___
Manhattan was bad geography. Watching the streets those first nights we saw the zig-zag lines of the plagued sniffing out clean meat. I suppose everywhere else it was the same, but with the prospect of escaping the island, an insurmountable labyrinth with a minotaur of three million by the third day, it was the end; one had to look at oneself and evaluate, (re-evaluate), one’s purpose: a terrifying prospect when one was a restaurant critic -- not the skill set to latch on with other survivors.
What saved me was spending the first three innings of Armageddon at the Spotted Dick, with fifty of the most useless humans to survive that bad seventy-two; a herd of trust fund Richies now three days at the bar with what private pharmaceuticals they had with them; the infected clawing at the blockaded entrance as musical accompaniment. When Chef Martin Benoit, that sawed off, addled maestro came down the stairs from his private quarters, his staff wielding cutlery behind him like Shun storm troopers, his restaurant had degraded to an apocalyptic orgy, as frightening a rabble as the monsters outside.
Benoit looked over us as if he were taking reservations, (it turned out he was). He called out, “Jimmy!”, and six men stood up.
But he pointed at me.
I moved from my table where I had just cut into scrambled egg and toast I had put together in the kitchen.
“Jimmy..” Chef said. His eyes wide and red, “Bring the eggs.”
The staff stayed on the floor as I ascended with Chef to his offices.
It was a plain little room, a modest old mahogany desk, and a leather sofa - it could have been the office of an accountant save one feature: behind the chef’s desk was a wall of television monitors screening twelve angles of the kitchen and dining and even the back alley delivery drop; twelve spies for the emperor.
Benoit took my plate, and sat at his desk. He picked over the egg.
“A little egg with your garlic.” He said.
I laughed. He didn’t.
“I see why you write about food.”
“I guess I’ll be the first to go.” I said.
He didn’t laugh at that one either.
“You were in the military, James?”
“How do you know that?”
“Did you serve eggs like this in the military?”
“No.”
“Oh, a patriot.”
From his desk computer Benoit pulled a tiny microphone, and called over it through the intercom downstairs, calling his crew back.
As they came up and into the office, Benoit asked me, “You good with a weapon?”
“Fine.”
The last Puerto Rican locked the door in four places. Chef typed on his keyboard. On the monitors behind him, those showing angle of the dining space, the ultra-modern entrance - a steel and glass monstrosity akin to a turned over version of one of those retractable roofs the football stadiums have - began to creek open. The Rum-dums downstairs didn’t notice at first. I saw the first rot-tinged arm rut through, and said, “Holy shit.”
The Puerto Ricans behind me laughed.
“It’s time to go, Jim.”
“Where?”
“If you want to stay for the Dick’s grand reopening, by all means..”
On the monitor a column of arms reached and squeezed through the ever widening entrance downstairs. I saw the poor bastards below finally see. Half of them were so full of drugs and booze they had courage -- bad news.
“It’s about to be a packed house, Jimmy. Make a decision. If you want, go down, join the buffet.”
The diners finally recognized the peril, and it became a stampede to the kitchen, where they found the doors locked.
The boys behind me laughed some more.
“Chef, they’re people.”
“Not for long.”
I followed in line with Benoit’s crew, down the back stairs, we could hear the screams from front of house. The boys were giggling, clearly high: they stunk, they were knife fighting each other; all of this a big joke to them.
The back alley was empty. A big success their plan; nearby creatures were out front getting in on the meal, and here was Martin Benoit walking out onto 13th like it was any other night. He waved to us, and the boys jogged away, so I followed. We started west, and cut through an alley north; the area was still lit up; once in a while an uninfected face peeked out at us. Benoit would wave at them, dancing down the street like he was heading a parade, though it was only the seven of us behind him.
It changed at Broadway. Benoit waved us back - the sous-chefs backpedaled like defensive backs, and we all made the corner of a bakery still lit up with plates of black and white cookies in the window, even then the sound of a marathon banked down Broadway. Benoit got to our huddle just as the infected blasted by.
“There’s a close one.”, Chef turned to us, “Let’s have a pick-me-up, Boys - out with it.”
