In the City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer Page A

fucking be late again! Daniel said.
    Daniel’s face was a mask over his face, handsome underneath like Ruby, but while Ruby was turning into a skeleton, Daniel’s face was something still alive floating in old water.
    Find Muffy, Daniel said. Muffy’s the one training you.
    Through the swinging red doors was a room, like a parlor, shelves from floor to ceiling, two espresso machines, a long counter. A person sat behind another counter and a cash register. To the right was an arch and the dish room—stacks of glass racks, old-food smell, the dishwasher loud, steam and spray.
    My mother’s nerves.
    Through the arch in front of me, two stories high, was the kitchen. Red-brick walls, shiny cement floor painted gray, stainless-steel shelves and racks and countertops, steam rising, smoke, the air full of hanging pots and pans. Frying grease. Convection oven air blasting. A side of beef lying on a butcher block. Lamb hanging from a hook. Unrelenting fluorescence from above.
    Pots and pans slamming together. Little Asian men, all in white, white caps, yelling.
    Muffy? I said. My voice a tiny thing in the bright loud room.
    A man on the other side of a stainless-steel counter was chopping lettuce.
    Muffy? I said to him, smiled.
    The man yelled some kind of kung fu, slammed the knife down on the cutting board—lettuce every which way—then waved it in the air between me and him; he slashed the knife back and forth, brought the knife back behind his head, threw the knife past my ear into a cardboard box of Idaho potatoes behind me.
    Hell of a fix. Up Shit Creek. In a world of hurt.
    Everyone in the kitchen laughing, Asian men all looking at me, laughing.
    Then: Eat! Eat! Kung Fu lettuce guy yelled.
    Another man from behind the steam table yelled, Plate! Plate!—pointing at a pile of plates—Eat! Eat!
    Rice and a thick stew with meat that was gray.
    Kung Fu lettuce guy threw a plate of lettuce onto the stainless-steel counter. Salad! Salad! he yelled. Eat! Eat!
    In the dining room, back out through the swinging red doors, a round table of brown men all staring at me. I walked past the table with the plate of thick stew with meat that was gray, the plate of salad. Brown men in white bus coats and white shirts, laughing.
    Then: two men and a woman sitting at a table. Waiters. White people.
    My name’s Will, I said. I’m the new waiter. May I join you?
    The men didn’t look up; finally the woman did, right at me.
    No, the woman said, looking back to her crossword puzzle. That place is saved for Mack.
    Mack? I said.
    Mack Dickson, she said.
    The two men looked at me, looked me up and down. What’s important. What’s wrong. Went back to eating deli sandwiches.
    My deep breath. The exhale brought my eyes to the ceiling. Painted up there, the Sistine Chapel God extended his finger and Man reached out for it, the way we’ll always reach.
    Other places on the ceiling were clouds and cherubs and pastoral settings. The walls were mirrors. Two columns, Corinthian, divided the room. A wall made to look like a crumbling wall connected the two columns just high enough for privacy on the banquettes. The bar carved maple; a mirror in the bar back; the bar top, zinc.
    All the tables were covered with linen and over the linen pieces of butcher paper. On each table a small jar filled with crayons.
    On the table where I sat down alone, from the jar, I picked a red Crayola, and with the red Crayola I drew one big red circle on the butcher paper.
    * * *
    YOU ’ RE GOING THIS way and then shit happens and then you’re going that way.
    The moment that after you’re different.
    Welcome to Café Cauchemar, she said.
    The chandelier behind her. I looked for her shadow on the table. Curly black hair poked up under a Yankee cap, a T-shirt, nipples through the pink Day-Glo T-shirt, ninety-eight pounds, black bicycle pants, the book she was holding, Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By