





The Swinging Medallion
by Joseph Verrilli
Standing in the stockroom doorway, Doris repeated the question demurely, with just a hint of humility. Jacky pretended not to hear, as he polished the display case. He couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t believe in the tapered Van Heusen shirts he was supposed to be selling.
Doris cleared her throat with a purpose in mind. Suddenly nervous, Jacky spun around and looked into her baby blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Doris,” he muttered. “Did you say something?” She meant to smile at him, but changed her mind at the last minute. She batted her eyelashes instead.
The tall, chunky salesclerk with the blonde bouffant hairdo sashayed over to the cash register and pretended to press the “no sale” button. She asked the very same question. “Are you buying us candy today, Jacky?”
The big-boned eighteen year-old swallowed hard and hesitated before answering. “Yeah, sure.” He stared at the floor, thinking that Doris bore a certain resemblance to Lainie Kazan.
Eleanor walked lazily out of the stockroom a second later, a thin dark-haired woman of average height who always seemed to be smiling. “Candy today, Jack?” she asked. The teenager looked in her direction nervously, but said nothing. “Ti’s so nice of you to buy us girls candy all the time,” she added. Her pleading tone seemed to work miracles very time.
Jacky plunged his hands into his deep pockets. He allo
wed his gaze to linger on the lower half of his brown pinstripe pants. He didn’t look up for some time, but when he did, he was staring wistfully at Doris again. She seemed to have an impatient expression on her face, or so he thought.
“Lunch time, boys and girls!” emanated form somewhere in back of Jacky’s head. It was the emotionless voice of Bill Davila, the dapper brown-haired ladies’ man who was the supervisor of the men’s furnishings department. He spoke with a lot of authority for someone only five feet tall.
Jacky and the two ladies snapped to attention and grinned self-consciously. Bill frowned good-naturedly, then shook his head as he walked into the stockroom.
Jacky straightened his tie, brushed two specks of lint form the left lapel of his gold blazer and patted his brown hair carefully. He had used Wildroot cream oil that morning to make sure every single strand of this hair stayed put. “If you look in control, you are in control!” was a thought that echoed in his brain before he left Gimbel’s, the department store where he worked.
Just before he stepped onto State Street, the glass door swinging to a slow-motion close behind him, he heard Eleanor’s voice again. “Candy, Jacky!” This time he didn’t look back, fearful he might blush or convey a stubborn petulance. It was a cool, crisp day in mid-November, 1970, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He paused on the sidewalk before crossing the street to the entrance to Lafayette Plaza. He looked all around him, intending to take in the sights and sounds of the city. After all, he had his freedom for a full hour. Glad to be alive, he wiped the lenses of his black horn-rimmed glasses with a lavender Sight Saver. When he slipped them back on, he snorted impatiently. The lenses still had those stubborn streaks.
He waited for the red light to change. “Come on,” he thought to himself. “Change already!” Jacky was a spoiled, impatient sort who thought waiting for a red light to change was a complete waste of time. Still, he felt refreshed. The cool autumn breeze slapped his face. He inhaled deeply and went into a coughing jag.
Car whizzed by a few feet in front of him. His hands in his pockets, he shrugged off his impatience. Suddenly, he felt an urge to daydream, as the stared at the red stoplight across the street. He was not part of the sidewalk on which he stood.
Precisely when the light turned green, Jacky saw Her walk toward the mall entrance briskly. He had seen Her a few times before, but had no idea who she was. She was a major part of downtown life, though, in those innocent days.
This mystery woman was tall and very thin. Her black hair was always piled on top of her head in a haphazard upsweep. She always wore tight black dresses, fishnet stockings and high heel sandals. Something stirred within him.
The loud snap of somebody’s fingers made him look to his right very quickly. Danny Boy Doyle, a tall, brown-haired salesclerk with a crossed eye, passed him and crossed State Street in a hurry. Wearing a broad, toothy grin, he looked in Jacky’s direction, snapped his fingers again and pointed a long index finger at him. He said what he always seemed to say. “That’s a supercool tie, man.” Jacky smiled, but really wanted to laugh. “Hey, Jacky!” Danny Boy shouted. “Green light! Time waits for no man, ya know!”
Jacky crossed the street casually. When he pulled open the door of the mall entrance, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. He glanced to his right as he passed Tie City, a tidy, compact little store. “Yeah, supercool tie,” he muttered to himself. Jacky was hungry, but unaware of so many things. Working at Gimbel’s was only his second job.
