Sunday, October 3, 2004

Fight (a story from a long time ago), cont.

two2two
When I had gotten my car parked, I quickly grabbed my red cap, since I was supposed to wear it, and put it on my head; I walked out in the sunny, cloudless, day. I was greeted by the man who had hired me.
“Hey there,” he said to me, that beard of his wagging; and again I felt some kind of feeling of pity. It was in his eyes.
“Hi.”
He then told me his name was Marcus—“just call me Marc, as they all call me,” and told me I would be trained by Nick. I was then greeted with Nick; he was a tall, lanky fellow, about in his 20s. I took an immediate liking to him, and despite my apprehension; despite how I felt, he warmed me to get going on the work I was to learn. Around him I felt all right.

I was in the back, over by the grill, with Nick; Marcus was up at front, taking peoples’ orders, giving them to us. Nick went over with me how to grill meat correctly—how to make brats, hamburgers, hot dogs. It wasn’t anything hard; it wasn’t hard at all, really, and with Nick taking me easy along with it, I learned well. But I still kept a timid way about it, since I had just gotten in; it’s just the way I am. I can’t do anything with full confidence unless I’ve been doing it a while; but still, I had Nick, asking me if I had any questions along the way, showing my shortcuts—it was good. But I was timid about it, and I couldn’t help it, was all.
“Thing is,” Nick said to me, as I stood over his shoulder, watching him cook a few stray brats; a few stray hamburgers, and the like. “The thing is, when it gets busy, then it gets hard, y’know”; “that’s when you really have to know the shortcuts. That’s when it gets tough.” The things smoked on the grill, the grill’s flames licking on up—touching the bare meat, cooking it. Probably killing a lot of bacteria, like some goddamned genocide.
I gave what he’d said a though over; gave it a good thought over.
All I did was, I looked him in the eye, and said, “There’s always a catch”; “there’s always a goddamned catch.”
“Yeah,” Nick said back; he flipped a burger over, as I was over his shoulder watching. “When it gets like that, this job sucks.” Then Nick grabbed a paper plate—it was one of the cheap ones, with the fringe all around the outside corners--“These’re done—take ‘em up there for the order,” is what he said; and so I did.
Old Marc was up in front, of course; he was sweating like a pig in his shirt he was wearing, showcasing his bulging stomach. Right then I realized I was sweating; it’s just what happens when you see someone else sweating—you immediately wonder if you’re sweating. So I rubbed my forehead, feeling the perspiration come off on my fingers.
The plate had hamburgers and brats on it; it was still steaming a bit as I handed it over. He took it happily, grabbing it, giving me this stern look. “Lookie here, boy”; he pointed at the plate, with its contents. “See these? Well, these customers up here have been waiting longer than’s needed, boy”; and then he pointed to the customers; and he kept going on, in this big tirade. I didn’t even hear most of it; I just saw his big fat quadruple chin moving, his mouth going on and on. He ended with, “I know you’re new, but it’s time to wake up, boy”; and then that pity returned to his eye. “Just catch on faster, is all, because I’d like to keep my customers,” and then it was over; and thank god it was, because I hated it when people went off on a big tangent. Especially when they call you boy all the time. Boy, do I hate that. Boy, do I ever.

I don’t care what anyone says, the guy was expecting too damn much from me; I was just like them all, what less did he expect? Was I actually supposed to care about some menial job I had (my first one, too, no less)? Didn’t he even consider that this was my first job? But, it seemed he did, because at that moment, I saw the pity in his eye; and those last words he had said to me had seemed kinder than all the rest.

