Where the Sunflowers Grow
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-7-
Fish House Blue's

The inside of the kitchen reminded of a combat zone. Line cooks were shouting orders at the top of their lungs, waitresses were rushing back and forth from the  dining room area to the kitchen, shouting at the top of their lungs, tempers were running high. It was a circus within a circus. It was your average Friday night at “Delta Pride Catfish House” a modest and rustic little seafood and steak house restaurant my uncle Cliff owned and operated.

From the outside “Delta Pride Catfish House” was not please to the eye, the parking lot was paved in wash gravel, and it had been built using old, concrete cinder blocks, it was windowless, and roof was a nothing more than several dozen sheets corrugated tin that had been bolted or nailed down. It was located just off a ribbon of concrete highway. It was about three miles or so south of the bright, neon, lights of Benton and was located at the bottom of a hill. It was surrounded by marshland on three sides.

But despite its remote location, or because of it, people drove from all four corners of the earth, each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night to dine on “Yazoo Delta Style” deep fried catfish, that catfish that has been coated in a seasoned cornmeal breading. The side items included fried gold brown, hush-puppies, thick, hand-cut french fries, real corn bread, and of course collared greens seasoned with tiny strips of hardwood smoked bacon.

Beside Catfish, the place was famous for its “Half-Dollar” thick Delmonico cut steaks, that were only served with a king size russet baked potato, house salad and dinner roll. We also offered jumbo, butterflied gulf shrimp that could either be fried, baked or grilled. And sometimes fresh gulf snapper when we could get it.

Now “Delta Pride Catfish House” was a family business, as it was owned and staffed by mostly extended members of the Potter Family. Well so I was told, I knew for a fact that most of the employees there were either my first or second cousins or long time friends of the family. My cousin, Sarah Elizabeth Potter, or Miss. Potter as I often called her when she was being bossy was the queen of the kitchen and the dining room.

Her royal scepter was a large wooden spoon. She was five years my senior and had just graduated with an Associate Of Science in Nursing from Holmes Community College, she had also just passed her NCLEX-RN exam. She was waiting for a RN position to open at the local hospital. In the meantime she was content with helping out with the family general store and running the fish-house on weekends.

Her little sister Mary Grace Potter was my age and was one of the most junior waitresses of the group her younger brother was one the junior fry cooks. My role.. I just helped out when ever I could. I kind of fell into the sweet spot, I was paid a cash wage of three dollars and twenty five cents an hour because I washed dishes mostly. But sometimes I'll be told to run food or help the staff. Which meant I got a small share of the tips.

Normally I tried to follow my dad's advice of putting ten cents of every dollar I learned into my private savings account at Bank of Yazoo. Dad had opened that private checking account for me when I was five years old, it had been a birthday gift for me on my fifth birthday. That was around the time I started earning a small, modest allowance. I started off earning around seven dollars a week, and following his rule I'd put ten cents of every dollar into the account so I'll drop around seventy cents every week into it.

Then on my sixth birthday dad suggested that I put an extra ten cents of every Birthday, Christmas and Easter money into the account on top of the ten cents of every dollar I learned doing odd jobs around the house. Then when I started working, dad suggested I put twenty cents of every dollar into the savings account..

You get the idea, dad was a firm believer that the sooner you start saving the better you'll be in the long run, and I agreed with him. Because I often put that little bit of money into my savings account, at the end of each week and forgot about it. But lately I started investing more and more money into buying things guide books on how to draw manga, or into books I wanted to read.

“Hey!” A loud female voice echoed in my ear.

I turned around and there leering at me from the corner of the kitchen was Sarah Elizabeth. Her hands were planted firmly on her hips, and she was leaning in slightly. I could tell she was miffed by the way she was looking at me.

“If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.” She said looking me dead in the eye. “I'm not paying you to stand around with your hands in your pocket, daydreaming or doing whatever.” She said as she lifted her hands from her hips and moved a few steps in my direction.

I was about to mutter an apology but she shot me down.

“I don't want to hear it, if I catch you leaning one more time in your shift I'm going to dock your pay for a quarter of an hour. If I catch you leaning after that. I'm going to write you up. If I catch you a third time, I'm going to clock you out, send you home and you won't be allowed to come back until you talk to Uncle Cliff.” She was now mere inches from me. She then poked out her finger and poked me in the chest. “Do we have an understanding, cousin?”

