Fork In The Road

The restaurant was as far away from the center of the universe as one could image: it sat on a side road that branched off from a major throughway in a little-known New England former mill town. It shared a parking lot with a hotel that could not fairly be described as a “dump” but could appropriately be labeled “dated.” A pre-presidential Gerald Ford had made a pit-stop here in the 60s. His picture has yet to leave the lobby mantle. Hidden in the trees behind the restaurant was a scruffy but serviceable eighteen hole golf course - or so the legend said. It was strictly a club for men with thinning hairlines and thinner egos: a place for the self-proclaim titans of small-town influence - owner of the biggest used car lot in town, the city councilor who hadn’t had anyone run against him since the Nixon administration, and even the owner of this very restaurant - could wheel and deal and decide the fate of the dozens of people in their unassuming fiefdoms. 

The restaurant closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Regulars knew that the Wednesday Burger special was the ideal weeknight meal. More bang for your buck, they’d say. Few had mustered up the bravery to face down the Burgageddon: sixty minutes to consume five pounds of unforgiving ground beef slapped together in a shape vaguely resembling a burger and topped with enough cheese to kill a small child resting comfortably on a pound of deep-fried potatoes. Only one lucky soul had ever made it in the Hall of Fame: McDougal. Whether that’s his first or last name no one could be sure.

Thursday night was, in theory, Trivia Night. In reality, an aspiring DJ sat in the corner talking to himself before giving up and wandering over to the bar to consume Jack and Cokes until he was politely but firmly told it was time to leave. DJ Shasta never got to drop his pearls of wisdom but he did get liquored up enough to text his ex-girlfriend. Friday and Saturday was live music - every other Saturday the act was a older couple that played guitar and sang Irish tunes. They were on a mission from God to prove that while the Irish have thousands of years of history, they’d seemingly only ever produced the same six songs.

Somehow, those same six songs always packed the house.

The rest of the weekend belonged to Sunday Brunch - a magical land of twenty-somethings high on orange juice and vodka, groups of people who barely know each other celebrating a baby shower, or the poor soul who occasionally found themselves staying in the hotel next door. While patrons wandered around and assured themselves of the wisdom of paying fifty dollars for a buffet of reheated eggs and semi-frozen french toast, the staff dragged half dead hungover carcasses around and tried to be something remotely considered presentable. Sunday Brunch is where dreams went to die.

That said, the restaurant had a well-earned reputation for good food. Standard American fare with a deference for the local Irish-American population, the restaurant’s star item was their Famous Reuben (™). Home-made corned beef soaked in Guinness and cut in thick slices piled on rye bread with melted swiss, sauerkraut, and home-made dressing. Occasionally the menu would wander outside its comfort zone and try something grandiose, but it never clicked with the local crowd. Witness the Great Duck à l’Orange Debacle of 2006. 

With a metropolitan center to the south and college towns to the north, the restaurant sat on a bridge between two worlds: a rotting industry town in decline clinging to hope and a tofu-loving hotbed of untested and idealistic ideas who thought it convenient to pretend the other folks didn’t exist. Crossing the Rubicon in either direction was a rarity for locals, but the restaurant reaped the benefits of its border-straddling location - in the client-base and in the employees. It's easy to pinch pennies on salaries when your workforce consists of college kids looking for beer money and ex-cons sleeping in their grandmother’s basement. The restaurant’s garish billboard with the big neon fork was the invisible barrier between two very different communities and it might as well have read “I’d turn back if I were you.” But of course that’s not what it said.

The restaurant was called Fork in the Road.

Thursday, May 22, 2008 can go down as Declan Moore’s first day of work.

An unassuming scrawny twenty-year-old with dirty blond hair and scared eyes, Declan’s attempt at college had been a spectacular failure. Turns out you can just not show up if you’re tired - wild concept. And, as Declan learned, a dangerous one. Declan lived with his father, a gruff construction worker who believed in the sanctity of hard work. Work ethic was seemingly the only thing he believed in, but as one-note life philosophies go, it wasn’t the worst. He was fine with allowing Declan to stay at home as long as he was in school, but after the recent crash and burn the verdict came down: get a job or get out.

On Saturdays, Declan's father would drink and play cards with Rand McDuffy, former classmate and distinguished owner of The Fork in the Crossroads. One particularly intense whisky fueled rant about his son’s work ethic after a pair of busted pocket tens gave birth to the brilliant plan that sealed Declan’s fate: restaurant work, McDuffy assured him, was just the kick in the ass the boy needed - and he was always hiring.

