for a while before the metal jaws clamped shut. "I don't pay quickly
enough to get the good stuff? Is there something wrong with my business
that you want to send me garbage? Or is it that I'm stupid? Maybe my
stupidity makes you figure, well . . . that I want the kind of shit you send
me. Or maybe . . . I am stupid . . . maybe I can't recognize fresh fish . . .
maybe this smelly piece of shit is really fresh . . . and I just . . . can't
recognize it. Maybe I've encouraged you somehow . . . to inconvenience
me and my customers. Maybe you could explain to me . . . because I'm
having a problem . . . you know . . . figuring it out . . . because I'm so
stupid. Or maybe . . . maybe you're just really really rich guys and you
don't need my business at all. Things are going so well for you . . . you
figure you don't need the money." And he was always heroically willing
to cut off his nose to spite his face. Who cares if he needed that fish
delivery? If it arrived five minutes late, Bigfoot waited until the driver
unloaded it—then he sent it back. I saw him do this with gigantic, multi-
ton dry-goods orders that were a bit late. And let me tell you, now I often
do the same thing. Make the driver unload, then reload an entire order of
canned goods, 35-pound flour sacks, peanut oils, juices, tomato paste and
bulk sugar, and I can assure you—your stuff will start arriving on time.
Fish not what you wanted? Let the driver go, then call them up and make
them send a second truck to pick it up. You say there's twenty servings
of product in every box? There had better be, because Bigfoot's gonna
weigh it, count it, and record it every time.
Bigfoot's entire office, the last time I worked with him, was a vault with
an actual foot-thick titanium steel door, interior bars, set into brick.
From there he'd pore over invoices, plan his next moves, torment his
purveyors, and send and receive emanations to and from the floor and
kitchen. He didn't have to be on the floor all the time. The people who
worked for Bigfoot were sure that he could sense what was going on.
Think an evil thought, and he'd suddenly be there. Drop a tray and
Bigfoot appears. Running low on soup? Bigfoot somehow feels it, as if
the entire restaurant were simply an extension of his central nervous