It’s 9:58 pm Saturday night at a restaurant in downtown Nashville. The restaurant closes at 10:00 pm. A couple walks in wearing Savannah Bananas gear (the comedy baseball team). The lady is a tiny pixie haired shrew, and the man looks somewhere in the middle of Jabba the Hut and the Mucinex man. His poor knees buckle as he shuffles his belly to sit like a pregnant mother. I, the waiter, run over and tell them the kitchen closes in 2 minutes, so we’ll need to get their order as soon as possible.
This brings the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen from the man who complains to my manager he’s being rushed. She offers a free dessert and an eye roll when she walks away.
Instead of getting ready to close, the servers groan as the man settles in, drinking his sprite with diabetic fingers and a knowing grin.
Meanwhile, in the open-air kitchen 30 feet away from sloth and gluttony another drama is unfolding. There have been recent Immigration raids in the area, ICE is stopping foreign looking people at random and asking for papers. There had been 100 arrests, many already on the road to deportation. Panic is setting in amongst the undocumented kitchen staff.
This had been escalating for a few days. They’d been carpooling with white people, sneaking in through back doors. South Nashville (majority Latino) was a ghost town. All the recreational spaces were shut down, no more football, dance clubs, pop up celebrations. Just eerie silence and waiting. Word reached us that ICE was two streets away doing stops.
In the back of the kitchen was a mother and her son, a middle-aged woman from Guatemala, and 3 cooks in their 20’s, all with families. The sous chef paces back and forth to the front window looking out at any passing police cars. His eyes are welling with tears but he’s holding them back. A stoic leader is vital right now.
You can feel the silent terror just sitting on them like a blanket. They’ll be ready to run out the back door any minute. These people are working 14-hour days, living with 6 others in a house. The chef hasn’t seen his family from home in ten years. They risked their lives to get here to just scrape by and sacrifice so their kids might have a chance.
Out front, Jabba is eating his pizza thoughtfully. He considers the crust, shuffles his gut forward, asks for more ice and another sprite please. His casual tone broadcasting his inalienable right to comfort and relaxation. He side-eyes the chef when he comes up to look out the window. They’re the last table in an empty restaurant, still ordering food.
The front of house is standing there with eye daggers pointed at him.
The man had come from a comedy baseball game, the purest American form of leisure and absurdity. He came in entitled and ready to sit for as long as his bloated legs would hold him, savoring the opportunity to punish us for rushing him.
The 14-year-old dishwasher in the back, weighing all of 90 pounds is eating scraps, checking his mom’s phone. It took weeks for him to make eye contact, just the occasional wry smile. His worst fears were confirmed when his cousin was arrested last week. He and his mom took a few days to hide in their house. Now they can’t leave with customers here, can’t go outside while police lights blaze across the windows.
The Irony of the American dream playing out with vivid contrast. An entitled beast coming from a baseball game, not a care in the world. Eating himself to death because he’s allowed. A kitchen full of people working 60-hour weeks for minimum wage, clinging to each other in fear they’ll have their life swept away any moment.
Labored breath from both parties, 30 feet away from each other. Ask them what they think they deserve?
Wanderthoughts 