Two weeks later, Declan found himself standing awkwardly in the corner of a bustling restaurant kitchen. Not knowing who to speak to or even who to lock eyes with, Declan instead opted to back as far into the wall as possible.

The performance before him was complex and rhythmic. The overhead lights glare off the stainless steel tables lined with kitchen staff lined up and chopping away like madman as they nervously glance over their shoulder at a grumpy-looking supervisor and they keep their eyes down as a tattooed cook walks by banging his head along to the nearby radio blasting Pantera but he gives a dirty look to a brown haired co-worker who turns the radio down before sliding his knife down a long stretch of beef and tossing the shiny excess into a trash can that is then rolled away by a dishwasher who brings it toward the exit and he passes the dish pit where another dishwasher is screaming at an elderly woman who just dropped a stack of bowls but the elderly woman yells back before storming off by the red-haired waitress in front of an endless tub of silverware as she polishes with one hand and texts her babysitter with the other and the older woman rolls her eyes as she disappears from sight into the dining room yelling out “corner!” to God knows who but as she exits someone is coming back into the kitchen to take her place it’s a well groomed bartender with a mustache that reminds Declan of a carnival strongman and he’s carrying a white container and when he approaches a cook with a request for lemons he is vulgarly told that first he must perform sexual favors to which he implies the cook’s genitalia isn’t large enough for such an act drawing a smile from the baker who stands unmoving and unbothered by this all as another cook bursts out of the bathroom full of energy and fueled by something illegal and likely on an entirely separate plain of existence and all this happened so quickly that Declan began to feel overwhelmed and oh man those lights are bright and those tables are shiny and that guy looks scary and Declan is just standing here and nobody is talking to him and he doesn’t know what to do or where to go and he thinks maybe he should go this was a mistake…

“Lost?” a voice interrupted Declan’s mind frantically forming an escape plan.

The twenty-five year old man in a white chef’s coat standing in front of Declan wore an amused expression. He was tall, lean, and his face was narrow with sharp features: high cheekbones, a long nose, and a strong jaw. His eyes were perpetually amused giving his smile, which one someone else could be read as sardonic, an aura of authenticity. His scruffy brown hair peeked out from under a dark blue “Fork in the Road” baseball cap. He wore black chef pants and a bright white jacket with a name written over the left breast: “Cassidy.”

Caught off-guard by this man’s sudden appearance, Declan’s brain took a few seconds to buffer before: “I… it’s my first day.”

“What’re you doing?”

“I was… I wasn’t sure who to talk to…”

“No. I mean for work. Waitstaff? Busboy?”

“Oh. Kitchen?” 

It came out as more of a question than Declan intended. 

The cook let out a deep sigh. “Of course you are.” He stuck out his hand. “Jim Cassidy.”

Declan shook it. 

Cassidy broke the handshake to give him a playful but rough slap on the shoulder. “Don’t let Hans catch you giving such a bitch-ass handshake. Come on.”

As Cassidy led him through the kitchen, Declan avoided making eye contact and did his best to not be an intrusive species to this complex habitat. He was relieved when he was brought through a small door and down a flight of stairs - away from the anxiety-inducing bustle.

Declan suddenly felt that he hadn’t said enough. “Are you the boss?”

Cassidy laughed. “No, I’m the guy who actually gets shit done. Alright.”

He stopped suddenly, causing Declan to stumble a bit to avoid crashing into him. “Here.”

They stood in front of a giant coat rack. Dozens of crisp white chef coats hung just begging to be stained. In the left breast corner of each jacket was the Fork in the Road logo and a name in fancy blue lettering. Declan began to ruffle through, taking stock of the names. Cassidy. Kraus. Beaumont. “I don’t see mine.”

“My guy, it’s your first day. You’re lucky if they give you water. Here.” Off the very end of the rack, Cassidy grabbed a much-thinner short sleeved shirt without a logo or a name. Declan didn’t need to know much about this place to know this was the uniform of the bottom of the barrel. “Put this on.”

