The Librarianist

The cook shook his head. “No, no one wanted to associate with that particular dish, so we had to retire it.” He leaned out the cubbyhole and pointed at an artwork pinned to the wall. It was a pen-and-ink rendering of a graveyard, and on every tombstone was the name of a dish that had been stricken from the menu:

Here Lies Meat Medley

In Loving Remembrance ~ Omelette du Veal

Rest in Peace Chix Stix

Beloved Frizzled Beef

At the bottom of the paper in a tidy script were the words:

Gone but not forgotten.

The cook still was leaning out of the cubbyhole, peering up at the artwork, and he wore the nameless smile of a daydreamer. “I thought it was not a bad method, myself,” he said.

“Frizzling?” said June. “In what way?”

“In the way that it tasted. But also, you know, the making of it. All told I’d have to say it was my favorite dish on the menu to prepare.”

Ida asked, “What’s your least favorite dish to prepare?”

The cook paused. “Probably I shouldn’t discuss it with a custy, I don’t think.”

“What’s a custy?”

“You’re a custy.”

“Why shouldn’t you discuss it with me?”

“Well, think it through. If you learn what I don’t like making, and you want it, then we’re in somewhat of a pickle because either you don’t get what you want, because you don’t order it out of a personal niceness; or, you go ahead and order it anyway, which tells me that you don’t rate me as a human being to the point of considering my feelings.”

June said, “You’re quite an emotional cook, aren’t you?”

He spoke in a tone of somber earnestness: “Working in a restaurant, the cook is very vulnerable.” In a louder voice, he addressed the clientele: “You think I don’t hear what you all say about my food? I hear every word!” He dinged his silver bell fiercely with a spatula, his eyes gleaming with devilment. There were only a few scattered customers present, however, and none of them were paying the cook any mind.

The waitress returned, passing an order up to the cook and encouraging June and company to sit, and the group walked all together toward what they thought of as their booth. Later, as they were finishing up their meal, an army jeep pulled up outside the diner and a military policeman entered. The waitress was nowhere in sight; the MP called out, “How much coffee you got in this place?”

“A whole goddamned urnful,” answered the cook from the kitchen.

“I’ll take it all, and the urn as well.”

The cook’s face appeared in the cubby. “Urn’s not for sale.”

“Uncle Sam needs that coffee,” said the MP, and he held up a fold of bills.

“Uncle Sam is welcome to every drop of coffee I’ve got. But he’s going to have to get his own urn, because I need mine, and all the time, too.”

The soldier hemmed and hawed but eventually went away with a thermosful of coffee. It was his own thermos, and he was disappointed that his gesture had not been actualized. Ida thought perhaps the man had played out a scenario in his mind of arriving in Bay City ahead of the riot with the urnful of fortifying and piping hot coffee for his comrades, and that they would give three cheers in appreciation of his ingenuity. The cook called over from his cubby, “Ever notice what a uniform does to a young man’s self-worth?”

“Yes, we have,” said June and Ida simultaneously.

After dinner, the two women and Bob and the dogs returned to the hotel, where they found Mr. More and Mr. Whitsell at the front desk, leaning in to listen to the radio coverage from Bay City. The riot had not yet commenced officially but was slowly coming into its own as dusk evolved to nighttime. An almost bored-sounding newscaster depicted the setting: “There are no sides, that I can see. All the lumbermen look strikingly like one another, no visible sign of which camp, which concern each man represents. They are walking about in clusters, up and down the main drag of Bay City, and engaging in skirmishes and brawls here and there; but these have been quickly put down by the National Guardsmen, working together with area law enforcement who are on the scene to lend a hand.” Mr. More pointed at the radio and whispered, “That’s our sheriff!”

Mr. Whitsell was shaking his head, and he wore a look of concern so pronounced that Mr. More had to ask him what was the matter. He answered, “I should feel quite a lot safer if the sheriff were here to protect us against encroachment. Why must he range so far from home? Doesn’t Bay City have its own sheriff to tend its own flock?”

“They do, of course,” said Mr. More. “Probably it’s that the sheriff felt drawn in by the professional imperative. He’d no sooner miss a chance to help a neighbor than rob a bank.”

“And while he’s off playing the helpful hero, where are we? Vulnerable to whichever vicious element who happens past. Why, a bandit could come in here and slay the lot of us in our beds and get away clean, with no figure of authority to hinder his spree.”