Dishwasher

by Pete Jordan

  Because a bus tub’s yield is random, I never knew what would be next on my menu. That, in itself, could be both exciting and perturbing. Eating whatever came my way meant gorging on superrich cake, then some mushy green beans, then maybe a fruit tart dessert with the teeth marks still in it. Then cold chicken, soupy pasta, more cake, oily potatoes and so on. Though it could add up to a lethal combo in my stomach, no matter how much my gut implored me not to, I always shoveled in more grub. The result: a bellyache—but a good bellyache, one from too much stuffing as opposed to those horrible nothing-in-the-gut bellyaches.

  The main drawback to the Bus Tub Buffet was the damn smokers. There was nothing worse than reaching for something like a choice hunk of chicken parmesan only to find a cigarette butt stamped into it. Only the most heartless of customers could mistake leftovers for ashtrays. Hopefully they weren’t so careless as to also use their leftovers as repositories after successful nose-picks. Putting boogers in the food was something best left to the professionals.

  Meanwhile, the gas from the utility closet continued to be a nuisance. One night, I pressed Chef Dumb on the matter. He swore, “It’ll definitely be fixed by tomorrow.”

  When I arrived the following night, the dishpit was still as gassy as Chef Dumb’s promises.

  A dishwasher in a situation like this wields little power. That is, with the exception of one teeny maneuver. It’s a move that requires almost no effort, energy or planning. In fact, even proclaiming the two words to express the maneuver was sometimes itself too much to bother with. Really, this tactic required nothing but to do nothing.

  As I stood in the dishroom doorway considering my next move, Chef Dumb seemed to read my thoughts.

  “Please stay,” he begged. “Go hang out at the bar, have a drink, read your book. Then just come do a load of dishes, then go back to the bar.”

  He was so desperate that he was willing to break his own rule by having me drink on the job. I was tempted to see what other bribes he might have in store. Free meals on my days off? A raise? Better yet, a decent chair in the pit?

  But I couldn’t do it. He’d promised to fix the gas leak—and he hadn’t done so. And I didn’t want to let him get away with it.

  “No thanks,” I told him. Then I added those two crucial words: “I quit.”

  To make sure he didn’t gas even more dishwashers, I was prepared to do the unthinkable: snitch to the authorities. But it was 5:30 on a Friday afternoon—the health department was closed for the weekend.

  It turned out I never had to make that call.

  I left Little Rock that night. While passing back through town a week later to pick up my paycheck, I entered the restaurant and found Chef Dumb sweating it out at a table as a couple of health inspectors read off the violations. I was glad to hear the dishroom gas leak made the list, along with improper food storage, improper food handling and vermin infestation. The last violation was a surprise to hear considering I hadn’t seen any of the rascals myself. But then again, as a bystander in the vermin wars, I hadn’t been looking for them.

  While Chef Dumb was busy getting reamed, I wandered into the kitchen. A prep cook told me that on the night I’d walked out, Lonnie did the same only an hour later. A few hours after that, a cook went out in grander fashion: he threatened to return and shoot Chef Dumb. But instead of following through with his threat, a few days later he called the health department—and talked.

  After the health inspectors left, Chef Dumb ceased wetting his pants long enough to retrieve my paycheck. In the meantime, I panicked about my pay. What would I do if he tried to screw me on what he owed me? I had no leverage. I’d already quit; the health department had already been alerted. What could I do? Order a gigantic meal, eat it and not pay?

  When Chef Dumb handed over the check, I was both surprised and relieved to discover that it was accurate.

  “So, what d’ya say?” Chef Dumb said, smiling nervously. “Ready to come back to work?”

  He looked like a rejected lover who refused to accept that it was over. And I didn’t know how to break it to him. I muttered something indistinct and then split for good.

  15

  Plenty of Crumbs

  A week later, while in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a reporter and a photographer from a local daily newspaper asked to interview me. They wanted the story of my fifty-state dishwasher quest. More and more, similar requests from other journalists had been arriving in the mail. I’d consented to a couple of interviews. One result—an awful “heylook-at-this-wacky-guy!” article—was so hokey that other newspapers around the country ran it as well.

