The Back of the House

The kitchen was frequently noisy in the way kitchens usually are. Pots and pans clanging, utensils ringing off of flatware, calls of “heard” and “behind” and “corner,” ever present cussing. It was also frequently noisy in the way kitchens usually are not, seeing as who its other occupants were.

Frank was a dishwasher. He kept his eyes on the dish pit, his hands in the scalding water that no longer bothered him. His ears were tuned for his surroundings, but he had long ago mastered that dull look in his eyes to make folks think that even if he heard, he wasn’t really listening.

But Frank was always listening.

He heard snippets from behind those far back double doors, the ones that sat away from the dish pit and walk-in and office and back door. Not all of it was in English, but sometimes he could still work out some translating. Jobs being done. Shipments being moved. People being taken care of.

The people in suits that drifted in had their own sounds. A limp here, a struggled breath there. Mostly polite, sometimes curt, laced with a bite that he knew came from hard situations.

But now, here, Frank was a well-paid dishwasher. No questions asked if he needed to leave early or got in late. Salary, quarterly bonuses, full benefits. The price in return was a signature on an NDA and the faint feeling that someone was always watching. He was fine with that, one could get used to the eyes that couldn’t ever been seen.

In the alleyway behind the restaurant as he lit his post-shift cigarette, Frank was approached. They were also men in suits, but not his guys. They had honeyed voices as they asked about the restaurant, who came in, who else worked there.

He used what little sign he knew to give his apologies, but he couldn’t hear them. When they pulled out their phones to type their questions, he maintained his ignorance. Being deaf meant you weren’t told anything, you see. Just handed stacks of plates and mountains of silverware.

One man finally dragged the other away, the reluctant man cussing under his breath as he went.

He dropped his cigarette, ground it out with the ball of his shoe.

Frank kept his hands busy, his eyes down, and his ears always tuned. He liked this job, no one was going to take that from him.

_______________________________________

Hsiu-Ping, at one point called Sue, didn’t have an official title. Well, she probably did, but no one ever used it in front of her and she stopped asking questions long ago. Back before she reclaimed Hsiu-Ping, even; years before she walked into that warehouse through the alley entrance.

But having questions and asking questions were different, and Hsiu-Ping had a lot of questions. She wondered about her boss, the structure of this organization, and also about the faceless men and women she worked with each day.

When they called her “doc,” she answered with surgical sutures and scalpels. When they called her “shop”, she answered with their next untraceable phone and bullets that didn’t exist. When they called her “boss lady” she answered with the newest instructions and any follow-ups from the last. When they called her “chef,” she turned them back around and pointed to the double swinging doors that led to the kitchen.

The faceless people became less faceless with each time they came through, those who did come back. If one stopped coming, then that was that and Hsiu-Ping erased their existence to make room for the next. There was always a next one.

Today had been … she didn’t dare say the Q word. Instead, she slipped through the double swinging doors and took a gander through the carousel of moving bodies amidst the grease and chrome. She didn’t utilize it often, but she could get free meals here and she was hoping to cash in on that for whatever she had caught the smell of just now. It was familiar, but different from her memories.

Bah-uân. That’s what it was. She watched hands that looked like hers stuff the dough with the filling they had presumably made. Her staring was noticed, as she was approached by someone she recognized as a front of staff worker.

“How can I help you?” He was only slightly taller than her, dark skinned with equally dark eyes. His suit was well fitted, easy to move in, easy to miss the sidearm he was carrying.

“I’d like the bah-uân, please. No rush.” The man only nodded, and went to speak to the woman who barked out the orders. Hsui-Ping went back through her double doors to her not so secret office.

She questioned how much the restaurant workers knew. Restaurants didn’t usually have strange people in suits trailing in and out all hours of the day. They probably didn’t typically have a forbidden room occupied by a stranger that never used the main exits. Did some of them notice that things were always kept funded and running, even during their slow periods, when money wasn’t coming in as much as it was bleeding out?

She organized her already organized desk. She checked the flip phone she’d been given this week despite knowing no notifications had come. She counted the deadly and benign stock, all accounted for, all ready to go.

She heard the knock on her door, stepped outside carefully to be presented her plate. She dipped her head as she took the food, a gesture matched by the server whose name she didn’t know.

They were the perfect blend of novel and familiar, and she was onto her second one when the back door, used by very few, was pulled outward and the man stepped inside.

“Hsiu-Ping.”

“Hello, sir.”

______________________________________

The Cleaner came through long after the other staff had left. It was quiet, as he preferred. He started with the prep counters, stove, the long table that they placed ready-to-go dishes. But not the large basin sink in the back, he had to wait for that one.

As he worked, others came in. Two men carrying a large bag meant for snowboards between them. A woman who had blood covering a good portion of her button up shirt, sprinkling up her neck like rosettes.

They worked around The Cleaner, a dance they had done before.

He got down on his knees with a new toothbrush to work his way around the knobs, drawer tracks. Each bit needed to be cleaned each day. Grease in the gears and all that.

More people trickled in. He watched through the window as a man sat down heavily onto one of the chairs in the dining room. A woman joined him, dousing a knife in alcohol brought to her. The seated man was handed a cloth napkin to bite down on. The Cleaner was pleased that he didn’t hear a thing besides the barely audible sounds of digging as the door swung open again.

Once the remaining of tonight’s people had filed in through the kitchen and back out to the dining room, The Cleaner swept and mopped the floors. The gentle swish of the water was as relaxing as the quiet conversation behind the doors.

He surveyed his surroundings, brushing his hands off. The kitchen gleamed.

He stepped out into the dining room. On a dime, all mouths were shut and all eyes were on him.

“Good evening, boss,."