HE HAD IT COMIN’

Johanna Whitmore in Ibsen's Brand/ Artwork Michael Crockett

“Order up! Elliot! Blueberry Waaaaaff up in FIVE!!!!!”

The sound of a 9-inch frypan slapped on stainless steel bangs me to fully awake and yesterday’s rancid grease hanging in the air brings the ever-lurking bile nearer to my gag reflex. As per usual, I trip and stumble on the curling no-slip mat between the line and the prep area.

Friggin’ piece of shit!

I stomp it back in place for the billionth time. As a pregnant mom with a three-year old, the 6:30 start to breakfast shift at “Eggs Are Us” doesn’t always bring out my best .

“The hell’s Julianna?! Friggin Benedict gonna be bait chum by the time she gets her lazy butt in here…. Elliot! Want me to reload?”

Working for an (acquitted!) murderess is never dull.

Morning, Sunshine! Right side of the bed as always, I see!

Evvy shuffles back and forth from her hot oven to the fry-o-later, scoffs, and gives me a crooked smirk. She gets back to smashing shells open.

I smile and head over to get some creamers. Not everyone knows it but, under her sometimes crusty exterior, Evvy has a huge heart.

“Lisa, please, PLEASE, ask her what the breakfast special is?”

Patty is shaking in her trainers while plastered against the left side of the walk-in freezer — her shaking having nothing to do with heat transfer, cooling compressors or inert gases. Five other waitresses likely twenty years younger than me cower behind her holding their silly packets of blank slips like flimsy notepad shields.  A side of what looks like frozen leg of lamb, maybe a pork loin? —  given our circumstances, who knows? — juts from an upper rack behind Patty’s right shoulder.

Patty, you can ask her, honey, she won’t hurt you — she’s all bark — no bite!

“She reloaded twice.”

Well, if you’re gonna nitpick….

“Fifteen slugs.”

I know, amazing presence of mind! I mean TWICE! Okay, sorry, look, I know but, he was an asshole, they say a crime family lowlife!

“But, she’s so mean.”

Nah, nah, she’s not mean — he got what he deserved! In France, it’s called a “crime of passion.” — you get off scot-free! No more Scott!

Evvy does have a reputation for being kinda bossy to her waitstaff — barking orders loudly and embarrassing those who mess up. But she’s soft as mush on the inside! Sorta like her husband ended up after her early morning spree.

I look at the faces of six young women with their teeth a-chatter in the zero-degree freezer. Each girl transfixed and staring into the void beyond the door that stands agape. They are all clearly too terrified of Evvy to bother her.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, you goofs.

I cross back out to the line. Evvy’s slamming pots, spatulas and whisks in a kind of syncopated rhythm to whatever plays in her wildly unruly, black-haired head. I can see the pretty woman she once was.

Evvy, what the hell is the special today? The girls…..the customers, need to know! They’re asking!

“I don’t know. Tell ‘em scrambled eggs and smoked salmon with a sidea quit yer whining!”

Got it. Thanks, Evvy — hey, who loves ya?

“Ahhhh, shaddup. When’s that baby coming?”

Not soon enough!

She lets out a huge guffaw and chucks a carbon steel fry-pan onto a flaming burner.

I make an adjustment to my white apron on white jeans with white work shirt so my five-month getting-huger-everyday “hump” isn’t quite as visible. And also because the apron strings are digging into my shoved-out-of-place internal organs. I don’t know right now that this child, my son, is gonna be born after three months of bed-rest, at nearly ten pounds, with a twelve-centimeter head, about eighteen million months from now — which is a good thing. I head back toward the walk-in.

Listen, he was an abuser, girls. And, Evvy is a pussycat — just wants you to give it right back to her — really!

The girls shrink even more.

To be fair, I know Evvy gets a kick out of me, knows I’m older and that I’ve been a local in this Cove for long, long years. And also, in fairness to the girls, Evvy can be abrasive, yell at staff on the floor in front of customers (if you don’t know, it’s a no-no….) and belittle younger staff something wicked. But, she means well.