Declan was assigned to the dish pit. A long stainless steel monstrosity built for speed and volume. Along the shiny gray surface, piles of dirty plates threatened to topple over. Racks of water glasses rested on the top, and silverware went into a compartment in the very center. With unease, Declan eyed the unidentifiable brownish liquid that sloshed all around the steel surface. The Great Puke Ocean, he silently dubbed it.

Cassidy took a blue rack and arranged a row of the plates so they were face up. Pushing the rack into the dish-machine caused it to roar to life. It literally roared, causing Declan to unconsciously take a step back. Steam hissed out from between the metal as the sound of water on ceramic filled the pit. The plates emerged twenty seconds later, dripping wet but infinitely more sanitary. Cassidy grabbed one and handed it to Declan. “See? Easy.”

Declan took the plate and immediately cursed loudly as the heat assaulted his fingertips. Without thinking he tossed it back into The Great Puke Ocean. Embarrassed, Declan thought he should say something. Ask a clever question or something insightful. But nothing came.

Cassidy seemed non-plussed as he rubbed his own fingers together.  “You’ll get used to it. But this is cake - you stand here, people bring the plates. When you have enough, you put them on a rack and give them a little push. Repeat for about five hours. A six year old could do it.”

“Mit csinálsz???”

Declan had never heard the language that came from the unknown deep and seasoned voice that interrupted them. He turned around to find a man wearing the same thin short-sleeved shirt as himself. Unlike Declan, he had a nametag pinned to it: Gabor Balogh. His face was wrinkled, but he was not elderly - these were marks of authority. His eyes told the story: this man has seen some shit. And right now the shit he was seeing was this new kid - and he didn’t seem particularly thrilled about it.

“Ez az én helyem, érted?!” he growled. 

Helplessly, Declan looked to Cassidy.

“This is Gabor. Gabor, this is the new guy.”

Gabor’s demeanour remained unchanged. “Gabor’s been here forever,” Cassidy explained. “He speaks Hungarian but understands everything. He’ll be your partner in the dish pit tonight.”

Gabor’s wrinkly and tanned brow furrowed. “No partner,” said Gabor. “I’m here.”

“What do you want me to do? He’s training tonight.”

“Pots,” replied Gabor, pointing a cracked finger to the other side of the kitchen. 

With his fate seemingly in the balance, Declan tried to focus on this conversation and not the person walking by the pit loudly singing Lil Wayne.

Cassidy laughed. “Oh, come on, man. Look at this kid. It’s his first day!” But other than quickly throwing his hands up in an expression that transcends any language barrier (“that’s not my problem”), Gabor seemingly had forgotten either of them existed. Without another word he went to work, sweeping the plates forward and beginning to arrange them in neater stacks, sending tsunamis across the Great Puke Ocean. 

Declan turned to his would-be mentor. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Looks like you’re on pots.”

“Is that bad?”

“All I ask is if you’re going to walk out, just give me a heads up.” Declan’s expression made Cassidy smile once again. “Come on.” As Cassidy led them away, Gabor began to whistle. 

“Pots” meant the two large sinks directly to the right of the line. It didn’t take Declan long to put together what made this position less desirable than the pit: there was no dish-o-matic industrial washer here. Pots and pans of all shapes and sizes went in the sink and it was just Declan, some soap, and a wire scrub brush in a one-on-one fight to the finish. 

Declan was unprepared for the smell. Declan was unprepared for how wet he was going to become. Declan was unprepared for how much physical effort went into scrubbing particularly sooty pans. Most of all, Declan was unprepared for how silly he’d feel standing awkwardly in front of the sink all night. He was drenched, he was sweating, he was nervous, he was name tag-less, and it felt like all eyes were on him. He was on display: check out the new kid scrubbing the pots. He has absolutely no clue what he’s doing so please refrain from staring. Do not feed.

But it worked both ways: while he was in the middle of the action, from his position he also had a clear view of the entire dinner service. He found himself enthralled with what he’d heard them call “the line” - the primary cooks standing behind the barrier that separated the front of the house staff from the back. Behind the line was a large grill, countless gas burners, reach-in fridges, and hot boxes for holding food at a certain temp. Roughly half the burners worked and those that did were covered with a thick soot that Declan suspected might be a safety code violation. The sauces bubbled in dented sauce pans and the staff maneuvered expertly around a pronounced indentation and torn up floor in front of the grill. But it wasn’t the well-worn equipment that drew Declan in: it was the cooks. 

