Monster's Chef by Jervey Tervalon Read Free Book Online Page A

with him, so my cooking for him was up until this point mostly theoretical. As his personal chef who stayed home at the Lair, I was supposed to “get the lay of the land” while he was gone. To this day I wonder why that expression meant so much to Monster. It was used repeatedly in the directives I received in the tastefully weathered mailbox in front of my bungalow. I quickly came to hate the constant memos about the importance of keeping silent about life at the Lair because that’s the “lay of the land.” Did that phrase convey the seriousness and weight that Monster wanted but couldn’t secure because, well, he was a freak?
    I didn’t have a damn thing to do but tend the herb garden that was essential to Living Food cuisine and prepare menus and wonder what I had got myself into, being paid decently for nothing more than waking up and wondering about my ability to make life decisions; should I do push-ups, have scrambled eggs for breakfast, call Elena and beg forgiveness, or sit on the toilet for an hour, reading culinary magazines? I hated wasting time as much as I hated having none of it back when I had the restaurant, none of it for myself when I had a life. This half life gave me time enough to drown in memories of Elena from when I had a full life that wasn’t enough for me, though it was everything I could ever want or need. I’d see her lying twisted in white sheets in the morning, making eggs for breakfast with her short nightgown on, her hair messy about her head, her face still swollen from sleep like a child. I’d see her reaching for my hand as we walked through Central Park, searching for a breeze on a hot day. Maybe most men aren’t monogamous, and one woman is interchangeable with another, but that’s not me. I’m like a fucking wolf or swan. I wanted Elena. The only other loves I had were work and coke, equal addictions; wanting Elena was everlasting. She defined my life and I killed my life, but my love for her wouldn’t die. I could taste her lips against mine and spin into the history of our relationship, the first time I thrust inside of her, the first time I heard her gasp as she came. All that mattered to me . . . gone, and what was left was the bitter taste of Living Food.
    It was a little unnerving how quiet the grounds of the Lair were; the birds sang muted songs, and I never heard crickets or bees.
    Unnaturally silent.
    I had far too much time to mull over everything, until mulling became so unappealingly tedious that I couldn’t mull if I wanted to.
    Turned down the volume and slipped into a state of stultifying boredom. I never suspected spending the foreseeable future in beautiful seclusion would drive me fucking nuts. Maybe I should have had an idea that this wasn’t a life for me. Bridget might be a bitch, but she was right about this soul-poisoning Lair; it made you want to drown in a river of fine Santa Ynez wine.
    I WOKE UP DREAMING of Elena again, remembering cyberstalking her back when I could use the computer at the halfway house. I prowled through her Facebook page, seeing the man she was with, a buffoonish, long-haired idiot some years younger than me, with a ridiculous shit-eating grin. My heart ached as I saw them together, arm in arm, a fucking couple. Seeing the photo of her making gumbo, in the kitchen I used to cook in, probably using my Sriracha sauce, photo shot by him . I imagined pounding him into the ground, repeatedly, endlessly. I couldn’t hate her, but I certainly could hate him. I researched this loser and discovered he was some sort of homeopath, a healer, which made me hate him even more. I wanted my wife, my life back. I wanted to forget all of it. Get a do-over, that’s all I wanted. But what I got were lucid dreams of holding the woman I loved and left for a crack pipe.
    ON THE BACK STEP of the kitchen, with a big metal bowl between my legs, I was absentmindedly shelling peas while