The Cream of Vengeance

The waiter, who is not only an order-taker and food and beverages server, stands with
ease in front of the restaurant’s entrance. He is also named as a front liner, mainly because his
main role is to represent the restaurant to prospect customers. He holds the handle of the
tempered glass door with his right hand, preparing to pull it open to welcome customers who
would dine in any minute. He would smile spontaneously, move his left hand in a swaying
manner to welcome, and greet in a persuasive tone.
Wearing a neat and kempt long-sleeved white polo-shirt, blue necktie dangling from his
firm neck, partly fitted black khaki long pants, shined leather shoes for socializing, and gray half
apron tied around his waist, the waiter seems to be handsome than he really is. With fair
complexion, pomaded clear-cut hairdo, shaven moustache and beard to have a smooth look in the
face, masculine and brusque gait, heads up and stomach in, and a deep but sweet-to-the-ear
voice, he is the one every restaurant manager is looking for.
On a Monday morning, an ivory-skinned, frowning countenance, with china-eyes, stout
man with a big round stomach dines in at the restaurant. He sits at his favorite table at the corner
of dining area one. The other tables are empty, because it’s too early to have customers. He calls
the waiter, who has just finished piling out the leftover trash and arranging used utensils in the
tray, across the nearby table. The anxious waiter leaves the tray on the table, draws out a
ballpoint pen and a sticky note for orders, walks over to him, and stops beside the empty chair in
front of him.
“As usual, I’d like to have my favorite dish.” The stout man looks at the waiter who is
writing down the table number and the customer number.
“What’s your favorite dish, Sir?” says the waiter.
The stout man’s face reddens. He furiously pounds his right hand on the table. The
condiments on it shake as if they may fall down on the floor.
The waiter is shocked. He tries to say something, but his first word is interrupted with an
untamed look from the stout man.
“You don’t know me, idiot?!” The stout man bursts out in anger, but someone, his buddy,
arrives at the door. He looks at him, and his anger appears to diminish.
“Calm down, Den,” says his buddy.
“How can you, if you have this, idiot!” he says looking at the waiter. “I’m always here
almost every morning and yet you know nothing about me, about my favorite.” He stands up,
bodies the waiter on his way, and moves over the cashier’s counter.
 The waiter goes after him, expecting that he would raise a complaint. The cashier, who
has eavesdropped the uneducated statements of the stout man, is standing in front of the point-of-
sales machine while stealing glances at the approaching sadistic balloon.
With an insipid smile, the cashier greets him and asks in a controlled yet terrified voice,
“What can I do for you, Sir Den?” She knows something about him. She knows how he
humiliates his employees. She knows how he could influence the owner to fire employees in this
restaurant. She knows how it feels when he spat those insulting words on the waiter’s handsome
face.
“Does this idiot know about me?” The stout man turns his plump body and raises his fat-
layered arm to point at the humiliated waiter.
Afraid to commit any sign of mistakes, the cashier hesitantly shakes her head. Her
piteous eyes fixed on the waiter, who is now on the brink of dismissal.
“Well then, you should tell him!” the stout man imperatively shouted. He faces the waiter
and in a calmed voice yet with a tint of irritation says, “You’ve got me one,” he pauses and looks
at the nameplate above the waiter’s breast pocket, “Andrew. If you repeat what you’ve just done,
pick your things up and leave this building. You understand?”
The waiter couldn’t look into his eyes. But he nods and moves over to the counter right
away. He is obviously offended by the stout man’s insulting words. The stout man’s
temperament, which has been toned down, has affected him and is now dawdling in his
emotions. In his thoughts, he knocks him off to make him realize the mistake he made. In his
thoughts, he mutilates him to death. But he needs to control what is in his thoughts at that
moment, because if he makes it into action, he would, for sure, lose his job and rot in jail. His
thoughts are intruded by the cashier’s sweet voice.
“Andrew, come,” says the cashier in an angelic voice. She is a tanned skin, curly hair,
and pleasing lady of early twenty. She is wearing a white blouse and a dark blue skirt. She has
been a cashier for more than a year in that fiendish restaurant. She is an angel in hell.
Andrew, whose knees are trembling because of the unfair reprimand, leans his arms over
the counter. He wants to calm down the tension he feels.
“He is Sir Den Lee. He is the brother of Sir Hector.” The cashier pulls the drawer out on
her table. She gets a piece of torn paper and dashes something on it. She gives the paper to him.
He levels the paper on his almost-teary eyes.
“That’s his breakfast meal. That's what he usually eats every morning. Now, you go to
the kitchen and ask the cook to prepare it ASAP. Go, now,” she says.
Trotting to the kitchen area, Andrew takes a look at the written dishes on the paper. It’s
sausage meal, soup of the day - cream of mushroom, and a black coffee.
At the kitchen area, the cook is busy preparing the ingredients and chopping the spices.