All I did was put my hands in my pockets, and like a trained dog will do a trick for a treat, I said, “Yessir”; and when I said it, I forced myself to look him in the eye, even if I hated it. I have this bad habit of putting my hands in my pockets when I’m nervous; I just can’t help it, it’s just what I do. It helped me look in his eyes, is what it did.
Up to that point, it was all fine; I could damn well handle it. But then again, when you’re hanging over the edge, and keeping up fine, that’s when something will push you right on down; push you down, make you get all scratched up. That’s what happened next.
The customers who were pissed were a young couple. The woman, a brunette, looked about seventeen, maybe eighteen; the man was this short burly man with a terribly tacky goatee, who looked to be about twenty. The woman had big cans, so it was easy to see why Mr. Burly had taken her up; and Ms. Brunette’s Mr. Burly was buff as hell, so it’s easy to see why she chose him. It was a simple game of attraction. When I looked over at them, the bill of my hat a bit in my eyes, I thought: We’ll see if that relationship lasts. And if it does, we’ll see if it’s still happy when that happens.
Ms. Brunette was actually quite the bitch, when she got down to yelling at me, bitching at me. I guessed by rule of thumb, a woman with assets such as hers was always a bitch; it came with the package. Exceptions exist, thankfully; but not then.
She said, “Oh my god! like how could this take so long, huh?! What the hell’s, like, so hard about making me a burger!” She said, “ It’s, like, two hundred degrees out here, oh my god! like, why do you even need a grill, Jesus Christ!” She said, “What’s your name, anyway. Cause, like, you look pretty damn useless to me! What the hell’s, like, so hard about making a hamburger? It’s so hot out you could’ve, like, grilled it on the ground!” She said, “Like, oh my god! I don’t even think I’m, like, hungry anymore!”
I would’ve ripped off her goddamned head like it was a stuffed animal’s, if I could have; but I was a human, and humans have this goddamned thing called control; a goddamned little bastard which makes us reason with ourselves, not deceive ourselves into doing things we’ll regret—and this woman, she was goddamned lucky I had control at that moment. She was goddamned lucky she had her assets, and she’d attracted Mr. Burly to aid her side so she could, like, I don’t know, be protected; like, oh my god, if she didn’t have those assets, I would’ve, like, beat the shit out of her—the bloody shit out of her, like, totally.
I didn’t care about the goddamned job then; I never had. All I saw in my head was, her head coming off her porn star body, that fluff coming out of her neck, like a stuffed animal’s when you rip its head off. It would’ve been great, but I controlled myself. I found out I really didn’t want to rip her head off, even though I was standing there—even though I was sweating like a pig, my shirt clinging to my side, strands of perspiration coming down my face, clouding my vision; that muggy feeling all over me. I didn’t want to kill her. What I really wanted was to just die. That was the answer. Cease to exist.

Life’s not fair—that’s what they’ve said many a time, and many a time we have all agreed and done nothing. This was another one of those times.
The fairness of it all didn’t matter; it never did. Who the hell cared that this was my first day on the job, that I’d only been there for a few hours; who the hell cared that I was timid, and it was my first job—who in the hell cared? I decided I myself didn’t care anymore. Fuck it, is all I thought. I was hoping I’d be fired right then, and all I said to Ms. Bitch from Hell was, “I’m sorry, m’am.” I’m pretty sure it sounded nasty coming from my mouth; I wasn’t exactly in the most exultant mood ever, and I wasn’t exactly the best at controlling this unexultant mood.
I had managed to appear as if I wasn’t too shaken, nor too stirred, by all that had happened; it was all in a day’s work—it was the way I had been built. It was not a problem. Well, okay, maybe it was; but damned if I was going to show it. Ms. Bitch didn’t deserve to get the satisfaction of my anger; and Marc? he had been kind to me in the end, so I guess I could forgive him; I guess that would be fine. Please and thank you and goodbye.
So Ms. Bitch from Hell got her burger. I hope she’s subsequently had many more burgers, and gained an immense proportion of weight, which has made her Ms. Fat Bitch from Hell. When she did get that burger, and Mr. Bitch’s Man got his meat for the day, Mr. Burly put his hands around her, looked into her eyes as if this was the most romantic moment ever, and said, “Baby, it’s all right”; and then he plucked a kiss right on her, and I would’ve liked to brand on his forehead, “LOSER,” because that was what he was. If anything, Ms. Bitch deserved a nice swift smack on the ass, therefore dislodging her head from her ass. But hell if I was the man to do such a thing; those assets did not belong to a man named I. They belonged to Mr. Burly, as a matter of fact.
As they walked away, she gave me another eulogy; then she was on her way. As the happy, yellow-as-piss couple left, I gave their relationship together a year; I managed a smirk once they were far enough from my sight, when I thought of that. One year—it was 365 days.
365 days of hell.
That was that, and I went back over to Nick, and told him all about Ms. Bitch from Hell and Mr. Burly; it amused him a bit—not too much, though. “I’m used to it,” he said to me; “happens all the time, when it’s hot like this and it’s hard to work—you get customers like that.” I nodded my head.
The rest of the day passed; I got off work at 6 o’clock at night. I had worked six hours, and I was glad when it was over.
When I got home, I was tired as hell; I went right to my room—I didn’t want to talk to my dad, or my mom, about my day, even though that was the first thing they asked when I got in the door. I just said, “It was fine, it was fine, all of it was fine”; and I think they got the cue—that I wanted to be left alone. That it was all fine.
My eyes felt pretty damn heavy; I felt pretty depressed—but I decided I needed to keep to my schedule. I needed to write something. What I did was, I wrote about Ms. Bitch; I wrote a poem about it. It was pretty fun—lifted my spirits—but I still felt pretty apathetical. I had work again tomorrow, and I didn’t want to go too much; all it’d be was the same crap as before.
That was the problem: I couldn’t sleep; the thought of tomorrow made me wish it would never come, and I longed for the past again, when I was a little kid; when it was still happy, and I had fun doing the most stupid of things. I knew it was goddamned gone, though; there would be no getting it back—so I might as well just shut the hell up and sleep, instead of brooding.
It’s funny when you’re tired, and can’t sleep; you just lie there in bed, and the oddest things come to your head, and your primal thoughts hit you. It’s kind of an amazing feeling all the same. It’s interesting like that.
I didn’t get to sleep till pretty damn late; but I did eventually get to sleep.

