Aaron is from Utah. He's 22 years old and a very good cook. He first learned to work at Denny's, which means he works much faster than guys who've only worked in gastronomic restaurants. But I think he feels that he's missed out on something. One time he asked me what the word "gourmet" meant. He was raised a Mormon, and he still has such white-blond hair that he didn't have to bother with peroxide when he became a punk. At the same time he's still enough of a Mormon to bite his lip in self- reproach whenever he curses. Tonight he'll be biting his lip a lot.

To get us by, someone sticks candles in empty wine bottles and places them around the kitchen. We place some near the stove but they just melt and fall over because of the heat. The expediting pass, however, looks nice, like a Buddhist shrine. For a while the service is almost normal. The waiters talk about their agents. The busboys talk about their love lives. The dishwashers try to manage without any machines and the manager begs for a table he needs to turn over. "I need it," he tells the waiter, "badly."

"I put the check on the table," the waiter snaps, "I can't take the money out of their pocket!" Tempers are starting to fray.

Since the vents have shut down the heat just stays in the kitchen, and so does the smoke. We keep the doors closed so it won't go out to the dining room and blind the customers. "It's just like back in Paris," the owner says. He's enjoying this.

"Where are the salads for table ten?" a waiter complains. He's had to wait longer than he likes to.

"Fuck off!" says the guy in the pantry. "Do you want to come back here and do this?"

"People!" Mary says from her station. She was in human resources before she became a cook.

The head valet parker now comes in and says that he needs a plate of food, anything, for the parking enforcement officer who's going to ticket every car he's got parked up and down the street unless he gets something to eat.

"Pick it up, pick it up!" says the expeditor calling waiters and holding a flashlight over the tickets so he can read them. "I'm out on 12, 72, 80 and walking 50."

"Walking 50!" Aaron says, "I haven't even started it." "Holding 50," the expeditor says, "dragging 50," he emphasizes. "I ain't dragging shit, dude," Aaron says. "I can't see a thing I'm doing." In the light from the burners I see him bite his lip. He wipes the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and keeps cooking.

"That's sauce on the side on the tuna on 90," a waiter says.

"Got it," says the expeditor.

"Make sure; the guy's a total jerk."

"I heard you the third time."

"People!" says Mary.

When the valet parker goes outside with the plate of food for the parking enforcement guy he leaves the back door open and the draft blows clouds of smoke from the kitchen into the dining room. The fire alarm goes off just in time for the big rush of the evening. The manager, close to tears by now, punches a code into the alarm box, but he's either doing it too fast or he can't see the numbers because the ringing doesn't stop. He finally has to sit down when he gets a nose bleed from the heat.

Toward the end of the night the list of what's 86 changes every few minutes. The waiters keep rushing into the kitchen, pale, confused, needing an update. When we run out of veal we cook veal chops and slice them. When we run out of lobster we substitute langoustines until we run out of them. We empty the walk-in and then we start on the freezer. By the time we're able to step back from the ranges it's twelve-thirty in the morning. We've fed parking enforcement officers, firemen and 400 customers, a record for the restaurant. Suddenly the lights come back on. We all laugh. We hear clapping from the dining room. My station is completely stripped. The T-shirt under my chef's jacket is soaking wet. My apron looks like the banner from some siege. "Rough service," Aaron says. He's leaning against a wall gulping at a bottle of water.

"Yeah, rough service," I say. We both laugh because that doesn't even come close to describing what we've just gone through.

The entire kitchen crew decides that we need a drink. We go down to one of the punk clubs in Hollywood. The music is good and loud. We are a thirsty group and soon our corner of the bar is covered with empty bottles of beer. All of us wear baggy Chefwear pants and combat boots. Some wear baseball caps on backwards with the names of unknown punk bands emblazoned on the front. Some have tattoos. One guy who usually does Tai Chi exercises during downtime on the line is downing Zombies. How would chefs from other times recognize us as fellow cooks? By the oven burnmarks up and down our arms. By the nervous twitches we develop around service time and by the beer-pounding relief afterwards.

Now we are all trying to relax. The music is bouncing off the ceiling. The bar girl is showing a friend her new tongue stud. Aaron and Mary are down on the dance floor getting rid of the night's tension. They wave me over. I push my way through with a beer in my hand. We still have a lot of energy to burn.