For Today I Am a Boy (12 page)

The expeditor tapped his fingers on the pass window, glowering at the servers about the finished meals that were waiting there. “You tell this story all the time.”

“Wong hasn't heard it,” Chef said. He leaned over and put a cover over one of Simon's pans. “Speed it up, Squeaky.”

“Tell me,” I called feebly. The dish pit was larger than the rest of the stations, at the very end of the line, hidden in a web of hoses and pipes. Standing there made me feel disconnected.

“Not that much to tell. I met a girl, I fucked her, and she turned out to be a he.”

Simon had had enough of being humiliated for rock-hard carrots and green beans. “Okay, wait just a minute. How the fuck does that happen? How did you not know?”

Chef shrugged. He watched the blood and clear juices beading up on the slab of meat, knowing the color inside as clearly as if he had cut into it. “She was gorgeous. I was wasted.”

“No. I want more details than that.” Part of me was glad that Simon was pursuing this line of questioning. “How
exactly
did you manage to start fucking him without noticing that
he didn't have a cunt?
”

“We went to her place. She went into the bathroom and came out in this short, sexy kimono thing.” Chef made a round shape in the air with his tongs that could have meant any number of things. “I was so drunk I could barely stand. She lay down on the bed on her stomach, pulled her kimono up, and told me to fuck her in the ass.”

“Her hairy
man
ass,” Simon said.

“Nope. Smooth as a baby's. Greased up. Like perfect, firm pillows and round as peaches.”

“Squats,” I offered. The broiler guy laughed.

“And then what?” Simon pressed. He lifted the lid of the pan, slid the vegetables onto the plate, and passed the dish to the expeditor behind him.

“If they complain that the steak is cold, comp their drinks,” Chef said. The expeditor nodded, wiping the edge of the plate with a cloth. “And then I fucked her, Squeaky. What do you think?”

“And he leaped up afterward and waved his cock in your face,” Simon guessed. He grabbed his crotch. “‘Ha-ha! Gotcha!'”

“No, she rolled over to yell at me for getting cum on her kimono, and I realized something was off.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

Chef's muscular shoulders rolled under his jacket as he put more steaks and chicken breasts on the grill. The alcohol in the marinade dripped off and flared up on the coals. “What do you mean? Nothing to do. A good fuck's a good fuck. Didn't change that.”

We went on chopping, frying, washing, stirring, but for a few moments, no one spoke, absorbing Chef's words:
A good fuck's a good fuck.
Simon took a peeled clove of garlic from his station and whacked the side of a knife against it, crushing it, then threw it into a pan. “I would've cut his fucking balls off,” he said. He smacked another clove. “Wants to be a woman that bad, enough to trick
normal,
God-fearing, pussy-loving men into having sex with him—I'd fucking help him out.”

Unrattled, Chef said, “Just focus on my side dishes, Squeaky.”

 

One morning, a Saturday, I awoke with a fever. For a couple of years in my teens, I sometimes got fevers, with no other symptoms, that lasted a day and a half—thirty-six hours, like clockwork. My mother said it was related to growing; my father said it was a sign of weakness, of a delicate constitution. Some people, he said, mostly women, got sick whenever they were needed, when there was work to be done—vague, mild illnesses that let them continue to do things they enjoyed, like lying under fresh, cool sheets and complaining. “Sick in their heads,” he said.

In the afternoon that Saturday, I called into work and told the waitress who answered the phone that I wasn't coming in. She passed the phone off to Chef. My father walked into the hallway. When he saw that I was on the phone, he came and stood stonily nearby. Chef shouted over the clamor in the kitchen, so my father was able to hear both ends of the conversation.

“We need you, Wong.”

“Sorry, Chef. I'm really sick.”

“Well, get better, kid. Hope you'll be in tomorrow.”

I hung up. I shivered as I padded back to bed, my father following close behind. The hot, dizzying exhaustion let me ignore him as I crawled under the covers. I would normally have stood straight and waited for him to speak.

The curtains were closed, but the bright afternoon leaked in, murky and mustard-colored. My father appeared as a dusty shadow. “Why aren't you going to work?”

