Chapter Two: "Green with Endives" Burger:
That hovel across the street that Belcher ran, it didn't deserve to be called a restaurant. As far as Pesto was concerned, there hadn't been a restaurant on Ocean Avenue until Pesto's Pizzeria had come along.
Pesto, freshly divorced with a whiny four year old and two lousier newborn twins, had taken the money he'd snatched up out from under his ex-wife and opened a pizza place. It would show her what she missed out on. A rich and successful husband. Nice things. A comfortable life. It would serve her right for not letting go of his minor indiscretions. It wasn't cheating if you paid money for it. Fuck her. She was a prude, anyway.
With things this way, he would make sure his sons were raised the right way. Raised to be men.
Pesto hated Bob Belcher from the moment he first laid eyes on him. The family had come out of the side door by their restaurant. A child the age of his oldest son trailing after Belcher. He held another child in his arms and tried to unlock the front door to his restaurant. Behind him, a woman came out of the side door with a baby in a carrier strapped to her torso. Pesto came outside and made a show of observing this family, huffing audibly. Arms crossed to show this was his territory. This caught the woman's attention and she made as if to cross the street.
"Uh, a little help, Lin."
"Oh, c'mon, Bobby, I'm just gonna say 'hi' to the new neighbor. A little friendly chat. A chit-chat. It'll be fine."
"Oh my God," Bob muttered to himself as he finally opened the door and ushered the two older children inside with them.
Pesto stared the woman up and down, getting as good a view as he could with the baby carrier in the way. He'd seen better, but she was still too good looking for the chubby guy with the too long hair and the weird mustache.
Pesto made the most non-committal attempt at conversation he possibly could before slithering off into his pizzeria. He has staff interviews today. He was going to be swamped. A neighborly conversation? He just didn't have the time, he'd claimed.
A few weeks after Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria had opened, there were people lined down the block just to get through the door. Bob came into the living room after tucking Tina and Gene into bed. The two sharing a room, refusing to be separated. Two year old Gene proclaiming up and down that, "Belchers 'tick together."
Bob gazed at Linda with a softness in his eyes as Linda sat on the couch breastfeeding their newborn. "What are you looking at, Bobby? Put your eyes back in your head, Peeky Pete." Bob only chuckled at this and shifted his gaze from admiring his wife to looking out the living room window.
"I don't like that Jimmy Pesto. He seems rude. And he keeps coming over to our restaurant sticking his nose where it doesn't belong," Linda said.
"He's annoying," Bob agreed. "Okay, maybe a little more than annoying."
"He needs to learn to mind his manners and his business."
"He'll stop bothering us eventually, Lin. He's got his own restaurant to worry about."
By the time their youngest was five, Bob realized how wrong he was about Jimmy Pesto getting out of his slowly thinning hair. The only good thing between the Pestos and Belchers was the appearance that their children got along. An example, Linda harped, that Bob and Jimmy could have done better to follow.
Tina would watch the oldest son, Jimmy Pesto Jr., through the window of the restaurant for hours. Jimmy Jr. would make faces back at her through the window, but Tina would just pace through the restaurant, groaning nervously whenever Jimmy Jr. looked back at her for too long. Gone were the days where Tina would chase him across the street and play tag. Nine-year-old Tina knew what a crush was and she knew when she had one.
Seven-year-old Gene might not have cared about crushes, but he knew his sisters groaning, knew how to mimic it, and knew it got on his father's nerves. "Music to my ears!" Gene would comment before pacing behind his sister and taking on the same sound quality.
"Stop!" Bob said, but was only met with louder groaning from his son. Bob quickly regretted letting the children come down to the restaurant and lend a helping hand. A regret that was unfair to register, because he didn't have much choice in the matter. Linda staying upstairs to watch the kids was too difficult when Bob needed help downstairs. And affording a baby sitter was light years out of the Belcher's budget. Linda had once suggested her sister could watch the kids, Bob could barely deal with three children, he didn't need to be responsible for a fourth he'd said.
"Chicken!" the youngest child accused from the back booth where she had previously sat coloring. "Chicken! You'll never talk to him, 'cause you're too chicken!" The name calling only further disenfranchised Tina, and the groaning grew louder. Bob tried to simultaneously be grateful for the momentary lack of customers and remind himself that his childrens' behavior was only a phase, not realizing that these moments were a precursor for the future.
Maybe the Pesto and Belcher children got along a little too well.
