It was Sunday night, and Tommy was calm, level-headed. Almost too focused. Totally in the zone behind the grill. He flipped a pork chop. Exact diamond hatch marks.
It was the night Tommy wished every week night could be. Not busy, but not slow, either. The back door was open to the alley, and warm summer air changed the harmony of the kitchen. Every order seemed to glide off his spatula like it had been given an extra bath in garlic butter, like their Choice-grade beef had secretly, in its spirit, lived the luxurious life of Kobe. The smells were stronger, the ranchero songs Martín had playing hitting harder.
It hadn’t hurt that Martín, apparently feeling some sort of seasonal generosity of spirit, had bought the kitchen staff two 12-packs of 312 to drink throughout the shift.
Three beers each wasn’t enough to get anyone drunk over the course of dinner service, but it loosened everyone up. It was like they’d stolen a celebration from a world that was stingy with the amount of good times you were allowed. Reggie kept singing to everything he pulled out of the fryer. Juan Carlos, watching a soccer game on his phone, was celebrating or groaning a little more loudly than usual. Maria, the normally reserved and business-like busser, kept stealing glances at the game, too. According to her, the refs had missed roughly 75 penalties.
Then Tommy looked at the order screen and saw it. Parisian Burger—medium well. LITE arugula. ADD lettuce. NO gr. Mushrooms. ADD tomato. ADD ketchup. Sw. Fries. SIDE gravy.
Only a very select few customers were allowed to customize orders.
Only one customer’s order was so viscerally gaudy.
Tommy looked at the grill. The same one where he’d just seared a perfectly medium rare skirt steak, basted it in compound butter, and plated it with an astonishing potato mash and greens. The same grill where he could toast a patty melt to golden brown perfection with his eyes closed just by listening to the bread closely enough.
The baseline burger in the order was a Parisian burger—a complete symphony of flavors that was like Christmas morning for your tongue. The buns were lathered in garlic butter before they were toasted, then topped with a layer of seedy stone ground mustard. The bottom bun got a base of arugula, which was expected to wilt slightly after it was topped with grilled mushrooms. Finally, your Gruyere-topped burger patty joined the party. Parisian burger.
Whatever was on the order screen was not a Parisian burger.
Whatever was on the order screen was an abomination in the face of every soul who had ever cooked food, going back to Urk spit-roasting hunks of wooly mammoth over the cave fire or whatever. It was an affront to taste. It wasn’t even bullshit. It was pure, uncut shit.
Tommy’s body accepted the feeling that was coming before his brain realized what it was. All Tommy felt was calm, relieved even, when his body told him: fuck it.
He felt it with his entire body and consciousness.
You know what? No, Tommy elaborated to himself. He visualized himself in the neighborhood, as a neighbor. I am the one who feeds people. This sandwich is on the menu this way for a reason.
“Hey,” he said to Mara and Amparo in the window. “That’s Gerry out there, right?”
“Who’s Gerry?” Mara asked.
“Guy who owns the building,” Amparo said. “Yeah that’s him.”
“Listen, I’m just gonna make his Parisian burger the way it comes, okay?” Tommy said. “We say no substitutions on the menu, it means no substitutions, right? Besides, that burger is art on its own. Every time I make it his way? I feel like somewhere in the world, I’m causing a car crash. Like, cosmically. If I make this burger the way he ordered it, some poor family in Nebraska is gonna have a fatal crash on the highway.”
“You gotta go tell him,” Amparo said. “I’m not doing your dirty work for you.”
“What’s his way?” Mara asked.
“Lettuce, tomato, ketchup,” Tommy said. “Mixing ketchup and stone ground mustard. Lettuce, to cut through the spiciness of arugula. That’s what he actually told me. You believe that shit? Yeah I’ll go tell him. I don’t give a fuck.”
Tommy let his rage simmer and prepared the burger the proper way. Was he capable of making a thing so good it could fundamentally change a person? Probably. Well, maybe not fundamentally, because Gerry was a landlord—and therefore irredeemable—but maybe he could teach this guy what food should taste like. The whole ticket was an affront to taste—depriving the gruyere of mushrooms, the assault of ketchup—but it was the temp that was the most heinous. Medium-well is the burger temp of tasteless fucks whose sole purpose in a restaurant is to harass servers and piss off cooks.
Tommy plated the burger, cooked medium. Dumped the steaming sweet potato fries into a bowl and tossed them with seasoning. Fucking gravy on the side? Not tonight. He’d give Gerry a bottle of ketchup as a compromise.
As Tommy approached the table he felt the rage boil, but he pushed it down and put on his best FOH face. Gerry saw him and shouted at him across the restaurant.
“Oho! I’m getting the VIP treatment tonight! Chef Tommy bringing out my dinner!”
“Good evening, Gerry. Here’s your Parisian burger. I made it special for ya, but couldn’t do the substitutions. Policy of the menu and the kitchen.”
“I didn’t order the Parisian burger, Tommy. I ordered the Gerry Special. Which your new girl didn’t know about, by the way.”
Tommy forced a laugh. Decided not to give away Mara’s name. “We don’t have that one on the menu yet, but I really do think you’ll enjoy this. And just in case you need a little help, here’s your old pal: ketchup.”
Tommy turned and walked away before Gerry could say more.
Tommy returned to the grill, feeling satisfied. Almost believing that the burger really might change Gerry’s mind. He had barely tied his apron when the swinging kitchen doors kicked and Gerry came in, holding his plate.
“Hey man, you can’t—” Juan Carlos started.
“I can go anywhere I want in my building.” Gerry dropped the entire plate into the trashcan. “And I can order whatever fucking burger I want. I’ll put it in the goddamn lease if I have to, but I will never be insulted like that again. You hear me, burger boy?”
He had enough sense to keep his distance from Tommy—currently holding his chef’s knife—but the challenge was clear.
Martín stepped in. His eyes were as soft as Tommy had ever seen them. His voice otherworldly with gentleness.
“Of course we’ll make the burger, Mr. Gerry. Give us a few minutes and we’ll have it out to you.”
The kitchen resumed operations. Martín told Tommy to take five, that he’d watch the grill a minute. Then Martín started in, making Gerry’s burger. Tommy drank a beer in the alley, came back to the kitchen.
A couple orders went out.
Then the orders stopped coming in.
Then it was time for closing prep.
“Sorry, Tommy,” Martín finally said. “I hate that prick, too, but you know. Sometimes you gotta pick your battles, guero.”
They were out of beer. After what felt like a long time, Martín turned the ranchero music back on. When that didn’t stop the air from feeling like it was raining thumbtacks, Martín disappeared out the back door. Came back with one more six pack. Disappeared into his office. Came back with a pint of tequila. A pint minus a poured shot sitting on Martín’s desk.
“I’m going to finish up in the office,” he said. “Then I’m going to have a round or two at Squire’s, if anyone wants to join.”
Tommy went back to butterflying chicken breasts. At one point, Amparo and Mara came back to the office to turn their receipts in. They disappeared back to front of house for a while. Tommy finished the chicken. Amparo and Mara came back in, both changed into different shirts.
“You coming out, Tommy?” Mara asked.
After Gerry’s outburst, Tommy felt a wave of something like calm come over him. It wasn’t that his arm went numb, but when he diced onions? He couldn’t tell where his shoulder began and the knife hitting the board ended. No one had touched the music dial—Tommy checked—but the music was quieter. Tommy wasn’t sure what to do with this strange focus.
“Yeah, I’ll have a couple rounds,” he said to Mara.