Dinner service was a war and the line cooks were prepared to storm the beach. Just before the night started, they stood like lords of their domain over steaming hot food as if to say “bring us your worst.” They sang loudly and off-key like an untrained A Capella group, they openly and loudly lobbed compliments to any waitress who wandered too close, they dressed each other down with good-natured but biting humor, and Declan is pretty sure at one point one of them was pants-less. But they also prepared to get the job done: sauces were tasted, mashed potatoes were stirred, prime rib was trimmed, and plates were stacked. Like warriors on an ancient battlefield enjoying one last moment of levity before they followed William Wallace into certain doom, these guys in their white coats stared in the face of a busy night and said: not today.

Declan had never experienced anything like the dinner rush. The never ending whine of the ticket machines spitting out orders was like the ringing of the bell to begin a boxing match. Declan had been out to eat before but he’d never once considered it from the other side: the constant arrival of orders, many dishes with their own unique twists and unreasonable requests. The kitchen rose several degrees once the grills all started firing at once. Cooks not only worked on eight different dishes at a time but also needed to know where in the process their co-workers were. Communication was direct, economical, brisk, and relentless.

“Firing Table 3!”

 “Need a cod in 5 minutes!”

“That pasta is no peas. Heard?”

“Behind!”

“Behind hot!”

“Behind with a knife!”

“Down the line hot!”

“Over the top hot!”

“I said NO PEAS.”

“Suzie needs Table 14 on the fly!”

“Suzie always needs fucking Table 14 on the fly!”

“Running low on bread.”

“Two minutes out on that filet.”

“Porterhouse over the top!”

“We’re doing six, then twenty, then twelve.”

“Why doe this have PEAS?”

Declan was enthralled watching this dance: in overwhelming heat and with new demands rolling in seemingly every thirty seconds, this group of jokers had somehow turned into absolute superstars. Every member of the team had their niche and despite the yelling and ballyhoo, every disparate puzzle piece came together between rushed sips of water from stained quart containers. It seemed inconceivable to Declan that they could keep it all straight, but right there in the eye of the storm was Cassidy. Literally - he parked himself in the center of the line and made sure everyone knew their part. Declan watched him not simply because he was the only person whose name he knew, but because he was very obviously the general of this mini army. He told the pasta guy to slow down when the beef cook needed more time, he smoothed things over with impatient waitstaff with a wink and a smile, he double checked each table and got in front of mistakes before they happened. When one of the cooks showed signs of losing their composure, he was there to help and reassure. Just watching the service made Declan anxious, and here was this guy in the center of the shit seemingly untouched by any of the pressure. It occurred to Declan during that four hour stretch of sound and fury that James Cassidy may in fact be the coolest person he’d ever met.

One thing Cassidy couldn’t do, however, was bail Declan out when the shit started to trickle down on him. Declan was watching a cook toss a pasta dish when his head was nearly taken off by a flying and rather sizeable metal pan. It hit the wall behind him and echoed a loud boom across the kitchen before falling into the water of the filled sink, producing a splash and soaking Declan’s already damp shirt. The source of the thrown pan, a large muscular cook with a shaved head and arms covered in tattoos, barked at Declan from several feet away. His eyes were wide and accusatory and gave Declan is the distinct impression that he had just become a gazelle to this guy’s lion. “Hey! I need that clean on the fly!”

Again, Declan found that his words failed him. The best he could offer was what could accurately be described as a blank stare. The large cook turned beet red as he approached the timid dishwasher. “Are you fucking deaf? I need that washed!”

“You… you almost hit me with it.” Of all his failed attempts to speak, this is what gets through? Declan isn’t sure what possessed him to say that, but his mind was struggling to catch up with reality.

“Yeah? Well if it’s not back on the line in five minutes I’ll shove it up your scrawny ass, how’s that sound for ya, dickhead?” The cook’s face was inches away from Declan. He could smell a combination of cheap cologne and cheaper beer as the man’s intense eyes seemed capable of destroying Declan if he stared too hard.

