Inside the institutional white drab walls and brown sad tan floors of the kitchen of Basin Street Restaurant a small lose robust lady swings, stretches and bounces to the music and manages the place. In the front room lounge people play games, throw dice and shoot crap. Dig man that jazz from New Orleans Basin Street. Now me, I'm just a dumb dishwasher scraping off tons of wasted food washing down the disposal every week working in the clouded steam room. There's this older man, round shouldered and slightly hunched over with black curly hair turning gray. He seems so peaceful and mellow. It seems he's in the wrong place too. He tells me stories about his acquaintances from the past like Jack Kerouac. Said he knew him back when Jack was in his forties and he was in his twenties then and I began to wonder if it's not just a fantasy with him.
Just then the clattering, banging clinking masses of glasses plates, pots pans forks knives and spoons coffee cups soup bowls cocktail goblets usually half full of eight and nine dollar dinners of rib, roast beef and I think of all those poor starving souls in the street. Fish, white and savory rice, peas with cheese melted on top, fried onion rings, gumbo shrimp, string beans, baked potatoes, plastic straws, paper napkins, all the shitty foul smelling wasted commercially grown processed professionally business cooked preparedly comes flying at me only to get washed down the disposal of the sink, no stink in a flash with the pressure spraying of the hosehead hanging in the dead stale room it's all gone like that.
The gray steel stained dishwashing machine makes an urging motorized sound as the heaters pressure gauges rise and the black needle goes up to one-eighty. It's hot and going through the rinse cycle and the dishes are all ready to come out, another line rack in goes the flat rack with porcelain hot steaming plates in six different sizes all white with black trimmed edges, all gets stacked and it's time to grab another rack.
The business levels off and slows down. The cook stares into the blank sterile wall. "Now what's that you said about Jack?" I ask Don the other dishwasher. "Well I knew him back in his younger years when I was living in San Francisco. He was such a good man. It seems good writers always die young."
Then there's the hustle bustle of busboys bussing dirty dishes in and we got no time. It's the wired multified citified fried out zombie minds tick tocking. Dig man that funky jazz. In the back room a war time disco beat pounds inside my brain and I got to have a beer or tequila sunrise to kill the pain and more of that soul jive comes in blasting my eardrums away. What happened to the black blues anyway, I begin to wonder.
Primpy faces with rouge and perfectly combed hair act so dignified. The waiters in tuxedo-like outfits with white shirts and black bow ties, black shiny polished shoes all joke and poke fun at life. The waitresses wear the same color of uniform and their long black skirts have a split to expose their legs of feminine beauty for poker dice throwers that gamble and drink scotch, rum and whiskey. Three of the waitresses are from somewhere around Michigan and Wisconsin. They come out to experience the big city life, the dry air and sunshine, one of them tells me.
The prep cook stands around and piles more american crap on plates. I just stand there thinking that it's soon time to get out and find a different gig. I don't dig this kitchen scene of ungodly tamasicated mindless pigs. "There's no good nutritious food down here in this hole. I think it's about time to go" I tell Don.
"Eat what the good lord put before you. That's what Jack did you know" he tells me.
And soon it's running on closing time, time to finish the remainder of plates, pots and pans from the cook in the kitchen, clean the stoves off, wipe down the grills, scrape the black sooty grease in the cast iron skillets. It's time to sweep the floors and empty the trash out the back door.
Out back in the long gray black narrow alley sits the old blue gloom ugly trash compactor, devouring and crushing with all its mighty power everything from wasted thrown away ten dollar dinners, dripping fat and bloody beef steaks. The rancid staunch odor reeks. Wine whiskey rum slow gin bottles, cardboard boxes and plastic garbage can liners all gets thrown out. Old Don follows me out the back door with more accumulating indisposable debris of american waste. We need a toke to keep our sanity. We climb the back stairs leading to the roof overlooking the alley and Market Street. Highline wires stretch across the dirty blue black cluttered horizon and the decaying architecture of red brick buildings, neons and warehouses, some condemned ten years ago or more. Don and I blow a number, take a hit off a joint before we go back inside and mop the floors with depressing thoughts of consciousness in monetary strife it enters my mind that there are no efficient recycling centers in Denver at this time.
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(c)Tom Avery
"FULL CIRCLE" By Tom Avery
more issue #4 of inevitability press