He passed people and stores and pay phones, trying to convey a sense of confidence. He found the coffee shop moments later, an eatery he found himself returning to time and again. He wondered what kind of mood the matronly, dark-haired waitress would be in this time.
He picked a table a few yards from the counter in the empty restaurant. From somewhere in the busy mall, there came the sound of piped-in music. He lit a Marlboro, perused the glossy menu and waited for the waitress.
Different people sauntered in to different areas of the coffee shop, removing winter coats and talking about concerns of the day.
The waitress walked over to Jacky’s table eventually. “What’ll it be today, honey?” she asked, appearing somewhat bored. Jacky puffed on the cigarette and ordered an open steak sandwich, onion rings and coffee enthusiastically. He glanced at the dark-haired little man who was the cashier of the day.
It seemed like a very long time before his meal arrived. The waitress planted it down on the table with a slovenly flourish. “Enjoy the food,” she said without emotion. She could have been speaking to a nephew who had disappointed her, or so it seemed to Jacky.
He emptied two packets of sugar and two tiny creamers into the steaming cup of coffee. The food in front of him didn’t seem as appetizing as the picture in the menu had promised.
It was five minutes later when Jacky tried to maneuver a slice of tomato onto his fork. “Let It Be” by the Beatles was the song that was playing at that moment. How Jacky loved that song! It always made him feel melancholy, but he loved feeling that way.
He stopped eating as he pondered the lyrics and the crisp, clean sound of Paul McCartney’s piano-playing. Jacky’s thoughts were far-removed from the concerns of the moment. He was almost hypnotized by the music.
The song touched a chord deep within him. He daydreamed about lying in his coffin in an all-too-familiar funeral parlor, surrounded by family and friend. “Let It Be” was playing over and over. Someone in a black veil sobbed, “How Jacky loved that song!” and wiped away a tear. Whenever those very same people would hear that song in the future, they would think of him fondly and remember. The daydream was sheer melodrama.
Jacky paid his check and left a healthy tip. He lit another cigarette as he walked casually through the mall, letting his mind wander. His thoughts would plunge whenever he heard that song.
When he walked back into Gimbel’s, Bill immediately got his attention and spoke sternly. “You’ll be working in the men’s department this afternoon. Get over there now. Come on! Look alive!” Jacky sensed that Eleanor and Doris were looking at him expectantly.
He walked briskly in the direction of the men’s department, hoping he could get through the afternoon with no major blunders. Lenny, a security guard from the mall, walked towards him. He wore a faded green army jacket and an especially lewd expression. His wavy brown hair had grown considerably since the last time Jacky ran into him.
Lenny’s voice was hushed yet sinister-sounding. “Dig Candy over there at the sweater counter. She ain’t wearing a thing under that dress.” Hid green-eyed leer seemed to bore right through Jacky’s skull. Jacky’s heart skipped a beat.
For a split second, Jacky looked in the direction of the sweater counter. Candy, a pretty brown-haired girl in wire-rim glasses and a flowery yellow dress, stood behind the display case. She looked at Jacky with a silent boldness. The word “candy” kept coming back to him.
As soon as he got the men’s department, a tall, officious man named Abe told him to run upstairs to Alterations to retrieve a suit for a Mr. Brownstein. Jacky, feeling very nervous, took a deep breath.
He pulled open the shuttered door and walked up the dark stairway, clutching a numbered receipt. Once in Alterations, it took him quite some time to locate the suit covered in plastic. He walked down the stairs in a panic. He had taken too long.
Downstairs, Mr. Brownstein, a middle-aged man with a hardened look, spotted Jacky instantly. He spoke from his heart. “What were you doing up there, taking so long? Playing with yourself? Let me have my suit.” All eyes were fixed on Jacky, who stood motionless. He appeared to be nearly catatonic. His face turned a bright crimson.
For no apparent reason, he recalled being on vacation with his family in New York City two years earlier. Wearing a tacky gold medallion with a green stone in its center, Jacky was riding the hotel elevator with his father. Medallions were very fashionable in the ‘60’s, but nobody really knew why. Big ones, small ones, gaudy ones, tacky ones. A sign of the times. At least Jacky wasn’t wearing a Nehru jacket.