He opted not to answer lest his malfunctioning mouth spout out something equally stupid, instead turning to grab the pan and start scrubbing. This apparently satisfied angry cook enough as he returned to the line without inserting anything in any orifices. As Declan scrubbed, his heart pounded. He noticed a pair of waitresses who had witnessed the whole confrontation. They were smiling as they yelled across the line, “Oh, leave him alone Hans.” Hans grumbled something back that made them laugh. Declan felt something else… something that terrified him. It wasn’t just embarrassment. It was worse. Don’t you dare cry, he told himself as a familiar feeling began to well up in his chest. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. He would not sit here and cry like a child while those guys maintained composure through madness. It might have been pride, it might have been shame, it might have been fear of his father’s reaction to him quitting or proving his father’s low opinion of his work ethic - but something imparted on him the importance of maintaining composure. Cassidy’s words echoed in his memory: “if you’re going to walk out, just give me a heads up.” Was he going to walk out after being spoken to that way? No. No he wasn’t. Declan wasn’t one hundred percent sure who he was going to prove wrong, but he knew he would do it. He fought his survival instincts like hell. While there was a slight watering of the eyes, nobody seemed to notice. 

Hans came back for his pot without incident. And the requests for scrubbing kept coming. Some politely, some less so, but Declan did his best to keep up. He hadn’t left. He hadn’t cried. And somewhere in the back of his mind, a small part of him was proud of that.

To get to the Fork in the Road employee parking lot, one had to walk along a dirt path that twisted behind the building and follow it down a small embankment that blocked the lot’s view from both the restaurant and the hotel. The relatively small piece of cracked pavement was surrounded by the New England forest and beyond it, the land sloped down to meet a large and fast moving river. The most sacred of the post-service rituals at Fork in the Road was the parking lot debrief. The hidden-nature of the lot allowed the staff to engage in team building without compromising the ever so scared “ Fork in the Road guest experience. (TM)” The protocol called for a circling of the cars; trunks, beach chairs, and empty milk crates available for quality seating; and thirty racks of the cheapest beer available for mass consumption. This was as important as any time in the restaurant: this is where court was held, feuds were buried, and the occasional baby could be made. This night was no different: the May night was cool but comfortable. The woods were quiet save the melodic constant hum of the spring peeper mating call. Although the stars were plentiful, the one street lamp that in theory lit the parking lot had been burned out for years. The lack of natural light made it so that the car circle was an isolated and secret island floating in a sea of darkness. 

Declan, being assigned to dishwashing duty, stayed later to clean the floors. As the rest of the staff began to finish up and shuffle out, Declan and his old pal Gabor held down the fort. Declan swept the floor, but it was not to Gabor’s satisfaction. Then Declan tried to mop, and this also faced a sharp critique. Mercifully, Gabor motioned for Declan to just go home. “Majd én megcsinálom.”

Walking through the darkness with nothing but the sounds of the wilderness can make one introspective, and Declan was full of doubts as he reflected on the night and walked toward his car. He was desperately trying to come up with a reason to not come back that his father wouldn’t tear apart when he rounded the embankment and found a mini settlement in the untamed wild that was his co-workers gathering. There were seven cars in the circle, most pointed outwards with headlights on but a few had been backed in to allow for convenient trunk seating. One of the cars had the radio on, and Katy Perry was singing about how much she enjoyed kissing girls. Some staff sat on the cards, some sat on milk crates, a few seemed to have had the foresight to bring lawn chairs, and others were standing. Those who were standing were either animated as they pantomimed a dramatic re-enactment of some of the night's more memorable events or huddled in small groups getting high.

Still stinging from what he considered an embarrassing night and not feeling like he had a right to intrude on this private makeship club, Declan put his head down and began to walk toward his car. He was sure it was too dark for anyone to see him, but Cassidy quickly disproved that theory.

“Declan! Get over here,” he called out.

Reluctantly, Declan approached the motley crew. He sidled up next to a waitress with red hair and beautiful green eyes. She had unbuttoned her black shirt - for comfort, one would think - and Declan tried his best not to stare as she smiled at him. Cassidy sat in the trunk of an open SUV with a beer can in hand. Next to him, also holding a drink, was a young woman dressed far more formally than the rest of the group. Declan wondered if she was the boss. 

“This,” Cassidy said to the group, “is Declan. He got good and fucked on his first day.” This elicited some chuckles and sympathetic nods. “Here,” Cassidy tossed a beer and Declan was briefly terrified he was going to fumble it in the bright headlights of the vehicles, but luckily the can found his hands without incident. The waitress next to Declan flashed him a smile that caused his heart to briefly flutter. 

“Hi Declan,” she said. “I’m Trish.”

“Hi. It’s okay that we do this out here?”

