I add a pinch of ground-up glass to the soup for Table 27, for the loud jowly guy. I do this with every guest who reminds me of my dad, so often that I prepare in advance. I bring a beer bottle home from the street and break it up in my sink. Then I pound the glass chunks on the counter with a Merriam-Webster dictionary until they’re even smaller and drop a handful of those into a mortar and pestle that I don’t use otherwise; it was a gift. I get stoned before this process to ensure that I’m extra slow and careful. Invariably I lose myself in the grinding. I picture myself as the heir to countless humans, some 500 generations back to the dawn of agriculture, my forebears now in oblivion who spent every day grinding something hard down, pounding husks of corn or barley against a rock until it made a meal for somebody’s bread.

Eventually I have something that looks like brown sand. I carry this on me during my shifts. Just a pinch goes into the chowder to add an unpleasant grit. The guy at 27 plunks his spoon into the cup, no grace, no class, stabs at the soup then stabs the soupy spoon into his mouth, still talking to his friend and spraying him with spit. Then he slides his tongue around his mouth, not to taste or appreciate his food but simply to push it down his gullet faster so he can fill up his face again.

But he stops, feeling the grit. Maybe he thinks he’s caught a small piece of clam shell. In an oafish approximation of discretion, he brings his cloth napkin to his lips and pushes the grit out of his mouth. He spots the blood in his napkin and suppresses a grimace, no doubt blaming his own poor dental hygiene, and drops the napkin into his lap.

I cross the sunny, bustling dining room and ask how everything tastes.

Excellent, the men say, as they must. Everything here is excellent. Lunching at this restaurant proves that they are excellent.

I pretend I’m just now noticing that the man has barely touched his soup. He lies, says it’s superb but he’s trying to save room for the swordfish. One more bite, I say. You won’t spoil your appetite. His friend joins in, and the man grudgingly puts more soup into his mouth, slowly, shivering when his teeth close down on another piece of grit.

So good, he finally says.

There’s a bloody grain of glass stuck in his gum. I make a small gesture that his friend cannot see, as if I were signaling that some spinach or a sesame seed was stuck there. He brings his napkin to his face and picks it out, thinking he’s hiding his gingivitis from his friend. I wink at him. He nods back, sensing our new connection but unable to place it. Then I go check on the gentlemen’s entrees.