  In another article, the sloppy journalism by the reporter led him to claim that the name of the zine was Dishwasher Pete. He alleged I’d dished in Fairbanks, Alaska (never had), and Alabama (hadn’t yet). He further claimed, “Dishwasher Pete could be to restaurant kitchens what Sinclair Lewis was to butcher shops.” I could’ve been wrong, but I believed the nitwit meant to compare me with Upton Sinclair and his work in changing conditions in the meatpacking industry! (Which, of course, I wasn’t.) In total, the article contained forty-six errors.

  Another newspaper writer, after listening to me explain why I wasn’t interested in being interviewed, had the gall to use our off-the-record phone conversation to write his article.

  One journalist asked me, “What makes Dishwasher Pete run?”

  Questions like that, I thought, make me run—far away!

  So I told the Albuquerque newspaper duo that though I was flattered by their interest, I wasn’t interested. They then argued that I needed them for the publicity. But I wasn’t seeking recognition. Besides, Dishwasher already had the greatest publicity machine in the world: the word-of-mouth recommendations of its readers. In fact, with production and distribution happening on the road, the zine was already more than a handful for me—without any added publicity.

  When I passed through San Francisco weeks later, my dad told me that a producer from CNN had somehow tracked down his phone number and had been calling my mom and him three times a week for nearly a month. The guy had been pestering my parents to get me to call him. And now my dad was begging me to get this guy off their backs. My dad figured I’d gotten myself into some sort of mess, like when I was a teenager and he’d received phone calls in the night for him to come pick me up from the police station. He didn’t understand why any television producer would want to talk to me about my inability to hold down a job or stay put.

  So I called the producer. He said CNN wanted to tape a profile of me. As usual, I was skeptical. I gave him the speech about my apprehension toward the news media, how I didn’t want the publicity, how TV is evil, etc. During the second of two 45-minute conversations, he began to take my arguments personally and became defensive. He claimed he was (in his very own words) “down with the cause.” He hadn’t always worked for “The Man” but was forced to because he had a mortgage to pay, a family to feed and—get this—needed to put shoes on his children’s feet. He actually implied that if I didn’t consent to an interview, his two daughters would go barefoot!

  I’d had enough.

  From then on, I stopped responding to all inquiries from the media. Any envelopes on official letterhead from New York or Los Angeles that showed up in my trustworthy post office box went straight into the garbage—unopened. To make it clear, in the next issue of Dishwasher—#12—I added a message: “A Note to All Major-Media Types: Don’t bother trying to call me because obviously I have no phone. And don’t bother writing me either because whatever you have in mind, I’m not interested.”

  A week later, while talking to my pal Jess—the dishman I’d met in Arcata—I told him about the CNN incident.

  “Oh man!” he said. “I can’t believe you told them no!”

  He admitted it was his dream to appear on television and be seen across the nation.

  “Hey, Pete,” he said, “next time you’re asked to be on TV, let me go in your place, okay?”

  His
desire to be on TV seemed to outweigh my desire to not be, so I said, “All right.”

  “You mean that?” he asked. “You promise?”

  I couldn’t really foresee any further TV invites so it seemed harmless to give him my word.

  “Sure,” I said. “I promise.”

  Before I even arrived in Portland, Oregon, I pretty much knew it was a prodishwasher town. After all, I’d traveled there the year before to attend the Dish Fest—a “wage slave rave” at the old X-Ray Café. Dish Mistress Melody hosted a gathering of pearl divers who played music to dish by, competed in dish Olympics and tested their knowledge in a dish-trivia competition (which, for the record, I won by answering the final question correctly: “What is the proper temperature for a rinse cycle?” 180 degrees Fahrenheit, of course). I’d left town after the Dish Fest knowing that Portland was a place I needed to return to work.

