50: Verbal Abuse

Tuesday was our first real day off to just go have some fun since I got to Kokomo. And it was my first experience riding with Courtney. She'd only had her license for a little more than a week. She turned sixteen near the end of June and had spent the time I was preparing for Betts' wedding getting her license. Jen pushed me into the front seat and crawled in back to fasten a seatbelt. Court was driving her mother's Volvo and had the seat pulled forward to reach the pedals. It was a crazy box-shaped car, but I guess they've got a super-good reputation for safety. Jen and I were really quiet as Courtney drove with her knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

And what exotic place did we go to on our first day off and out together? The mall. Apparently, that is where girls go to have fun. I had visions of an afternoon spent in a lingerie shop with them modeling bras and panties. Apparently, that was a memory, though, and not the agenda for today. Courtney carefully steered into a parking space between the white lines. She took no chances and parked so far away from the mall that I needed binoculars to see the entrance. There were no other cars within a hundred feet and I left a trail of breadcrumbs so we could find our way back.

Apparently Tuesday is Kokomo High see-and-be-seen day at the mall. And that was the purpose of our being there. Courtney and Jennifer introduced me to every classmate we passed and there seemed to be another one at every store. They couldn't have planned this out. It would take too much work to make it look this accidental. In the food court where I bought us a basket of fries and cokes, it was even worse. Kids came up to our table and started talking to either Jennifer or Courtney and then they'd turn and introduce "their boyfriend" to whoever was there. They were having so much fun that I couldn't help but join in and even flirt a little with the girls they were introducing me to.

"Brian, this is Rebecca," Courtney said. "Rebecca, this is Jennifer's and my boyfriend, Brian." I took Rebecca's offered hand.

"Courtney, why didn't you tell me you had such cute girlfriends here in Kokomo. You know how this all affects me. I hope you're up for what's going to happen when we get home." Rebecca turned about ten shades of red and Jennifer snorted. She'd been real good about not doing that as Courtney and I kept encouraging her to go ahead and laugh and not try to hold it back. I guess she was trying to be polite.

"Jennifer and Courtney, my favorite little dykes," a voice said from behind us.

"Oh, shit," Jennifer said under her breath. "Who invited him?"

"Not me," Courtney sighed.

"I keep telling you, baby, I can give you a much better time than your girlfriend can with a dildo. Come on and let's go for a real ride. You won't be a lesbian after we're through." I managed to look past Jennifer to where a hunk of a guy was leaning over her. I mean a hunk. This dude was built like a brick shithouse. His muscles had muscles.

"You're too late, William," Jennifer said. I had a feeling the guy must go by Will or Bill the way Jennifer said his name. "This is my boyfriend, Brian. Now be nice." Apparently William didn't understand that phrase.

"This? This is the little queer from that cooking show? Look, Jennifer. No wonder you're a lesbo. He couldn't satisfy you." Why do they always go for that line? He was so lame, but I could also see nearly a dozen of the girls I'd been introduced to standing nearby watching. A mall cop was getting coffee over at a kiosk and I figured if anything really weird happened, he'd call the police. But I'd had enough of this guy the minute he called Jennifer and Courtney's names.

"Jennifer!" I exclaimed. "Is this the William you've been telling me about? Mister, you are nothing like what she told me. I'm really sorry. She said you were as dense as the atmosphere of Jupiter. I think she meant you looked like the god Jupiter." I stood up and gently guided Jennifer over on the seat so I was between them. "Jenny, baby, do you mean to tell me that you chose me, the runt of the litter, over this incredible specimen of pulchritude?"

"What are you calling me?" he snapped.

"It means incredible physical beauty," I said. "Don't worry. I use big words, but you don't need to understand them."

"Brian..." Jennifer whispered.

