Another One Bites the Dust by Hawkeye Pete Egan B.

Everything at the Eat’N’Park was going splendidly, as far as the job went. They liked my work ethic, and I was very conscientious, quickly becoming a good, dependable grill chef.

I worked a lot with Darrel and Cy. They always seemed to be in the middle of a new adventure at their school. One night, Cy showed up at work with a series of small scars, all in a diagonal line, that cut across his forehead, the bridge of his nose, and his left cheek. It looked equally hideous and hilarious, and rather painful. He was laughing as he relayed a wild tale about a riot they’d had that day at school.

A riot! We never had riots at my school! I couldn’t believe it! It was a race riot, and the scars came from a steel afro comb that a black girl had whacked across his face. The funny thing was, he told us, was that he knew the girl, and it had been an accident — they’d both laughed about it afterwards.

“It wasn’t really a serious riot — not like last year’s. It was just a little skirmish between a couple of hotheads that got a little out of hand. Some of us were there just trying to calm everyone down and break it up, then got a little banged up, ourselves. No serious injuries — besides this little battle scar! The great news is, they’re giving us tomorrow off! They want to give it a day for everyone to cool down. I’m going fishing!”

Of course, I decided to cut classes the next day — I wanted to go fishing, too! I’d gotten to be quite proficient at cutting classes. I’d become a bit of an expert forger of my parents’ signatures, so I always had notes to cover my absences. I was accumulating quite a few absences that year. I’m amazed that the school never contacted Mom or Dad. I pretty much flew under the radar, somehow.

However, on this particular day, I got totally busted — by Mom! As we were hitchhiking home from the lake that afternoon, after a great day of fishing, who drives right past us in Mt. Lebanon but Mom? I tried ducking behind Cy as she drove past, but I was pretty sure she saw me.

This was confirmed later when she asked me what I was doing in Mt. Lebanon, when I was supposed to be in school? There was no good excuse I could come up with, so I just sheepishly copped to the truth. Amazingly, she let it go, and just said I needed to start taking school a little more seriously. No lectures, no hand-wringing.

I figured by the time I came along, her 6th kid, she’d seen it all, and nothing I did seemed to surprise her. I would take that as a challenge, that I would eventually live up to!

I made a valiant effort to make some headway with the cute little car-hop at Eat’N’Park, Linda. I really liked her. We both wound up attending the same wedding, early that Spring. I had my own driver’s license by then, and had borrowed Mom’s Plymouth Valiant, where I had a six pack of beer chilling in a cooler in the back seat.

Linda seemed pretty upset about something, so I suggested we bag the reception and go out to my car, and have a few beers while she told me all about it. She liked that idea. She poured her heart out to me while I poured the beers. She was having a hard time with a boyfriend, and they were breaking up.

‘Wow, now that’s some good news’, I thought! But, I listened attentively as she talked, then she’d ask for another beer, and before I knew it, we were making out! I was in heaven — I couldn’t believe my good fortune! His loss, my gain. I really got excited with the thought that I might soon be dating this hot little number.

But then, the following week, reality brought me back to earth as she got back together with the boyfriend. What a bummer! I’d really thought we connected! But, at least I was finally beginning to lose my shyness with girls my own age. Admittedly, the beer helped with that, too. I found that it really loosened me up, and I became much more sociable and confident, with a couple of beers in me. Of course, it kind of worked the other way around, too. But, I was learning you couldn’t always rely on what a girl said after she’d had a couple of beers in her. I nursed my slightly broken heart with some more beers. All was well!

One night, Cy and I were on the grill together, and the assistant manager, Danny, was back in the office. Normally, if things got really busy, the assistant manager would come out and help us on the grill until the rush calmed down. Apparently, a basketball game had just let out, and it seemed like the whole school showed up all at once, all wanting Big Boy hamburgers, fries, steaks, fish — the place just went nuts, within about ten minutes.

Cy and I were doing everything we could to keep up with all the incoming orders, but we needed help. Cy called back to the office a couple of times, but Danny was on the phone with his girl friend, and kept ignoring us. Cy was getting increasingly pissed off at Danny as we kept falling farther and farther behind, and I was just getting more frantic, trying to stem the tide and get the orders out.

The Car Hops and the waitresses were all bitching at us, the customers were upset — it was all going crazy. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but we both agreed at one point — Danny needed to be taught a lesson. He should have been out there with us, but just kept on gabbing on the phone with his girlfriend. He didn’t care about us — we were getting creamed out there.

The grill was already half full with cooking burgers and steaks, the fryer’s were loaded with cooking french fries — we started throwing more steaks and burgers on the grill, more chicken into the fryer, until everything was completely filled, and cooking away — then, we both left the grill, walked back into the kitchen, took off our aprons, dropped them in the hamper, and walked out the back door. Danny was still in the office, talking on the phone.

We hopped into Cy’s car, and just took off. As we drove by the side of the restaurant, we could see in the front window, where Danny was then frantically trying to get all the burning burgers, steaks, chicken and fries off the grill — Cy tooted his horn, and we both waved and laughed as he looked over, shaking his fist at us. We both thought it was hilarious. We went out and got shit-faced drunk, and laughed it all off.

By the next day, I knew I had seriously blown it — again! Not only had I, once again, walked out of a perfectly good job for no good reason — this time, I had tarnished my brother’s name in the process. He had spent years building a good name for himself there, then he’d put his name on the line when he vouched for me with the manager, who was about as nice a man as there was. His girl friend still worked there.

I had just thrown it all away for something stupid like a clueless assistant manager. Doh! I don’t know how long it took Brian to forgive me for this one — but I’m sure it took much, much longer for him to forget what I’d done. I felt really bad about it — but, I still had to laugh at the thought of Danny trying to wrestle with that grill as we drove away. In my mind, it served him right. We’d shown him! But now, I was once again, out of work, and broke.

A disturbing pattern was quickly developing in my work history. I became even more determined to learn from this incredibly stupid mistake, and do better at my next job. I needed to learn to stop fighting other people’s fights for them, to not take on their beefs with management — I usually didn’t have any problems, personally, with management — I would just sympathize with someone else’s problems, and get caught up in their drama. I needed to stop doing that.

Originally published at cowbird.com.