The elevator doors slid open on the fifth floor and a tall, distinguished black man entered, followed by his female companion. He made a point of staring at Jacky’s swinging medallion before he commented on it. “Tell me, young man,” he said in a deep baritone voice. “That medallion you are wearing. Does it signify something?”
Embarrassed, Jacky managed to shake his head and mutter, “No, not really.” When the elevator reached the main floor, the man and his companion exited quickly. Jacky’s father turned to him. “You should’ve told him you wore it because you were in a band!”
Jacky nodded absent-mindedly, feeling a bit hesitant about what to do next. The hotel lobby was filled with many kinds of people, stuck in their own private dramas. He peered down at the gaudy medallion, searching for a reason as to why he was wearing it. He didn’t look up for a very long time.
from the chapbook,
Blessed Events
published by Plowman Press, 1993
and also published
in PHOENIX RISING, 1995
|



Violation?
by Ben Whitmer
I and my uncle were leaning against a crooked wooden fence. My uncle smoking a cigarette, me with a twig in my mouth. I didn’t know why I was chewing the twig, I’d just seen others do it and I liked the way it looked.
The fence enclosed a small grazing area that had never been used. It came with the lopsided barn that sat on the other side of the field. My parents had built the log cabin behind us. In the middle of the field my mother and father were gesticulating wildly in the midst of some gaping argument. I and my uncle, we were trying not to watch. “That field needs mowing,” my uncle said.
I shaded my eyes against the bristling sun and stared out at the field, jotting down each inch of it before resting my eyes on my parents, then moved them deliberately onward after seeing them. My mother had a finger underneath my father’s nose and was shaking it furiously. She was wearing jeans and a sky blue halter top with no bra. Every shake of her finger set her jiggling, her breasts threatening to escape the spaghetti straps.
I was embarrassed for her. “It hasn’t rained in a while,” I said. “We won’t have to mow it unless it rains.”
“Yeah,” said my uncle, stubbing his cigarette out on the top fence-rail. “I guess it does look dead.” He clapped me on my shoulder. “Why don’t we go in and get some ice cream?”
I gripped the fence and rocked myself up against it, my chin barely reaching the top. “I think I’ll stay out here.”
“Maybe I will too, then,” my uncle said.
My father stood stoically, his work-scarred hands clasped beneath his arm-pits. My mother grabbed at the neck of his white t-shirt and pulled at it but it didn’t give. She slapped his chest and screamed so loudly that me and my uncle could hear her voice shrilling, but not loudly enough that we could hear the content. My father spat on the ground and rubbed his spittle into the dirt with a boot.
“What say we go get that ice cream?” my uncle said in a steady voice, and lit another cigarette. I didn’t even bother to glance at him. I couldn’t help staring undisguised at my mother and father.
There are blinds, but they leave a crack around the edge of the window that a rim of sunlight glints through. The furnishings are tasteful and were obviously picked out with care. The couch, love seat, and chair coordinated in color and size. Sitting well together, but at odds with the cheap apartment. Spilt drinks and water-rings stain the coffee table and a half full whiskey glass is setting a fresh blemish. Two brass lamps are on the floor, their shades cockeyed and dusty.
She is sitting easily on the love seat, but su
ddenly feeling the cruelty of that same ease, she squirms wittingly. She unloops her purse strap and sits the purse on the floor.
He doesn’t feel at all easy on the couch, but knowing he should, he relaxes back. “Get your purse off the floor,” he says.
She picks the purse up and holds it over the table, moving it from place to place, seeking a dry spot. She grows agitated and drops the purse by her side, on the love seat. “Where are the paper towels?” she asks, standing.
“I don’t have any.” He holds the glass up to take a drink, and the smell of the Ten High pulls at his stomach. He forces it down and slants the glass at the purse. “It’s fine there.” She crosses her long legs, uncrosses them, stretches them out, and then reels them in, mindful to keep her knees together. “You should use coasters.”
He hee-haws outrageously. “Fuck you and what I should use,” he says.
She looks down at her feet and softly implores, “don’t be angry.” Her shoes are impeccable. They match the love seat.
“I just got off work,” he says. He drops the glass on the table and cracks his aching knuckles. “I’m gonna change.” He gets up and walks into his bedroom.
She runs her hands over her face, pulling them down hard, gripping at her eye sockets and cheeks. Then she quivers with a scrupulous little shrug of recovery and pulls a tiny mirror from her purse to check her makeup.
