Sanitation



  Sanitation

  by

  Barry Rachin

  * * * * *

  Published by:

  Sanitation

  Copyright © 2012 by Barry Rachin

  This short story represents a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * * * *

  When Hal McCarthy arrived at agility training, a coal-black Scottish terrier with stubby legs and a huge tuft of chin hair resembling a Fu Manchu was negotiating the course. The squat dog hurried effortlessly through the six-weave training chute, cleared the bar jump before heading off in the direction of the teeter totter. The dog’s owner, a woman in her early thirties, waved a treat in front of the pooch’s nose. Leading the dog to the center, she pressed gently on the plank. The raised portion settled to the floor and the dog promptly rushed off toward the thirty-foot tunnel.

  “Nice run,” Hal noted when the woman exited the course. The Scottish terrier was well-behaved if somewhat skittish. Maria Santos warned him a week earlier not to pet the dog, who was food-aggressive and tended to snap at outstretched hands.

  “He lost focus on the final turn.” Like her shaggy companion, the Hispanic woman was short and squat with a broad forehead. On the final turn, the dog was supposed to leap through a vinyl tire suspended several inched off the ground, but the high-strung dog took a detour, waddling back in the thirty-foot, orange tunnel. “What do you do for a living?” Maria asked.

  A toy poodle, extremely fast and skittish, was racing about the course. “Up until retiring last August,” Hal explained, “I worked for the health department inspecting food facilities.”

  The woman eyed him curiously. “I’m opening a diner on Howard Avenue.”

  “The old Breakfast Nook?” The woman nodded. “We used to inspect the place. They had a problem with their dishwasher.” Fifty feet away, the poodle was snaking through the training chute effortlessly en route to the bar jump. From previous experience Hal knew that the tiny dog would be in rare form for another twenty minutes or so until he tired and his attention span melted away to nothing.

  “Water wasn’t hot enough,” Hal picked up on the thread of his previous remark. “The previous owner had to install a booster to get the dishwasher temperature up to code.”

  “Yes, he mentioned something to that effect.” Maria noted. “Who does the inspections now?”

  The toy poodle scampered around the final turn. Hal’s Lhasa Apso, Teddy, would be going next. Reaching down he checked the dog’s collar. “Donna Hadley took over when I retired.”

  “And what’s Ms Hadley like?”

  Hal rose to his feet and began leading the Lhasa toward the gate. “Finds fault with everything... a restaurant owner’s worst nightmare!”

  Later that night at home Hal took Teddy outside one last time to pee. The dog was sure to sleep like the dead after the hour-long workout. The Hispanic woman knew next to nothing about sanitation or the Minotaur’s maze of health regulations governing food service. She had never worked in the field or taken a single course at the community college. Inside the first minute, Donna Hadley would tease the truth out Ms Santos then set to work dismembering the Breakfast Nook with one petty code violation after another. Too bad! She seemed nice enough, even if her Scottish terrier was a bit high-strung.

  *****

  The following Tuesday, Hal ate a leisurely breakfast then drove downtown, parking the Toyota near the public library. The Breakfast Nook was closed up tight, tables and chairs pushed against the far wall. Behind the counter a stout elderly woman was bent over the grill. Hal rapped on the plate glass door. “Not open.” Hunched over the food, the woman never bothered to look. “A week from Monday… come back then.” In response to the noise, Maria Santos emerged from a storage area, came and unlocked the door.

  “Just wanted to see how you were getting along.” Hal surveyed the room. The floor was spotless, the Formica counters and tables equally clean. “I brought you this.” He handed her a thick, blue book. On the glossy cover a chef decked out in culinary white was chopping celery on a cutting board. “It’s the National Restaurant Association Servsafe manual.”

  Maria held the book lightly with her fingertips and her face assumed a look of reverence as she surveyed the table of contents. “I’ll need to know all this?”

  “Pretty much.” Hal gestured with his eyes. “What’s she preparing over there?”

  “Home fries… my mother will be helping out in the kitchen. She wanted to familiarize herself with the grill.”

  Hal edged closer. The older woman, whose grayish hair was tied back in a bun, smiled over her thick shoulder. “Well, there’s a problem right off the bat.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What happened to her finger?” He gestured toward the grill, where the elder Mrs. Santos was flipping a pile of pearlescent home fires with a metal spatula.

  “Nicked it dicing vegetables the other day... a tiny scratch. The cut’s almost completely healed over.”

  “Yes but, a health inspector could shut your place down for something as minor as that.”

  Maria’s face dropped. She said something to her mother in Spanish; the woman’s affable manner quickly dissipated. Laying the spatula aside, she disappeared into a back room only to emerge a moment later with a band-aid covering the cut. Returning to the grill she retrieved the spatula and lifted a pile of potatoes that, in her absence, had darkened about the edges.

  “Stoppppp!” Hal shouted. The older woman promptly dropped the spatula scattering its contents on the clean floor. “Your mother just made a minor problem ten times worse,” Hal explained in a phlegmatic tone. “According to state law, all food handlers must cover cuts with both a band aide and single-use disposable glove or finger cot.”

  Maria stooped down and helped her mother clean the mess. All the while the older woman was speaking furiously, non-stop in her native tongue. Ignoring her daughter’s placating gestures, Mrs. Santos no longer bothered to acknowledge Hal’s presence in the restaurant.

  “Show me the refrigerator.”

  “Why?” Maria replied in a beleaguered tone.

  “It’s one of the first places health inspector’s look.” Maria led him into the supply room and cracked the refrigerator wide open. “Who lined the shelves with aluminum foil?”

  “I did.”

  “Get rid of it and everything else that block the flow of refrigerated air through the unit.” Hal lifted the lid on a plastic container. “Chicken and all meat products are routinely stored on the lowest shelf so juices don’t accidentally drip onto fresh produce or prepared foods.” “An outbreak of Salmonella or E. coli could put you out of business over night.”

  “You should invest in a set of professional, temperature gauges – immersion for soups, infrared and thermocouple for cooking surfaces and general culinary.” Judging by her panicky expression, Hal doubted she understood what he was saying. He pointed at the three-bay sink. “And I didn’t notice any commercial-grade sanitizing solution.” When there was no reply, he added, “You’ll need a formal system for monitoring employee training, hand washing procedures, cross-contamination controls...”

  Back out in the main dining door, Mrs. Santos was glaring at the retired food inspector as though he was an emissary from hell. She handed him a plate of home fries and a fork. Hal teased a couple of potato wedges onto the tangs of the fork. “What did you use for seasoning?”

  “Dried parsley, paprika, thyme, nutmeg, salt and pepper,” the woman replied then burst into an extended harangue, the bulk of which was in Spanish and directed at her daughter.

&nb
sp; “What did she say?”

  “She said,” Maria translated, “that the herbs must be dry not fresh. Heat from the grill releases the subtle flavors. By using only a tiny pinch of each, the various, seasonings intertwine, marry so to speak, without overpowering the dish.”

  “My wife used to cook home fries,” Hal mused, “but they never tasted like this.”

  “She doesn’t cook anymore?”

  “Died… a year ago,” Hal clarified. “Thirty years we were married.”