Part 17

NIGHTCALL

It was a day like any other. Edward at work, stationed at his kitchen. Edward, skewering meat and vegetables for kebabs. Edward, keeping the customers satisfied. Quite a few people had ordered salads for lunch today, and as he shredded bergs of lettuce, he was thankful for that. Vegetables made for easy handwashing; they didn't stick and cling to his shears the way that meat did.

About half an hour before the dinner shift began, general manager Evanthas approached Edward. Evanthas was essentially a baron, with regal wardrobe to match. With fortitude and drive, he kept his subjects focused on perfecting their duties, but through motivation and inspiration, rather than an iron fist. He also remembered his own duties and would go out of his way to assist and serve his restaurant's patrons.

"Good evening, Edward." Evanthas always sounded formal, even when making casual conversation.
"Good evening, sir."
"I must inform you that, starting next week, Sideshow Bistro will have overtime opportunities available."
"Really?"
"We began experiencing supply chain disruptions recently. The cargo transporter who gives us ingredients has just been prohibited from traveling on land. So, we needed to take the initiative, meet them at the port, and bring it back here ourselves. Are you interested?"

The situation sounded bad, and Evanthas had been nothing but a benefactor to Edward. He'd even granted him the relocation package that enabled him to obtain his current home. Additionally, Edward had recently resurrected the idea of starting his own business. He knew from experience that this would take money, and everything would be easier if he just had a little more of it lying around. He saw no reason to decline the offer.

"Yes, I am."
"Excellent. I'll inform Tayton."
"How long will the overtime take?"
"You'll be on the clock for four more hours a week. 3:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M on Monday. There's a $600 bonus for every transport shift you complete. The opportunities will continue until the supply chain issue is repaired. I thank you. We cannot function as a restaurant without these deliveries."
"I'm glad to help."

I'm looking for a partner, someone who gets things fixed
Ask yourself this question, do you want to be rich?
Oh, there's a lot of opportunities if you know when to take them
You know there's a lot of opportunities. If there aren't, you can make them
-Pet Shop Boys

The following Sunday, Edward retired to bed very early. His alarm clock erupted at 2:00 A.M, and he shut it off quickly. The moment he awoke, he was second-guessing his decision to accept the overtime shift. The sleep phase he'd emerged from wasn't one that made his body feel rested, even though he'd slept almost 7 hours. Grogginess had a hold on him. He wished he were allowed to return to sleep, for maybe another hour, but he forced his head off his pillow.

In the deep heart of the night, the lack of noise was eerie. Who on earth, he thought to himself, would willingly be awake at an hour like this? Witches? Vampires? Fallen angels?

He knew what would wake him up. Wobbling his way into the bathroom, he stood in front of his mirror and pressed the tip of his right finger, as slowly as he could, into his left shoulder. The scissor cut his flesh deeper than he intended to, however, and he cried out in pain. Removing his finger from his shoulder, blood slowly ran down his left bicep.

This was not a good morning, so far. With the coordination he'd developed from being a chef, Edward cut his own face and body a fraction of how often he used to, yet it still happened once in a while. He pressed his upper arm against a hand towel hanging from a wall rack, and waited for the gash to clot.

Tayton was to arrive at his home at 3:00. In the meantime, Edward hopped in the shower, where he learned that cooling the water was quite effective at boosting his energy, with less blood spilled. He got dressed, went to the kitchen and ate breakfast: two bunches of ripe red grapes. Then, he heard it: three light taps on his front door, a noticeable pause between each one. Edward walked over to open the door, where Tayton stood. He was 6'6'', and 250 pounds, mostly muscle. He was not the sort of person Edward expected to announce himself with such a gentle, subtle knock.

"You ready?", Tayton asked. Edward nodded. The pain from stabbing himself was beginning to dissipate. They walked to the curb, where Salvador was waiting in the passenger seat of an armored, diesel-chugging lorry. Edward entered and sat on a bench in the back of the lorry, fastened with a seatbelt.

"We're going to the port.", said Tayton, with no elaboration. He was silent the remainder of the drive. Salvador, usually extroverted and eager to talk, exchanged only a few words with Edward. This was fine, because it allowed him more ability to engage in his favorite travel activity: sightseeing.

