street tag, whether you chose it or not. I've been flaco and cadavro,
probably borracho. That's just the way it is. I call down to my prep
kitchen on the intercom—calling for butter or more sauce—and that
little gangster who keeps my stock rotated and makes that lovely
chiffonaded parsley for me is going to reply (after I'm out of hearing),
"Fuuck YOUU!!" before giving me exactly what I asked for. Better I say
it first: "Gimme my fucking mantequilla and sauce, motherfucker.
Horita . . . and . . . fuuuck YOU!" And I love that little thug, too—the
headband-sporting, baggy-pantsed, top button-buttoned, bottom button
open, moon boot-shod, half Puerto Rican, half cholo vato loco, with his
crude prison-style tats and his butterfly knife tucked in his wristband. I
have, on many occasions, pondered adopting him. He's everything I'd
want in a son.
Why do I, a fairly educated sort of a swine, take such unseemly pleasure
in the guttural utterances of my largely uneducated, foul-mouthed
crews? Why, over the years, have my own language skills become so
crude and offensive that at family Christmas I have to struggle to not
say, "Pass the fuckin' turkey, cocksucker"?
I dunno.
But I do love it.
I wallow in it. Just like all the other sounds in my life: the hiss and
clatter and spray of the dishwasher, the sizzle as a fillet of fish hits a hot
pan, the loud, yelping noise—almost a shriek—as a glowing sizzle-
platter is dropped into a full pot sink, the pounding of the meat mallet on
a côte du boeuf, the smack as finished plates hit the "window". The
goads, curses, insults and taunts of my wildly profane crew are like
poetry to me, beautiful at times, each tiny variation on a classic theme
like some Beat era jazz riff: Coltrane doing "My Favorite Things" over
and over again, but making it new and different each time. There are, it
turns out, a million ways to say "suck my dick". Most of the people in my