What Is This That Stands Before Me?

The summer I lived in Portland, Maine, I had three ways to make money. I was a prep and line cook at Gritty McDuff’s Brew Pub, I worked weird parties and fairs for a place called the Birthday Warehouse, and I sold plasma at a new plasma clinic. Previous to Portland, I had sold plasma in Cleveland, finally reaching the promised land of being able to sell some part of my body that could regenerate. I was envious of my friends who partook in medical tests, especially the ones who could disappear for a few weeks to stay on-site. Those studies paid the most.¹

Selling plasma involves a needle much larger than the one used for drawing blood. My veins weren’t great, but I knew how to pump them up and use my previous experience to convince the staff I was an old pro. Collection is based on body size, I did three rounds, which ends up being a little over an hour. Blood is extracted, then the plasma is separated and the blood cells and platelets are injected back into your body. This was a brand new clinic, it was really nice and everyone was very enthusiastic. I’d go after my early morning prep shifts and hang out with the bikers who also sold plasma, watching almost entire movies. We all got hot pink and acid green neon gauze wrapped around our arms. And bruises, lots of bruises, since almost everyone was learning on the job, finding veins.

Selling plasma felt like easy money, it paid $15 a visit, and every fourth visit or so they’d toss me a $20. It was 1994², I made $4.25 an hour cooking, and sometimes $6.00 an hour at the Birthday Warehouse job, nothing consistent, I worked just a few times: family day at an old folks’ home running the putt putt golf course, a rural county fair selling chances to win glam rock posters if the dart hit the center of the star, and a church fair where I took dollar bills from children to hop around in a terrifying inflatable clown head bouncy house. It was a carnie-lite job, and just now realizing this makes me feel like I scratched off something from my bucket list.

The problem with living somewhere for a summer is you have to find work fast, and somewhere to live faster. My friend had just graduated from college, she had a job at the coolest video store in town, when the video store was one of the cultural epicenters of any city and town, along with the record store and used book store. Her boyfriend hooked me up with a job for the summer in the kitchen at the brew pub where he worked, Gritty McDuff’s. I’ve learned that if you were willing to work in a kitchen, you could always have a job. So I worked in kitchens. I know that’s not checking the romance boxes some people like to hear, but when have I ever done that?

In this basement kitchen, I found a decent crew to work with for a few months. Pie, my friend’s fella, was cool on the line with a great temperament. Neil, the hesher I worked with the most during the day was patient and fun. Walking into a kitchen with very few skills is intimidating, even before this whole yes chef days we live in. Somehow the business figured out how to give the kichen staff bonuses according to sales, and since it was summer in Maine, it was very busy. I even got a bonus for the three months I worked.

I learned a lot in a short period of time—how to literally boil the piss out of kidneys for the steak and kidney pie, the importance of keeping track of the bandaids on your fingers especially during an early morning prep shift and a great method for frying fish so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the fry basket, to hold the battered fish halfway in the oil so it crisps up and floats instead of sinking.

I’m a crank, I know that. I can bitch a lot, and be pretty critical about work. That’s my right, I’ve generally left more of myself on a kitchen floor than I’ve gotten in return. A while back, a friend asked if I even like working in kitchens. I did. I do. There’s a memory that floats to mind. It’s in the air, it’s the ether.

It was a Sunday morning at Gritty McDuff’s, Neil and I had to come in early to cook a special lunch for some investors, lobster, something that was never on the menu. But if the money guys want lobster in Maine in August, the money guys get lobster in Maine in August.

There’s something nice about being in a kitchen before anyone else, before it gets hot, before the fryer and the stove and the grill are turned on. It’s quiet and clean, a little cooler and a lot less fluorescent. It feels like possibility, the whole day is ahead. We hadn’t turned on all the lights, this kitchen had some natural light from the door that led out to the cobbled street. We put a few stockpots of water on for boil, and melted butter in a pan on the grill. The lobsters freaked us out a little bit, we were used to clams and mussels, so much squid and fish, but nothing so big.

Neil hit play on the tape player. Black Sabbath’s debut album from 1970. A slow fade-in of pouring rain, ringing church bells and heavy thunder, the unmistaken beginning of the title track Black Sabbath filled the kitchen, that incredible combination of Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. I dipped a brush into the melted butter, flicking it on the grill. The flames blew up. Ozzy starts in and the water came to a boil.

This soundtrack, this scene, this morning, it was an epiphany. It doesn’t sound like much, but it stuck with me, this harmony, something I hadn’t had much of in my life. That was the moment I knew. I knew I liked kitchens. There was a freedom, for all the gripes and no money and shitty hours and burns and cuts and terrible skin. I belonged to something, somewhere, and I wanted to be a part of it. It turns out that is not so easy to come by. We get a lot of those, so when it happens, I notice.

1. In retrospect, I think that’s what happened to the mom in Firestarter.

2. I remember that this summer was in fact 1994 for two reasons: I was delighted when the kitchen manager looked at my ID & told me I could get one shift beer because I was of age. The year math was 21, but I was actually only 20. The second reason was the surrealist police chase on the highways of California. Instead of turning himself to be arraigned in his wife’s murder five days prior, OJ Simpson evaded police in a white Bronco owned and driven by his longtime friend AC Cowlings. Cowlings called 911 on his cell phone while he drove a distraught Simpson in the backseat, who was allegedly holding a gun to his own head. NBC interrupted game 5 of the NBA Finals, New York Knicks versus the Houston Rockets, to broadcast this very slow chase. The highways were emptied, it was just the Bronco and police cars. NBC split screens between Bob Costas and Tom Brokaw, between the game and the chase. It was a singular, and singularly weird moment.