When I returned from Florida, I moved in with my father and stepmother. Back in my old childhood room, my childhood bed. The first night sleeping there, I gazed up at the ceiling and felt the dual twinge of depression and comfort. Opposing emotions battling for dominance over my psyche. On the one hand, it was nice to be home and on the other it was a massive blow to my 21 year old ego to be under my parent’s roof again.

I still had no driver’s license. It had been about nine months since my D.U.I.. When I woke up I contemplated doing something about it, going through all the steps in order to get my license back. It was odd to wake up in that old house after not living there for years. Everyone was at work, so I had the place to myself. I went about my daily rigmarole then went out looking for a job, filled out a few applications here and there, then met up with my friends later and found myself at a crazy keg party at my old mechanic’s shop. It felt good to see all the familiar faces. I was still young enough for this to matter. When you’re older and go back home, and see all the same people doing all the same things after decades it feels more like you’ve gone back in time, except that everyone is older and some are dead.

There was a concrete ramp outside in the parking lot. My mechanic, Paul, had some old shitbox car that he decked out inside with a safety cage. He put a helmet on, got in the car and we all laughed and drank beer and shouted as he drove one side of the car over and over the ramp in order to try and flip it over. Eventually the car tipped onto one side and we all had to help push it back onto its wheels.

One of those great Vermont summer nights. Young, no responsibilities. Wasting time, making stupid jokes. Filling up the red cups at the keg. Talking to girls. Telling people where I had been for the winter. Regaling them with my Florida stories about how strange and different it was down there. How I had been assaulted by a cop because I had long hair.

I received a call the next morning from a restaurant on Church Street called N.E.C.I. Commons. The anagram stood for the New England Culinary Institute, a place with a not so stellar reputation due to its students often being total idiots and not very serious about their work ethics. They all expected to be chefs once they graduated, but to people who had worked in kitchens their entire lives, these kids often came across as know it alls who couldn’t hold their own on the line during a busy service in a real restaurant.

The Commons was a newer construction on Church Street. An enormous place. Three floors and a basement. Lots of money had been pumped in there. The restaurant itself was two stories with huge ceilings and ample space leftover on the third floor for classrooms. A place intended to give the students some real working experience while providing something different to the populace of Burlington.

I met with one of the main chefs, this French dude named Robert (pronounced Ro-bear). A whip thin, stoic man with an accent, sunken cheeks, and a generally calm demeanor. He wanted me to work the pizza oven there because it was all I had done for the last several years. The money was good. $8 an hour. I took the job. He showed me around a bit afterward. The building was vast and impressive. All the students thought I was an actual chef coming in to work there. They looked at me with gazes of fear and respect as I walked around with Robert, nodding my head.

I started later in the week. The man training me, Sammy Samueleson was a graduate of the program. Like me, he sported a long ponytail which he kept pinned up inside his paper cylinder hat. I hadn’t expected that. All the chefs wore them except for Robert. The students all wore small black touques. As we went through the daily duties, Sammy kept using the term “Stellar” over and over again which to me meant he was cool because he smoked weed.

Our first duty in the morning was setting up the chickens for the rotisserie. This was the biggest money maker in the joint, a chicken salad with celery, currants, grapes, and walnuts with aioli. In the very front of the restaurant the rotisserie was on full display behind a counter where pre-made foods were sold. Sammy and I first worked on stripping all the cold chicken from the previous day into huge steel bowls and making the salad. While we did this the students came in one by one for their prep, which was ridiculous because to me, it wasn’t realistic at all. Three to four students at a time just to work behind the garde manger salad station when in the back of my mind I knew any real restaurant could only afford to have one poor, underpaid slob back there.

At any rate, all the students kept calling me “Chef,” which was pretty cool. “Good morning, chef. Behind you, chef. Chef, may I use this when you’re finished?”

Sammy asked me to go upstairs to grab another large mixing bowl.

“Sure, man,” I said.

“Stellar.”

I went up the stairs to the third floor where I had seen a bunch of the bowls in the pastry classroom. I realized quickly this was one of the many drawbacks of working there, that most of what I needed throughout the day was far from my grasp. I went up through the catacombs of the restaurant and saw that a class was in session in the pastry room so, as quiet as possible I snuck in while the chef taught, and grabbed a bowl.

The instant I went to grab the bowl I needed, however, a voice with a thick French accent boomed behind me.

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”

At first, I didn’t think the voice was directed toward me, so I took the bowl.

“DROP THE BOWL!”

Huh? I turned around to see the chef pointing at me, all the students froze and looked in my direction. I didn’t drop the bowl.

“COME OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!” He said.

I walked over to him, holding the bowl. What the hell was this guys problem?

“Dude, what the hell?” I said.

“YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS CHEF!”

“Chef, what the hell?”

“THIS IS MY KITCHEN AND YOU WILL RESPECT ME!”

“Uh, I just needed a bowl, dude, relax.”

“THE FIRST THING YOU DO WHEN YOU WALK INTO MY KITCHEN IS YOU SAY TO ME ‘GOOD MORNING, CHEF, HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY?’ THEN I SAY TO YOU, ‘I AM WELL, HOW ARE YOU?’” he smiled at me and lowered his voice, “Then everything in my kitchen is yours.” He finished this sentence with a sweep of his hand. All the students continued to watch this grotesque display of douchbaggery. “Now, go put the bowl back and let me hear you.”

I didn’t put the bowl back.

“Hello, chef, how are you doing today?”

“I am well, how about you?”

“I’m so great.”

“I am glad to hear that.”

“Is it ok if I use this bowl?”

“Yes, everything in my kitchen is yours.”

“Thank you, chef.”

“Have a great day.”

I walked back down and told Sammy what had happened. He laughed.

“Oh, that’s Chef Andre, he’s a little wound up.”

“What a fucking dickhead.”

“He’s just old school. Whatever you do, don’t get caught whistling around him.”

What kind of cockamamie, fascist place had I gotten into?