To the Bone
by Ronin Fox
part 1
“Looks like a dinosaur coughed up a looger and somebody put a suit on it.”
Orders crashed in faster than the restaurant could dish them out. The grill belched out clouds of smoke from the mountain of meat sizzling on it. Flames scorched the ceiling shot from pans blazing with butter and wine and tongue twisting spices.
Chef Rags Mitchel wiped the river of sweat pouring off his forehead with the soaked sleeve of his kitchen jacket and gave his second-in-command the look. “Grits, not the time. I need you to hustle on that next order, and our customers don’t need to hear what they look li-” His mouth dropped.
Classy tapered jacket, classy double-breasted vest, classy silk tie wrapped around a crocodilian skinned, zombie-coloured, blubberous snail-shaped mass. The six or so double chins hoisted and swayed high, he scowled from ear to pointed ear with a maw fit for a bullfrog, but none of that was even close to the most outstanding feature on the face of the creature that just oozed through the front door.
Chef Rags felt his throat squeeze tight. “Grits, that’s the number one food critic in the galaxy. They call him ‘The Noose’.”
Chef Rags Mitchel had sacrificed everything in order to achieve his restaurant dream. The marathon hours, the volcanic heat and the massive financial commitments were just a few of the obstacles he needed to juggle. This critic had the power to pound all of that to powder with merely a few words. It would scream through the universe faster than his nerves were screaming through his brain right now.
“The Noose?” Grits scoffed. “More like ‘The Nose’.”
“Shhhh!” Chef hissed. “That nose is the reason why he’s the best. I’ve heard he can name the hill where the plant grew where the urinal cake in the bathroom was infused from and exactly how many minutes of sunlight it got before it was picked.”
A full one-and-a-half feet long, the critic’s snout would’ve been right at home dangling on the front of an elephant. It jerked and stabbed at everything within reach, sniffing and sniping the air making the plasticky folds of skin on his face fold and distort into a mash of squashed, rubber Halloween-mask expressions and blurted out the occasional whoopee cushion-like qua-wumpf.
“Chef, where do I seat him?” our hostess, Bonillia, asked. “We don’t have anything open.”
Chef Rags knew the critic wouldn’t care. He scanned every seat in the dining room for any table that wasn’t right in the middle of their meal; but it was the busiest time of the night, and the place was packed. His gaze settled upon table 14 and the only single diner in the room. The restaurant’s best regular and biggest fan. She nibbled away gently at her baby green salad and daintily sipped her tea with moon honey as she did each and every night.
“Bonillia, I just need you to keep him busy for a few moments, and I’ll get Guido to clear a table. Do that thing you do with your hair.”
Bonillia shot Chef the same look he had given Grits but cranked up the sass. She returned to the critic. She click, click, clacked her dazzle-tipped nails together three times and the seven-inch long fork that held her mountain of hair in place wiggled its way out of that mountain, zipping into the air. It danced and darted in a few tight twists before hovering a few feet above her head. The hair waterfall plunged five feet straight down and swooped around her ankles.
Bonillia pursed her lips and wiggled her fingers. The pen danced like it was on a string, weaving and bobbing through the air with each move of her hand. She twirled her hand faster, and the wand wound in a tight circle, gaining more and more momentum.
Faster and faster she spun. The air shimmered and popped. The temperature dipped. Bonillia flung her head around, sending the waterfall of hair cascading into the air. In seconds, the tips of the fork snagged every strand of hair, braided them together, and pinned them tight against her head into the knotted bun it was before.
The critic didn’t budge. “Table for one.” he said, “Perchance not juvenile parlour tricks for one.”
Guido, our Maître D showed up with his eyebrow of a moustache curled around a frown. “I thought zee biggest name in food would be fatter.”
Chef Rags didn’t bother. “Guido, I need you to drop whatever else you’ve got going on and deal with him personally.”
“And where do we park zee almighty slugness and his slurpy hide, Chef?”
“Seat him at table 14.”
“But zat is your—”
“I know whose it is!”
