Example 16 : The Repeated Meals

Simon trained us so it was of some surprise when he was the one who tripped me on the order of sole by asking for salmon instead when he damn well knew there wasn’t any salmon or white fish or tuna or catfish for that matter because each dinner on the menu had been planned down to the ounce, half ounce, eighth, sixteenth of all the ingredients from the steak platter with nine point seven five ounces of potatoes and half a pound of filet mignon seasoned with thirteen grains of sea salt and tenderized for four hours and hell it doesn’t really matter the point is that each of the twelve meals was all planned out and not like at a normal restaurant because we were in the Museum in Simon’s constructed rooms that together constituted his latest installation work where we all were trained to repeat our motions and words and to lay out the silverware with the same gentle motions of our arms and the perfect half bend to our knees, in particular, my knees had come under quite some scrutiny from Simon because I’m taller than the other waiter, Melissa, by nearly a foot, and Simon had me bending at the waist and flexing at the knees to lower myself to precisely six inches above Melissa’s as I bent to take the orders and for six days Simon had been eating in the gallery three meals a day with a different critic or friend each day each meal and things had been going splendidly as at night we sat around after the restaurant closed and counted the grains of salt in the shakers so that Simon could pour them on his hand for the critic from his favorite art blog and pulling a small scale from his pocket he told the critic there would be two point three eight grams of salt and there was and then he licked all of it off his hand and together they laughed while Simon told the critic that Gregory, the chef, always salted each dish to perfection and Simon had to destroy perfection and so he made sure to ruin his palate before each meal and the critic got a kick out of that and the quote led the review on the site and Simon seemed very happy and we were all looking forward to the closing meals and it was in the middle of the day when the artificial sun was burning through the rose windows and forming the perfect rhomboid of light on the carpet and I had watched the light crawl through its shapes for the week we had been open and the thirty days of rehearsal mapping itself exactly the same each moment and I was clueless when I came by the table and smiled at Simon and asked what he would like for dinner and Melissa poured the water and the critic from the big glossy magazine showed his teeth and sucked his lips and peered at his own menu while Simon closed his and said to me, I’d really like the fish tonight, but ask Gregory to forget the sole and let’s have salmon, OK? and then he had slapped me on the butt and Melissa had dropped a glass which didn’t shatter on the thick carpet but thumped its ice and water the water darkening to black as it seeped into the carpet and the critic had turned to me and said, you know, that sounds good, me too, please.