“Nobody has scolded us yet,” said Cassidy. “Speaking of scolding… you took it pretty hard from this asshole, didn’t you?”

Cassidy gestured to another member of the circle: Hans. Declan’s chest tightened, but the Hans that looked at him wasn’t the red-faced rage monster from hours ago. “Hey, I had shit dying. I really needed that fucking pan.” It wasn’t exactly an apology, but Hans wasn’t looking to shove anything up his ass at this particular moment, so Declan silently considered it a win. Months from now, Declan would understand the role in this sacred parking lot gathering in keeping the peace - a time when anything said in the heat of battle could be forgiven and words said in frustration could now be laughed at. Without such peace-keeping activities the group wouldn’t be able to function. But Declan didn’t know any of that yet. For now, Hans' tone just made him feel a little better.

“You wouldn’t have been so pressed if you hadn’t disappeared for twenty minutes,” said a lean cook standing next to Hans.

“I had to take a shit!”

Trish again turned to smile at Declan. “Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That’s why I poop on company time,” she sang before laughing to herself.

Declan sipped his beer, mostly staying silent as the co-workers rehashed some of the night's more lively events. Waitstaff complained about entitled guests and meager tips, bartenders shared observations that only their “fly on the wall” position could offer, teenage barbacks overcompensated for their age by trying too hard to be cool. Declan saw people who had been ready to disembowel each other hours earlier share a laugh. He offered a laugh when he felt it was appropriate, but he could barely keep everyone’s name straight, never mind be privy to their myriad of inside jokes. But it still felt good to be outside on a nice night sipping an adult beverage. Declan wasn’t much of a drinker, and by his third beer he was just starting to feel himself loosen up a bit. He was considering striking up a conversation with Trish - who by now was sitting on the bartender’s lap, but Declan decided not to let that deter him - when she darted off into the woods to throw up. This marked the beginning of the first few members of the staff announcing their intentions to leave. After that, the dominos began to fall and it became clear the night was effectively over. 

“11:45,” announced Cassidy as he closed up the back of the SUV. He turned to Declan. “You coming out?”

“Out?”

“The night is young, my child. A few of us are headed down to JK’s. You coming?”

Declan wasn’t sure what he meant.

“JK’s. It’s a bar down the road. Kinda a hole in the wall but they have five dollar pitchers and we have an in with the bartender.”

Declan considered how late it was.

Cassidy laughed in his face. “My friend, this party is just getting started. Do you drive?”

Declan nodded in the affirmative.

“Good. I need a ride.”

Truth be told, Declan had only been twenty-one for a few months, and thus never had time to become what you’d consider “a bar guy.” Even without much experience,  if you’d asked Declan to close his eyes and picture such an establishment, it would look very much like JK’s.

Located miles away from The Fork in the Road, JK’s was hidden in the industrial graveyard that was the cities’ downtown. At the turn of the century this large brick building had been a vibrant paper mill. A hundred years later, it was mostly empty save for this humble sanctuary of spirits and stories, some reasonably priced renovated apartments, and for some reason a rather chic and upscale bridal gown store. Declan had lived in the city his entire life but hadn’t spent much time down here. If you believed the local old timers, downtown was a no-man’s wasteland of crime and violence - a sad shadow of what had once been an economic powerhouse. When industry had been shipped overseas to save the capitalists a few bucks, a combination of lack of opportunity and greedy landlords turned the downtown area into a middle class person’s worst nightmare: a community of poor people who listened to music with lyrics in another language. Having those ominous tales in the back of his mind made it feel like a thrill as he stepped through the modest doors and into the dimly lit bar. Danger, apparently, was his middle name.

Turns out this wasn’t quite the warzone that the local mythology had constructed. The long bar top ran across the left wall with spirits of all shapes, sizes, and prices on display behind it. Two of the television screens cut through the hazy lighting with highlights of the Red Sox victory over the Royals and on the third screen, the yellow bouncing balls of Keno were busy destroying hopes and dreams. The bar top itself wasn’t seeing much action save for a few old timers watching the game and conversing - half with each other, half with themselves. The jukebox was playing a song from the 70’s that Declan knew but couldn't quite place. At the pool table, a college kid measured his shot while his friend chatted up a middle-aged woman seated at a nearby high-top. The rest of the place was a combination of tables and booths. These were mostly unoccupied save for a single man at a table in the corner with his head down and an open pack of cigarettes nearby. Cassidy led Declan to one such booth before they were joined by three other men wearing chef pants (including Declan’s newfound frenemy Hans) as Cassidy went up to the bar.