“Okay, Lisa, but, really… I mean, fifteen?’

Gwen’s extricating herself from the freezer.

Yeah, well, ya know, he had it comin’.

I see and hear Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon, all gorgeous gams and sheeny black tights, at the 46th Street Theater smoking their way through numbers in the classic Chicago on Broadway. Their legs did things no leg was meant to do.  I saw them when I was barely eighteen. My aunt, a writer and senior editor for TimeLife and Sports Illustrated, gave my sister and me the gift of a weekend in New York for our respective graduation presents from high school. I didn’t know then I was witnessing surpassing greatness but, I didn’t need anyone to tell me that; I’ve had my own measuring stick for greatness from a long time back. My parents taught us well to be discerning critics of whatever it is the culture might be hawking at any given moment.

Out of my reverie, I hustle the girls outta the cooler.

Look, it’s scrambled and smoked, ‘kay? Just get to your tables — don’t provoke her!

“Hey! Ya’all in the weeds here or what????!!!! Friggin Kemp is at “his” booth with his stupid band of leering, lascivious, loonies who pass for sternmen. They’re asking for beers before eight AM and already stinking of bait fish. Are all fishermen nuts?”

Pretty much. In one way or another…..it’s a hard life.

I should know, I married one…..

Greta’s cruised in with a loaded tray of gommy, caked-on shit — dregs of a six-top likely — has slammed it down on the steel wash tray and is casually chucking ironware at our surly dishwasher. Her jet black roots accentuate the Nice n’ Easy platinum blonde piled high and messy on her sassy head. For his part, Eddie, the dishwasher, with his signature Camel no-filter slung low on his bottom lip with another at-the-ready, tucked behind his left ear, grunts.

To be honest, I feel badly for both Evvy and for the girls. Evvy and her deed — well-deserved by her target — were plastered all over local and national TV for what seemed like forever once she’d had enough and reloaded a coupla times just to be sure. Her husband, Frank, allegedly, was a small-time mobster from one of the biggest crime families in New England based in Providence. Supposedly, Frank ran numbers, cooked books, dealt drugs — cool, small-time stuff like that — while his cronies likely fried bigger fish. Or left them on doorsteps.

In Frank’s off hours, he treated Evvy like complete crap; that's been verified. He had a perennial, deeply suspect tan — his showy “souvenir” from the Caymans, no doubt — enough gaudy gold chains ostentatiously draped around his thick neck to make Cleopatra blush, and a reputation for seeing the ladies on the not-so-sly. Why any “lady” would want to be seen with him on or off the sly was beyond me, but, there ya go — no accounting for taste.

The trial musta been murder for Evvy. Well, all that scrutiny, gossip. But, she held her head high after that fateful morning, carried on in her cove restaurant straight through the national coverage of her murder trial while all manner of sordid details splayed over newspapers and television screens from here to wherever such things as those exist.

Then, she was acquitted! Sometimes there's actually justice! And, all’s well that ends well, right, girls?!

The girls working for Evvy were young and hadn’t yet stepped into themselves. Just a bunch of college kids trying to make a buck and tuition in a former artist’s colony turned popular tourist destination in an idyllic coastal town. Princeton and Yale aren’t free.

One time, I witnessed Evvy dress down a young slip of a girl — ash blonde, wide-eyed little thing, had never held a tray before — in front of an entire floor packed with out-of-state breakfast patrons. Holly ran into the bathroom sobbing. I marched into the kitchen, walked directly up to Evvy who’d ensconced herself back behind the line and said, “You won’t ever talk to me like that, Evvy, and if you do, I’m outta here mid-shift. And you should apologize to Holly.”

She just barked her single snort laugh and got back to the fritters starting to blacken at the edges on the fry-o-later. I pictured her solemnly pushing her .32 caliber slugs into the Harrington while staring down at Frank, lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own deep red blood, and likely deader than dead already. But, it was a long time coming, she needed to get the job done right.

