Oswaldo

I opened the restaurant at 8:30. Oswaldo was already there, mincing shallots and roasting bones.

I poked my head through the serving window.

"Buenos dias Chef."

"Good Morning Shelly."

He was not yet dressed in official clothes. No white chef's coat. No black cap. A constellation of tattoos leaked out from under his t-shirt.   He chopped tomatoes while monitoring a soccer game on his phone perched above the onions.

For months my routine was the same.  Greet Oswaldo, turn up the stereo as loud as it would go, do a shot of espresso, carry six heavy tables from the dining room onto the patio, count my register. The loud music was part of my mental entrance into a day of extremely demanding physical work, which I loved.

The floor was scarred by years of tables dragged from the dining room onto the patio.  The sound of the tables scraping the floor bothered me so I lifted them. My body is built for lifting, pushing, working.

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Over the years I have turned tons of soil, climbed hundreds of feet of scaffolding, demolished half a patio and built it again. I have carried giant slabs of flagstone, chopped down three trees, and built furniture from scrap lumber I carried home on my bike.  I've walked hundreds of blocks with a toddler in one arm and three bags of groceries in the other. I have loaded cases of ceramic tile onto truck beds. I have drilled into concrete.  I have loaded lumber into my car, brought it home, sawed it and installed shelves into studs. I have lifted 60 pound bags of cat food for rescue centers.  I have butchered deer.  I have moved more furniture and loaded more moving vans than I can count.

I have done all of this happily. I have done most of this in a dress.  And I can count on one hand the number of men who have offered to help.

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One morning Oswaldo rang the little bell at the service window.

"Would you get me a coffee?"

I made him a latte and set it in the window with vanilla syrup and a napkin and a spoon.

"Cafe para ti!"

"Thank you Shelly."

From that day forward, making Oswaldo's latte became the first thing I did after turning on the music.

One morning I got to work and the heavy tables were already arranged on the patio.   

"Oswaldo?  Did you set up the tables?"  

"I was early."

"Thank you!"

"De Nada."

From that day forward, the tables were on the patio before I arrived.

When the restaurant was slow, I would perch at the little service window and ask about his daughter. He would ask about mine.  We couldn't think of much to say to one another.  So I would polish the espresso spoons near the window.  He would slice lemons and tear mint near the window.  

I asked him how to say necessary restaurant phrases in Spanish, and butchered them horribly. He laughed quietly. I began writing on his latte cups in the morning.

"Oswaldo es un Leon."  "Oswaldo trabaja muy duro.  "Me encanta spinache ensalade de Oswaldo"  "Otros Chefs desean que fueran Oswaldo."

"Oswaldo is a lion."  "Oswaldo works too hard."  "I love Oswaldo's spinach salad."  "Other Chefs wish they were Oswaldo."

Restaurant rules are strict.  Chefs don't come out to the dining room; Servers don't go into the kitchen. But when the restaurant was empty, I'd go into the kitchen and watch him crack 20 eggs directly into his hand.  From between his fingers, the whites fell into a giant mixer. He laid the yolks, whole and perfect, into a glass bowl. I did not talk to him, just perched on the counter and watched.  He occasionally looked up at me and smiled.

No one likes to do dishes but the cooks accept it as part of their job.  When the restaurant was slow, I was bored.  My body was bored.  So I'd wash dishes.  As the dishwasher doors opened a cloud of steam covered my vision for a moment.  The cooks would yell every time I hoisted a rack of platters out into the dining room.

"That's too heavy for you."

"No it's not.  I got this."

"Yes you do, Conchita, yes you do."

Then they smiled and laughed at me in Spanish.

In June, one of his cooks left the kitchen in mid shift, fires still raging under four special orders.

"Oswaldo, you need someone. I'd like to learn the kitchen.  Will you teach me?"

"No."

"Porque no?"

"It's really hard."

"You think I can't do hard work?  You see me out there. I run that floor."

"That's not what I mean."

He talked with his remaining cook, who laughed and translated "He means we're a bunch of rude assholes."

Later that week I stopped at the market before work and bought fruit.  After the lunch rush, when everyone was hot and tired, I peeled thirty tangerines and set them in a mixing bowl in the cook's lunch station. Oswaldo's cooks were happy. He asked me to taste his French Onion soup.

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Our days passed in happy silence. He worked hard.  I worked hard.  Everyone works hard in a restaurant.  

Every morning the tables were set up. Every morning I made him a latte with a mangled Spanish phrase. Every afternoon he made me a beautiful plate of smoked salmon and mango salsa, or a spinach salad with way too many balsamic glazed pecans.  

In September, I arrived as he was setting up the patio. He'd already moved three tables. They looked like doll furniture in his hands. I hoisted one of the remaining tables and he looked at me with a combination of confusion and anger.

"What are you doing?"

"We are putting out the tables."

"No.  I am putting out the tables."

"But I'm supposed to."

"What is wrong with you!?"

 "I don't know!"  I laughed.  I was relieved when he laughed too.

 "Go do other things. I got this."   

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On a grey day in November, I came to work incredibly sad.  I muscled my way through my shift, hiding my exhaustion and grief, but when I am sad my muscles betray me. Grief makes my arms thin and brittle, my spine hunched and weak. No one would notice if they weren't watching. Every time I was about to lift a tray of platters from the dishwasher he was there two seconds before me. When he had time, he ran heavy platters out to tables for me.

"Thank you Oswaldo."

"No."

At the end of my shift, I went back to the kitchen to share tips with the cooks. As always, they offered rowdy appreciation, like boys given tokens at the arcade. From across the kitchen Oswaldo took off his black chef's cap and looked into my eyes. No emotion. No message. Only recognition.  I had to look away. I left the restaurant, eyes stinging.

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In January we got new chairs.  I stacked the old chairs to move them into the catacomb of cement hallways that connect all the shops like a hamster maze.  I pulled the tower of chairs past the kitchen. The cooks smiled at me, thought nothing unusual as I expertly opened the heavy fire door with one foot and hoisted 60 pounds of chairs over the steel threshold. The fire door slammed shut behind me and I pulled the load down the hall. My body jackknifed, nearly 90 degrees to counter the weight.  

Restaurant kitchens are hot and loud.  The hallway was cool and quiet except for the horrible sound of the chair legs scraping along the cement floor.  I decided to take the chairs to the store room one at a time.  As I came out from behind the stack I came face to face with Oswaldo.  No chef's cap. No clatter of skillets.  No tiny window between us.  He was angry.

"Why don't you call me to do this?"

"I can do this."

"I know you can do this. Believe me I know you can do this. But WHY do you do this?"

"Because it's my job."

"It's not your job if I am here. You are a woman. I got this."

He saw the confusion in my face. All consternation melted away.  And the only time he ever touched me, he lifted my hands from the back of a broken chair and said "I got this." Then looked into my eyes and quietly said "I got you, Shelly."