"What is wrong with you, Jennifer? Look at these muscles, this finely sculpted body. What are you? Two percent body fat? No. There can't be an ounce of fat or brain in his body. Just look at those bulging biceps. This finely chiseled jaw, just as if it were carved from a massive block of granite. Jennifer, I'm just surprised you didn't fall on your back the first time he grunted at you. You could be dropping babies like stones with this bad boy. Just think what life would be like with a guy like this. Always having someone who could move the furniture when you want and to break rocks on a chain gang. And at night you wouldn't even have to cook. Just toss a slab of raw meat in his cage. In the morning, ride him to work like a mule. No. Mules are impotent vegetarians. He eats meat. I think we have discovered a whole new breed of carnivorous jackass. Scientists all over the world would be willing to kill for the opportunity to dissect his dead body. Even the masculine scent of his flatulence draws flies to him like girls. There must be something dreadfully wrong with you, Jennifer, that keeps your clothes from falling off in his presence."

The dude was just staring at me. You could tell his brain could not keep up. I was on a roll and I wasn't going to stop here.

"You, sir, have dodged a bullet. She probably has some dreadful voluptuousness or worse, intelligence. Can you imagine going on a date and having her expect you to talk to her? In whole sentences? I'll take the bullet for you, man. It's always been the fate of the Minotauran runts of the clan to be sacrificed to the base desires of the most decadent and lubricious females of the tribe. It's my destiny. What can I say? I'll go quietly, though I'd much rather be fucking over a fine specimen like you than enduring the fate that awaits me at the hands and mouths of these two depraved and sexual women. Go. Leave me to my destiny and stay away from my girlfriends."

I took Jennifer and Courtney by their hands and led them away. I took one last look back at William and he was still staring with his mouth open. Every girl who'd watched had eyes like saucers. The mall cop was laughing in a corner so hard he spilled his coffee. At least one of them had an education.

"Mom! Brian totally destroyed William Garth!" Jennifer yelled as we got into the house. I hadn't said a word to either girl all the way home. Well, Courtney was driving and neither Jennifer nor I spoke.

"What? Brian, did you injure someone? That kid is a jerk, but his father is on the school board."

"I didn't touch anyone," I said, raising my hands.

"The words, Mom!" Courtney said. "Nobody there understood what pulchritude meant. Look. It's here in the dictionary." She walked into the kitchen where I sank into a chair in front of Anna. Courtney pushed the dictionary in front of Anna and then snatched it back.

"You called him handsome and comely?" Anna asked.

"From that point on, I don't think he understood anything that was said. I had to explain that word to him so he wouldn't take offense."

"Not even at being called a new breed of carnivorous jackass," Jennifer laughed. "Or an impotent mule. And his farts that drew flies like girls! Or that his head was made of granite."

"I never said farts."

"Oh my god! Jennifer, look what he called us!"

"Lubricious. Lewd, wanton, sexually stimulating, slippery. Brian!"

"And voluptuous and intelligent and decadent. That's the same word that the menu uses to describe that chocolate brownie cake."

"And let's not forget depraved," Courtney said, still looking at the dictionary. "Morally corrupt and perverted. Were you insulting us or complimenting us?"

"I was making every male in your school jealous."

"I have to go to my room," Jennifer squealed. "I think I'm going to orgasm. Again." Jennifer and Courtney escaped from the room just as the phone rang. I heard them grab the wall phone in the hall and drag it into their room giggling.

"Brian?" Anna said, looking at me. "Should I be worried?"

"Not unless the girls figure out what Minotauran means. Honestly, I don't think so, Anna," I said seriously. "I don't think he knew what hit him. Of course, if Jennifer and Courtney are really in their room..."

"I don't want to think about that. And if you're going to think about it, go to your room!"

I should have known that the girls would have called all the other girlfriends. When I talked to Rhonda Thursday morning she was the bright and cheerful girl I left and not the sad and sullen girl I'd talked to last week. Well, she was probably the only one of my girlfriends who would understand all the words I used, except maybe Renee. I was sure, though that Elaine got a kick out of it. I could see it coming up on Saturday Night Live in a few years.

"Liz is upset that you called Jennifer and Courtney lubricious," Rhonda laughed. "She thought that term only applied to her."

"Well, she's in a class by herself," I said. "I can't believe everybody heard about that already. It only happened two days ago."

"Yes, but you got out of it without a fight and the bad guy doesn't even know he was had. I'm so proud of you, Brian."

"I just hope it means that he won't bug Jen and Court again," I said. "I'm not sure if he really gets it."

"He won't bug them," she said. "All that stuck with him was 'Don't mess with my girlfriends.' I guarantee it."

