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Authors: Quinton Skinner
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this trash. It smells like mercury.”
“No one’s going to get sick,” Phil pronounced, as though he willed it to be so. “Just make sure it’s cooked all the way through.”
“I know how to cook a fucking fish,” Fowler said. “I’m just saying it smells like a garbage barge.”
Phil threw up his hands. “Then prove it, Great One. Cook the fucking fish.”
“All he does is bitch,” said Jorge. “It’s making me insane.”
Jay had worked her share of crap jobs—clerking in a mall music store, scooping ice cream, ringing up orders in a fast-food joint—all through high school. Since leaving college she’d become a waitress. In her excursions into the service sector, she had come to sort her co-workers into two categories: those who belonged at their level of employment, and those who didn’t. Fowler was firmly in the former category—he cooked food, and would presumably do so as long as he was able. Jorge was among the latter—he was unskilled, his English wasn’t great, but he had a presence that belied the fact of his menial job. He was probably consigned permanently to such tasks, but there was a
Jorgeness
about him untouched by soap suds, cutting boards, and any future trash cans that would need to be emptied. Phil occupied a special place—he was one of the former who believed himself to be among the latter. He managed the day shift at a small restaurant in south Minneapolis. Within a few years he would have lived more than half his days.
The question, naturally: Of which type was Jay? The youthful-promise thing had worked fine so far. She could schlep pasta and uncork Chianti while polishing the gem of her yet-unlined face and destiny, which surely was to
get it together
and become a viable
adult
with a good job and a household in which Ramona could become one of those self-possessed little genius children rather than a life-scarred ragamuffin.
Right?
She wasn’t going to be waiting tables in ten years, was she?
Jay liked the first part of any shift best. The dining room looked fresh with its undersized tables, rough floor, and austere lighting. Later the room would seem tawdry and worn out, when she felt the same, and Jay would inevitably wonder when this unadorned decorating thing would go out of style—because, honestly, wasn’t rough and raw the same as
ugly,
and when had it become déclassé to want to sit in a comfortable chair or have art on the wall that
represented
something, or to play music with heart and emotion rather than merely a detached manipulation of . . .
Whoa.
That sounded exactly like Lewis.
She wore a path between the dining room and the kitchen, bringing forth garnished sandwiches, dressed-up hamburgers, and complicated salads. She got hungry and Fowler made her some scrambled eggs, which she ate standing up.
Not a day passed without Jay pondering her decision to quit college. It was a lot of work, college, despite all the good-times propaganda, but she would have been a graduate by now instead of chewing eggs in a drafty kitchen.
“Good eggs?” Fowler asked, looking up from a Mephistophelean fire that was making his forehead sweat.
“The best,” said Jay.
“People put too much spice in ’em,” Fowler said. “Fucks them up. Eggs taste good. They don’t need help.”
With the benefit of a few years’ experience in the world, Jay understood that her choice of a history major might have been quixotic. If she didn’t complete grad school, her degree would have guaranteed prospects little more appetizing than teaching school or, maybe, writing for some
organization.
She still had the option of returning to school to earn some kind of practical degree—business, or communications. But what then? Work for a corporation? Lewis had done that for decades, and made plenty of money, but he never claimed to like it. The Lewis that Jay saw going off to work Mondays barely resembled the laughing, subversive father of Saturday morning. He turned buttoned-up,
“No one’s going to get sick,” Phil pronounced, as though he willed it to be so. “Just make sure it’s cooked all the way through.”
“I know how to cook a fucking fish,” Fowler said. “I’m just saying it smells like a garbage barge.”
Phil threw up his hands. “Then prove it, Great One. Cook the fucking fish.”
“All he does is bitch,” said Jorge. “It’s making me insane.”
Jay had worked her share of crap jobs—clerking in a mall music store, scooping ice cream, ringing up orders in a fast-food joint—all through high school. Since leaving college she’d become a waitress. In her excursions into the service sector, she had come to sort her co-workers into two categories: those who belonged at their level of employment, and those who didn’t. Fowler was firmly in the former category—he cooked food, and would presumably do so as long as he was able. Jorge was among the latter—he was unskilled, his English wasn’t great, but he had a presence that belied the fact of his menial job. He was probably consigned permanently to such tasks, but there was a
Jorgeness
about him untouched by soap suds, cutting boards, and any future trash cans that would need to be emptied. Phil occupied a special place—he was one of the former who believed himself to be among the latter. He managed the day shift at a small restaurant in south Minneapolis. Within a few years he would have lived more than half his days.
The question, naturally: Of which type was Jay? The youthful-promise thing had worked fine so far. She could schlep pasta and uncork Chianti while polishing the gem of her yet-unlined face and destiny, which surely was to
get it together
and become a viable
adult
with a good job and a household in which Ramona could become one of those self-possessed little genius children rather than a life-scarred ragamuffin.
Right?
She wasn’t going to be waiting tables in ten years, was she?
Jay liked the first part of any shift best. The dining room looked fresh with its undersized tables, rough floor, and austere lighting. Later the room would seem tawdry and worn out, when she felt the same, and Jay would inevitably wonder when this unadorned decorating thing would go out of style—because, honestly, wasn’t rough and raw the same as
ugly,
and when had it become déclassé to want to sit in a comfortable chair or have art on the wall that
represented
something, or to play music with heart and emotion rather than merely a detached manipulation of . . .
Whoa.
That sounded exactly like Lewis.
She wore a path between the dining room and the kitchen, bringing forth garnished sandwiches, dressed-up hamburgers, and complicated salads. She got hungry and Fowler made her some scrambled eggs, which she ate standing up.
Not a day passed without Jay pondering her decision to quit college. It was a lot of work, college, despite all the good-times propaganda, but she would have been a graduate by now instead of chewing eggs in a drafty kitchen.
“Good eggs?” Fowler asked, looking up from a Mephistophelean fire that was making his forehead sweat.
“The best,” said Jay.
“People put too much spice in ’em,” Fowler said. “Fucks them up. Eggs taste good. They don’t need help.”
With the benefit of a few years’ experience in the world, Jay understood that her choice of a history major might have been quixotic. If she didn’t complete grad school, her degree would have guaranteed prospects little more appetizing than teaching school or, maybe, writing for some
organization.
She still had the option of returning to school to earn some kind of practical degree—business, or communications. But what then? Work for a corporation? Lewis had done that for decades, and made plenty of money, but he never claimed to like it. The Lewis that Jay saw going off to work Mondays barely resembled the laughing, subversive father of Saturday morning. He turned buttoned-up,
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