three3three
We were on the couch, together—just me and her; no one else. She was all on top of me, her leg on my chest, and I was touching that leg. It felt nice and smooth; sleek and nice. I looked up to see who this girl was, and I found it was this girl I had sat by my Sophomore year of English.
I continued rubbing that leg; it felt good to rub it, and she seemed to like it. While I did that, I tried to figure out what the hell her name was; it was this kind of game I played with myself all the time. I’d think through my memory, trying all these names, till one worked. Was her name Suzy?; no, it wasn’t. Was her name Laurie?; no, it wasn’t. Was it Hilary, was it Mandy, was it Mindy, was it Whitney, was it Lacey, was it Lauren, was it Diana; what the hell was it?
I kept at it like that, conning my memory; trying to figure out what the hell her name was—rubbing her leg—and then she leaned in, and started kissing me on the lips.
All the while as she was kissing me, I was trying to remember her goddamned name; I was straining my mind, digging deep in there, and no goddamned name ever fit. Between her kisses, I managed to ask her what her name was, but it didn’t seem she heard me. She was all over me, too into me to hear; and then that was when I woke up.
It was my mom knocking my goddamned door that had woke me up; I was kind of groggy when I first opened my eyes, sort of in a bad mood. I hated it when I was woke up like that, when I was having this nice dream. That girl had been hot, whatever the hell her name was; I wished I was still in the dream, kissing her, her all over me; me trying to remember what the hell her name was. But it was gone, and I heard my mom say, “Honey, are you awake?” through my door.
I told her I was; I also told her to get the hell away, because I wasn’t in the best mood, having been woke up. She listened, telling me that, “You need to get ready for work, honey,” as she left.
That was when the shit hit the goddamned fan, and splattered the hell all over me. My job, where I worked, hadn’t even hit my mind; it was as if it was gone, since I had been sleeping, and I was just waking up. But now—now it was all the way back, with a goddamned vengeance; I wished I didn’t have to worry about it. I realized then how much I hated that goddamned job; I realized it because I was feeling my primal feelings, since I had just woke up, and still wasn’t all the way awake. Goddamnit, was all I thought; goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamnit.
I got up off my bed, threw my pillow all the way across my room in frustration, and got the hell up. My computer screen stared back at me as I stood up; that poem I’d written stared back at me,

“Exploiting beauty/ If only flowers were good to see/ I would love to love my queen/ She’s so beautiful, but a bitch/ Ms. Bitch I see/ She’s got a man who she doesn’t need/ Mr. Burly, her king/ She’s just deceptive, you’ll see/ She’ll gut out your heart and carry it on a string/
Valentine, my valentine/ Love is too much of sex/ If only you weren’t set/ If only you weren’t spoiled/ So go ahead and wither away/ You’re a bitch, as they say/ Your foreplay is your words/ Your kiss is a funeral/ If only you could see/ The hearse is going by/ It’s Ms. Bitch in her coffin/ Getting buried in a tombstone/ Your epithet is frail/ Your beauty will pale/ You are damned/ Guilty of exploiting beauty to no avail/ I shall not pick a flower such as that/ Queen and King must fail/ Mr. Burly and Ms. Bitch will derail/ The end is neigh/ The end I see/ One year/ That’s all it’ll be.”