Louise sat on the curb in front of her father's restaurant watching Andy and Ollie play across the street. Louise realized from an early age how gullible other people were and how gullible people were more easily manipulated. She also realized how bored she was when Tina and Gene were at school. Preschool meant getting out of class hours before her siblings and little Louise didn't handle boredom easily.
Andy and Ollie were trying to stuff their feet into one another's shoes while Ollie had his shoes off and Andy had his shoes still on. Louise crossed the street and stood in front of the strange twins.
"I like your hat!" Andy shouted at Louise.
"I'm Andy's hat!" Ollie shouted, putting a hand on his brother's head.
"Wanna play a game?" Louise asked.
"Only if Ollie is playing!"
"Only if Andy is playing!" The twins' voices overlapped.
That was the moment Louise Belcher devised her first successful prank. The band of five-year-olds snuck into Pesto's restaurant and behind the bar. They grabbed a box of straws and fist fulls of paper towels, stuffing them under their shirts and running fast back out the door. Quietness in the mission was sacrificed for quickness at the behest of a bossy little girl.
The kids knelt down on the sidewalk with the spoils of the robbery. Louise opened the box of plastic straws and dumped them out. She began to tear off pieces of rough paper towels, roll them up and stick them into her mouth. She shot her first spitball and Andy. The twins were eager to follow the ring leaders demonstration.
"Idiots! You don't eat the paper. You blow it out of the straw!" Louise glared at the twins as one of them continued to swallow a paper towel and the other drooled through a straw.
It took a lot of work and patience, but the prankster was able to teach the twins how to form a proper spitball. Proud of herself, she pointed and Andy and Ollie launched.
When the group had almost run out of paper towels, Jimmy Pesto stepped outside to appraise his children and the neighborhood nuisance. "Go, go, go!" the nuisance shouted. All three launched a deluge of spitballs at Jimmy.
The aftermath was a lot of yelling. Yelling between the old Pesto man and her, between the old Pesto man and her father, between her father and her. This was the first time Louise had ever gotten in trouble. Real, serious trouble. And she was in love with it.
"Bob, one of you is going to have to be the bigger person and it's not going to be Pesto," Linda lectured, as they were laying in bed, not anywhere near sleep. Bob didn't reply, but looked at his wife with a grimace, "He's jealous of you, you know."
"That's ridiculous, Lin."
"Sure it is," Linda said sarcastically
"Are you guys talking about how much Pesto sucks?" Louise shouted from the living room.
"Go to sleep," Bob instructed.
"Dad, you have to kill him," Louise shouted back.
"No one's murdering anyone," Linda said.
The door to Bob and Linda's room opened and their teenage daughter entered and plopped herself down on the bed. "Are you harassing Mom and Dad?" Gene called from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
"Yeah!" Louise shouted back.
"I'm already on my way," Gene said. Gene found his way to his parents room and sat next to his younger sister on the foot of the bed.
"This stupid rivalry has been going on for fifteen years -"
"Dad's been balding for that long?" Gene interrupted his mother.
"Thanks, Gene" Bob rolled his eyes at his son.
Pesto had performed his masterpiece that day, the only mildly clever and unprovoked retaliation he had launched against the Belchers during the fifteen years of their rivalry.
Pesto called all of the suppliers for Bob's Burgers, municipal and city service, and waste management. Everything on the Belcher's rented property was shut off. A fact would slowly dawn on Bob as the morning stretched ahead of him. The lights in the restaurant didn't come on at opening. Linda came down after him, complaining about the lack of lights and water in the apartment.
"I thought we paid the bills, Lin. There's no way we didn't pay the bills."
"Everything's been paid, Bob," Linda told him, holding up the open checkbook as proof.
Then the bread delivery didn't come that morning. Bob spent the better part of an hour on his cellphone trying to get a hold of Joel's Rolls. It didn't sink in when Joel told him Bob's "new employee" had called and canceled the morning order. Joel relaying he had been told Bob's Burgers was going to be closed for the day.
Bob felt a pit in his stomach. He was sputtering over this mysterious "new employee." Linda looked Bob in the eye and told him they were going to have to close for the day. "No power, no water. We aren't going to be able to do anything today."
Bob had agreed, after a lot of resistance and a little arguing, to close the restaurant for the day. Or at least until they were able to figure out what was going on. As they locked the door to the restaurant, Jimmy Pesto sauntered across the street, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.
"What do you want, Jimmy?" Bob asked, arms crossed over his chest.
