stockpiling of favorite pans, ice, extra pots of boiling water, back-up
supplies of everything. They were like Marines digging in for the siege
at Khe Sanh, and I registered nothing.
I should have seen this well-practiced ritual for what it was, understood
the level of performance here in Marioland, appreciated the experience,
the time served together which allowed these hulking giants to dance
wordlessly around each other in the cramped, heavily manned space
behind the line without ever colliding or wasting a movement. They
turned from cutting board to stove-top with breathtaking economy of
movement, they hefted 300-pound stockpots onto ranges, tossed legs of
veal around like pullets, blanced hundreds of pounds of pasta, all the
while indulgently enduring without comment my endless self-
aggrandizing line of witless chatter. I should have understood this
femme/convict patois, this business with the women's names, the arcane
expressions, seen it for what it was: the end result of years working
together in a confined space under extreme pressure. I should have
understood. But I didn't.
An hour later the board was filled with more dinner orders than I'd ever
seen in my life.
Ticket after ticket kept coming in, one on top of the other, waiters
screaming, tables of ten, tables of six, four-tops, more and more of them
coming, no ebb and flow, just a relentless, incoming, nerve-shattering
gang-rush of orders. And the orders were all in Italian! I couldn't even
understand most of the dupes, or what these waiters were screaming at
me. The seasoned Mario cooks had an equally impenetrable collection of
code names for each dish, making it even more difficult to make sense of
it all. There were cries of "Ordering!" and "Pick up!" every few seconds,
and "Fire!", more food going out, more orders coming in, the squawk of
an intercom as an upstairs bartender called down for food. Flames 3 feet
high leaped out of pans, the broiler was crammed with a slowly moving
train of steaks, veal chops, fish fillets, lobsters. Pasta was blanched and