He catches her with the mirror in hand. Seeing him, she starts and jams it back into her purse. He has changed into cut off shorts and a black t-shirt. She notices his legs are tanned and the tan irritates her. She gets the mirror back out and completes her inventory of powders. He stares at his whiskey glass, his face lined and exhausted. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I wanted to see how you were doing.”
He holds a sip of the whiskey in his mouth like mouthwash. “You could’ve told me to my face,” he says, swallowing. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“You would’ve.” She completes her touch-up and returns the mirror. “Besides,” she says, glancing at his tanned legs, “I didn’t think you’d mind that much.”
“You didn’t think I’d mind?” His eyebrows furrow and his jaw muscles knot. “You didn’t think I’d fucking mind?”
“You didn’t seem like you would mind.”
“I lost my fucking hair,” he says. “My fucking hair was falling out of my head.” He turns his head and shows her a bald patch just beneath and behind his left temple.
She wishes she had her mirror back out, but she knows she can’t get it. “You don’t have to swear at me,” she says. “I didn’t come to be yelled at.”
He leaps up and whips his glass at her. It skips off the back of the love seat and shatters against the wall. “FUCK YOU,” His breath comes in and out whiskey-deep. He drops his head, confounded, and swigs from the bottle.
She waits a clean minute, grabs her purse, and bolts for the door. He swings around and grabs her collar. Her head thrashes back and her legs keep going, up and into the air. He yanks her in and clasps both arms around her stomach. “You didn’t think I’d mind?”
She bursts out crying. “You don’t,” she whimpers. “Look at your legs.”
He spins her around gently and holds her face in his hands. He wipes at her tears with his thumbs. Then he presses in and kisses her.
She doesn’t resist. She gives a throaty sigh and relaxes against his chest.
“There’s no need for you to watch this,” my uncle said.
“Well,” I said, “I’m gonna watch it.”
Something was said that was without return, something irrevocable and tangible. My mother and father stood in perfect silence. Then my father, almost languidly, punched her in the temple and she sagged to the ground. He caught her in mid-fall by the hair and wound it up in his fist. I stared at them without blinking until my eyes started to tear. My father held her suspended by her hair, her crumpled form sagging unconscious in a half sitting position.
My arms were thin, prepubescent. They looked like pathetic excuses. Half arms on a half man. I examined my uncle’s and they were muscled, defined, his knuckles flattened by bar fights. My father walked my mother, dragging her by her hair towards the barn. She awoke and howled with pain. Her feet came up beneath her and she did a sick crab-walk behind his fist. My uncle leaned tiredly against the fence, his cigarette dangling from his hand.
“You could do something,” I said.
The uncle’s face crowded with ache, and then with reason. He reached to grip my shoulder, but stopped short and didn’t. “There’s nothing to do.”
The rain pitches over her, whips her hair down and leaves it lank, soaks her dress and flattens it over her body.
A bottle of Southern Comfort dangles from her hand, slipping occasionally from her fingers. Her hands clutch sporadically to catch it, then relax again. And again she nearly loses the bottle.
She spiritlessly crosses one bare foot over the other and begins a half spin. Her arms lift and stretch out from her sides. They
come down again, her feet uncross again. Her bottle hand clenches suddenly and knocks slowly at her forehead. She can’t remember why she’s out, she knows it’s raining. Her arms slip around her sides and she feels like she should cry. So she begins to, softly, her head turning away from the farmhouse behind her. The bottle covers her face.
The sobbing ceases as abruptly as it began. She knuckles away the tears and chokes out a giggle. The world tilts a bit under her feet and she tilts with it. Her arms fly up in an effort to regain her balance, her feet cross one over the other, and she begins to spin. Slowly at first, then in a frenzy, working with the tilt.
The porch light flips on and she tumbles to a halt. Her legs whirl from under her and she collapses with a mad screaming laugh in the grass.
He steps out the screen door and stands for a minute on the porch-step. He is shirtless and bearded. Without a bottle in his hand.
She crouches in the grass and beckons him with a finger. He walks to her. “Get up,” he says.
She kicks him in the shin. “You get down.”
His head hangs, his legs fold, he places his hands on his knees. “Come to bed,” he says, “it’s late.” He wipes at the rain dripping down his cheeks.
“Oh,” she says, “you want me in bed.” Playfully she kicks at him again.
