Escape from Vacationland
You can read “Escape from Vacationland” on Maudlin House in their February 2024 online publication.
A note about “Escape from Vacationland”
It was 1995 when I last lived in Maine with my parents, the summer before college. I worked at the Village Inn, a restaurant considered exorbitant and outrageously priced by my family and therefore a great place to work and take money from the tourists. Dad wouldn't have considered bussing tables “honest” work, but he thought it was the best work available for me. In rural Maine, my pink complexion, hankering for books, shy demeanor, and lack of propensity for tools wasn’t the recipe for “honest” labor.
I had experience in food hall service from washing dishes and peeling potatoes for $15 a week at an evangelical summer camp, a form of ‘giving’ that that the camps referred to as ’Christian Service Training.” I had done time at McDonalds where I learned to keep lines moving by pulling dropped burgers up off the greasy floor and sliding them quickly between fresh buns before passing them out to the customers. I had picked strawberries for two summers and carnied kiddie rides at a theme park owned by a supermarket, but I had never worked a professional kitchen run by a mad hatter chef driven by equal parts passion, skill, and alcohol. I was given an entry level position which covered bus boy, dishwasher and line cook.
The first thing that struck me was the heat. The steam of the summer nights mingled with the wet grit of dish steam in my nostrils. The tempers of the staff, the front-of-house white shirts glaring at the back-of-house staff in their wet t-shirts, stained jeans, pale faces, eyes looking out at them as if there was nothing more annoying than a person in a white shirt. I hated those white shirts when I was back-of-house, but when I moved to front-of-house and slid on the white shirt, I loved it more.
"Where's my steak medium rare with a side of mashed?"
"Why is this codfish cold as ice?"
"Goddammit another worm in the salad? Really?"
I picked up the lines quick. The waitresses paid compliments to my baby face with crass phrases while running ten tables at a time as if there was nothing to opening a bottle of wine while memorizing every child’s chicken finger combination.
Those moments in the kitchen bloom my memory like wine in the nose, softly prickling my senses. These were gateway hours. I stepped out of my parents’ home into the outside world and discovered humanity for myself.
I am convinced that kitchens everywhere, or those of any worth, are peopled with saints. They fight their worst natures to bring about something beautiful and good worth sharing with the world. Each dish is a work of art yielded from a heated toil, fumed by passion.
So, before tipping the next time at a quiet table overlooking the ocean, or a lake, or in the downtown sidewalk mall, consider this: beyond the swinging doors with circle windows there exists a dance between death and life where humanity is produced in each dish that comes back through the door. How you tip contributes to a karmic cycle that does not move forward in a linear line, but revolves like wind in a cave looking for its center. Tip every meal as if it’s the last supper. I believe John Lennon was considering the deeper dynamics of kitchen life when he first sat at a bar and wrote the line, “Instant Karma’s going to get you.”
In "Escape from Vacationland," I hope I captured my last summer in Maine. More than that, I hope a tiny bit of what it means to work a kitchen comes to life.
The story isn't about me. John is based on a friend. This story is for my friend, and for everyone like him who spend their days living for others.