Reading that again made me smirk a bit; sort of cheered me up. Sure, the poem wasn’t perfect—I thought myself it started out pretty well, but towards the middle it lost its beat. I felt like deleting that half or so of it, and just leaving it up to the part where it says “She’ll gut out your heart and carry it on a string,” but I decided to leave it where it was; it was doing fine. I guessed I sort of liked the whole funeral thing, because that’s the way beauty is, really; it doesn’t last forever, and some people—like Ms. Bitch over here—don’t realize that; and when they lose that beauty, then they’re a waste of time, because they’re just bitches, not pretty bitches. Like I said, “I shall not pick a flower such as that,” and I damned well didn’t. Damned well didn’t

I also liked the “The end is neigh” part, it made me laugh, the way it was; it was great, was all. It made me feel better, reading that whole thing; especially that part.

Feeling better, I looked at the clock; it was 11 o’clock—I had to be to work in less than an hour, if I wanted to be on time; I decided I better get on my way.

Since my uniform had been all covered with meat grease, and other juicy knick-knacks, it turned out my mom had washed it for me; I found that out when I left my room, still in my boxers, and asked her. So I went in and got that from the dryer, put it on, put my cap on my head.

I went to the kitchen—sat down.

She already had a sandwich for me to eat ready to go; she came over with it, set it down on the table, the glass plate making a hollow ding as it went down. The sandwich was cut in half for me, had mayonnaise on it, turkey and ham; it was the way I liked it. I ate it in a hurry, knowing I needed to get going.

But of course, it was time for fifty questions from my mom—and goddamned if I was going to have it; I didn’t have the time, nor did I want to talk about it. She kept asking, “How was your first day at work?”; “Did you like it?”; “Was it hard?”; “Did you meet anyone nice?”; “What did you learn how to do?”; “Anything funny happen?; “Aren’t you happy you’ll finally have your own money?”; “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah?”

And that’s really all it was—just blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah, on and on—she never shut up, and I didn’t need it then; I was trying to keep in a good mood, so I could function as a human being. But no, she had to give me these tirade of questions. I sort of guessed I could understand it—understood why she was asking—but I cared less. As far as I was concerned, she didn’t need to know a goddamned thing about what happened at work. It really wasn’t too much of an exciting thing. So all I did was, I said “Mmmhmmm” and “Uh-huh” and “Yeah” and “Yes” and “OK” and any other filler comment I had in my arsenal as I ate the sandwich. Eventually, she caught on to it.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” is what she asked. “Don’t you love me?” She gave me this hurt face. Goddamnit, I thought; what the hell does loving have to do with me not wanting to answer this interrogation? I wanted to go off on her, but I held myself back, just like I did when Ms. Bitch was all over me. I exercised my control.

I simply said, “Look, mom, I just don’t want to talk about it”; “I’ve got to go back there soon, and it’s just the last thing I want to talk about.” All she did was, she looked at me, right in the face. It was a whatever-I’m-sick-of-caring-and-asking-so-fine-then face—she had finally gave up and took up her fate. The look on her face wasn’t too kind, but I took it. I acted like I was built, and took that; it wasn’t anything too bad. She finally left me the hell alone, after that; and thank god. It was the last thing I needed then—I had just gotten happy by reading that poem. I didn’t need it, I wanted to be happy.

I guess looking on it now, I was a jerk; but it’s the way I am—I hate telling people things that I hate to talk about. So I guess it’s just as well.

After I had my sandwich, I poured myself a big glass of milk—I chugged the thing down, felt it go down my throat, nice and cold—it felt good; then I went over and brushed my teeth, because my breath was wretched. Also because it’s what I do, to ease the stress.

When I was done with that, it was off to work. I went back out to my POS car, unlocked it with my key. The first thing I noticed, just as I was stepping in my car, was that it was a windy day; this tree beside my car, its branches were bending from it. That wind also blew my hair all over. I guessed it was a nice change from yesterday, when it had been warm as hell, not a goddamned cloud in the sky.

I also looked up at the sky, as I got in my car; it was nice and gray, nice and full of heavy color. I liked it. I hoped it would rain that day.

I got to work five minutes early, got out of my car, went on over to the grill place. Marc was there, looking just as grotesquely fat as the day before, and the day before that. Nick wasn’t there, though; instead, there was this girl.

She had sandy brown hair, these nice semi-circle cheeks, decent-sized breasts that heaved out from her work clothes; I also saw she had a nice tush, since that’s one of those things I really like on a woman. But as if you care about that. I guess it’s obvious though, that I was taken by her. She was pretty beautiful, I thought. I would’ve done her in a second, if I could’ve. Hell if that was going to happen, I thought, as I looked her over that first time.

We sat on down on these cheap plastic chairs; there was also a table to the chairs, just as cheap as hell as the chairs. They were for customers to sit on and eat. It was goddamned lawn furniture, for god’s sake. Marc had probably gotten them from the grocery store the grill place was beside.