“I don’t have time for this shit.” As he says it her foot flies again. He grabs it from the air and jerks her leg brutally. She sprawls forward, her kicking foot in his hand, her other twisted irregularly beneath her. He releases her.
“Fuck,” she says, and rolls over in the grass. She drops the bottle and massages her ankle. “You shit. You broke it.”
“It ain’t broken,” he says, and picks up the Southern Comfort.
She stands and gingerly sets her weight on it. She flinches at a burst of pain. Then tries again, easing her body down. The pain slows at the pressure. “Fuck you,” she says.
“I gotta work tomorrow.” He swings the bottle away as she makes a lunge for it. “Can’t we have a fucking night off?”
“No.” she says, making another pass at the bottle. “We can’t have a fucking night. Tonight’s a drinking night.” She stands on tip-toe and reaches for the bottle he holds above his head. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll fuck you.”
He drops the bottle on the grass, turns, and starts for the door.
She snatches up the bottle. “You think I’d fuck you?” She fumbles with the cap, but can’t get it unscrewed. “YOU THINK I’D FUCK YOU?”
He stops in front of the door and looks at her coldly. She has the bottle stuck in her mouth and is trying to get it unscrewed with her teeth.
He shakes his head and moves for the door-handle.
“FUCK,” she screams, and throws the bottle, still capped, at him. It glances off his shoulder and hits the farmhouse’s wall, without breaking.
He stoops and takes it in his hand. She is standing, her hands held over her giggling mouth.
There is a red mark on his shoulder and already the beginning of an angry bruise. He raises up and walks toward her.
She backs away, foot over foot, glancing over her shoulder and checking for pitfalls. He reaches her and she stops. She runs her fingers over his face and says gently, “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on Earth.”
He punches her square in the jaw. Her head whips backwards and she crashes to her knees. He starts to shake, incredulous at the blow. He stares dumbly at his fist.
Blood is lining her chin from a split lip. She licks it and giggles up at him, her hands gripping and twisting the hem of her dress. She jumps up and he steps back. “Oh,” she says, stumbling to the front door. “Oh.” She sticks out her tongue at him. “That won’t make me fuck you.” She gropes open the screen door and darts inside.
He takes the yard in four long steps, twisting off the bottle’s cap, unbuckling his pants.
My mother’s feet scrabbled for earth, her shoulders twisted and wrenched at his grip. She saw the barn’s door and her fighting redoubled. My father’s face set even harder and he gave her one good yank, out of the field and through the barn door.
“You gotta do something,” I said.
My uncle didn’t move except for his cigarette hand, and his drags were harsh and quick.
The field was vicious and silent, like razor blades wrapped up in cheese cloth. The air moved past us, a simmering magnet pulling at our heads. Every blade of grass stood at stupid and insane attention.
“You could fucking do something,” I said.
My uncle grimaced at my words. He slammed the cigarette in his mouth for one last hit, and tasting filter, he flicked it out in the field. “You’ll understand when you get older,” he said.
I started inwardly, but I’d like to think now that I kept my outward composure. I thought, you are fucking crazy. Then I looked at my uncle and I saw every muscle in his body pulling out and veined. His jaw was wired up and his lips were ticking. You are fucking crazy, I thought again.
We were noiseless and
we waited like that, every nerve on end for anything. Nothing came. Nothing drifted our way. Even the dry wind ceased.
You are fucking crazy, I thought. But I didn’t say it.
I kept my mouth shut.
They are lying in bed together. The bed only a mattress on the floor. The closet light is on and is the only source of light in the room. He has a pack of Lucky Strikes by his head on the pillow, and is smoking one, ashing in an empty beer bottle.
She is trying to read a music magazine, but keeps closing it and staring at the ceiling. She rolls the magazine up and twists her hands around it, then unfurls it and returns to the reading.
He takes the last hit off the cigarette and drops the butt into the bottle. He blows the smoke he’s just inhaled out in a long stream that is caught by a current from the open window and sent back towards her.
“That really stinks,” she says.
He grunts and pushes the pack of cigarettes off the pillow.
“That really fucking stinks,” she says. “Couldn’t you smoke outside?”
He rolls over and slides up against her, drifting his arm over her stomach.
“You could at least stop smoking in bed.”
He rubs her stomach lightly, his fingertips playing around her rib cage, moving up towards her breasts, and then back just as he begins to feel the swelling.