Declan saw as Cassidy smiled at the woman behind the bar and handed her a Styrofoam container. Her face lit up.

“Maria tends to be a little more heavy handed with the pour when we bring her prime rib,” explained one of the guys at the table - the black-haired, sharp-cheekboned, lean cook that had mocked Hans in the parking lot. There was an organized chaos to him - someone whose home was cluttered by he still somehow could find anything. There was a decided off-beat quality to him, but that of a quirky cousin who marched to the beat of his own drum but still dropped pearls of wisdom. Of everyone Declan met tonight, this guy’s presence most naturally put him at ease. “Hi rookie,” he said with a smile. “I’m Hank.”

Declan recognized Hank as one of the uber competent multitaskers that had impressed him so much. He took Hank’s hand and as was standard practice today, he struggled to find something witty to say. “Do you guys come here a lot?” A basic question, but it would do for now.

“It’s either this place or The Boom Boom Room with Paris fucking Hilton,” said the final man - a man noticeably older than the other two with salt and pepper hair and pronounced smile lines. His eyes sloped downwards like a person always on the verge of crying, but his dry and uninterested demeanor suggested anything but. He intentionally concealed much of his face with a greying beard and when he licked his lips Declan caught sight of at least one missing tooth. While Declan also remembered him from dinner service, this cook didn’t smile after his quip nor did he offer his name by way of introduction. Rather, he narrowed his eyes while looking past Declan toward the bar. “He’d better get two. Why is he dicking around at the jukebox?”

“Watch your blood pressure, Grandpa,” said Hank. “We have a newbie. It’s time for his formal training.” Hank turned to look at Declan with a wry smile. “Roxanne.”

“Who’s Roxanne?”

Hank laughed. Hans smiled in a way that was far from friendly. “Roxanne is gonna take you on a ride.”

Before Declan could respond, a chair was aggressively dropped at the head of the table and the resulting noise echoed off the brick walls of the former paper mill. A woman with curly black hair with a noticeable Puerto Rican accent sat down in the chair. She was small in stature but moved with the quiet confidence of someone who is not interested in asking permission. Her eyes were wide with a quiet energy but also ready to not miss anything going on around her. “What’s up, pendejos?” The woman narrowed her eyes accusingly at Declan. “Who’s this?”

“This is the new kid,” Hank said. “They threw him on pots and Hans, being the reasonable man that he is,  almost made him cry.”

The woman laughed, and Declan tried to suppress the pain of embarrassment that shot through him as he realized somebody had noticed his reaction to Hans’ verbal attack. Again, he struggled for something to say: something flippant and witty that would assure his new co-workers that he wasn’t that fragile. That he could hang. But nothing came, and all he could offer was a weak laugh and a shake of the head. Then a thought as he turned to the newcomer:  “are you Roxanne?”

This drew a laugh from both the woman and Hank. She offered Declan her hand. “Not Roxanne. I’m Isabella. I’m on the line too but by the good grace of God I was off today. Don’t let him scare you,” she said looking toward Hans. “His anger isn’t about you. He channels his sexual frustration in unhealthy ways.” 

“Come over here and I’ll show what I can channel,” growled Hans, ever so subtly flexing his frame.

“You wish,” came Isabella’s quick reply.

“If we’re finished with tonight’s therapy session,” grumbled the yet-to-be-named old timer, “I think the libations have arrived.”

Cassidy had indeed returned, tactfully carrying not two - but four - full plastic pitchers of beer. They came down on the table before he returned to the bar to get glasses and a chair of his own before joining the crew at the booth.

“Thirty bucks,” he announced. The excuses came fast and furious - Hank left his wallet in his car, Hans needed to wait until paychecks came out tomorrow, the older cook just bemoaned how outrageous these prices were and went on a rant about politicians and keeping down “the little guy.” Only Isabella handed over some money.

Declan, for the umpteenth time today, felt a tinge a panic. “I don’t actually have any…”

Cassidy waved it off. “I’ll start you a tab. Most of these shitheads owe me enough to open my own bar.”

