The Nasty Business of a Bodyguard by Elijah Douresseau (top books of all time TXT) 📕

Thankfully, it was Saturday. Alvin had time to think about everything in those few moments, instead of thinking about how work would affect him as he made it through the day.

He kept his work phone on him for that reason. It was mostly Hendrix’s directive, but Matt would probably kill him if he missed any opportunity for some inside information.

It was time for the Alvin’s Sabbath, otherwise.

He had a list of shows to catch up on. And a box of cereal to eat. He should have been a little more nutritionally interesting, even with the granola and strawberries, but sometimes, there was no getting around cooking just being work. And cooking was too much work that week.

Chefs were allowed to gorge on a Big Mac and some fries every once in a while. It was in a contract somewhere. And he was going to use a mixing bowl and a cooking spoon to eat his breakfast. That had to count for something.

“Just the granulated salt you – yes! And keep pouring until you’re sure you won’t be here tomorrow.”

Another Saturday event of Alvin’s rest was his brunch date with his television. He would let some character get in his head; it was not usually the character who was eating all the time. It was the character next to that one. Kyle Barker or Scooby-Doo. These characters had a witty comment to add to the excessive eating, and Alvin wanted a piece of the scene. The chef friend archetype that did not exist, who always had something to say to end the scene with food in it.

Why not? It could work in the oversaturated, live-streaming era.

“No. You cannot see the underside of the pot. The food – not the heat, will roast ya.”

Alvin was sure he sounded corny in his head, and terrible out loud. But being grown and in his home, alone, had its advantages.

Mid-way through the morning, there usually would have been a few images Alvin tended to obsess over, in the way a hopeless romantic fantasized of loves never had.

There was the vision of a highway on a hot day. He was over the landscape. The highway was through a wooded area and it rose up to get around the corner. The road just sat there. Stoic. Not sizzling under the sun. Maybe because it was morning. But there was always a sun flare as you looked out over the edge, past the guard railing. Then there was the sound of clapping. An older, white couple came into focus. They looked like a live action Hank and Peggy Hill. Alvin had no idea who they were.

The mind experience was some sort of greenlight. He was allowed to disengage.

Some weekends, he would find a local farmer’s market to wander around in. Maybe a grocery store for their deli and hot bar sections. Other days, which that Saturday was feeling more like, he would find some cooking shows, ones that featured the host prominently cooking a meal or dish for the duration of the episode.

Alvin would passionately engage with the small screen coloring book before him. He saw so much to fill in. So much to do, if he was cooking for half an hour to forty-two minutes. With commercial breaks.

It was his Sunday football. Alvin voluntarily provided the kind of arrogant commentary someone on a date would voice, because in the dude’s mind, he could only be impressing his companion – making himself irresistible. Really, the setting of the cooking shows was the thing that frustrated Alvin the most.

The conceit of the exchange between the onscreen cook and viewer was that the cook was in their kitchen providing an invisible loved one with a dish. The viewer or household member on set would sit next to the scene and keep the cook company as the next component of the meal was readied.

Alvin missed those days with his grandmother. With his mother. Were Alvin the producer of a cooking show, he would insist on the family quality time as the main point of engagement.

Being the cook on the couch, he thought the hosts were all too concerned with the dish. What about the host’s day? What about the gentle help you had to have the viewer get in on? Too much separation between looking up at the camera and showing the dish to it, like a freshly birthed golden child.

No matter how professional Alvin became, no matter how many home clients he would acquire in his career, or recruited to be exclusive like he was with Coco, that position between the kitchen median and the stove was primetime.

It hurt Alvin to know Coco did not appreciate most of it. Similar attitudes from others did not bother him. He faced a lot more apathy being a line cook. But within the context of the investigation, with his double agent role, he felt like they were playing at a celebrity cooking show too much. There was a real chance for the food to connect them all. For it to fuel something more productive in the house than some career development test. It was stifling.

“Counter’s too organized.”

Maybe a crawl would have cheered him up. That was the other thing to do on a Saturday and Sunday. Take a dish, maybe one or two friends, and go to several places – with the idea that there was more than one way to achieve the happiness he looked for so much. Under the present circumstances.

The big, stupid dinner party was messing with Alvin more than he liked to admit to himself. It was how the party, and whatever was to happen there, was going to get carried through to the end. Most never gave it a thought. Some might have looked forward to free food. But he had to identify the tempo and carry it to the memorable moments. Everything was always on a plate, ready to serve anyone who was hungry and desperate enough to let someone feed them.

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