"I heard you were having a little trouble today, Bob."
Linda squinted at Jimmy with a gleam of realization, "What did you do?"
Bob's eyes widened and he looked from his wife to his rival and back. "I called in a few favors," Jimmy's smile grew. "Zoom!"
He left the Belchers standing on the sidewalk as he laughed all way back to the safety of his restaurant. Jimmy Pesto watched from his storefront window. He watched Bob and Linda Belcher through the windows in their upstairs apartment, pacing around on their cellphones trying to undo the mess he had created. Jimmy Pesto felt a spark of satisfaction stronger than all the little sparks he'd felt since meeting Bob. This was closest he had come to besting Bob Belcher. To putting him in his place.
Bob tried calling Calvin Fischoeder first. He was quickly dismissed. It was a landlords responsibility to collect rent, throw firecrackers, and incite mild acts of harassment toward his tenants. He couldn't be bothered to dabble in the games of poor people. Especially poor people who couldn't pay their rent in full, or their bills in full as current evidence suggested. Fischoder also pointed out a death certificate or termination of lease was usually presented to turn off utilities. "You're not dead, Bob. You couldn't be talking to me if you were dead," the landlord said.
When Gene and Louise had come home from Huxley High that afternoon, their parents had mostly ironed out the mess. They both looked frazzled and tired. They'd lost almost an entire day of business.
Bob opened the restaurant for the evening, hoping to make up for lost profits. Without buns, he was doubtful he could have even sold a burger. When he closed three hours later, he hadn't had a single sale.
He crawled into bed as soon as he got upstairs, joined by his wife. Eventually his children, who had no concept of personal space, invited themselves into their parents' room and into the conversation.
"When Dad kills Jimmy Pesto -"
"No one is killing anyone, Louise," Bob rehashed his wife's last statement.
"We'll see about that," Louise muttered.
"Oh my God," Bob muttered, rolling over on his side.
"Jimmy Pesto brings out the worst in you, Bobby," Linda said, sitting up and putting on her glasses.
"No, he doesn't," Bob denied.
"The Super Bowl commercial, that time he tried to sell his own burger -" Linda listed.
"I'm sleeping on the couch," he threatened.
"We could always send Gene to clog Pesto's toilet again," Louise offered.
"Don't send a boy to do a man's job," Gene countered, "Gene Belcher, reporting for doody."
"You're all terrible," Bob grunted, motioning for his kids to leave the room.
"Gene. Meeting," Louise ordered, directing her brother to the living room.
"I can't go to a meeting wearing this," Gene scanned a hand from chest downward, gesturing at his pajamas. He followed his sister anyway.
Louise declared something drastic had to be done to get back at Pesto. Gene was more than willing to be roped into his younger sister's nefarious plots, and this was no exception. The plan the siblings agreed on was a little low-tier for Louise's tastes. It didn't involve bodily harm or emotional scarring, but it did involve deep personal humiliation. Louise was willing to settle.
Execution was in hitting Jimmy Pesto where it hurt: His utter and consuming sense of insecurity.
The two youngest Belcher's graced the sidewalk in front of Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria armed with papers, tape, and super glue. As the two teenagers were lining the windows with printed papers. They both felt a twinge of emptiness without Tina's presence in the midst of their shenanigans.
The groaning girl was away at her first semester of college and every time Louise commissioned a prank, she began to miss the white noise of her sister's groaning. The constant nagging to "do the right thing." She missed it more and more with every Tina-less transgression she committed.
Gene and Louise had already opened the restaurant, when their parents came down to start the day. This prompted a snide comment from their father about how rare it was for the laziest two-thirds of his children to have done something so self-motivated, "I would say I could get used to this, but you're my children, so I won't."
"It's always me, me, me. You only ever take us for granted," Gene said.
"Looks like Pesto is trying out some new decorations. That's nice. Changing it up a little," Linda hummed as she fixed herself a cup of coffee and stared through the storefront window.
"Wait for it," Louise said.
It happened moments later as Gene and Louise were refilling salt and pepper shakers.
Pesto was outside of his storefront, red faced and throwing an adult temper tantrum. He stomped in frustration, trying to rip papers off of the large glass windows. On one pane, the papers faced into Pesto's restaurant, not viewable from the street. On the other pane the papers were pasted in the opposite direction: outward and visible to passersby. Pesto had confetti sized scraps of the papers in his hand as he marched toward the Belcher residence.
