Read Between the Lines (9 page)

Breathe.

Sometimes, on the weekends when the brats are off with their friends, I see the mom carrying stuff from her car into the house. Once she left the front door open, and I saw inside the front hall. It was filled with boxes and trash bags all the way to the ceiling. When she caught me looking, she slammed the door like
I
was the weirdo.

Count backward. Ten
. Breathe.
Nine.
Breathe.
Eight.
Breathe.
Seven.
Breathe.
Six.
Breathe.
Five.
Breathe.
Four.
Breathe.
Three.
Breathe.
Two.
Breathe.
One.
Breathe.

At approximately 7:55, I get out of my car. I hold my breath, knowing what’s coming. When I can’t hold it any longer, I relent and try not to gag on the greasy restaurant smell waiting to violate my lungs. I fight the urge to puke.

I press the lock button on my key chain. The car chirps good-bye. I admire the shine my dad and I gave it the night before.

Be back soon
, I say in my head.

I’ll be right here
, it replies reassuringly.

I say the chant inside my head with every step toward hell. There are thirty-two.

It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s temporary.

At approximately 7:59, I get my time card and slide it in the slot.

Punch.

Clocked in.

I hear Mr. Weidenheff’s voice:

You’ll never amount to anything.

And wish I could remove myself from the situation.

I put on the finishing touches of my uniform. My name tag. Gold. Because I’m the manager. My hat. Black. Like everyone else’s. My earpiece. A contraption I use to boss everyone around.

No one will greet me as they file up to get their cards and punch in. I’m not a good coworker. I’m orderly. I like to run a clean ship. I don’t put up with lazy asses, ex-cons, old people who don’t have the energy for this job but don’t have enough money to retire, teen moms, or stoners.

Unfortunately, these are the most common types of people attracted to this job. Then there’s me. There’s a reason I got promoted to manager in less than six months. Mainly it’s because most people quit within two.

At approximately 8:02, I check the schedule and make a note of who I’ll be supervising at the counter. Alice, Kristen, and Jeff.

Alice is like seventy-two years old and needs retraining every day because she forgets everything she learned the day before. I should have recommended that we fire her by now, but she makes me cookies sometimes and I like that.

Kristen is young. Pretty cute. Nice hair. Dropped out of school last year because she got pregnant. We went to the same school, but I don’t remember her. Her crowd didn’t go near my crowd. Now she works here to support her kid. I’m guessing that kid doesn’t eat well.

Jeff falls under the stoner category. I don’t like his attitude. He thinks everything is funny. He doesn’t care when I yell at him. Or tell him he’s working too slowly. Too sloppily. Too inefficiently.

You’re so intense, man.

That’s true. I am intense.

At approximately 8:06, we deal with the breakfast rush and the smell of egg and chicken. Hell is hot and smells like chicken eggs and chicken meat because some crazy bastards eat chicken on a biscuit for breakfast. These people are on the list of people I fantasize about pushing over a cliff.

Now it’s 10:37.

Everything has gone as previously described. No surprise.

I expect the rest of the day to go just as predictably as it does every day. The breakfast smells have started to fade as the cooks in the back start to prep for lunch. It still smells like chicken in grease. But now there’s beef in grease mixed in. If it weren’t for the French fries helping to lessen the stench, I don’t think I would survive. Alice carefully wipes the counters while Kristen follows with a dry cloth. Jeff wanders aimlessly, trying to look busy. I check supplies throughout.

Napkins. Check.

Straws. Check.

Ketchup and other condiments. Check.

Still hate my job. Check.

11:05.

The lunch crowd starts to flow in. It’s quiet at first, with mostly old people who eat early. But by noon there will be a line, and I will have to make sure everything stays orderly. I especially have to make sure that Alice doesn’t waste time chatting up all her old friends. Everyone seems to love her, and they have no problem telling her how sad it is to see her behind the counter. They don’t care how that might make everyone on this side of the counter feel.

Sometimes I imagine myself saying something to the old man who clearly has a thing for Alice, though sometimes I see him checking out Kristen. The dirty bastard. He’s always telling Alice how hard it is to see her working. I want to tell him how sad it is to see him eating lunch at a freakin’ Little Cindy’s every goddamned day. Doesn’t he get how sad
that
is?

No.

Probably not.

At least he’s still on the right side of the counter.

12:05.

Things are in full swing. I bark orders at everyone and march around behind the counter, helping the cashiers put the right food on the right trays. Every seven minutes I swivel around and go back to the kitchen to yell at Simon, the burger guy, to keep the burgers flipping. He’s friends with Jeff. He dances in place as he stares at the grill. God. What is it with stoners? They’re always so goddamned happy.

“Simon!” I yell, just to harsh his mellow.

Sometimes, I admit, I can be a bastard, too.

He looks up and shakes his head, then goes back to flipping. I would fire him, but I haven’t had any applications in two weeks. At least not any that are worth considering.

Every so often I go out to the dining area to make sure there aren’t any spills I missed or trash on the floor. I use this as an excuse to check on my car through the window. It’s an electric-blue 1988 Ford Mustang convertible that my dad helped me buy. When it came in at the dealership, he knew it was the perfect car for us to fix up together. A classic. I spend about as many hours working on that car as I do at this place. I know that sounds pathetic. It is. But that’s what happens when you barely graduate from a crap school and have zero interest in college and are destined to amount to nothing.

