I remember once, many years ago, telling a classmate that when I died they would hold parades in my honor. Our teacher happened to be walking by at the time and made a comment to the affect that I had set quite the lofty goal for myself. These many years later the names of that teacher and classmate have long since been forgotten by me, but not my promise never that. Sometimes I think I would be much happier, or at least content, if I could simply forget the vow of a naive boy. Other times I believe that reaching for that seemingly unattainable goal is what separates we human being from the poor dumb beasts that so graciously adorn our dinner tables. I will have my parade even if it means mobilizing every beggar and street urchin I can gather to walk the distance for the promise of a sandwich or bottle of scotch.
By way of education I suppose I’m a historian, truly an underappreciated and misunderstood lot of fanatics and social misfits. History was by no means my first calling, I sort of fell into it, and while I was cobbling together my BA I became a cook. In fact I was a cook long before I became a Bachelor of Arts. After high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. I knew I wanted to go to college, I wanted to be the first college grad in my family, but I needed money. I pondered selling drugs for a short bit, the hours were good the pay was great, but I didn’t have any connections and I was too pretty for jail. I decided to go with a different type of retail and signed up with a certain mega retail chain known for its door greeters and abusing its employees, yeah that one.
Every bad thing you have ever heard about the mega retailer is probably true. I call it the big blue devil and refuse to buy anything from them. The hours were bad, the pay paltry, and most of my coworkers fell into two categories; the soon to be deceased and the parolees. Don’t get me wrong, my coworkers were a great bunch of people trying to make the best of a bad situation. Would I leave them alone with my mother, no. I had the honor of working overnight, ten to seven, and volumes could be written about the people that work and shop overnight. My primary reason for leaving the great blue devil was the overwhelming miasma of the place. It had the effect of making you question every part of your life and making you think that this was all you were good for. I decided to leave before I acquired the same hollow eyed stare and empty half smile of my older coworkers, the walking wounded. I could only image what went through their minds every night, perhaps mistakes they’ve made, perhaps the break they never got, perhaps they managed to convince themselves that this was the best they could do and they should simply be glad to have a job. My thoughts were all to clear to me, at the forefront was a promise I made years earlier, and the knowledge that parades aren’t thrown for people who work for the big blue devil. Really, the best I could hope to get from them was a paupers grave and my last paycheck would probably be docked the price of flowers I would never receive.
Next I found myself working food service for a theme park, the pay was better and I had been cooking since I was six the scar on my wrist is testament to that. It was during my tenure at this theme park that I applied to and was accepted by Christopher Newport University. I decided to go with a slow and steady approach to college since I took full time work and had to make work schedules and class schedules complement each other. The theme park was a great choice for the summer months when I didn’t have class and could work as much as I wanted, unfortunately I still wasn’t making enough so I had to resort the dreaded student loans. During the winter the park was closed and I was in school so I had to find work with flexible scheduling, this meant service industry work and the best pay was in food service and prostitution. Considering my severe allergy to STDs I decided to stick with the lower paying but more stable food industry. This path led me through cafés and delis and eventually full service restaurants. Slowly honing my skills as I steadily familiarized myself with various cooking methods in different environments with different people.
On the academic front I was beginning to feel a bit disillusioned. I had originally signed up as a biology major due to my interest in nature. After a few semesters of lecturing from unkempt hippies and the mind numbing repetitive drudgery of lab work I decided to switch my major to computer engineering. A couple of semesters of near vision loss from countless hours staring at computer monitors in search of bad coding coupled with my lack of advanced calculus skills led me to search for a new major. I settled on history as my major for a number of reasons. I had always been a capable writer so that aspect of it was of no problem. Books had always been my closest and oldest friends and the prospect of pouring over obscure text was something I looked forward to. Lastly, I chose history because most of the people I had to deal with were good and dead basically in no danger of causing me annoyance.
Finally I’ve graduated. As I search for a permanent job my books sit collecting dust and my knives grow dull. It would seem that this world of ours doesn’t realize how much they need historians. I search every day for a job in the field of my study and yet the fire calls to me. The constant hustle and bustle. The never ending battle of us versus them. The comrades. Comrades, not co-workers, because a kitchen is a war zone and you succeed or fail with the man or woman standing next to you. Our uniforms were white and our knives the only weapons needed.
We are misfits and outcasts, cutthroats and degenerates, artists and philosophers, lovers and fighters, pirates and privateers. I have had the pleasure of working with mothers, fathers, sisters, and brother. With junkies and dealers, sinners and holy rollers and I never felt more at home than in the chaos of our personal battlefield. Of all the things we are, we are a brotherhood of fire and steel. Though my knives may grow a bit tarnished and my books might grow a bit dingy no one ever truly leave this affiliation, for once the fire wraps itself around the core of your being it will constantly be attracted to flame and the clatter of steel. While the fire burns in one form or another, there will always be time to organize a parade.
