Free A Good and Useful Hurt by Aric Davis Page A

Deb gently lifted her cup and took a sip. “Yum. Try it, it’s good. I told him to make us what he would eat if he were a customer here. It’s a compliment to the chef, and it will guarantee we’ll get good stuff.”
    A plate with a sushi roll chopped into eight pieces appeared before him. Mike was trying to figure out his chopsticks, so he didn’t see Deb slide it in front of him. He poked one of the sticks at it. “What’s in there?”
    The rolls were dusted in some sort of breading and a small lump of what looked like green play-dough sat next to a little tub of soy sauce on the plate. The woman who’d seated them returned with a pair of small bowls that were filled with lemon water. Mike watched Deb wash her hands and did the same.
    “Don’t worry about the chopsticks. Just pick them up and eat.”
    Deb placed a small piece of the wasabi on a roll, dunked it briefly in the soy sauce, and popped it in her mouth. Mike took a deep breath, mimicked the motion, and ate.
    The green stuff, wasabi, was strong, a deep horseradish that was both spicy and not. The fish—he assumed it was fish—wasn’t tough, but it did have a thickness to it that reminded him of well-prepared rare beef. There was a small taste of avocado, but mostly the flavor was of the presumed fish, fish that tasted nothing like fish at all.
    “Do you like it?”
    “I think so. What kind of fish is it?”
    “Tuna. It’s got a little avocado in it, too.”
    Mike ate another roll after sipping at the sake. “It’s good. I can’t believe it. Sushi is good.”
    “Well, it can’t be as popular as it’s been for so long just because it’s weird.”
    “I suppose not. Is the drink sake?”
    “Yes.”
    “I definitely like that.”
    He refilled his small cup as another plate was passed to them, this with two shrimp, butterflied and laid atop small, ice-cube-sized bricks of rice. Deb nodded at Mike and picked up a shrimp, slid it into her mouth, and tore off the tail as it got to her teeth. Mike mimicked her, chewed, swallowed, and said, “Was that raw shrimp?”
    “It’s called sweet shrimp, and yes.”
    “I already said it, but I can’t believe I’m enjoying this stuff. That was even better than the tuna.”
    The next was a pair of salmon chunks, served nigiri style like the shrimp.
    “That was good, but not as good as the first two.”
    “You better be careful with the sake. I didn’t bring a wheel-barrow.”
    “I can’t help it, it’s good.”
    The next three courses were octopus served nigiri style, eel in a roll that was covered in a dark sauce, and then a spicy roll filled with deep-fried soft-shell crab. Mike ate like a man possessed, and Deb didn’t do too bad either.
    The other restaurants followed in swift succession. Aware now that he had been missing out for years, the next two weeks were a gastrointestinal grand tour of the best ethnic cuisine the city had to offer. The only menu that Mike balked at was Ethiopian. Some of it was good, but with most of it all he could taste was the spongy injara bread. The Thai he’d liked almost as much as sushi, and his favorite dish that he’d had so far was just a simple red curry, coconut milk with spices and shrimp. On the night of the squid, that was precisely what he was reheating.
    Deb admired the new version of the squid drawing.
    “I like it.”
    “You don’t think I went overboard? He said he wanted the squid weird.”
    “I think it’s fine. That thing is mean looking.”
    “I know, it’s awesome. I’m actually kind of excited to do it in a couple days. Hopefully he’ll dig it too.”
    “It’s unusual for you to get excited to go to work?”
    “Everything just seems the same there. Like we’re just little pawns doomed to do the same things over and over again.”
    “No way, not me. I love work. I like the little excitements, like when you wonder what you’re going to do if the customer really doesn’t stop bleeding. On the outside you’re telling them