“Yes ma'am!” I stuttered as I nearly snapped to attention.

“Good.” She said, giving me a feral looking smile. I could tell she just had her teeth polished because they seemed to glow like pearls. She then turned away from me. The whole kitchen it seemed had stopped what they were doing mid-task to watch Sarah Elizabeth tear me a new hole.

“And that goes for everyone here!” She shouted. “Come on, move it people! Were down a waitress and a fry cook this evening. And we have a dining room full of guests who want fresh catfish! So let's move on.” With that she turned away from me and stalked away.

The next hour and a half was hellish. I could barely look up, I was either running food, or busting a table. Sometimes I was tossed toward the sink and told to wash the dishes. Other times I was pulled away from the sink by the collar of my shirt and told to run some food.

After ninety minutes of this it seemed we were finally getting a space where we could breathe again. Then something happened. Something happened that made the warm blood that was flowing through my body turn to ice. The old gravel parking lot, which was almost empty, started to fill up. It seemed all of damn Yazoo, Warren, and Holmes County decided that on this given Friday, they all wanted fish, and the only place they wanted fish was “Delta Pride Catfish House” by damn not even the ending of the world was going to stop them.

“ALL HANDS ON DECK.” Shouted Sarah Elizabeth as she moved into the kitchen. “ALL HANDS TO YOUR STATIONS. JAMES, YOUR ON THE FLOOR WITH MARY GRACE, DROP MORE CATFISH AND HUSH-PUPPIES. THORN FIRE THE GRILL BACK UP. LET'S MOVE IT PEOPLE.” Her voice cut through the noise and confusion like a hot knife cuts through soft butter.

I crossed myself and muttered a prayer. I could already see the dining room starting to fill up with people. Without being told, without asking permission I rushed into the storm. I knew if I'd taken a moment to collect my thoughts Sarah Elizabeth would come storming up to me and would once more get into my face and start shouting at me. And I could tell already I was on thin ice with her, for what I did not know. But if I was on thin ice with her, she too was on thin ice with me. And I was a breath away from telling her what she could do with that wooden spoon of hers.

The storm I'd entered into was pure bedlam. It was not the people, no, the people were as good as gold. Nobody snapped at us, nobody clicked the cups of ice in their glasses. The food was coming out of the kitchen at a pretty good pace. Nobody was sending their food back, the cooks were on point, the wait staff were on point.. but none of that seemed to matter to Sarah Elizabeth who was working till.

Halfway through she rushed, when Mary Grace and I were trying to catch our breaths and get some water, she came rushing up to us. I mean that, she flew up to us. And without stopping to consider that both of us were dripping wet with sweat, and on our third glass of ice water she said.

“I need you two to get out there and turn those tables! I need those tables emptied now! Table thirteen has been here for a solid hour! Table sixteen has been here forty five minutes. We need those tables emptied. ASAP.” She said, clapping her hands.

“Bloody Hell.” I muttered. Having read the British Edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had given me a crash course in using British swearing. Dad being a strict Episcopalian of the High Church breed felt a deep kinship toward the U.K edition of books. Mom, having come from the Republic of Ireland, thought the U.K Editions of certain books were the only true editions. I’m not sure if she was Orange or Green. The only thing I knew about her girlhood was she had been born, raised, and educated in County Cork. Next to that I knew nothing about her childhood. 

“..” Sarah Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at me. “Have something to say cousin?”

“It's just we've been going at it hard since three this afternoon. It is now close to eight. I just need a chance to catch my breath. I need to pause, I felt an attack coming on.” I said blushing.

“It's true..” Mary Grace said as she looked her sister directly in the eyes, something I would have never done, not in a million years. “James started coughing and wheezing a little while ago. Mrs. Lynn pulled us aside and told us to take a fifteen.” Mary Grace then added. “All the waitresses and even the line cooks have had at least thirty minutes to sit down and get something to eat and drink. We're the only two left and we're about two hours from closing.”

Sarah Elizabeth paused and then turned away.

“Okay, both of you get off the line.” She paused. “And tell the cooks to fix you something to eat.. on the house.” I guess this was her way of apologizing.

End of Chapter Seven