Evvy was eventually acquitted largely because counsel argued in her defense that she suffered classic Battered Wife Syndrome — years and years of physical and verbal abuse by her (mobster?) husband that she tolerated and hid because, for one thing, that kind of extreme and routine abuse typically causes the abused to experience extremely low self-esteem. More often than not, the abused doesn’t leave the situation. There was also evidence she feared for her life.

I never liked Frank. I didn’t find the stuff that came out after the trial very hard to believe. He kinda showed who he was pretty readily. I do like Evvy. But, Frank, the longtime abuser and womanizer, possible player in the New England mob? Seems like he more than had it coming.

Since then, I’ve been well-acquainted with one other convicted murderer and another former prisoner who stopped just short of that — both fitting perfectly into the stereotypical profile that data tells us is most common for murder, crimes of passion: Male, between the ages of 25 to 40 with increasing age decreasing the incidence of homicide offense. Oh, and a lifetime of “problems in living” closely associated with poverty, challenging circumstances in early life, and access to mental health services certainly contribute to the possibility of a bad “snap” one day.

I met these friends because of the nationwide and international efforts of the Open Table movement and the Restorative Justice Project to support the formerly incarcerated while they integrate back into society. At Open Table, after a months long training period, we commit to one year of weekly meetings with our “friend” to help with whatever they need to succeed on the outside — housing, job, license, support group, diplomas and more.

“Mike” spent twenty years of hard time for a day that went horribly wrong after twenty two years of only hard times and a life horribly wrong from the start. School didn’t help — he was considered “just a bad kid.” We call this the “school to prison pipeline” but, I’d say it’s the “Major Failure Of Society” to prison pipeline and, if you don’t agree, you’re not asking the right questions. My students were often on this track, many spending time in juvenile detention. I did what I could to change that pattern.

My other acquaintance didn’t kill anyone but spent nearly thirty years inside after being sentenced to over forty — seven spent in solitary confinement — for arson. Another tragic story that, with better societal supports in place, didn’t need to go the way it did. He’s out now, much older, wiser, and doing so well.

I shake off an image of Evvy and Frank in their lavish seaside home overlooking the unsuspecting cliffs, awash in Frank’s blood, on that fateful day. And I picture Evvy being beaten, tormented, nearly killed herself, many times over for years and years. No one should be judged by their worst act. Evvy is not a threat to anyone else and deserves another chance. And, unless they’re freezing body parts and dining on stewed brain with fava beans, most folks in prison probably do, too.

I quit my waitressing job early and not ‘cuz of Evvy. And not because of the evil morning sickness that had so tormented me with my firstborn — this time it lasted only five months! With my daughter, it was all nine.  I quit because of my husband, Jack. Jack, sweet as pie and loving as hell, but, a workaholic. My little waitressing gig was cramping his style. He wanted to be out fishing, every day, at whatever time he needed to leave (six AM, always), and come home late (after six PM, typically — later during summer). He played his trump card: he made waaaay more money lobstering than I ever could waitressing. Breaking the news to “my girls” wasn’t fun.

“NOOOOOOOO!

You can’t go! What are we gonna do?!”

“Don’t leave us alone with her! It’s not even August!”

Elaine, Allie, Megs, calm down! You guys will be fine. Just talk to her! Butter her up! Compliment her hair or something.

Greta gives me her killer drop-dead look.

Okay, not her hair — you’ll think of something! Ask her about being a beauty queen; she was one, you know!

At this, newcomer Sarah’s eyes double in size.

Bodies change, honey.

Glancing down towards my missing feet while once more adjusting my apron strings, my big baby tumbling around inside me, I’m witnessing mine evolve by the minute.

“Don’t quit now, Lisa!”

Oh my god, guys — relax! You do know there’s life after college, right? You’ve got this. I’ll come in with Stella and have breakfast, ‘kay? Check on you guys.

Collective sigh.

I left “my girls” in the hands of our local acquitted murderess, reminding them that, deep down, she really is a pussycat. Just don’t go pulling her tail. And, don’t forget, he had it comin’.

Copyright © 2025 lisa stathoplos Chimera/A Shapeshifter's Journey

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