  Now I was back for the Northwest Tour—to make Oregon, Washington and Idaho #s 15–17. In a single day, I rambled around and poked my head through the back doors of a few restaurants; met some interesting suds busters; was told about the dishman who had the Hobart logo tattooed on his arm; heard a new story about a hazing ritual (rookie dishers were sent through a cold-water cycle in the machine); and even landed a couple of jobs for myself. Then I ran into a friend who told me another convincing story. A few hours earlier, upon seeing the Dish Master T-shirt she was wearing, a stranger had exclaimed, “I’m a dish DAWG!!” The way she mimicked his drawled “DAWG!!” settled it for me: Portland was indeed a town for dish dogs.

  I felt like Lorry, the character in Edward Dahlberg’s 1930 autobiographical novel Bottom Dogs. After rambling around the country, Lorry arrives in Portland, where “he had to get a job, even if it was one of those stale jackass businesses draining greasy dishes under a scalding faucet, wiping ’em, washing ’em; always those goddam dishes till he thought his nerves, for the ache and fidgetiness they caused him, would drive him insane.”

  I needed some “stale jackass business” myself and found one at an immense German Oktoberfest held at a decrepit amusement park on the edge of town. I reported to the cook tent, where an army of cooks stirred the hot tub–sized vat of sauerkraut, spun roasted pigs over open flames and grilled hundreds of bratwursts. The boss-guy, Nigel, explained that I was to shuttle the sheet pans, banquet pans and cooking utensils on a pushcart to the dishroom in a building on the far side of the amusement park. He then led me over to the pit.

  “It’s just over this way a bit,” he said. We walked. And walked. “You have to make your way through the crowds but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  We walked. And walked. And walked some more, until we finally reached the dishpit.

  “Now, that’s not a bad walk, is it?” he asked.

  He seemed concerned that I’d balk at the job because it involved so much legwork. There were a thousand petty reasons why I might have bailed. But being asked to push around a cart outside, without any supervision, was definitely not one of them.

  Not long after I started shuttling my dish passengers across the park, I began to research all the possible routes through the crowds: along the river, past the rides, past the booths and side stages. Periodically, I’d stop by the hub of the festivities—the vast circus-tent beer hall. Lederhosen-clad oompah bands performed on two large stages at opposite ends of the tent. In between the stages sat long rows of Oktoberfesters who swung their beers aloft and swayed in sync with the waltzes and the drinking songs. Far too often, one of the bands would break into the chicken-dance song, which sent the crowd into chicken-dancing frenzies—and sent me on my way again.

  The first day passed rapidly, as did most of the night. I developed a steady pace, balancing my time between mingling in the crowds and dishing in the pit. But when the park closed for the night, I was drowned in soiled cookware. Stacks and stacks were brought to me. I tried to keep up, but Nigel kept bringing me even more.

  “I’m rounding up some more guys to help you out,” he claimed a couple of times.

  The reinforcements never materialized. Soon, even Nigel stopped showing up. Still, I scrubbed and scrubbed until finally, after too many hours of backbreaking work, I wanted nothing more than to leave. So I stopped washing—and started hiding the remaining dirty dishes atop the drying racks and under countertops. When I finally departed, the amusement park was completely deserted except for the night watchmen.

  Later that same morning, when I returned to the amusement park, Nigel apologized for the lack of help the night before.

  “I’ve made some changes that I think you’ll appreciate,” he said. The alterations were a newly recruited dishman and—to help haul the dishes back and forth across the park—a motorized cart.

  Excited about having someone to roam around the park with, I found my new Oktoberfest friend in the dishroom.

  “Hey,” I said. “My name’s Pete.”

  He looked at me with disgust, then spat with a twang, “I ain’t washin’ dishes all day. One way or another, I’m gonna be outta here by this afternoon.”

  So much for seeing the sights together, I thought. Since I sensed he’d be no fun to roam around with, I suggested we rotate positions—while one washed, the other could drive the golf cart.

  “Boy, that ain’t no golf cart!” he scoffed when he saw it. “That’s a John Deere—the finest blah blah blah…”

  In addition to not wanting to stroll with him, I immediately realized I didn’t even want to listen to him.

  When Country Boy seemed to be done lecturing me about my ignorance of automotive matters, he insisted there’d be no role-switching. He would drive. I would wash. End of story. Then he shoved a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. Salvation: his words were so garbled that I was saved from his nonsense.

