A ceramic square plate slides across my front with steak barely touched—maimed faintly by a blunt knife. Or a bad knifeman. Waiter mumbles that customer wants it “more on the rare side” and could I “please attend to the mouth-feel.”
Mouth-feel.
Through the pass, I watch customer butter his bread roll with a fish knife that my regulars use to dismember their branzino. His date—a green Lagos girl who adjusts her dress straps every second—is entranced by the performance. I can tell he’s one of those returners. Left Nigeria for twelve months, now pronounces water with three syllables.
My phone vibrates. Fourth video call this week from brother in Calgary. I silence it. Can’t bear to hear him say “sorta” between every thought, roll a nonexistent R when he pronounces jollof, explain his PhD research like I’m slow. Something-something genome. Molecular. Sequencing. As if that supersedes how well I know my fats. And acids. And smoke points.
He recalls we both helped papa by the roadside. He was hunched over on a bench by the grill, deep in equations; each drip from fatty beef cuts into the coals, roared a blaze to light his homework. I was elbow-deep in marinades—cloves, ginger, cayenne—my fingers burning, alive. Smoke tangled itself with my uniform’s threads. Teachers—and seatmates—could tell which of us really helped.
I hated the haggling most. The way customers demanded papa cut them “tasting”, a piece to decide their purchase. His labor, a free audition. The way they walked away when he named his price, circling back twenty minutes later expecting a discount. Papa would smile, negotiate, smile again. His patience—that diplomacy—was swallowed anger.
Who will haggle with an executive chef on the thirty-eighth floor of a hotel overlooking the Atlantic? I hear the tire company even mulls our name for a star.
I pull another ribeye from the chiller. The meat is honest against my palms—cold, real, requiring nothing but respect. I cook it rarer this time. Too rare, if I’m honest. The kind that will be cool in the center.
Customer is lecturing his date now, hands drawing shapes in the air. Probably about back in Atlanta or when I was in Manhattan, they understand meat differently. Have you heard of porterhouse? She nods, an eager puppy.
While it sears, I reach for the pepper sauce my culinary school instructor said I only serve to make a dragon out of man. That he would set a village ablaze through a curt breath. Emit smoke through the ears. Remember the bite.
When the plate goes out, I watch him cut into it. His face flickers—surprise, then calculation. His date is watching. He takes a bite. His Adam’s apple quavers.
He doesn’t send it back. Or look across the room to find my eyes.
My phone vibrates again. This time I answer.
“Guy, how far?” I say, letting the pidgin fill my mouth. Brother fills the screen, Calgary snow behind him.
And for one moment, before he remembers his new accent, he answers the same way he did as boys.
