“Huh?” The waterlogged dish boy looks stunned that Charlie is actually speaking to him.
“Clean up the back stairs before someone cracks their skull,” Charlie says, slurping his drink. The boy drops his rag and slinks out the back hall.
“Charlie?” Susan’s head pops around the corner. “It’s Aisha again.”
“No time. Tell her to call after the dinner rush.”
Heavy metal music thumps from the small stereo next to the dishwasher. Charlie yanks the cord out of the wall and carries the stereo to the back steps, launching it into the dumpster next to the dish boy, who is picking bits of obliterated pumpkin up off the concrete. The stereo lands with a soft thud on a pile of mouldy hamburger buns and vegetable peelings. Dish Boy stares wide-eyed for only a moment and then pretends not to notice his stereo in the garbage as he walks back up the steps into the restaurant. Charlie is impressed with the boy’s recovery. He pulls out another cigarette and smokes it in the doorway, watching the rain shoot down from the sky. When he comes back inside, Dish Boy is quietly staring at the dishwater.
“Like this,” Charlie says, pushing him aside and furiously scrubbing at the pans collecting in a teetering pile on the counter, sending dishwater on the floor. “Do it like this.” He heaps scrubbed bowls and ladles and cutting boards with a clang and then shoves them so they go skidding along the soapy surface of the metal counter and come crashing onto the floor. “Like that,” he says, chucking the dishrag into the sink.
Charlie stalks back into the kitchen and dices an onion so he can feel the sting in his eyes. Rose pushes a plate with the steak half-eaten back across the pass-bar. “Overdone,” she says. “Inedible, supposedly,” she shrugs. “Not my words.”
“Bullshit.” Charlie pokes the hunk of meat and holds it up to the light, turning it this way and that, before throwing it back on the plate. “You tell him that steak is cooked exactly the way he ordered it.”
“Okay.” She shrugs again, taking a detour into the office with the plate before heading back to the table. Susan comes out of the office and surveys the dining room. Before Rose even reaches the table, the well-heeled boomer wags his finger as though he is scolding a small child.
“He wants to talk to you,” Rose says, dropping the plate on the pass-bar with a clatter.
“Charlie,” Susan warns, as he strides past her with the plate, the steak sliding around dangerously, nearly becoming airborne several times. Martin has detected the tension mounting in the dining room, his eyes darting from the dissatisfied table to Charlie to Susan while he picks at the scab above his lip.
“Good evening, sir,” Charlie says, flourishing the plate before lowering it to float right under the boomer’s nose. Rose runs a wet rag over the tabletops while Martin jerks around the room throwing down fresh cutlery on the empty place settings, both of them attempting to get close to the action in anticipation of the drama about to unfold. “Perhaps in this dim light it’s difficult to see, but I can assure you your steak is cooked to your specifications.”
“I already told the waitress I won’t be paying for it.” When the boomer speaks he does so without looking at Charlie and gazes at his wife instead, a calm, satisfied smile on his face. “And honestly, my wife’s meal isn’t very good either.”
“We simply won’t come back,” the wife says, limply dangling her fork over the food. The man seems relaxed, as though he weren’t that hungry to begin with. Charlie studies his profile for a minute and recognizes him instantly as his Chef de Partie from Le Remoulade, a slightly older, more distinguished looking version. When Charlie first started there as a Third Cook, the man took him under his wing, helped him advance all the way to First Cook.
“Do you know who I am?” Charlie says looking into the man’s face.
“Should I?” The man smirks, misunderstanding, ready for a game. The wife crumples her napkin and places it definitively on top of her seafood risotto. “We won’t come back,” she says again.
Charlie stares at the man, giving him a chance to let his features register, but the man shrugs, bored of the game already. “I give up. Who are you?”
A snort escapes Charlie’s nose as he drops the plate on the table. “No one.” He turns to head back to the kitchen, but his legs fail to communicate with his torso. “I’m a ghost.” His last words are lost in the clatter as he falls over one of the empty tables. Suddenly Rose is under one of his arms and Susan the other. A shattered wine glass twinkles in the carpet. “Okay, Charlie.” He can’t tell who the words come from, but they are gentle.
“Thank you,” he says, shaking the women off of him. The gratitude is tinged with both sincerity and reproach. “Give your steak to your dog for all I care,” he shouts over his shoulder at the man and his wife. Charlie walks to the bar and motions to the glorious bottles of liquor behind Martin.
“Why don’t you take a breather,” Martin says, stacking pint glasses.
“I’m not looking for anything,” Charlie says. He’ll make his own drink, he just needs Martin out of the bar. “Get those people a doggie bag.”
But instead of walking behind the bar something draws him away toward the windows. In the reflection of the glass he can see Susan and Rose placating the wife, her bangs floating up from her forehead with each angry puff. Her husband is already out the door. Anyone left in the restaurant is making a hasty exit now, pulling wallets out of their pockets, sliding visas in billfolds. The storm has taken on a new dimension, one Charlie has never seen before. Below he watches the boomer lean into the gusts of wind as his wife scurries to catch up to him. The ocean looks as though it is reaching out, trying to take the restaurant into its insatiable belly. He stands close enough to the window to feel a chill over his face. The wind is buffeting the glass, trying to find any crack where it can sneak in. The pane rattles a few millimetres from his nose. “Charlie.” Susan’s voice floats somewhere behind him. “Phone for you.” He doesn’t move. The rattling is a distraction. He snaps out of his daze and saunters over to the phone, swaying slightly. When he picks up the receiver, he expects to hear his father on the other line: “Ça va, mon petit fantôme?”
AS SOON AS HE opens the back door of the restaurant, Charlie hears the ocean. The wind whips around his head and he pulls his toque low over his ears, making a dash for his car. The Douglas spruce towering overhead dips unnaturally, creaking and groaning as though it might come crashing down on his head. He watches it cautiously for a moment before climbing into the front seat. Down the way, one of the binners that frequent the alley behind the restaurant weaves between the garbage cans and falls on his knees in a large puddle, his hair a tornado above his head. The evergreen branches scrape across the roof of the car. “Shit,” Charlie says, putting the car in gear and peeling out of the spot. He slows down as he approaches the homeless man, worried he’ll roll into the middle of the road or leap in front of the car. As he passes, the man looks up at Charlie, and it’s Topher on his knees, his eyes dark and menacing with booze. Charlie only considers stopping for a moment.
As he drives down the empty streets strewn with tree detritus, Charlie can see the waves pounding the shore. The road swims in front of his eyes. How much did he have to drink tonight? More than usual — seven, eight, maybe nine drinks? Could’ve been more, he wasn’t exactly counting. Less than Topher, for sure. Baby’s early, Charlie. It had been Aisha’s sister on the line, her disembodied voice cutting through the telephone.
Charlie can see the generators exploding in the distance, bursts of cartoon-radiation green. The lights are out around the bridge and in the city, a gaping void where there should be the glittering of illuminated towers. The causeway through Stanley Park is covered with a blanket of broken branches, the trees swaying like pendulums. Charlie comes around a bend and slams on the brakes, the car skidding perpendicular to the road. A massive pine is down, blocking the entire causeway.