hell,” Jux said, patting his hands with a paper towel. “Putting me on edge.”

“You need a cigarette,” Chef Jessup suggested.

“I do,” Jux said, leaving through the back room.

Out at the dock, none other than Jered the server was standing with an empty can liner by the dumpster, staring up at the sky through the slats of the shelter.

“Are you kidding me?” Jux asked as he lit up.

Jered turned, a little more slowly than was comfortable, to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“How are you back here?” Jux cried. “I thought Danny just talked to you up front.”

Jered glanced at the doorway to the back room and then over at the gate. “I came around the side,” he said. “Sometimes people leave trash in the shrubs, so I thought I’d give it a sweep on the way to the dumpster.” He held up the empty liner. “Better not to drag all this through the kitchen, right?”

Jux stared at him. “Right,” he admitted. He glanced over at the ajar dock gate. “Hey,” he continued, “you didn’t happen to pick up any cigarette butts out there, did you?”

Jered reciprocated the stare, a full-on android-style scan. “I did see four used cigarette filters on the sidewalk there,” he said, “but I left them alone. They’re part of some contest, right?”

Jux shrugged and took a drag from his cigarette.

Then Danny emerged from the back room with a freshly-lit cigarette already dangling from his lips. “Bout to watch the distance I get on this one,” he predicted. He made a show of puffing and, right at its apparent climax, noticed Jered. Startled at the sight of the server, Danny began coughing violently, doubling over and slapping his chest as smoke veined up and around him. “What the fuck, bro?” Danny finally cried through the hacking. “You trying to give me lung cancer?”

Jered and Jux both watched him with strange curiosity.

“I was just taking out some trash,” Jered said. “Don’t worry, I didn’t disturb the landing sites.”

Danny frowned at Jux. “Why isn’t this motherfucker smoking with us?”

Jux inhaled and shrugged.

“I don’t smoke,” Jered said, “but I am capable of smoking in social situations when pressed.”

Danny eyed him. “And just what the fuck does that mean?” he asked, taking a puff. “Are you trying to bum a cigarette off me? I’m broke, bitch.”

“I don’t need one,” Jered said. Finally, he put the empty-looking liner into the dumpster.

“You do if you’re a participant,” Danny said, articulating each syllable of the last word with excessive care.

Jered looked blankly at him. “Who are the participants?”

“Me and Danny,” Jux said, glancing distastefully down at his waning cigarette. “This is just some dumb shit we started tonight.”

“You just say it’s dumb because you’re about to lose,” Danny said.

“It’s a fucking butt-flicking contest,” Jux said. “It’s dumb whether I’m going to lose or not.”

“Whatever,” Danny said.

Jered was kind of like smiling at them, but it was a patently emotionless expression. “I can judge the landings, if you want.”

Danny ashed on the concrete. “Yes,” he said, now pointing at Jered with the cigarette. “Get the fuck over there and watch so that you can verify that this shit lands past all those other bitches.”

Jered’s smile widened a bit and he slipped his checkered skull cap out from a hidden pocket and secured it on his dome before stepping over past the gate and waving back to indicate that he’d made it to the spot.

Danny stuck the cigarette to his mouth for a massive final hit and, after puffing most of the uninhaled smoke out into a billow, reared back and launch-flicked the smoldering butt into a high arc that proved so ambitious that before it could pass through the gate crashed in a flurry of sparks against one of the slats of the dock’s shelter.

“Yee yee,” giggled Jux as he sharpened the cherry of his dying cigarette on the side of the dumpster. “Got nowhere with that one.”

“Fucking bullshit is what that is,” Danny fumed.

Jered watched them both for a moment. “Am I to understand that there is more?”

“Fucking yeah there’s more,” Danny said. “I got until close to make this tight.”

“Watch and learn,” Jux said. He moved his nearly-dead cigarette between the right fingers and then underhand-flicked it like a line drive across the dock. It started to break up almost immediately after launch, but by some chance it managed to not only pass through the gate but land with a bounce only a few inches away from the other butts furthest away. “Yee.”

“Lucky bitch,” Danny moaned.

“I learned that from Abuse,” Jux admitted.

“That’s not even first up, though,” Danny said, walking toward the gate.

“My judgment is that it is third,” Jered said, evaluating the various landing sites of the butts.

“I’m fucking killing it,” Jux said.

“Naw, bitch,” Danny said, “those are mine.”

“Look at the butts,” Jux said, turning to go back into the kitchen.

Jered examined them. “Those in first and second place have white sleeves,” he said. “Which of you is smoking Marlboro Lights?”

Danny punched a fist several times into a palm. “That’s me, motherfucker.”

“You have spots one and two,” Jered said.

“Shit,” Jux said.

“Haha,” Danny cried, lunging at Jered for a hug.

Jered didn’t even flinch, but he also didn’t reciprocate.

“What the fuck, bro?” Danny asked. “You’re floppy like a limp dick.”

Jered smiled at him.

“Aw, shit,” Danny said, looking back across the dock at Jux. “He’s bashful.”

Jered’s skull cap was just barely hanging on, having been dislodged by the force of Danny’s affection. Nonetheless its grip was stalwart.

“Hey, uh, Jux?” came Chef Jessup’s voice from the back room. “Were you on these crustinis?”

Jux closed his eyes and swore silently.

“I love this Dome Piece motherfucker,” Danny blabbered. “I really, really do!”

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