Chef Rags adored his mother with everything he had, and her homemade alien meatloaf was still to this day the greatest culinary creation he’d ever tasted. As a child, she had always let him put the final sprig of space parsley on before serving it and she’d be the only one who would forgive him for interrupting her like this.
He hoped... Maybe... Oh God what have I done?
Chef Rags pretended to be too busy to look as his mom was led away from the table and up the back stairs to the apartment where she and Chef lived. Guido held out a menu in front of the critic. “Would zee Monsieur enjoy a wine or spirituous recommendation zis evening?”
The critic’s snout snapped the menu out of Guido’s hand, and he shot him the same look Chef had given Grits, but cranked up the broken glass. “I will do it.” He rattled off a list of two dozen different liquors, wines and malts; each with specific days of harvest, pinpoint growing regions and mathematically precise amounts.
“And what would zee Monsieur be enjoying for dinner?”
“Everything.”
Guido took just a fraction too long. Long enough for the moment of dead air to get into the I-wasn’t-ready-for-that proportions. “Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur, but I do not believe we have zat on the menu and even a gentleman with your magnificent gastronomical facilities would not be able to appreciate all of it.”
“Exactly.” The critic snorted. “Most of it will be inedible nonsense and will be tossed in the garbage anyway.” He threw the menu onto the table and the nose snatched up a knife. “No! No! No! I want his best, and if this kindergarten offering is the finest repast he can come up with, then perchance I have made a mistake in coming here.” He plunged the blade into the table, skewering the menu right through its heart. “And I don’t make mistakes.”
A single drop of sweat formed at the top of Guido’s temple, just below his razor-slick hair line. For a moment it pooled itself into a plump bead and glinted against the lights of the dining room before it trickled down the side of his face. A wet scar that jagged its way through the scarlet skin that had glazed over the usual mime-white of his cheeks. It settled under his chin, just below the generous cleft and hung there, quivering with the unleashed tremor that was about to shatter the dignity and discipline that was Guido.
The critic’s nose shot towards the drop and reached its stretch limit a mere speck from Guido’s chin. It snapped and snarled like a starving beast on fresh meat, trying desperately to dine on that fatty, salty sweet drop. “Is that a twitch?” he said, “From some sort of amateur? Perchance do I make you nervous, Guido?”
Chef Rags held his breath at the head-to-head that just got very real, and the sudden stalemate that was a single wrong word away from going off the rails. Like a pair of gladiators in the arena, neither of them flinching, neither of them blinking and neither of them backing off an inch.
With an effort that would’ve wrenched a planet out of its orbit, Guido unclamped his jaw and one by knobbly one, unlocked his knuckles from one another. “I will inform zee Chef at once, Monsieur.” He turned on his heel and headed off to the wine cellar, muttering all the way down the stairs: “To the bone.”
That was the name of the restaurant, and Chef Rags looked down at his wrist and the fetish that always hung there. It was a small animal bone that he had received from his first Chef on his first cooking job. It had been tied around his wrist for every dish he had made since then and was the inspiration for the name of the restaurant. This is what you’ve been waiting for. This is your chance to put this place on the map and make everything all worth it.
He rolled the charred and chipped bone around in his fingers. Every little scratch and scorch marked a memory etched deep into his brain. Each one a spark of the magical smells and tastes and textures of all the amazing dishes that had been part of his culinary journey.
“Grits,” Chef Rags said, “I need you to take over cooking for the restaurant so I can concentrate on The Noos... Our VIP guest.”
Grits got a little twinkle in his eye, kind of like the one a pyromaniac gets just before he lights the fuse. “That’s a lot of responsibility there, boss. This might just be a good time to discuss that raise now.”
Chefs Rags’ heart skipped.
Grits smirked. “Always sweet when I snake you like that, boss. Relax. I got this, and don’t forget who bailed you out when you get rich and famous and rich again from that snail’s review.” He turned to the other staff. “Alright, ya landlubbers! I’m in charge now!”
Copyright © 2023 by Ronin Fox