He would sometimes check the huge casserole with something simmered in it and stir it with a
long ladle. His helper, the pantry man, is preparing the sandwiches and other time-consuming-to-
prepare bread dishes to avoid cramming.
“Master June, I have an advanced order. This is urgent. From Sir Hector’s brother,”
Andrew says in a low and lonely voice.
The cook, in his forties, wearing chequered long pants, a white short-sleeve polo shirt
designed for cooks, a white hair net cap, and a stained white smock apron, turns to him and takes
the paper from him.
Andrew gives it and says before leaving, “Please buzz me when it’s ready.”
Andrew goes to the stout man and his buddy. He bravely excuses himself and asks the
stout man’s buddy with his order.
The buddy just says, “Coffee is better.”
Without taking glances at the stout man, Andrew moves swiftly to the counter to punch a
cup of coffee in the POS. He drops by the bar area and signals the barman for two cups of coffee.
He strides to the table where his tray is and continues arranging the used utensils on the tray. He
puts down the tray on a stand and sets up a new tablecloth on the table. He proceeds to the
dishwashing area to unload the buzzing tray.
Shortly, he goes over to the bar area, gets two cups of coffee, lopes to the stout man and
his buddy, and puts two cups of coffee on their table. He moves back to the bar area to return the
bar tray, and then he hears the bell tinged at the kitchen. He dashes to the kitchen. Just after in
front of the dispatcher’s table, he sets a serving tray down. He arranges all the dishes on the tray.
While he is doing it, his recent temper over the stout man spurs him to think of something
disgusting and despicable to indulge the vengeance surging up in his head.
With all the strength of his right arm, he hauls the tray, containing the plates and the
dishes, over his right shoulder. He doesn’t go directly to the dining area. Instead, he swerves left
to the dishwashing area and stops by the heap of racks of drinking glasses. He lays the tray over
the top and looks around warily. Nobody is there, except the dishwashing man, who is trying to
operate the dishwashing machine and he doesn’t notice him. The dishwashing man is suspicious
of his behavior.
“What are you doing?” says the dishwashing man.
Andrew is startled and mouth-shut for a moment. He doesn’t look at him, instead squints
for a moment and wittingly figures out what to say. The dishwasher is apparently the in-charge
of all the utensils. “Oh, I forget to tell you that there’s a dessert order. I need a sherbet glass now.
Or, can you give it to the barman?” He knows how to keep his pretense to satisfy his revenge.
“Oh, one thing, my friend, there is trash on the floor in dining area two. You must sweep it now
because customers are coming. I’ll go get the sherbet glass for you. Where are the sherbet
racks?” His charm persuades the dishwasher man.
“It’s there by the wine glasses.” The dishwashing man points him to the sherbet glass
racks. He grabs the broom and dustpan and exits the dishwashing area.
 Taste my vengeance, you fat pig, Andrew thinks. He couldn’t do anything vengeful
against the stout man saved for the simple, unknown-to-the-enemy, and disgusting revenge. He
sniffs hard to collect all the mucus he has in the nasal cavity. He produces a filthy sticky greenish
mucus and he feels and tastes it in his mouth. He spits it over the hot and smoldering cream of
mushroom soup. And, using a used and unwashed serving spoon he got from the sink, he stirs the
soup until the filthy mucus is unrecognizable in the soup. With his bare hands, he holds the
sausages and the boiled egg and rolls them over the trash underneath the dishwashing machine.
He soaks them in the container where the floor mop has been soaked. And then, he puts them
back on the plate. Of course, he could do nothing on the fried rice as it would break the hill-like
look or, if it breaks, he might hear undignified words from the stout man again.
The dishwashing man, who is also now a housekeeper, is diligently sweeping dining area
two. He knows Andrew has fooled him, but he doesn’t take it seriously. Besides, he thinks it’s
another way of killing time and a good way of pretending hard work. Stooping, he looks at
where the door of the kitchen is slowly pulled. He sees Andrew, tray over his right shoulder,
smiling and humming a song, and too careful to trod the glazed ceramic floor to the waiting
hungry pig’s table. He stands straight and tightly grips the broom in his right hand and grits his
teeth as though trying to crunch them down.
With a big smile from ear to ear, Andrew gently set the dishes one by one, stating the
name of each order, in front of the ill-tempered stout man. He looks at him with some sort of
satisfaction and humbly says, “Sir, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. This is my first week and
my first duty in the morning shift.”
The stout man, still irritated, sneers, gives him again an untamed look, and says, “It
already happened. What can I do? At least you’re sorry. Go away and don’t ruin my day.”
Andrew has become callous getting a response like that after apologizing. He still gives
him a big smile. He moves away without a sound even from his shined leather shoes, rubbing the
polished glazed ceramic floor. But deep inside, he lauds what he has done. He walks brusquely
to the restaurant entrance akin to a proud soldier who has received a medal of valor. Standing at
ease, he greets and welcomes everyone who gets inside the restaurant, diner or not. He’s not only
an excellent front liner, but also an avenging waiter.