Caterers

There’s the ice cream, there at the back of the freezer. There’s clearly not enough of it. One hundred fifty-seven servings? One hundred fifty- eight? Well, sure, nobody thought to get enough ice cream for everybody. Somebody’s got to go to the ice cream store. Beth, the head caterer, is chewing on a popsicle stick and spitting out popsicle-stick splinters. She did time in the military, then time in prison, or maybe it was vice versa, she’s got a look in her eyes like, what, like knives? Like bursting oil? Then there’s the salad mix, consisting of field greens, cauliflower, tomatoes, and celery. It’s a disgusting salad mix, nobody knows why we order it. And now the tomatoes have gone bad, haven’t they. Somebody’s got to pick out all those tomatoes, and then it’s a trip to the tomato store. The celery’s the color of wet cardboard. The mayonnaise is turning brown before our eyes, and we haven’t even made the Mayonnaise de Jour. And so a trip to the celery store, a trip to the mayonnaise store. Do we have enough steak? Do we have a steak? To the steak store, then, where we’ll have to sit for half an hour, at least, watching them pull the steaks from the gleam- ing steak machine. Beth says, better get going, if you know what’s good for you, banquet’s in, what, two hours? She tests the edge of her knife on her thumb. Draws blood, nods. Silverware? Plateware? Napkins? Holy God, something in the kitchen has already caught fire. No one can find the keys to the truck. There they are, in that wild dog’s teeth.