“Because I'm sleeping,” I murmured. I wasn't thinking about what I was saying.

“Have you ever seen me miss work?”

I didn't answer. The bed felt good. Firm but lulling, like strong arms lifting my back.

“This job doesn't mean much to you now because you're a kid, and I feed you and clothe you and put a roof over your head. When you have a wife and kids, you won't be able to laze around in bed whenever you feel like it. They'll all starve.” His shadow stayed the same: a defined head and shoulders, everything lost to darkness below. My father did not gesture with his hands.

He left the room. I got up about half an hour later. I leaned on the wall as I dialed. I told the waitress that I felt better and was coming in for my shift after all.

That night, the surgical lights and gleaming surfaces assaulted my senses. Sweat soaked through my shirt and my jacket, poured down my face and back. The sound of the dishes clicking against each other, of a knife's
shink
against the sharpening steel, embedded itself in my forehead like shrapnel. I could imagine reaching up and digging the shards of noise out of my skin.

Chef kept looking at me. He didn't ask if I wanted to go home. He came by once with a bottle of water from the bar cooler and pressed it to the back of my neck. My spine arched like a stroked cat's. The cold came in a rising wave, engulfing, a strange, fevered ecstasy. He held it there for a solid minute, and then left it on my station for me to drink.

 

A few weeks into my routine with Ollie, I started to notice a change in my legs. It was most noticeable in the backs of my thighs, where rounded muscle had grown. There'd been nothing there before.

Ollie and I talked a lot about Montreal, spinning fantasies. We'd work in the day, party at night, sleep on his brother's floor, drown in money and freedom. Learn French. Take up smoking. Take up cocaine. We'd never be sober again. I'd become a world-renowned chef and he'd fuck supermodels. We'd leave my father and the ruined football stars in the Fort Michel dust.

Jeanine came with us half the time. Sometimes they were late to pick me up, and when they arrived, Jeanine's hair was stringy with sweat, and there'd be a foul smell in the cab of the truck. (Later, when I worked in a combined restaurant and bakery, I figured out what Jeanine smelled like: sourdough bread as it rose, homey but tainted.)

One night, Jeanine fondled Ollie in front of me, with her hand in his lap, cupping as though jangling the change in his pocket. He sank deeper into his seat, fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel. Without comment, he pulled over just before the bridge. He turned off the engine at the side of the road, the headlights dying with the key turn.

“Peter,” he said, as Jeanine climbed on top of him, her bony fingers locking behind his neck, the three of us sitting there in the dark, “do you mind getting out for a bit?”

“Are you kidding me?”

He gathered her body in his arms as he looked me straight in the eye, conveying that we were part of a brotherhood:
Help me out, man.

I got out of the truck. I slammed the door. I heard Jeanine's hand smack against the window as I walked down to the river. When the dirt became worn rocks, I took off my socks and shoes and held them in one hand. I buried my feet in the water, focusing on its icy, alert flow. The truck rocked on its shocks. I glanced back now and then, not able to make out anything through the windows. I started to wonder how I would know when it was safe to go back. Would they come get me? Honk the horn?

At some point, maybe sooner than I'd expected, the passenger door of the truck opened. Jeanine's legs swung out. She threw her sneakers on the ground, stepped into them, and started to retie them. The cab light came on behind her. I took that as my signal and ascended the riverbank. I stayed barefoot, feeling the change from rock to dirt to craggy asphalt.

As I climbed back into the truck, thinking about what was probably soaked into the upholstery, Ollie said, “We're going to drive her back to Innisfil.” They were done with each other for the night. She pulled out a wrapped, already-chewed piece of gum and put it back in her mouth. She must've tucked it away at some point in the action.

During the half-hour drive, I could feel something radiating off their skin, something more than heat and smell. Ollie and I didn't speak, and Jeanine gave sparse directions.

We watched her going up the steps of a small house with a screen door and beige siding. In the front yard, visible in the porch light, was a Halloween decoration—a stuffed witch that had survived many seasons outdoors. Stuffing oozed out between the seams.

