relatively clean, to run the path with the fewest obstructions, and to sleep in a place where waking up again is most probable. The only tangible realities here are the various states of decay, how advanced they are, and the catalogue of all the many things that are beyond hope of saving, beyond all human help. You measure the worth of those realities. And then as you pick your way through them, you find yourself thinking of the terrace as being empty.
Park goes behind the bar counter and looks around. Shattered pint glasses and stoneware, empty bags made of a thin foil packaging. Cardboard coasters soaked through. Overturned chairs. He picks up a few desiccated lemon rinds with the pulp gone and puts them in his mouth, chews them, and swallows.
He levers all of the beer taps. He opens the row of cabinet doors under the counter and tips back each aluminum cask with his hand, feeling for swash, and then he pinches the clear hose lines with his fingers. He straightens. He stretches out his arms and his back, his hamstrings.
At his feet is a single dried corpse laid out on the waffled rubber floor matting, and he kneels down and pulls its leather belt out through the pant-loops until the strap is free. Long and wide and dark brown with a heavy buckle, die-cast with a raised truck logo. Park wraps the belt around his fist a couple of times and lets the buckle hang down on about a foot ’s worth of length.
Behind the bar is a set of grey swinging doors that lead to a kitchen, and Park goes and stands next to them, looking through one of the circular windows. He listens. He looks through the window again. There isn ’t enough light in the interior to make out any detail, but he doesn’t register movement, which is what matters. He pushes through.
He slips in and eas es the door closed behind him, moves out of the path of the window light, and stands to one side of the entryway against a wall in the dark and waits there. His eyes quickly adjust to the black. The belt is wrapped tightly around his closed fist.
In time he ’s able to make out shapes in the room—grey silhouettes of industrial-grade restaurant appliances. The walk-in refrigerator unit. The cast iron ring burners and a flattop grill platform set underneath an exhaust hood. A row of banked ovens, all open. The long countertops are littered with torn packaging from the stores of bulk dry goods ransacked shortly after the collapse. He crouches down on the balls of his feet with his back on the wall, and the buckle on the end of the belt rasps the tile—he freezes, terrified that he just announced his arrival to the entire room. After a time spent listening, hearing nothing, he carefully re-winds the strap so that some of the slack is taken in.
Park walks the kitchen floor. The aisles with their procession of segmented prep stations. Nested stainless steel bowls, acrylic cutting boards. A row of empty silver chafing dishes underneath a long fixture studded with heat lamps. Scrap trays, a ll empty. No utensils at all—nothing made of metal that he could hold in his hand, bend inward on itself, and file into a keen edge against the concrete.
He passes next to an inset bay that holds a deep fryer system and he pauses to sieve through the remnants of the dark oil with his hand. He dredges out some breaded debris, and he pulls the mask down around his throat. He pushes everything into his mouth, licks his hand, and then repeats the entire process.
When the oil is gone, he moves to the flattop grill unit. He looks down at the dark mantle of grease on the grill ’s backsplash—the blackened byproduct of heat and fat and flesh melding together—and starts to scratch at it. His long, ragged nails raking through. The crust starts to break apart after some effort, and then he stops and gathers the charred flakes into a pile and pushes them off the edge into his
Park goes behind the bar counter and looks around. Shattered pint glasses and stoneware, empty bags made of a thin foil packaging. Cardboard coasters soaked through. Overturned chairs. He picks up a few desiccated lemon rinds with the pulp gone and puts them in his mouth, chews them, and swallows.
He levers all of the beer taps. He opens the row of cabinet doors under the counter and tips back each aluminum cask with his hand, feeling for swash, and then he pinches the clear hose lines with his fingers. He straightens. He stretches out his arms and his back, his hamstrings.
At his feet is a single dried corpse laid out on the waffled rubber floor matting, and he kneels down and pulls its leather belt out through the pant-loops until the strap is free. Long and wide and dark brown with a heavy buckle, die-cast with a raised truck logo. Park wraps the belt around his fist a couple of times and lets the buckle hang down on about a foot ’s worth of length.
Behind the bar is a set of grey swinging doors that lead to a kitchen, and Park goes and stands next to them, looking through one of the circular windows. He listens. He looks through the window again. There isn ’t enough light in the interior to make out any detail, but he doesn’t register movement, which is what matters. He pushes through.
He slips in and eas es the door closed behind him, moves out of the path of the window light, and stands to one side of the entryway against a wall in the dark and waits there. His eyes quickly adjust to the black. The belt is wrapped tightly around his closed fist.
In time he ’s able to make out shapes in the room—grey silhouettes of industrial-grade restaurant appliances. The walk-in refrigerator unit. The cast iron ring burners and a flattop grill platform set underneath an exhaust hood. A row of banked ovens, all open. The long countertops are littered with torn packaging from the stores of bulk dry goods ransacked shortly after the collapse. He crouches down on the balls of his feet with his back on the wall, and the buckle on the end of the belt rasps the tile—he freezes, terrified that he just announced his arrival to the entire room. After a time spent listening, hearing nothing, he carefully re-winds the strap so that some of the slack is taken in.
Park walks the kitchen floor. The aisles with their procession of segmented prep stations. Nested stainless steel bowls, acrylic cutting boards. A row of empty silver chafing dishes underneath a long fixture studded with heat lamps. Scrap trays, a ll empty. No utensils at all—nothing made of metal that he could hold in his hand, bend inward on itself, and file into a keen edge against the concrete.
He passes next to an inset bay that holds a deep fryer system and he pauses to sieve through the remnants of the dark oil with his hand. He dredges out some breaded debris, and he pulls the mask down around his throat. He pushes everything into his mouth, licks his hand, and then repeats the entire process.
When the oil is gone, he moves to the flattop grill unit. He looks down at the dark mantle of grease on the grill ’s backsplash—the blackened byproduct of heat and fat and flesh melding together—and starts to scratch at it. His long, ragged nails raking through. The crust starts to break apart after some effort, and then he stops and gathers the charred flakes into a pile and pushes them off the edge into his
Similar Books