  Screw him, I thought. Here I’d made a perfectly reasonable offer and he rejected it out of hand. For a blowhard to disrespect dishwashing so readily, I figured the best thing to put him in his place was a healthy dose of elbow-deep suds.

  “I’m driving,” I said and then explained that it was a complex task—specific routes to be followed, other stops to be made. After convincing him to remain in the dishroom, he pouted as I drove off.

  Every time I returned to the pit, Country Boy whined about the deal. Several times he marched outside and defiantly sat in the driver’s seat. The more he tried to intimidate me, the less I empathized with him. Still, each time I coaxed him out of the cart, I’d follow up by helping him wash a few sheet pans. That is, until he crossed the line.

  Now, as a Dish Master, I’d stuck my hands and arms in every variety of uneaten, half-eaten, half-digested, wholly digested, pre-and postconsumer waste. No greasy, grimy, gloppy gloop had ever fazed me. It was part of the job. But when Country Boy spat tobacco juice in my dishwater, I gagged. It was a discourteous, unprofessional and just plain disgusting act. I pulled my arms out of the sink and, without a word, walked out. The motor cart and I took an extended tour of the parking lots.

  When I eventually returned with another load of dirty pans, I was pleased to find—true to his initial pledge—Country Boy had deserted his post. With a man AWOL, Nigel instructed the cooks to reuse the cookware. That way, I didn’t have to wash it so frequently. Now I had even more time to drift about.

  When the Oktoberfest closed that second night, the pots and pans that’d gone unwashed for hours suddenly came to me all at once. Even after Nigel brought over a couple of guys to help, it was exhausting trying to finish up. We didn’t realize how late it was until we took a break outside and noticed everyone else had left. So we drained the sinks and stashed the unwashed pans with the ones I hadn’t washed the night before.

  When we finally left, not even a night watchman was in sight.

  After a quick bike ride home and a few hours’ sleep, I was back in the well-stocked dishpit. A guy wearing an apron loitered by the sinks.

  “All right!” I said. “Are you gonna wash dishes with me?”

  A p
uzzled look came over his face.

  “It ain’t a bad job,” I added.

  The look on his face grew even more confused.

  I thought for a second and then asked, “Mexico?”

  “Meh-hee-ko!!” he erupted.

  Poking myself in the chest, I said, “My name’s Pete.”

  “Pete?” Then, pointing to his chest puffed out with pride, he said, “Ephrem!”

  Though the language barrier hindered us from fully understanding each other, it didn’t prevent us from conversing—me in English, he in Spanish—as we washed that first round of dishes. Afterwards, I tried unsuccessfully to get Ephrem to drive the cart. So I drove while he washed for a while. Then I fixed up a couple of plates of food for us. After eating lunch in the dishroom, Ephrem tried to convey some urgent message to me.

  “You wanna drive the cart?” I asked.

  I pointed at the cart. He shook his head no.

  “You want more food?”

  I brought another plate of bratwurst and sauerkraut back from the cook tent. He waved it off. He grew more anxious as I ran out of ideas. Acting as if I was crazy for not understanding his apparently simplest of requests, Ephrem returned to the dishes. I gave up and left the dishroom.

  A half hour later, after wading through the crowds, I ran into Ephrem in the cook tent. He grabbed my arm and led me over to a row of Porta Pottis.

  “Baa troom!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh.”

  To equip me for future reference, he taught me the Spanish word for bathroom/Porta Potti, which I immediately forgot. I tried to get him to forgo the English word baa-troom in favor of can. But this language lesson only led to another round of us both scratching our heads.

  The rest of the day passed smoothly until the motor cart ran out of gas behind the roller skating rink. A security guard who happened upon me and my stalled vehicle offered to retrieve some gas for us. But why, he wondered aloud, was the dishwasher shuttle so far from both the dishroom and the cook tent? When I was slow to come up with an excuse, he correctly guessed that I’d been joyriding through the parking lots. He then promptly abandoned us. I hiked back to the cook tent, pronounced the fate of the motor cart and handed in the keys.