After the screen door banged behind Jeanine, Ollie didn't start the engine right away. I sensed he was going to apologize or tell me about it in detail, and either way, I didn't want to hear it. I looked straight ahead through the windshield. “Dump her,” I said. “And let's go to Montreal.”

 

The weekend after Ollie and Jeanine left me on the riverbank, Chef asked if I wanted to train at sauté. Some of the guys applauded and gestured to suggest I had sucked Chef's dick, tongue bulging in cheek. “Simon's switching to daytime next week,” Chef said, “so we'll get a new dishwasher, and you can take his station.”

The garde-manger, Lyle, yelled while balancing shrimp tails on the rim of a martini glass, “Hey! I asked you if I could switch to daytime and you said there was no way. Why does Simon get the hours?”

“You're too good. I need you on nights,” Chef said. Simon smiled grimly.

The night progressed as usual. The novelty of the restaurant had worn off on Fort Michel. Most families could afford to go only once or twice a year. During the brief dinner rush, Simon dropped off some pans at the pit. “Would you get me some more frozen carrots? I'm not supposed to leave the line.” He spoke softly, so the high pitch was less noticeable.

“Sure.” I left my light workload and headed into the cooler. I spent a few minutes searching the freezer shelves for carrots, holding the door open with my foot. I heard someone come into the cooler and pushed the door wider. It was Simon. “I can't find the carrots.”

Simon didn't say anything. He pushed on the freezer door. I pulled my foot back so it wouldn't get crushed. It wasn't sinking in yet. “Hey! What are you—”

The heavy door fit into the frame. The darkness was complete except for a yellow line underneath the door. I heard something scratching against the floor just outside, in the cooler. Probably a stack of crates, milk or eggs or vegetables. I realized what he was doing just a moment too late, and I slammed my shoulder against a blocked door.

I banged on the door with my fists. “Simon! Simon!”

The cooler door clicked open and shut. The line of light vanished and the darkness became whole.

I beat on the door. I yelled. I listened. I couldn't hear the sounds of the kitchen—voices—so they probably couldn't hear me. All I could hear was the sound of coolants and condensed water passing through the walls, gurgling in the lines. I heard the fans whipping and clacking. The cold felt good on my wet, steamed skin for only a few moments, and then a chill set in.

I wrapped my arms around myself, glad of the heavy chef's jacket for once. In the dark, I felt for the edges of the door. The crack was too narrow to fit my fingers. Maybe I could back up and gain enough momentum to push the door and the crates. I took a step backward. A shelf struck me in the spine. There was no room to move at all.

I charged the door anyway. Maybe I could do it in increments. The impact reverberated from my shoulder through my skeleton. I hoped for a telltale scraping on the ground, so I'd know that I had moved the crates an inch. Nothing. I kept going.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I switched sides when my shoulder got sore. The exertion kept me warm. Sweat started to run down my back and pool in the waistband of my underwear.

I didn't have a watch. Wouldn't they wonder where I'd gone? If they didn't notice my absence, they'd notice the dishes piling up. They'd notice they had nowhere to put their meals.

Simon might have given some kind of explanation. “Peter? Oh, he was feeling lousy and I told him to go home.” Or more likely: “Peter? I saw him go outside. I thought he was just getting some air, but I guess he's fucking off for the night.” They'd call in the other dishwasher, or take someone off the line to do it, or Chef would do it. Chef was not above washing dishes.

We didn't use frozen carrots, I realized. Only fresh.

I sank down where I stood, thinking I'd lose less heat if I curled into a small ball. Stillness made me shiver. My fingers were already going numb. I flexed them in and out of fists, trying to keep the blood flowing. My best bet was to just wait until someone came into the cooler and then restart the banging and yelling.

I found that thought more comforting than I logically should have. Almost warming. Panic drained away. My toes pricked as though asleep. I wiggled them inside my shoes. I leaned my head against the wall behind me, my whole body fitting under a shelf. After a while, in the darkness, sleep became a strange, demanding force, like a rip tide. I was tired from working nights and going to school a few hours later. I was tired. More tired than cold.

 

I woke to muffled yelling. “What the fuck is this?” It was Chef. My mouth was dry, pasted shut. The crates were dragged away and the door was flung open before I could think to stand.