In Laymon's Terms

Anyway, it was about one a.m. and I’d just gotten off shift at The Emerald Room. A good night, we’d served about two hundred dinners, and all the customers were raving about my specials. Some critic from the Post said my Chateaubriand was the best he’d ever had. Like I said, a good night. So I’m hoofing home down West Street, and then there’s this rumble way down deep in my belly and this sound like slow thunder, and I look up and see this ugly thing flying about a hundred feet over my head. Didn’t know what to make of it. It looked like a big black kite in the sky, and when it passed, I could see this weird blue-green glow coming out of the back of the thing, its engines, I guess. I died a couple hours later, and the next day I woke up a grub.

There was a big whupdeedo for a little while. All of a sudden there were ten thousand dead people walking around and not knowing what the fuck hit them. President called an emergency meeting or some shit. Oh, you should’ve heard all the fancy talk they were spouting. At first they were gonna “euthanize” us is what McCain said, “to safeguard the societal whole from potential contraindications,” until some egghead at CDC verified that we weren’t psychotic or contagious or radioactive or anything. Then that asshole Helms made a big pitch about how we should be “socially impounded.” “Protean symptomologies,” see, that’s what they were worried about. These shitheads wanted to round us all up and put us on an island somewhere! It all blew over, though, after the activists started gearing up, and they let us be. Then the Senate wanted to prove they were sincere—it was election year, see, and they needed more seats—and they got a special bill passed, the Ramjet Anti-Discrimination Disability Bill, they called it, so all of us grubs get a couple hundred per month to make up for things. There’s also an Anti-Discrimination Act, and a Ramjet Victim Affirmative Action Act. It’s against the law for employers to not hire us just because we’re grubs, but you know how that goes. They’ll just think up some other reason not to hire you, and all we’re left with are the really shit jobs.

I don’t need the disability dough myself—I was one of the few who got lucky. The Emerald Room fired me right away, made up some shit about me being late. Real reason is they didn’t want word getting around that a grub was working the range. Bad for business. I mean, who’s gonna drop a $300 check when they know it’s a dead guy cooking their entrees? And—

’Scuse me a sec. I just got an order for Three-Flavor Ceviche and a Clam Panzerotti...

After The Emerald Room gave me the boot, I had to rough it for a while. Lot of us were living in the street, but there wasn’t no way I was gonna let this shit drag me down. I applied for jobs everywhere. I mean, Christ, with my credentials and experience? I’d been reviewed in the Washingtonian, for Christ’s sake. I’d been interviewed in every goddamn cuisine mag published, and one time Gourmet did a feature on me, and ran a lot of the recipes of my specials.

Of course, I got new specials now.

’Scuse me again. My blackened prime rib is up.

Look, all I ask is you wait a minute before you judge me, okay? The way I see it is grubs got rights too. Just because we’re dead don’t mean we ain’t people. We got hopes and dreams just like you. We want the same things everyone wants, and we work just as hard as the next guy but we get the shit-end of the stick every time ’cos we’re grubs. If you were a grub you’d know what I’m talking about. Now I know what it’s like to be a minority. Never much thought about it back when I was alive, but now I can relate to what it feels like to be black, Hispanic, Vietnamese, gay, whatever. People are just so fuckin’ phony. They put laws on the books to protect our rights but it don’t mean shit. Try being a grub and just walk down the street. People gape at you, people get out of the way. They’ll cross the fuckin’ street so they don’t have to walk the same side, like we’re lepers or something. And there’re plenty of scumbag bigot bozos out there who just plain hate your guts because of what you are. They’ll spit on you, they’ll drag you in an alley and kick your ass, they’ll try to run you down if you’re hitching a ride. Sometimes you just get sick of it.

And you wanna do something about it.

I guess I got a little off track, huh? Back to what I was saying. I really lucked out, I gotta decent job again, cheffing at a good restaurant. I gotta come in and leave through the back door, but what the fuck, a job’s a job. The management is real good about keeping a lid on me—the customers don’t know I’m a grub. And this new joint I’m cheffing in?