Sadie’s Dream

This was Sadie’s dream:

Sadie had rolled her ankle on a particularly antagonistic section of sidewalk — which meant for the next few weeks, in a boot and twice-shy about the insidious intentions of curb-to-street gravitational fields, she kept her neck uncomfortably craned towards the ground as she navigated the streets of New York City — if not for that high ankle sprain, Sadie would most likely would never have noticed the faint stenciled logo placed so intentionally on this specific patch of sidewalk in Queens. And she would never have learned the Big Secret of the Five Boroughs.

But she did have her head down and she did the notice the distinctive mark. A curly “Q” and “K” interlaced with care that seemed above a simple sidewalk graffito. It was clear someone had taken a lot of care with this, and that type of dedication to the job — and no job was too small to be dedicated to, mind you — that level of attention to detail really spoke to Sadie.

This seemingly unremarkable spot of sidewalk was in front of a minuscule bodega beside what appeared to be the unassuming side door of a supermarket whose entrance was on the other side of the block. Knowing, somehow, the relevance of those letters, she had stopped in the bodega, crutching straight up to the man at the counter and using her sweetest voice to ask, “Do you know why there’s a QK on the sidewalk outside?” while doing an awkward thumb-point behind her on crutches that almost made her lose her balance. But the question had certainly made the cashier lose his balance, and he sputtered twice before staying very silent and very wide-eyed for a painfully long silence. Finally, when Sadie tilted her head to prompt him, he had just said, “I’m sorry.”

Confident then she was onto something, Sadie had tried the other option: the solid-looking red door peeling in large patches, set flush into a cinderblock wall.

But now, standing at the head of the Queens Kitchen, foot still in a boot, arms crossed over her chest holding and holding a substantial wooden spoon like a monarch holds a staff, she knew it was one of the most important doors in all of New York City. You see, Sadie now knew that all of the delivery food in NYC — all of it, across all five boroughs and even that last forsaken landfill one — came from the Five Kitchens. And now, as the head of one of those kitchens, she was one of the most important people in the city herself.

No one would ever know that, though. The work of the Queens Kitchen was one of the city’s most secret of secrets. To guard that secret, the Kitchens went to extreme, supernatural lengths. First, the staff: Sadie stood looking out imperiously over a vast pit of pallid, blobby, slightly misshapen humanoids with bald domed heads; beady, almost unseeing eyes and mouth-snouts that narrowed into a set of four incisors. Their paddle hands had only four stubby fingers, only just nimble enough to use the specially designed pots and pans and cooking utensils.

This was where the mole people really were. Not in the subways, or sewers, or abandoned warehouses (well, sometimes). No, the real function of the city’s mole people had always been exactly this: the production of the larger part of the city’s food in return for a relatively unmolested life underground. But besides, the mole people, being very simple beings, didn’t mind the work. In fact, they considered themselves to part of the colony — the hivemind — or the greater good of the city. Like worker ants serving their wooden-spoon queen, they went about their daily tasks with that formicidaean resolve and general thoughtlessness. There was work to be done, Seamless orders to fill, and what else could there be?

The few humans in on the secret now reported to Sadie. Perhaps “human” was an overstatement: first, the head chef Ramses, reincarnation of the Egyptian pharaoh in the body of a tall Indian man. Then there was night-shift sous chef Louis, the 600-year-old vampire who had been in Queens since before it was Queens. The day shift was run by one Matthew Tomassi, who actually would have been the closest to human — had he not mistakenly painted his own “Dorian Gray” using an ancient set of oils that he did not know to be cursed.

Immortality does things to a man, and now Matthew carried himself with the confidence of someone who knows they can never be hurt. He also partied, almost every night, with similar disregard for his wellbeing. But he was also there, cravat just so, to take the day shift over at seven in the morning, sharp, every day. Finally there were the dispatchers: Un and Ri, extremely identical Japanese-American twins who also happened to be some of the cities most powerful psychics. With their all-seeing eyes controlling and dispatching an army of bike messengers flawlessly in mind-meltingly complex patterns of efficiency across the borough, the Queens Kitchen was truly a well-oiled machine.

And it had to be, for no one could ever know the real underground machinery that kept the city running. That was the deal. And that had always been the deal.

Sadie reveled in the efficiency of QK. At the Chinese takeout stations, the acrobatics of a thousand woks clanged and scraped a glorious symphony. The hundreds of pizza ovens swallowed dough, cheese, and hope, and spit out, unerringly, melted cheesiness and pure happiness. Truly, the city ran on food. But more accurately, the city ran on takeout. Which mean the Queens Kitchen ran the city. Which meant Sadie, in her way, ran the city. Standing at her usual spot in the catwalk that hung above the great cooking floor, some five stories underground, she at once acknowledged her position as a cog and as the timekeeper winding the grandfather clock of it all.

Louis was running up to her, leather-soled shoes barely making a noise on the grated catwalk. He was smirking flirtatiously, as he always did, and holding the phone, which was passing strange. The phone had only rung twice in her time at QK. The first, it was the mysterious voice of The Restauranteur that had introduced her to the QK and affirmed to her that she did, indeed, belong there and they had been waiting for her. The second time was for a terrorist act that had disrupted service for days.

Now Louis held the quaintly old-fashioned, gray cordless brick phone out to her.

“It’s Manhattan. You’re going to want to talk to him.”

Sadie eyebrows arched. She took the phone without a word, exhaled, and held it to her ear. An unmistakably male voice full of gravy and deceit began to speak.

“Maestra Sadie, I presume? A pleasure to finally, ahem, connect. I won’t waste your time: we are going to be changing our operations, and significantly. And it will happen in a week’s time, regardless of your participation. That said, I truly hope — I implore, I advice, I beg, Sadie— that you will see the light that we have seen and join us. Brooklyn is already agreed.”

Sadie thought, of course goddamn Brooklyn is agreed, those hipster ingrates.

“And how, Maestro Azazel, do you plan on changing your operations?”

Yes, Azazel: the head of The Manhattan Kitchen was none other than The Scapegoat, fallen angel and instructor of men in the evil arts, he of cloven hooves and stubby horns and eternally leaking nose — now partially retired. Partially. He considered himself the next Lucifer; Sadie considered him a washed-up angelic punk rocker from the 80s.

“My dear Sadie: we are going public. It’s high time, and even higher time I begin to receive the due compensation for my immense efforts here.”

“I think, Azazel, that is not the point of what we do. And I think you know that. Harebrained, really, all this. You don’t think actually think you’re going to do this? And that you’ll get away with it?”

“I know I can, and I know I will.”

“Ha. Best of luck, Azazel.”

And Sadie drops the phone over the railing, where it splashes into a voluminous vat of pho, but instead of splashing it shatters like crystal, and then she woke up. The smell of Chinese delivery hung about her for a whole day.