The port was an hour from Edward's house, and he kept his eyes focused out the window as the lorry cruised west through the hills, on Highway 101. He particularly was intrigued by the signs indicating the names of the places they were travelling through: "Woodland Hills", "Thousand Oaks", and as they descended from the hills into a coastal plain, "Port Hueneme", which must be the destination.

The moon was down, an orange crescent on the western horizon, hanging over the ocean. Edward had always been fascinated with that beautiful celestial body, especially so now, when its position and color and orientation were so strange. That, combined with the surreal time of day, made it easy to imagine that these distant worlds, the Moon and Venus, Mercury and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, were much, much closer than anyone thought.

"Edward." Tayton wasn't going to let his employee become distracted by the moon. The three men parked, opened the lorry's trailer, and walked across a dock to a small merchant vessel, idle at a terminal.
"Salvador's gonna be loading.", Tayton explained in his usual cold, emotionless voice. "I'll load the first hour and then stand guard. Edward, you stand guard for the first hour and then help Salvador load."
"Stand guard?"
"There are thieves around here. Trains pulling into L.A., getting robbed. But they're not robbing us."
"No fear Eddy, you're the big boss! You've got this!", Salvador encouraged him as he and Tayton treaded over the gangplank to the ship deck.

Edward stood beside the gangplank and shifted to intimidator mode. Like a peacock displaying its plumage, he extended his magnificent, deadly hands in a 180-degree fingerspan, and crossed his wrists. The blades glistened menacingly in the dim light of the port. His mouth scowled. He looked ready to challenge any thief. It was his livelihood that was at stake here. Anyone who attempted to take it from him would rue that day for as long as they lived.

Tayton and Salvador were fast; within a couple of minutes, they had already loaded three large crates, plywood reinforced with metal edges, into the lorry. Back and forth, back and forth they hustled, from the trailer to the ship. As the minutes passed, three crates became six, six became ten, and ten became twenty. Many were large enough to require both men to carry them. Some, Edward noticed, were stamped "PERISHABLE" in large red font.

Before he knew it, the first hour had passed and he was called into the ship to unload. Fortunately, he'd seen no thieves. Tayton returned to the lorry, retrieved a high-caliber rifle from a chest in the trailer, and stood at attention next to the gangplank.

The next hour was difficult for Edward. The crates were heavy and while they were immune to being pierced by his scissors, his shoulder pain returned as he worked. It grew worse and worse, like it was distorting his muscles as he moved the cargo. Near the end of the shift, Salvador could see the agony that he was attempting to mask. When the last crate had been stored away, he asked:

"What's wrong, ese?"
Edward, panting and grimacing, replied: "I hurt my shoulder when I woke up."
"Lemme see." Salvador rolled the sleeve of Edward's shirt up to reveal a nasty scab, with fresh blood emerging from it. He shook his head.
"They've got some ointment at the restaurant. When you get back, you can get some of it, rub it on your shoulder and rest it, it'll be just fine."

Tayton closed and locked the door to the trailer. "We're out", he commanded to Edward and Salvador. They returned to their truck and made the hourlong trek back to the restaurant.

At 7:00 AM, as the morning traffic jams were forming, they pulled into the Sideshow Bistro parking lot. There, Edward spied another storage truck, leaving the premises, pulling out onto the road. At first, he didn't understand why this could be. Hadn't his team been the one gathering the ingredients? Then he realized: Sideshow Bistro probably obtained its resources from multiple providers. He had seen what had to be undertaken when one part of the network had been knocked out, and he doubted they were going to take a risk that could completely incapacitate them if an emergency struck.

And as Edward thought of this, he felt he was beginning to understand, intuitively, how businesses worked, and how they had to work. Knowledge like this would be valuable for any self-employment endeavors he would make. A trio of workers in overalls appeared from inside the restaurant to unload the cargo once it had arrived. Off the clock for two hours, he applied ointment to his wounded shoulder and rested it as much has he could before the normal Monday shift began.

When his next paycheck arrived at the end of the week, Edward's dopamine surged as he looked at the $600 bonus attached to it. Perhaps if he made enough money, he'd be free to live life on his own terms, not that he'd tired of cooking, but he was the type who always kept his options open, never planning too much, lest opportunities pass him by. With his reward circuit triggered, Edward would certainly be coming back for more overtime pay.