“Willa! Where the hell is my roast pan?” Kenny shouts. “Keep your fucking shirt on!” I say, handing a clean pan to him across a passthrough from the white tiled room where I wash the dishes, to the kitchen where he dirties them. The restaurant, Peaches, is open 24 hours and renowned for its potato “wedgies.” In the early morning hours, when the bars close, the place is packed with drunken assholes who line up out the door looking for starchy food to soak up the alcohol in their bellies. That’s my shift. Overnights. Scrape. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. The restaurant is always short on pots and pans. I don’t know how Diego does it, but when his shift ends and mine begins, there are never any leftover pots to scrub or glasses to stack. Diego the Spanish Dish Washer. Capitalized because it might as well be his full name. He works the evening shift and is so popular and handsome that the regulars know him by name. He is a dishwashing legend. I stay in the back.
Memories, short stories and random word challenges.