Jobs # 16 (The Peanut)

While our home was an oasis, the world around us was spinning out of control and further into the abyss daily. By the time we learned our first child was on the way, the pandemic had turned our reality into an inside-out version of itself. Unfortunately, this was also around the time I began my student teaching at a series of three high schools.

The first high school, Southeast, was about as tough a job as I expected. Even as a Student Teacher with limited responsibility, I was beginning to feel the breath on my neck. I threw myself into the experience as best I could, and ended up making it through my first real semester of classroom teaching relatively unscathed. I proceeded with my studies, but I was beginning to feel a little unsteady.

However, I still had over a year of grad school left and once again found myself unemployed. An old friend had been working at The Peanut for a long time and was able to get me on the schedule as a prep cook. Soon, I would also become a server and bartender. As for the atmosphere, it was chaotic. I had yet to work in a real bar, and had to get used to a lot of overstimulation.

I worked at two locations, each with its own quirks and horrors—old buildings with deep histories, serving as essential businesses and even speakeasies during Prohibition. I began to realize how a successful restaurant actually survives, through pure grit and a remarkable perseverance that always keeps it precisely the same. Every time I entered either building, I felt like I was thrown back in time, frozen in neon, and enveloped in the eternal stench of vinegar and liquor.

I became a machine, turning up the music in the kitchen and knocking out all my prep work in a few hours. I would then hit the floor to either deliver plate after plate of steaming hot wings and BLTs or get behind the bar to serve drinks to lost souls.

Suddenly, it was summer, and the whole world stopped. Time at work became a new experience. At first, two of us would work entire shifts in an empty bar, just taking out orders. These were the toughest shifts because the boredom was palpable. Then we reopened the patio and wore masks for the entire shift.

This was a very surreal time for all of these reasons, but I look back on it with fondness. Any uneasiness I felt about the awkwardness of the job, my impending responsibilities as a father and teacher, or the shape of the world was easily dismissible. I was going to be a father soon, and my joy and excitement extinguished any worries.