“Quit,” she says, picking up his hand and thrusting it aside. “I’m trying to read.”
He moves still closer to her and runs his fingers up her leg and underneath her boxer shorts.
She drops the magazine in the crack between the bed and the wall. “You wanna fuck.”
He turns over on his back and clasps his hands over his chest.
“You wanna fuck because you know after tomorrow you ain’t going to for a while.” She snorts derisively. “Is that it, you wanna fuck?”
He goes for her mouth to kiss her, guileful in his eyes. She pushes his face away with her palm. “Well,” she says, “you shouldn’t have been so careless fucking.” She gets up and turns off the light, then steps out of the room to the kitchen for a glass of water. When she returns to the bed he’s lying naked and erect.
“Go to sleep,” she says. She takes a drink of the water and sets the glass at the foot of the bed. “You get no pussy tonight. And you know you won’t be getting any for a couple weeks after.”
He stands and flips the light on.
She purses her lips and breathes in and out hard. “You’re not even really horny,” she says. “You just want to get one in before tomorrow.”
He lies still.
“Fuck you,” she says, puts an arm over her eyes, and attempts sleep. He seizes her boxer shorts and pulls them down to her knees.
“Alright,” she says, “you wanna fuck.” She pulls her boxers off, then her underwear. He turns the light out.
She waits for him to get back in the bed. “Use a condom,” she says.
His face contorts inquisitively. His hand roams over and clutches a breast.
“You’re going to use a condom,” she says again.
I’d like to tell the truth, but I don’t remember much.
I might have changed the names, but that shouldn’t detract from any truth. My uncle might not have been my uncle, but he was my hero. I own a picture he painted. It doesn’t hang in my apartment. He’s still one of my heroes.
I woke up this morning and I couldn’t breathe. I haven’t seen the man who might be my father since I was fifteen. I saw him him every day, I need to see him now. I awoke this morning and he was stuck in my head.
I don’t even have a fucking picture.
I want to tell the truth, but I don’t remember it. I have fragments and I fill in the rest. I hope you can understand that. It might not have been so brutal, I might have invented this scene and all similar, but I saw everything I saw.
I awoke this morning and it was everything this morning was.
I ate Ramen and drank coffee. I turned on the radio and it was nothing to me. I got dressed and went to a shit restaurant where I wash dishes.
At the job I had to talk to people and I had no idea what to say. I thought about getting home and writing a story that told the truth.
I woke up this morning and all I wanted was to tell the truth, but everyone I met stopped me. I waded through person after person who looked on fire with ache. They met me with lies and self mutilation. They bored me into a dumb senseless stupor with their drama and their own scenes. Someone offered me a line in the bathroom.
I might have done it.
I awoke this morning and I had something to say. I drank a cup of coffee and I wrote some of it down.
Now I’m home after the shit job. I’ve got to get this finished before I can stare at the walls and get drunk enough to pass out.
I don’t have the least bit of interest in my own scene, let alone anyone else’s. Another dripping fist, another random word. I’ve heard them all and even said a few. This piece would probably funnier if I switched just one word for one other.
So I might have. I won’t let them despise me for that. I see the
way they live.
I woke up this morning and I had a hangover because that’s the only way I can sleep.
And for the record I’m not kept awake by any tortured visions. No deep pain to keep consciousness rolling. Sometimes I just need an alternative route to rest.
I need to remember that next time.
It’s only vodka.
It’s only a hangover.
|



Bill Grey’s
by Ben Ohmart
“I need a turk on grav with gray flakes!” Kunther yelled into the mic that was beginning to drip from the hot lights overhead. The assistant manager, a chunky woman with the kind of drive that makes you feel sorry for her, argued down the owner of the place, the man who was never there, to replacing the plastic mic but only when “it’ll wear down.” Chunky Andria raced around to scoop out what gravy there was left during the lunch rush. Most were return customers, those working at the mall stores, without the sense to bring lunch to save some of that slave wage, but they were all the same clamor coming up at different registers, 5 to 9 people in each line.
“I need a slop tank!”
Andria huffed around to the left side of the small eatery, heading off Glory, who had the paper dispenser all ready, but the ass man needed a break from the overheads. Stupid idea, most thought, about fashioning all the lights like they had to keep food warm. The counter is like three feet from the food holding trays, are they going to lose so much heat? was the average thought. But tumbling out the gray flakes, really fries but made from the drabbest part of the potato, was what the crew was always most eager to do, if they had to work here at all. In a cool corner, Andria waved herself down with breeze with the hand she wasn’t using, glad to be in the dark for a minute.
