The atmosphere was not unlike a Pinero play, very jailhouse, with a lot
of grab-ass, heated argument, hypermacho posturing and drunken
ranting. Two burly men who'd just as soon kill you as look at you, when
talking to each other, would often nestle a hand tenderly next to the
testicles of the other, as if to say, "I am so not gay—I can even do this!"
The common language was a mix of Nueva Yorkeno Spanish, Italian and
pidgin English. The Spanish and Italians, as is often the case, had no
problem understanding each other, but when speaking "English", one had
to conform to the style book: one didn't say, "That's my knife." One said
instead, "Is for me, the knife."
My own personal tormentor for the first few weeks was the chef de
garde-manger and shop steward, a big, ugly Puerto Rican with a ruined
face named Luis. Luis considered frequent explorations of my young ass
with his dirty paws to be a perk of his exalted position; at every
opportunity, he'd take a running swat between my cheeks, driving his
fingers as far up my ass as my checked pants would allow. I endured this
in the spirit of good fun for a while—until I'd had enough. There was a
lot of ass-grabbing and ball-fondling going on, after all, and I did want
desperately to be one of the guys. But Luis had generally knocked off a
half a fifth of cooking brandy by ten each morning, and as his drunken
advances threatened to become actual penetration, I was moved to take
drastic action.
I was making filling for crespelle toscana in the huge, tilting brazier one
morning, stirring mushrooms, diced tongue, ham, turkey, spinach and
bechamel with a big, heavyweight, curved Dexter meat fork, a nice
patina of rust on its blunt and twisted tines. Out of the corner of my eye,
I could see Luis coming, his right hand swinging back for a deep wallop
between my cheeks. I decided right then I'd had enough; I was gonna
straighten this drunken pig out. I quickly, but subtly, turned the big meat
fork around and down, so the business end was pointing backwards. I
timed my move for maximum impact. When Luis came in with his hand,
I came down with the fork as hard as I could, sinking both tines deep into