The Gastronomical Inferno
Right next to my gym is one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy.
I want to quote something to them from Man’s Search for Meaning, especially the part about how we can find dignity under any circumstances and how we can be worthy of our suffering. But just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the kitchen as if beckoned by some invisible force.
Recently as I was walking out of the gym, I met one of the buffet’s dishwashers, Felix Rojas. Skinny with sharp cheek bones and a lazy left eye, his baggy clothes covered him like a potato sack as he hauled a huge trash bag toward the receptacle. We stopped and started talking because we were both wearing big watches. He was wearing an Invicta Excursion Touring Chronograph with red dial and gold bezel and matching bracelet and I was wearing my Android Divemaster Limited Edition. It turns out we have a lot in common. We both buy watches from the home-order watch programs on television. We’re both addicted to watches. We both agonize over what watch to wear every single day of our lives.
But Felix’s life is much tougher. He works three jobs, as a dishwasher, a pizza delivery man, and as a car detailer to pay for his two teenage sons’ braces, and he has a serious case of acid reflux that may require surgery, which is especially bad since he has no medical insurance. I thought he was older than I am, but he is really in his mid thirties. Life has been hard to him.
We Must Take Up Our Cross
Felix told me the restaurant owner would promote him to assistant manager if he improved his English, but he needs someone to tutor him. A teaching from Viktor Frankl’s book called out to me: We don’t choose meaning; meaning chooses us. So I offered to help him, inviting him to come to my house after his shift at the buffet, but I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit a tinge of regret. Because he comes straight to my house without a shower or a change of clothes, Felix smells like rancid food, especially fish. As I teach him about topic sentences, dependent clauses, and the distinction between conjunctive adverbs and subordinate conjunctions, my nostrils are under constant assault. I’ve become woozy in his presence. All I can do is summon Viktor Frankl’s words about being worthy of my suffering: “The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life.”
And of course I must remember to open the windows since I prefer my meaning ladled with a dollop of fresh air.
The Claw
Felix can’t hold food down and he is more fatigued than ever. For the last month, instead of going to my house after work, he goes straight home to sleep. I feel guilty because I don’t miss the fish smell. But I’m worried about Felix. Lately, I’ve been having this horrible nightmare about him. He is standing just outside the buffet’s kitchen, screaming for me to help him. I’m standing in the buffet’s parking lot trying to approach him but my feet are stuck to the asphalt. A giant hairy claw with thick talons emerges from the kitchen door, from which flames flicker, and then this monstrous claw grabs Felix around his torso. He flails his arms and screams for mercy, but to no avail. The claw pulls him back into the fuming hell of stale grease and rancid chicken fat.
One night the dream made me scream in my sleep and Lara was afraid for me so she woke me up. My face was bathed in sweat.
“Another nightmare about Felix,” I told her. “I’ve been talking about him to my students as an example of someone who braves suffering with dignity. He is a templar of being worthy of our suffering. I love Felix. He’s like a brother to me. Do you know how alike we are? The first thing we do after getting out of the shower is put on a watch.”
“Too much information,” said Lara.
Make Sure My Sons Don’t Wear Puny Watches
Felix brought his two teenage sons, Juan and Raphael, to my house to detail my car. While he was working, he felt faint and I brought him inside while his sons finished the job. While he rested, I turned on the TV to his favorite watch show. He sipped his water and grimaced.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m dying.”
“You need to see a doctor. I’ll pay for it.”
“I already know what I need. Surgery. I can get it done for under five thousand in Tijuana.”
“I can help with that.”
He shook his head. “You’ve done enough,” he said. “Just promise me that if I die, you take care of my sons. Help them with their school, their English. And by God don’t let them wear puny watches.”
“You’re going to be okay.”
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