The hook of the place was what the name proclaimed. Everything was gray, and the customers literally ate it up. Wedged between The Taco Stand, and an Arby’s with too many employees, the Grey place was getting off on its curiosity factor. The manager used to come in every other Thursday, count money, put it in a Spinal Tap zipper bag, complain if Monica was just standing in front of the register waiting for customers and not wiping up the counter, getting more gray chicken ready, etc., but now the money was coming in, to allow him to raise Andria’s purse to $5.10 an hour, and the employees never saw him. To say they never saw him again might sound like he died, but he was very much alive, but happy, in front of his TV, video tapes affordable for the first time in his constricted life.
Something about the taste. Mixture of flavoring gravy, the kind from the fat of a turkey bird, and gray coloring. The owner got the idea looking at the Halloween cookies in a bakery bin one day, thought how disgusting, right before an obvious housewife was showing her 10 or so year old the things behind the glass, then the boy pointed to what he wanted, and Bill had to think more about his own personal tastes.
It was all hot food. Except for the apple pie that had to be likewise coated with that “secret ingredient,” but it would usually soak into the crust, giving it a homemade, greasy piquancy. First person who tried the new menu was revolted at the originality, ended up getting the Board of Health involved, but there was nothing to take offense at. Bill Grey’s ended up getting one of those vindication papers that was ultimately hung on a wall no one could see, the operatives coming back whenever they had business around the mall. The government men ended up spreading the word of the unique flavor to some colleagues, that word got louder, bringing more in, soon a lot of government seemed to be conducted right around the heart of those stores. And average customers were more impressed with the No Campaign ad campaign that sprung from lack of funds. Only the workers were surprised at their own popularity.
Most were interviewed on television coming off of a shift, each station thinking they had a scoop because a particular worker hadn’t yet had a say. They ended up saying the same thing anyway, what else could they do? “It’s a great place to work. I only wish there were more around.” It would be several months into the craze before they were pulled up past minimum wage.
But now they stopped being a fad, and caught the full swing of constant success. The grease was coming up fine now, but Glory kept complaining about the slowness of the register, “acting up”, and it tended to throw the “team” off their game. Andria didn’t need to keep yelling for her orders, explaining to the next man in line looking at his watch that “she’s new” which only embarrassed everyone, especially the 6 month old, in work years, Glory who knew Grey like the back of her perfumed hand. She got a good laugh though when she was taken off register to mix more mayonnaise into a revulsion of drab color and the register began to smoke.
“Computer’s down!”
“Computer’s down!”
Everyone had their turn at saying it, Kunther becoming the most popular player at the moment when it was discovered he had a calculator watch. Unfortunately for the famished followers in line, he wasn’t about to part with baby, thereby giving up his omnipotence, by letting someone with quicker fingers explore the possibilities (sometimes getting them Right!) of the customers’ bills. He punched slow, he was careful, like most careful people, making wrong a habit hard to break.
They made it through the day, but Grey wasn’t available for questioning on how the hell to handle the servicing of tomorrow. All Andria could do was call the computer co. that sold them the registers - she did that, but they had a waiting list that is programmed for inclusion by punching in numbers on the touch tone phone - and kept trying Mr. Bossman until the man’s machine would run out of answering tape.
Initiative. That’s what she conned herself into believing it took. “To get ahead, you’ve got to -” She called the local school, didn’t bother to check what kind, but the first one her finger ran down through the phone book that gave a yes answer to “do you have a bulletin board job list there?” was in. Then a few more places to be safe. She was going to make this problem soluble, if she had to water it down and sop it up with a rag herself.
A nerd. One out of one applicant waiting for his test. A chance to prove himself; already having whisked through the seemingly asinine tests public schools think matter. But the 12 year old from grade school was from, grade school. Plaid shirt, jeans, contacts that made his eyes water so much he was given an extra 15 minute break per 8-hour day (on weekends) so he could wipe, this agreed before he was hired, he was hired. Set to work adding up orders in his head, multiplying by the percentage of tax. He never missed. They had to check him out on a battery powered calculator a few times to make sure his “machine” had it, but pretty soon, the rest of the too stupid to be jealous crew were in the back, shuffling gray beef patties onto seeded same color buns, glad to be back in the kitchen where the electric fans reached.
