The phone is ringing. The phone is ringing. Damn it, the phone is ringing.
Most mornings during my apprenticeship to Chef John Snowden, this was the first sound I’d hear to drag me out of a beautiful solid sleep. The annoying shrill of the tiny bell in the 1960's powder blue Princess phone perched on my bed stand. The ring of this hand-me-down was only slightly louder than the beeping alarm of the clock radio sitting next to it on the small table. A table already loaded with books, an overflowing ashtray, a lamp with Chinese letters and figures in relief up and down it’s thick body and a shade torn from a recent shove over the edge. All of these, except the cigarette butts in the tray, were leftovers’ from my parents bedroom. Because that’s where I was sleeping. I was 19 and I hadn’t left home…my parents had, and this was the only room in the house with furniture.
The alarm, which I always managed to sleep through, should have been enough. But both noises working together pushed their way into the finale of what ever dream I was deeply involved in. The pitch of the phone was just annoying enough to get me to open my eyes and bring the dream to a screeching stop. I reached for the phone and with every ounce of effort I could muster, Clearing my throat, I set my voice to sound as if I’d been up for hours. “Hello”, I said as cheerily as I thought it should sound. "You're Late" was the only thing the voice on the other side would say before he hung up. My awake sounding voice was never enough. Each time I’d hope he'd believe that I'd been up and delayed by some horrific accident in the bathroom that might allow me to stay in bed a few hours longer. But I never got the chance. "You're Late" was the only exchange to my "Hello" then a mechanical click and the buzz of a phone line gone dead. It was 5:00 a.m. and I was supposed to be there already.
If I had managed to roll in awake and ready for work (which I did every fourth or fifth day, by the way) my 5:00 a.m. duties would be to warm the ovens, make or reheat (John was notorious spendthrift) a pot of coffee. Then I would roll out and shape 4 dozen croissant. They had to rise about an hour in the warming kitchen before I could bake them. So there was a real reason I had to be there by 5:00 a.m. The twelve morning students for John’s cooking class were due in about 10 a.m. and John insisted there be warm croissant ready for each as they arrived. There needed to be one ready for John's assistant/secretary/paramour, Diane, who arrived about 9:00 a.m. Two for John when he returned from walking his Afghan hounds about 8:30 a.m. One for me and the rest were displayed in a small bakery case at the front of the school for sale to the students to take home after class or to sell to the counter girls at the butcher shop next door. Occasionally I’d have to put a few aside for an afternoon meeting John and Diane might have with a potential catering client. But late in the day John would usually send me across the street with a small bag of 3 or 4 getting hard or no longer fresh rolls to the old German couple who lived above the old train station. He was our handyman and she would do John’s laundry on occasion when her arthritis didn't get in the way.
But that was on a normal day. And since I was always late...there were very few normal days.
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