Sketti Cook

So, while I was in college, I worked at several different places--all food-service related.

I worked the night shift Hardee's for less than two weeks. I quit when I was scheduled to work during the two mornings I had classes. I told the manager that I couldn't work those hours (and had told her that when I was hired), and she told me I needed to give her that kind of notice two weeks in advance. I asked her how I was supposed to do that when I wasn't working there two weeks prior. She didn't know nor did she care. I never went back.

I worked in the main kitchen for the dining hall on campus for one semester. Then I worked at the burger place on campus the next semester.

Let's see.... After that. Well, after that I was unemployed for a bit. Having a partially shaved head in a small, midwestern town in 1989 hurt my chances of getting a job. The owner of a restaurant friends and I frequented told me she'd give me a job if I wore a wig. I tried to tell her hiring me would show she was diverse and not afraid of different people--she didn't buy it.

Then I worked at a truck stop. I was hired to be a cook but ended up doing dishes and other random stuff that needed to be done--basically, anything that didn't involve working directly with customers. I didn't shave my head anymore so that wasn't the issue. I just didn't like people. I was there for about a year and a half, but after a couple of freak outs after Cori died and I'm pretty sure my boss saw me as an unstable employee. I quit before they could fire me and began working as spaghetti cook at a pizza place in town. Or as it was called there, "sketti cook."

This place was a local institution and was completely and totally beloved by both locals and college students. My roommate D worked there and Brown, the boss, and Amy, the assistant manager, loved D. So when he recommended me, the job was mine. As sketti cook I worked three nights a week (spaghetti was served on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; still is). I was also supposed to supervise the kitchen. Or at least try.

This place had been there since the late 60s when Brown moved there after being a small-town cop  (cops always ate free). Brown was... a character. He looked like a retired cop. He had a weird little chuckle. And he would pretty much answer any question asked, no matter how stupid, offensive, or raunchy it was (and we would ask him all kinds of things just to see if he would answer).

His employees were family. Most of us were high school and college kids. Most of us got jobs there because we knew someone who worked there. Brown took care of us. But there were expectations. Guys couldn't have long hair (two friends who worked there, including D, had to cut their hair before they could start), and there is no way I could've worked there when I had a partially shaved head.

No one ever went home without food. Ever. On my second or third night working there, Brown told me to order something before I left. I wasn't hungry, I told him. He wouldn't listen. He insisted. He had grown up poor, he said. Food had been hard to come by, and under his watch, goddammit, no one who worked for him was going home without food. Once he even offered to buy me healthy groceries when he saw I was only buying shitty college student food (I thanked him for the offer, but turned it down.)

So I ordered a pizza, went home, gave it to my roommates, and went to bed.

I think everyone there borrowed money from him--including me. He'd give us the cash, no questions asked. When you'd try to explain to him what it was for, he'd say "Don't tell me. Just pay me back when you can."

Once while in school, I was moving to a new apartment, I needed to disconnect the water at the old place and reconnect it at the new place. I was broke, of course, and for some reason it was more complicated than normal. Brown made a few phone calls and it was taken care of.

When it was someone's birthday, we got cake. Sometimes we'd trade food with the Dairy Queen across the street and everyone got Blizzards. One Super Bowl Sunday we were so bored (Super Bowl Sundays were busy, but mainly for pizza delivery; the restaurant was dead) we began searching the calendar for the next employee birthday because we wanted cake. Brown came across us scrolling through the calendar and was all, "If you want a damn cake, I'll just buy you a damn cake." We got cake.

This was one of those places where it wouldn't be right if someone wasn't yelling at someone. Half of the time it was Brown yelling and Amy or Amy yelling at Brown. Sometimes it was me chewing out the high school kids who worked in the kitchen (usually something along the line of, "Stop talking to your little friends and get your asses back in the kitchen and get to work."). Once, I slapped a coworker for making some comments to me that bordered on sexual harassment. When my coworker complained to Brown (who witnessed the whole thing), Brown responded with, "You deserved it. You're lucky she only slapped you." (One of the waitresses kneed the same guy in the balls for some stupid thing he said.)

So, yeah. A family. One, big dysfunctional family.

D worked there. I worked there. J began working there shortly after me (after he cut his hair). BFF took my job after I left (she stuck around town for a few more months).

After we all graduated, whenever my friends were in town, we'd stop by, and we are always remembered. Brown has long retired. Amy owns the place now and all these years later, my friends and I still eat free. It's amazing how Amy always loses our check.

While I was back in My Old Stomping Grounds a few weeks ago, a large group of us stopped at the truck stop where I had worked as we all headed out of town. While D and I were outside smoking a cigarette, an frail-looking old guy with a cane picked up a to-go order. As D was watching him walk back to his car, he said, "I think that's Brown." And it was.

D walked up, re-introduced himself (and me). Neither of us was sure he remembered us, but if didn't he hid it well (a lot of kids worked for him during his 30 years in business).

As D and I watched him drive away in a beat up old Saturn (Brown was never one for material things), I said, "...And with that, I think this trip has come full circle. And I'm pretty sure I still owe Brown fifty bucks."