But machines don’t have souls. And Ellie’s Grill was never supposed to be a machine.
Eventually, he stepped out, walked down the street, grabbed a coffee from the gas station on the corner—$2.19, black, no sugar—and came back around to the alley behind the restaurant. No cameras back there. Just a beat-up steel door where the cooks took smoke breaks. And right above it, a cracked open kitchen window.
That’s when he heard more.
Inside, someone was laughing. A deep, chesty laugh. Big Reggie, the grill master. Darius recognized that laugh from years ago when he’d hired Reggie after a halfway house recommendation. Reggie had been down bad—three years for possession, another two for a parole violation that wasn’t even his fault. But he worked hard and turned his whole life around. He even mentored the younger kitchen guys. Showed them how to sharpen knives and season cast iron and treat a woman right.
“Now I’m telling you, man.” Kendall’s voice rang out again. “He ain’t never coming back. If he does, he’ll probably just walk in all fancy. Act like he invented gumbo or something.”
Laughter.
“Yeah.” Marina added. “Mr. Ghost Boss. That’s what I call him. Got his little picture on the wall, but he don’t show his face. What kind of boss runs a joint like that?”
Reggie didn’t laugh.
Instead, Darius heard a chair creak. Reggie’s chair. The big man had stood up.
“You all know he started this place with like two hundred dollars and a smoker in his driveway, right?” Reggie said, low and steady.
“Yeah. So?” Marina shot back.
“So watch your mouth,” Reggie muttered. “This ain’t just a job for some folks. Some of us remember what this place used to mean.”
A long silence. Darius could picture it—Kendall and Marina exchanging looks, Reggie standing there with his arms crossed, the other kitchen staff pretending they couldn’t hear.
Kendall scoffed. “Man, relax. You act like he died or something. I’m just saying. If he don’t care enough to show up, why should we care more than we have to?”
Reggie exhaled loud enough to be heard through the window. “Keep talking like that and you’ll find out real quick why folks don’t stick around here,” he said. “Respect goes both ways.”
Darius stepped back from the wall.
He didn’t know whether to be proud of Reggie or ashamed that Kendall and Marina had slipped through the cracks in the first place. Where had he gone wrong? When did being hands-off become being absent?