She sat across from me, with her hat on her head, like me. I didn’t say anything to her, I was too goddamned shy; I didn’t even know if I wanted to say anything to her, anyway. Then I would find out what kind of personality she had. It was definitely an awkward moment, because she didn’t say anything; we just sat there—me eyeing her from the corner of my eye, acting as if I was watching the clouds up in the sky with the most earnest damned interest you’d ever see. She doing whatever the hell she was doing—I was guessing something of the same, probably with a lot less intent interest and attraction than I had.

The five minutes went slow as hell; but they went, eventually. It was time to get to work. I told myself I would be goddamned glad when it was over; today wasn’t my day. At all. But I supposed having this beautiful lady working beside me would help for sure.

I’m sure many men have said it before me, but I guess I’ll say it again—women are goddamned beautiful; to me, they are the only thing truly beautiful in this world—every time I see one, I can’t believe there could be something like that, here on this vapid, insipid place we call earth. But there is, and I’m goddamned glad for that, I suppose.

So it was off to work. I was still being trained, since I hadn’t mastered how to cook all the way; in fact, I found out she had a different way of cooking than Nick. I still liked Nick’s way better; Nick was just a great fellow, and I trusted him much more, and listened. With her, it was always a distraction—I would look at her, and that was all I would think about to escape that goddamned job I was at; she was my only absolution there, the only thing that kept me going that day.

One point during the day, I asked her what her name was; and she told me. I found out her name was Vivica. I told her, “I’ll just call you Viv, now, then.” It was then that she asked me what my name was.

I’ve never really cared for names, just like old Juliet said in Shakespeare’s play. I really could care goddamned less. So I said to her, “Well, you can go ahead and call me Wenton.” And of course, she asked me then what my real name was; I couldn’t tell her—it was just the way I am. My name didn’t matter. So I said to her, “My real name doesn’t matter, y’know; it’s just a slave name, it’s like a social security number, only it’s letters; it’s a social security with letters. I’d rather have a name that’s better than that, that’s my own. You get it?”

She sort of nodded her head slowly. “You’re weird,” is what she said, giving me this weird look; I wasn’t sure what was in the look—I hadn’t known her long enough. “You scare me, I think.” I didn’t say anything back—I thought that was great. If I had creeped someone out, then that was good for me. Plus, I had this feeling she was just playing hard to get; I had this feeling that she actually liked the fact that I freaked her out. Or maybe I was wrong, for all I knew; I didn’t really care. There were plenty of beautiful stunning women out there, I wasn’t going to worry about one when there were others; others who might like me better.

After a while longer of working—me learning her way of grilling, me handing up orders for old Marc—she said, “I’ll call you Went, then, if you’d like.” I pointed to my name tag I had pinned on my shirt.

“Went’s the name,” I said. With an entirely fake smile. Viv gave me another one of those looks of hers—I figured that look meant she was weirded out by my smile; and that was good enough for me.

When the day was finally over at 6 o’clock, I was damned happy to see it come; it had been the longest damned day for me. There had been plenty of being yelled at by Marc, plenty of talking small talk with Viv, plenty of asshole customers. It was all in a day’s work, I supposed.

I got in my car, drove off home, feeling tired and depressed again. I didn’t have work the next day, but I was just so goddamned sick of society, and the goddamned way it was; I wished then that I could change it.

At home, it was the same thing; my parents asked me again and again about work, and all I told them was it was fine, and that I was goddamned tired. Fine, it was all fine; they had nothing to worry about.

I sat down at my computer but nothing would come out; I was dry as hell, I couldn’t write anything. I wrote something that was shit entirely; something I swear was feces, and I deleted it; all of it. I sat there with my head on my desk, closed my eyes, feeling frustrated. Why the hell couldn’t I write something? It was the goddamned job, wasn’t it? It was stealing all my energy. Or was it something else? Why couldn’t I write something; I wanted to be a goddamned writer when I grew up. How the hell was I to do it when I couldn’t write when I needed to keep to my routine of writing so many hours a day? What the hell was wrong with me?

I turned off the computer’s monitor uselessly, and laid down in my bed, staring up into the darkness at my ceiling; I was thinking about things—thinking them over. I knew brooding over them like this did nothing.

I fell asleep eventually, lulled to the lullaby that I didn’t have to work tomorrow, and that I could go to my friend’s house, or something, or just anything—just anything to get the hell out of what I was in right now. I knew that would be enough to raise my spirits.

Eyes closed, the blackness ensued; the workings of the brain called dreams stirred on in, showing what cannot be.
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