When my dad and I get home from work, we buff the car. We rake or mow the lawn, depending on what the yard needs. We clean the house. We both like order. Unlike our goddamned next-door neighbors, the slobs. I bet they don’t even own a lawn mower. I offered to mow their place for them, cheap, but they said no. Or, I should say, the freaky mom said no. I wanted to tell her that maybe her two kids should get off their asses and do some work around the house like I do. But I just smiled in an obnoxious way to make her feel bad.

I really can be a bastard sometimes.

But that damn house drives me crazy.

They
drive me crazy.

If it weren’t for the girl giving me the occasional strut, I’d be tempted to set the place on fire.

She’s a cheerleader. Did I mention that? She has long dark hair. An amazing body. She knows it, too. Just like Marcie. She shakes her ass extra hard when she sees me outside. She likes it when I watch. Marcie did, too. I could see it made her feel powerful. But I wasn’t allowed to get too close. I wasn’t good enough for anything more than watching from a safe distance.

I hate teases.

But I still watch.

Whenever her brother catches me, I can tell he’s going nuts, which I love. Skinny little turd wouldn’t dream of coming after me except in his fantasies. He knows this. I know it. She knows it. It’s a game we play.

12:20.

I am back to pacing behind the counter. Bored. But then a nice surprise. The little turd from next door comes in with all his turd friends. Most people from the high school use the drive-thru. They don’t have time to eat inside during lunch period. I wait for him and gesture for Kristen to step aside. I got this.

He looks at me. I look at him. I can tell he’s nervous. He took a paver from our driveway just to be an asshole, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to scare the crap out of him ever since. Why take a brick from someone’s driveway? Don’t they have enough crap in that house? Is that what they do? Go around taking things from everyone in the neighborhood? Or is it just us?

My dad already replaced it. But I know what this little punk tried to do. Trying to piss me off like our neat yard is just a joke to him. He thinks he’s so funny. Well, I can take something from him, too. I smile, take his money, and tell him the last thing he wants to hear. About me and his slutty tease sister. It’s not clear from his expression if he really believes me, but it doesn’t matter.

Mission accomplished.

Prick.

2:00.

The lunch rush has died down, and I get to take my break. I get thirty minutes. I savor it.

Soon the assholes from the high school will show up again like they own the place. They’ll look at me and not look at me. They’ll see some schmuck. That’s all. Not a particular one. Just one of
those
guys. One of those losers who didn’t go to college. Didn’t get a real job. Didn’t get a life. They’ll wonder if I ever even graduated. I flex my biceps and wonder what it would feel like to hurt them.

It’s temporary.

In two years, I’ll be twenty-one, and I’ll quit this job faster than . . . I don’t know. Just fast. Faster than my Mustang at zero to sixty. I’ll go work with my dad and earn commissions, and we’ll shoot to the top of the sales board. Unstoppable. I’ll buy my own place. And people like Marcie and that slutty little tease neighbor will
wish
I’d do more than check them out.

Maybe my mother will find out about us and maybe she’ll regret leaving. Too bad for her. It will be way too late to come crawling back.

I take my breaks outside. I bring my own lunch. No way am I going to eat this stuff and gain a thousand pounds like that guy who ate at McDonald’s every day and made a movie about it and almost died. It’s bad enough I have tons of acne from sneaking the occasional fry.

No.

I sit at one of the picnic tables near my car.

Hi
, I say to it inside my head.

Hey, dude
, it says back.

I would sit
in
my car, but my work clothes smell like fried meat and I don’t want my car to smell like that. Instead, I look out beyond the parking lot and pretend I’m a customer. Pretend I’m here from my real job, on lunch break. I eat a turkey sandwich and drink a protein shake.

Slowly.

I might know the number of bites it takes to finish the sandwich.
Nineteen.

I might know how many swallows it takes to finish my protein shake.
Twenty-one.

I might know how many pieces of orange peel I have to break off before I finish peeling.
Six.

2:27.

I wipe my mouth with a napkin and throw my trash away. I take slow breaths as I walk back to hell.

Five hundred eighty-four work days to go.

2:31.

I watch suspiciously from behind the counter while the high-schoolers file inside and get in line. They do not respect the rules. They snap gum that I will find later pressed under a chair or table. They push each other. They grope each other. They drop trash on the floor.

I hate them all.

I was never like them in school. I didn’t get to hang out with my friends. We didn’t go anywhere after school together. We had jobs after school. We worked our asses off at crap jobs like this. Got made fun of by assholes like them. Survived. Barely graduated high school. Got slightly less crap jobs. Tried to forget the Marcies and the rest of the people who only let us watch. Drool. Wish we were them. But never let us get too close.

We were outsiders, waiting to become invisible.

Waiting to amount to nothing.

I cross my arms at my chest and flex my muscles again. I like looking threatening. I like looking tough. I realize my cobalt-blue shirt and stiff black baseball cap don’t exactly help, but the muscles cancel them out. That’s what I pretend.

I go to the gym every day after work. It helps me release my aggression. It also helps me get buff. And I am. I know I said that already. But it’s important to me. It’s important to me to know with confidence that I could beat the crap out of any one of these privileged jerks.

I stand behind Alice as she takes an order. I make her nervous. Her fingers shake above the keypad. She turns to me and makes an innocent, helpless gesture. What does she want
me
to do?

Kristen moves much more quickly and efficiently. Her fingers dance over the keyboard she’s already memorized. She’s smart. She shouldn’t be here. She should be on the other side of the counter hanging out with her friends, poor fool. Instead she let herself get knocked up, and now she’s one of us.