Once the morning time slot cooled down, and they were past the crushing throws of lunchtime traffic, the new girl, well, a month old at the workplace, Staffi, was pawned off to visually explain “how the gray works around here” to the new guy.
A creative concept. The logical mind of the 12 year old had real trouble with it, all the time saying “yeah” to the “understand?” question which seemed to follow Staffi’s every other word. She left him to mix the ketchup. They got it in red, they needed it gray. A simple solution on how to fix it, with the food coloring and cold gravy sitting there ready for his hands, especially since he said he got it. He didn’t get it.
Andria should’ve rented a laptop computer and operative to see them through. The new boy was shoving just enough coloring and gravy into the ketchup (contents poured from the ketchup bottles) as would fulfill the instructions he was given. Not being able to figure out why people would want to eat gray, why and how they’d get Away with serving gray, Motle, the kid, began to stuff the empty ketchup packs with a mixture that still bled red. Gray was there, but you had to look for it.
One of the delights of coming to Bill Grey’s was to slice up any packet, and you could pour more mustard, ketchup, even wet onion pieces onto your dish. They loved the packets, and it was Andria’s responsibility to keep the empties on order each month so they could make their own concoction and fill them themselves.
Next week, the customers slacked off. The owner was immersed in the Romancing the Stone set and couldn’t be bothered.
He was bothered when someone at the bank called, as a friendly gesture, but really to make sure his bank could count on the income, to ask if his business was still doing all right.
Going down, Bill opened up the register, a surprise inspection he called it, peaked in, and found just a couple twenties. Most of the crew were in the back, standing around, trying to look engrossed in graying up chicken nuggets, lacing the shake machine with “secret mixture”, but he chewed them out soon enough, after he was through with the woman whose fault it must’ve been. Andria cried to the ladies’ room to compose herself, all the dumb workers looking around, feeling sorry for her, never a thought to themselves when their futures were called in question.
He left, taking the money. It was 20 minutes before Andria came back, and it was the lunch hour. She wasn’t needed for the 2 old folks that constituted the rush, and that made it worse.
Morale is a terrible thing to waste, and as the days passed, it was wasted like it wasn’t there anymore. The sink was clogged in grease, most of the girls forgot to wash their hands between orders, even the energy of the child who’d found his family on these weekends and after school found itself brought down, into check with everyone else who were simply going through the motions of wiping up spills. There was no reason to make more of the mixture anymore; Arby’s finally used all the people it employed next door..
The bubbling fruit juices in the two machines by the Pepsi squirter turned rancid, but no one noticed until a typically boring day was sliced into life, for a mere second, when a customer complained. The lines at the usual restaurants were too long for this guy, though he’d heard what everyone had heard. Bill Gray’s was nothing special.
Motle was as depressed as a child could be who knows nothing of life. He took his emotional cues from the people he looked up to. The people who were turning hopeless with each new day. They didn’t love their work, but it was all they had. Now the dregs felt themselves moving down and down some unknown sewer... They just couldn’t take it any longer.
It was the day Motle was busying himself with an experiment at the spreads (what is put on the buns), just trying to keep his mind occupied with thoughts of sound, since it was so silent for him there. No one could understand their lack of popularity. They kept graying as usual, not knowing about that one day things went wrong. But one day was enough for word of mouth. No one trusted them any longer, to be original, to be anything, and the crew felt it. Andria kept fighting to keep her family intact even though what was coming in to the business wasn’t enough to pay everyone who thought they had a place there. Some were fired by simply not getting paychecks, but Andria said nothing, and the crew kept coming in, in uniform, to stand around and wait on no one.
They talked about it. Passed out paper cups with Hi-C printed on them, the juice machines were drained for as much putrid drink as would fill the six cups involved. Motle pulled at Kunther’s sleeve. His eyes were long and haggard.
“Me one too?”
It was 7 all around, while Andria made herself fall to the delight of serving a customer. It was the first one of that day, and the crew thought they owed it to her. They waited till she fixed the fish sandwich, took the money, came back. They drank. At the same time.
Sickness began quick, but nothing happened for a long while. Well past the old lady finishing her fish, and remarking to her husband who was a day security guard for some public library/public tax office how wonderful the taste was.
Weeks had gone by. So had the crew. Bill had to replace them when business picked up for some reason. But he had to replace them anyway.
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