A Puerto Rican dangled a baggy of white stuff, and the others licked their lips.
“Have a taste, Jim, it’s gonna be a long night.”
“No thanks.”
“Jimmy really, have some -- it’s called making friends. Really, the world’s ended, Kiddo -- make something of yourself.”
“I want my head straight.”
“That’s what we’re doing.”
I peeked around the corner of the bakery. It was quiet. Behind me the crew sounded like a barbershop septet of wart hogs.
“Where are we headed, Chef?”
“Chinatown.”
“Why?”
“Why? Okay, Jim, the why. I have Chinese down there. Fishmongers. Fishmongers who also are gun-mongers. They owe me on some bad sea bass. Yeah? You can run the gun, Jim?”
“I told you I can.”
“Take a toot, boy.”
“I don’t do that. Don’t ask again.”
“Fair enough.”
We crossed Broadway, and turned south; it was no more safe: Infected, listless animals, poked around in couplings and threes, sniffing for us or anyone living and fresh. No horde, but these platoons were in a way scarier - it was quiet on the Bowery cobble.
“This is the long way around.” I said.
“We’re getting there.”
The boys behind us were wired and creepy: teeth-grinding zombies my band of brothers, twirling their knives like they were hoping to use them.
“Keep walking.” Benoit said.
They walked. Like the Earp boys. They were really doing this. One of them hooted like an owl, calling trouble on our position.
I called for them to stop -- too late. Three infected, three that three days ago had been rich-boy eastside poseurs, down here to pretend it was 1976 with hawks and leather, and combat boots, scuffed those boots; swinging arms, pistoning legs, running down the kickoff. Ricans twirled ten inch Shuns.
Benoit was nowhere to be seen. Infected ran into knives. Knives didn’t stop them. The cooks got bit.
Then Benoit was beside me, dragging me in under the eaves of an old tavern. We walked some shadows. He never looked back as the punks ate his line chefs. The noise called more eaters out of the alleys, opening our way to Chinatown.
“Now what?”
“Quiet.”
Benoit stopped in the doorway of a deli, had a peek inside. We ducked in. He sat down behind the counter.
“Watch the street for a second - no, get me a water.”
I snuck down the back aisle to the cooler. When I handed him down the water, he took my arm, and pulled me into a squat beside him.
“There’s this old Chinese restaurant outside of Worcester.” He choked some water. “Route Nine. I used to go there as a kid. The food was shit, but the building, the building.. -- maybe we get out of here, Jimmy, get outta here, and go up to Massachusetts. The building on the hill. We get people, acquisition the place. Get good soldiers like you.”
Benoit couldn’t keep the water down.
“Like you. A safe house? A pass-by for survivors. We could go to the countryside, and find healthy animals; grow gardens on the roof. A trading post.”
“You already thought all this?”
“I’m me. All over the east coast we’ll be known, fresh food, water; I dreamed of this as a boy. Four stars? A million stars. “
“Sounds brilliant.”
“High on the hill. Watching all directions. Someone has to have the foresight to do this, yeah? Jim? It’s me, yeah?”
“You, yeah.”
“Me.”
It was here I had slipped Benoit’s knife out of his left hand. His eyes had gone black rheum. His body rejected the water a third time. I cut him open with the knife. Right on the purple notch of throat where he had been bitten.
It must have happened outside the restaurant. Maybe he had ventured out on day one or two.
There wasn’t much of his mind left to fight me. I caught him in the golden hour between changing over, where hunger had yet to remake his body strong again, and so he died weak and wasted without a struggle. He got to die the man he had been in life, which is better than most have got over these last years.
I think of him. I think of the dead Chinamen who were right where he told me they’d be, and their weapons I got over the bridge with. I think of his immaculate kitchen, the collage of colors, everything in it’s little bowl, it’s place: shallots, thyme, tarragon, white asparagus, criminis, his kitchen was a starship. Organization. A fine lesson. I have a van; if you could see inside it you would understand how I remember this lesson: I’ve salvaged a real assortment of death for the brain-eaters. That’s my mis-en-place. It’s four star. God loves Worcester.
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