When The Sun Rises | ✔

29 | Payback Bitch

Chapter 29 | Payback Bitch

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        "Ichee, can I ask you a question?"

        I watch in awe as he alternates between slicing and frying bacon, and lowering flour-doused chicken wings into a bubbling pot of oil. He gives me a sidelong glance as he drops diced onions into the pan with the browning bacon.

        "Shoot."

        I grab a stool from beneath the table a few feet away and plop down in it. For a few more moments, I take in the way he maneuvers through the space – reaching for seasonings without dropping an eye to make sure he'd grabbed the right one and dashing them into pots, never bothering with measurements. Like it was all instinctual.

        "Why are you working at this black ass restaurant?"

        He tilts his head to one side and laughs, saying, "I don't know what you mean."

        "Like of all the places you could've worked, why a soul food spot on the Eastside of Atlanta?"

        He shrugs and lifts the batch of chicken from the fryer. Each piece cooked to a perfect golden brown.

        "Why not? The people are all so nice."

        "How you end up here though? I mean, I ain't tryna sound racist or nothin' but how the hell you get this good at making our food?"

        It was a question I had been itching to ask him ever since I'd realized it wasn't a middle-aged, thick-armed, black woman throwing down like this.

        "Chicken ready," he shouts. He empties the tray into a steel bowl and moves back over to the pan to add a bit of minced garlic. One of the workers who prepares the plates grabs the bowl and walks to the three plates lined at the end of the table.

        Ichee clears his throat and my eyes are back on him. "Growing up in Thailand, there were not a lot of black people. Only a few here and there, but I was not around them. I see them in music videos and on television with all the chains and lots of money."

        He stirs the contents of the pan, the scent of garlic rising in a cloud of steam, and drops four handfuls of collard greens into the mix.

        "When I tell my family I want to move here to be a chef, they were very nervous about it and they tell me to be careful. Black people in movies always so dangerous and not nice. But the first week I am here, I get lost and take the wrong bus and I end up outside in the parking lot. After a while, I come inside and Mr. Rondo right away comes to help me," he says, a reflective smile playing at his lips.

        "He was so kind and helpful, and everybody just seemed so happy to be here. The customers, the workers, everybody. It was like a little community. Not like my family thought black people would be. When I told him I am a chef, he told me to come back the next day to show him what I am working with. And from there he became close to me and teach me how to cook with heart and season with soul."

        He shoots me a playful wink and the crests of his cheeks tinge pink. I grin up at his side profile as he goes back to stirring the greens and think back on what he'd said. The respect and admiration in his voice as he'd talked about his introduction to black culture was endearing and I can't help but feel lucky to have been born into it. A privilege not often recognized.