Monster's Chef by Jervey Tervalon

what they do, and make the mess they make.”
    â€œMe, I don’t see much. I stay in the kitchen. I’ve never seen Monster anywhere near the kitchen. Security comes for his meals and that’s that. They give me a list of things for the week he might be interested in, and I try to figure out how to make it palatable.”
    â€œWhat does he eat?”
    I hesitated for a minute. Those confidentiality agreements were very explicit.
    â€œMe, I don’t see much, either.”
    â€œOh, come on. Tell me. He eats bugs and rats and drinks blood?”
    â€œHe might, but I’m not saying.”
    â€œAmigo, you can tell me, and this tale will stay in this kitchen.”
    â€œYou tell me something about the woman, and I’ll tell you something about what Monster eats.”
    â€œ Sí. That’s fair,” Manny said with a solemn nod.
    â€œMost of the time, I don’t make him anything. I get notes about his ideas about food theory, but I hardly cook anything for him. Once, when he was back from tour, he asked for eggs and toast for breakfast. He wanted the eggs to be poached, just so, in white wine from the Santa Ynez Valley, and he has to have toast baked fresh each morning from organic whole grain flour from France. He’s obsessed with genetically modified food and doesn’t trust American flour. He never touched the eggs or the toast. He ate the butter and jam, mixes it together and spoons it out of the jar. Far as I know that’s pretty much what he lives off, and that’s why he looks like shit on a stick, ghastly pale. Mostly I cook for his wife. I suspect it’s kind of an experiment; I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect he feeds her what he thinks would be the best and healthiest, but for himself he goes to McDonald’s for Big Macs.”
    â€œOh,” Manny said, dejectedly, as though he had counted on confirmation that Monster snacked on raw monkey brains.
    â€œOkay, about the woman.”
    Manny looked about the room as though we were being spied on.
    â€œShe can’t talk.”
    â€œWhat do you mean she can’t talk?”
    â€œShe is . . . How do you call it in English? You know, those people who can’t talk. Deaf?”
    â€œNo, deaf is when you can’t hear. You mean she’s a mute?”
    â€œDoes that mean she can’t talk?”
    â€œYes, exactly.”
    â€œShe can’t say a thing. Once she got lost on the grounds, not really lost, but Security was busy with Monster and the kids. They didn’t see her take the hillside path, the one that washed out, and she fell, hurt her ankle.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œShe cried, but no words. I ran down the hillside from where I had been pruning trees. I asked whether she was hurt in Spanish and English, and she started with her hands and fingers, and I got nervous and called Security. I didn’t know this lady, but from the way Security acted she had to be somebody important. One of them used his hands the way she did, and they helped her into one of their golf carts and took her away.”
    â€œI saw her yesterday. I didn’t say a word, but I made eye contact with her and she walked away. Then this muscle-bound black guy comes out of nowhere and does his best to stare me down.”
    Manny nodded. “So you met Mr. Thug?”
    â€œMr. Thug? Is that Monster’s assistant?”
    â€œYes, that’s him.”
    â€œI don’t call that meeting someone. I mean all he did was stare at me, like he wanted to beat the shit out of me.”
    Manny shrugged. “You need to keep away from Mr. Thug. He’s trouble.”
    â€œTrouble? I wasn’t trying to make conversation with him. I wave to Mrs. Monster, she leaves, and he comes over and mad-dogs me.”
    â€œMad-dogs you? Yeah, that’s a good description of Mr. Thug. That’s why you should stay far from him.”
    Manny finished the juice and