"I hope you're right. You really sound chipper and happy this morning. It's good to hear."

"Sam's here."

"Already?"

"She spent the night."

"Wait. Are you saying that you and Sam and Donna all shared my bed last night?"

"Yeah. Again."

"I'm sorry, honey, but I might need some time to let that image settle." She giggled.

"Do you ever, Brian?"

"Hmm? Ever what?"

"Um ... think of me when you ... um ... you know."

"I ... uh ... don't know how to answer that, honey. Don't be mad."

"It's okay. I mean, it's not like I'm actually doing it with you. And it's kinda cool. I like cuddling with Donna and Sam at night. They get hot and sweaty, though. Our skin just slides all over each other." I groaned. "Oh. I'm sorry. I guess maybe that's something you should think about when you're doing it, too, huh? I sure hope I catch up soon. I do like to cuddle, though. I'd like to cuddle with you right now. Then we could go deliver the papers."

"I suppose it's time, isn't it?" I sighed.

"Yeah. Even though I'm happier, I still miss you, Brian. Love you."

"Love you, Honey."

"I think three dozen at a time," Bill said. He was flying high. "Specialty of the house. Our compliments. I love it. We pull the ribs out of the oven at five-thirty so we're ready to serve the first ones at six. If you heat the oven then, you should be able to pop the muffin pans in at five-forty-five. That won't work. They take too long to bake. We'll bump the temp at five and pull the ribs as soon as we see the meat thermometer top 125. It will continue to cook when it's out of the oven. You should have the first batch in the oven by five fifteen. Make up the second batch and pour out three dozen more. As soon as the oven is back up to temp, pop them in. We should have a fresh batch of three dozen every forty-five minutes. This will be great. No one will expect this. If it works tonight, we'll do it every Friday and Saturday night with the prime."

I was sitting there with my James Beard recipe calculating how much batter it took to make three dozen popovers at a time. My recipe only made six. What's six times 'a dash?'

This would be my first full evening actually in the kitchen and it was one of their two busiest nights. He wants popovers. I'm fifteen, man! What are you trying to do to me?

I baked popovers. Three times servers came back wanting more before the second batch was out of the oven. I upped the recipe to four dozen at a time for the last three batches. Of course, the nine o'clock batch had half a dozen left over and the servers made short work of those.

It was settled that I'd be working two five-hour shifts on Friday and Saturday night devoted to making popovers for the rest of my stay. Bill and I talked a lot about the process and decided that instead of using the big roasting oven and baking four dozen at a time, we'd switch to using the two smaller ovens with two dozen at a time. I could maintain getting two dozen out every twenty minutes that way. Guests would be offered one hot popover as soon after they were seated as possible. If there were any left, earlier guests would be offered a second.

The other twenty hours of my training this week was on restaurant management. Crystal and I went over everything in the next section of the operations manual, including the ordering process for their food. You just never think about the fact that everything in the restaurant has to be ordered. Potatoes by the fifty pound bagful. Fresh vegetables by the peck or bushel. And beef ... by the cow. Every weekend, Bill cooked six prime ribs on Friday and six more on Saturday. That's six cows a week. They bought them on the hoof down in Silver Lake at the cattle yard and they were delivered to a local butcher who did the slaughtering and preparing of the meat. It was all Hoosier corn-fed Angus. The butcher cut everything exactly to Bill's specifications. Steaks, roasts, and even hamburger were made up. Certain parts weren't usable in the restaurant, but they were sold through local grocers. The butcher was USDA certified, so the meat could be sold by the cut. The hides were sent to a leather tanner. Everything was accounted for and the revenue from the extra beef helped offset the cost of the cows and butchering. They ground up a lot of beef for the daytime and grill work. Even the all-beef hotdogs the Tally Ho served at noon were from the same cows as the prime rib.

"We made the reputation of the restaurant on beef. Sure the lunch grill includes breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches. You can't have a grill in Indiana without that. And of course you have to have Broasted chicken for the non-meat eaters that come with their families. But the rest of the menu is pretty much beef," Crystal explained. "By buying it on the hoof, we control the exact weight when we butcher so that every cut is as near identical as we can make them."