"Where did you get these, Bob?" Jimmy Pesto demanded as he barged into Bob's Burgers. His shouting eclipsed the sound of the bell ringing above the door.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Jimmy," Bob didn't look up or through the service window at Jimmy, as he continued to chop vegetables for prep, nor did he make a move to leave the kitchen. Gene and Louise shared a glance at the fallout in front of them. Louise was almost sorry her mother was going to miss the showdown while she was doing inventory in the walk-in.
On second thought, maybe it was better that Linda wasn't involved in this confrontation. It was Bob's battle to fight. It was just his children that placed more wood under the fire.
Jimmy Pesto screamed in pure rage at Bob Belcher. Insults and accusations abound. Where did Bob get all of the terrible online reviews for his pizzeria? The health inspector results that almost got him shut down last month? Personal invoices from vendors that sold him the low grade slop he served? And how in the hell had Bob gotten the statements and rumors other frequenters of the "Desire Dungeon" has voiced about Jimmy Pesto in their "legitimate" newsletter/gossip column?
"...your wife is going to leave you and your fucking freaky-ass children are all going to end up on the street or pissing themselves in halfway houses," Jimmy predicted, putting finality to his tirade.
Bob stopped vegetable prep and looked Jimmy Pesto through the service window. Bob looked him square in the eye, "Why are you so jealous, Jimmy?"
Pesto's face grew a deeper, angrier red. "Jealous?" Pesto's voice cracked in rage at the insinuation that he was jealous of Bob Belcher.
"You've been harassing me since you opened your restaurant, Jimmy. It's not my problem that you are too embarrassed to accept your kids for who they are. It's not my problem that your wife left you, and mine won't leave me." Bob didn't move out of the kitchen. He wanted Jimmy Pesto to know he wasn't worth the effort.
Jimmy Pesto took his arm and cleared the counter, knocking all the condiment bottles, napkin dispensers, and salt shakers to the ground as he stormed toward the door. Pesto turned around before reaching the door, opening his mouth about to spout off another threat. Bob beat him to it, "Zoom!"
Jimmy Pesto was out the door before Bob could even take a deep breath. Bob stopped holding it together the moment the door closed behind Jimmy. Bob retreated a little further into the kitchen and sucked in ragged breaths like he was coming off a panic attack. Gene and Louise got up from the booth they had been sitting in, salt and pepper long forgotten in the wake of the scene that had played out before them. They walked toward the kitchen. Linda sped up the stairs from the walk in, "I heard a thud and yelling. What happened?" She laid eyes on her husband, "Bobby, are you all right?" Linda moved toward Bob and put a hand on his back. Bob slowly recovered his breath.
"Did you do this?" Bob asked his children, already knowing the answer.
"I could have done better, but I was pressed for time." Louise waved off the question.
Most of it had been easy. Gene had scoured the internet for the worst possible reviews he could find on Pesto's place. Louise made some phone calls. Marshmallow was more than happy to enlist the help of Marbles and some other friends to dig up all the shameful dirt on "Baby Num-Num."
The horrible health inspection results were a little more difficult to come by. Louise had to pretend to cry and grovel a little bit, but Ron eventually gave in and "knew nothing about" what he may or may not have emailed to an email account Louise had given him. Whether Ron helped the Belcher offspring because he had a soft spot for them or felt bad for years of Hugo pettily tormenting their parents, was unclear. Louise didn't really care about the reasons, so long she got her results.
Eavesdropping on her parents and their friends as a child proved to be a valuable way to gain leverage in her teenage years. It had provided her with connections like Marshmallow and Ron.
"Speak for yourself. I was perfect," Gene volleyed back at his sister.
"So, does this make up for every horrible thing I've ever done or what?" Louise asked.
Despite the heart attack he thought he was having during the altercation, Bob Belcher had won. He just hadn't seen it in the moment.
The next morning, Bob felt a surge of inspiration. He felt like there had been a weight lifted. After opening the restaurant, he went to his chalkboard and wrote "Green with Endives" under "Burger of the Day."
Teddy told him later it may have been one of the best burgers he'd ever made.
"I'm proud of you, Bobby," Linda said.
Bob Belcher loved his family.
Author's Note: One of the many flashback chapters that seem to take up the first half of this FanFiction. I wrote this chapter for two reasons. One, it further illustrates the family dynamic of the Belchers and makes them feel more grounded and in character. Two, I have always wanted to see Bob stand up to Jimmy, so I wrote it.