Nashville - Part Two

There were six of us in the kitchen at Ireland’s Steak and Biscuits, five cooks and a dishwasher. Tony the dishwasher always had a smile on his face, was always happy - I can still see his face after all these years - over forty years...now that’s an enduring smile. Tony was around eighteen years old - I hope he didn’t end up in Vietnam...a nice kid.

Then there was Miss Irene, she did salads and sandwiches at the other end of the kitchen. She knew I loved tuna fish and so everytime she was about to make a new batch of tuna salad she’d ask me if I wanted what was left of the current batch - I never turned her down. Miss Irene was in her 50s, short and slightly overweight - and she too nearly always had a smile.

Hazel was tall and slender, in her 40s. She had long hair, down to her shoulders. She didn’t smile all that much, and her face had the lines of life etched in them. They were etched in her forehead, etched in her cheeks; her eyes were deep, when she looked at you she looked at you, she didn’t look past you, she didn’t look to the side, she looked at you - and she thought about what she was looking at. She thought about what she said and she thought about what she heard. I didn’t realize it when I first arrived, but Hazel had me under a microscope; she watched my every move, she listened to my every word; she just wasn’t listening to what I said but how I said it.

Then there were Joe and Sally - they were a pair, that is, they lived together. Hazel, Joe, Sally, and I were the grill cooks; steaks, ham, whatever else was on the menu those days - if it had to be cooked then we cooked it. I mainly did steak and biscuits and ham and biscuits; five biscuits (as I recall) with steak (or ham) in them, hot off the grill, with a side of fries.

Tony, Miss Irene, Hazel, Joe, Sally; they were my family while I was in Nashville. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, who trusted me and rented me a room, they were also somewhat like family, but I didn’t see them often. I worked, came home, slept, did my laundry in their laundry room, and went back to work. After closing the kitchen and cleaning it up I didn’t get home until midnight or 1:00 AM - so I was usually pretty tired and slept late, going back to work around 2:00 or 3:00 PM for the dinner shift, I always worked the night shift.

All of my family in Nashville was African-American. I really didn’t think of them as being black and myself as being white, I honestly didn’t think of it. I just knew that I worked with some pretty nice people and lived in the home of some pretty nice people. I suppose the Franklin’s and my coworkers all knew I was white, I know that Hazel knew I was white, but more on that later.