The glasses - noticeably chilled - were quickly dispersed. As hands reached for the pitchers, Declan thought it best to politely wait his turn. Isabella had other ideas as she filled a glass to the brim and placed it down in front of him. Declan tried very hard to smile in a way that looked more excited than intimidated but he didn’t quite pull it off. 

“It’s a game,” said Cassidy. “Consider it a kitchen right of passage. The rules, rookie, are simple: you take a sip of beer every time the song says ‘Roxanne.’”

“That’s it?”

Isabella placed a second full glass of beer in front of Declan. “What’s this for?”

“You’ll need it,” she said knowingly. “No time to refill mid-song.”

“That’s wasted time,” added Hank.

“So just a sip every time they say Roxanne? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

The whole table, sans the older guy, laughed. 

“That’s the spirit,” offered Cassidy. “Survive Roxanne and maybe tomorrow we’ll show you how to clock in and actually get paid for this shit.”

Before Declan could process that, the unexpected piano chord abruptly began to play over the bar’s sound system. If Declan listened closely, he could picture someone sticking their ass haphazardly on the keys. He saw his five compatriots grip their chilled glasses so he did the same. Cassidy held up a single finger and pointed right at Declan as Sting let loose the first of many drawn out “Roxannes.”

Declan took a sip of beer and was promptly scolded by Hans. “No bitch sips. Real sips!”

By way of apology, Declan drank some more. Putting the glass down, he tried to listen intently to the lyrics.

You don’t have to put on the red light
Those days are over
You don’t have to sell your body to the night.

Roooooxxannne (drink!)

You don’t have to wear that dress tonight.
Walk the streets for money
You don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right.

Roxxxxannnne! (drink!)

Since he had been striking out in the conversation department all day, Declan was now three sips deep and felt it appropriate, in the spirit of the evening, to drop a little friendly bravado. “You guys really tried to scare me. This isn’t so bad.”

Cassidy raised his glass high into the air. “See you on the other side, boys and girls.” Six glasses came together as the song really began in earnest.

Declan quickly discovered how foolish his attempt at bravado was. The name Roxanne grew in frequency until the crescendo at which point it seemed to become the only lyric in the song if not the only word in the English language. Individual sips blended together until the group were less sipping and more straight up chugging. The line cooks weren’t lying when they told Declan that he’d need another beer ready to go. The group also neglected to mention that Cassidy had paid for the song to repeat two more times.

Declan had only been what he considered “drunk” once in his life - a friend’s New Years party when he was a senior in high school. On that occasion three hard lemonades had turned him into what his friends had described as a “giggling fool.” But this? Without realizing it, the soothing melodies of The Police slowly slid him into another dimension.

There was no outside world anymore - this dimly lit hole in the wall became the entirety of human existence. There was no job, no pressure from his father, no anxiety about his inexperience. All he had was these five people in front of him who had inexplicably become his best friends in the span of less than an hour. Things got hazy. He remembers laughing as the once adversarial Isabella and Hans danced together rather suggestively. There was a vague memory of Hank and the salt and pepper cook challenging the kids at the pool table and the old timer making a large-scale production of every ball he sank. Declan was also pretty sure Cassidy was behind the bar at one point, mixing up drinks and stealing quick kisses from the bartender. A crazy-haired stranger with the soot-stained face of a chimney sweep appeared from the ether at one point, putting his arm around Declan and dancing around in happiness hoping to join this motely crew. By the time Cassidy emerged from the bar’s kitchen with a freshly fried plate of mozzarella sticks, Declan was no longer a lonely kid with a terrifying new job. He wasn’t sure how this happened, but he was hanging out with five of the greatest people he had the pleasure of knowing in his life. The music kept playing, the world kept swaying, Declan kept laughing. At some point someone was thoughtful enough to take his car keys away. The bar closed, the doors were locked and the lights were turned down, but unlike the other patrons,  none of Declan’s crew went anywhere. The urinal got a workout. The bar top was danced upon. The jukebox had to be shut off for legal reasons, but the group turned into a spontaneous chorus to fill the silence. Hans and the old timer may have started yelling at each other at some point around sunrise,  but that didn’t matter. He’d fallen down the rabbit hole. He’d slipped through the wardrobe. He’d dropped a house on the wicked witch. 

Declan had started an adventure. An adventure that would be equal parts exciting and self-destructive, but there was no telling him that right now. 

The song was playing again and he don’t care if it is wrong or if it’s right.