Free Heart by Garrett Leigh

you say so.” Rick pointed to a chair in the corner. “Sit down. I’ll get you signed in.”
    Dex didn’t have the balls to point out he couldn’t sign him in without knowing his full name, but it turned out not to matter. Rick had brought him to an open clinic for illegal immigrants, and no one asked him any questions at all.
    And he didn’t have TB or any other infectious diseases they’d tested his blood for. Just bronchitis, apparently, and he was given a bottle of big white pills to take every day for the next two weeks.
    He found Rick on the phone when he emerged from the clinic. Dex waited beside him until he hung up the phone with a heavy sigh.
    “Looks like I found your hidden talents just in time. Iggy’s walked out on us. He’s gone back to bloody Bristol to make up with that slag he was shagging last year.”
    Dex nodded like he had a clue what Rick was talking about. He didn’t. He knew who Iggy was, of course, but he had no idea who he’d been fucking. “Is he coming back?”
    “Nope. Doesn’t look like it. What do you say, kid? Want to help me out and learn to cook?”

Eleven

     
    T HE BIG white pills gave Dex a headache and left him lethargic and dopey. He preferred the cough, but with Bernie on his case, he toed the line and dutifully took the pills, and he spent the next few weeks learning the ropes of food preparation and supporting the chefs in the kitchen during service.
    He peeled potatoes and cut up meat for the mainline chefs, prepared garnishes and salads for the starter chefs, and chopped more onions than he’d ever seen in his life. By and large, he enjoyed the work, and it made a change from washing pots.
    Saturday nights were the busiest. And the most stressful. He kept his head down and his opinions to himself, but it didn’t take long to figure out the kitchen was a pressure cooker when service didn’t go according to plan.
    One evening, he knew as soon as the first order came in it was going to be one of those nights. The chaos began when a steak came back. Rick, who was running Iggy’s abandoned dessert section, was furious. Steaks were expensive, and seeing one end up in the bin put him in a bad mood for the rest of service.
    “Dex! Get me another two tubs of ice cream. There’s no prep on this fucking station.”
    Dex fetched the ice cream tubs and put them in the small freezer on the dessert section. Rick looked at the tubs and shook his head. “Goddamn bought-in crap. We used to make our own, but who’s got the time for that when no twat wants to hold down a job?”
    The question seemed rhetorical. Dex kept his gaze on the task at hand, rearranging the freezer shelves to accommodate the ice cream, but Rick got impatient. He reached over Dex’s head, jammed the tubs in at an awkward angle, and kicked the door shut with a grunt.
    The door slammed with a sickening thud. Rick stomped away like nothing had happened, but for Dex it felt like the world had imploded….
    “Told you he looked better blond. Get him on the table. Put the cuffs on. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t worry, he’s not a screamer. He’ll be good here until we get back. Lock that door behind you.”
    Another loud slam brought Dex back to the present. Rick dropped a white chopping board down on the counter. “Get off the floor, Dex. I don’t pay you to sit around.”
    Dex scrambled to his feet and slunk to the dishwasher. His head was spinning like he hadn’t eaten in days. Come to think of it, he’d forgotten to eat the fried egg bap someone had passed him that morning, distracted by the huge pile of weird little birds Rick had asked him to butcher. Quail, apparently. They had the same anatomy as a chicken, but they looked like spindly aliens.
    Being invisible was an art he’d practiced most of his life. He stuck close to the pot wash area for the rest of the night, trying to avoid the deteriorating atmosphere in the kitchen, and he’d have climbed right into the dishwasher itself if it meant