Dishwasher

The door opens. A waitress throws a load of dirty dishes into a tub and walks out. The crowd peeks in. I’ve become quite the thing to look at.

“Look at them Marty,” I told the simple man next to me.

“Yeah, they like to look.” He didn’t bother looking.

Marty is blessed with stupidity. He has no children and lives with his mother. Marty is thirty-two, not an artist, not a felon, just a simple man who enjoys smoking meth and jacking off to internet pornography. Marty is frightened of me and I’m perfectly fine with it. He scrubs harder and I stack the dishes.

I grab a stack of dishes and walk out front. People I’d known years ago who decided to stay here watch. They’d won some strange little victory. “Look at him now. Fucking Dishwasher. How was L.A?”

There are no dead nights, the owner set it right next to a hotel for oilfield workers. They could drink, eat steak and shrimp, hit on the local hoodrats who want a blue-collar man to knock them up and pay their bills.

They sported jumpsuits and smelled like grease. They wore that stench like a status symbol. Not that it mattered. The second they were gone for a week their women were with someone else. Typically a local soundcloud rapper whose video on youtube has 1000 views.

A familiar face stopped me.

“Hey, man” said the face from its stool.

“Yeah? Need something?”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember me.” Something at his pathetic look made me remember him.

“Oh hey, how are you doing man?” I offered my hand. He refused it.

“It’s good to see you’re still standing.”

“What?”

“No, it’s just good you’re working here and still standing tall.”

He gave me his back and went back to his overpriced beer.

My failure justifies his existence. All of theirs. I place the plates and walk back. Their eyes were daggers now, not stabbing…cutting. There was a tub full of new filth to scrub.

At 11:55 I run to the nearest store and grab a six-pack of tall boys. The line in front of me meant that the cashier would end up refusing. 12:05 I put my booze on the counter. The pudgy middle-aged cashier gave me a haughty expression. Vainglory at it’s finest.

“I can’t sell this to you.”

“I was in line well before the cut off time.” I don’t want a fight, I just want a drink.

“I’m sorry,” She tried to grab the booze from me. I shook my head. “I’ll put it back.”

I took my six-pack and placed it back. There is a moment of clarity.
Who was this bitch to tell me I couldn’t get my reprieve? She’d been the reason I was late anyway. Chatting up every other fucking mundane before me.

I placed my sick pack back on the rack with a venom in my soul and a craving for mischief. I grabbed a case from the bottom rack and heard a scream. She moved her bulk to block the front exit. I ran toward the back exit that was wide open.

Cashiers aren’t supposed to get involved in a beer run. It’s in their training. I used to be one myself. They are just supposed to call the cops and get a description. This bitch just wanted something to post on Facebook later, probably about how scared she was and how crazy I was.

“Margret! The back!” She screamed

I never saw Margret. Slammed through the back door. There was only one place to go. I ran right back to work.

Everyone was just getting out. I saw a car and screamed, “David!”

He looked up paranoid. David was pretty used to getting jumped. At least when people found out his little secret.

“Hey!” he rolled down his window and I could hear his power locks releasing.

“Thanks for stopping man, my ride ditched me tonight.”

“Hey, no problem man, where you headed to?”

“Subdivision”

“Alright man”

I lived miles out of the way but he didn’t bitch. Just put his Suburban into drive and took off. I caught sight of the cashier, outside crying on a cell phone.

“Gonna get drunk tonight?” he asked as I lit a cigarette, my window rolling down in response.

“Yeah,” I grabbed a can out of the pack. I glanced back to see the back seat littered with children’s toys.

“Shit you got kids Dave?”

“Yeah got three.”

“Fuck…Married?”

“Yessir three years now”

Dave was currently on probation for owning child pornography. Well not owning, jerking off to it would be a better way to explain what he did. In our conversation, he went on about how he couldn’t go to the park and his kids were scared. How he couldn’t attend school functions. I’d finally asked how old the victim was. “What was she like sixteen or some shit like that” he shook his head and replied with some generic “we’ve all got our skeletons” adage. I didn’t bother pressing the subject.

I listened to his Christian Radio station with the pastor going on about redemption and inner peace

“You like this stuff huh?” I asked him tossing my empty out the window and cracking another one. There weren’t any cops around, I live in the sticks.

“Yeah man you should listen to him, he says good stuff.”

Every sinner with a bible assumes they are a saint. I heard the radio but didn’t bother listening. Every nod, every acknowledgment, every fucking AMEN that Dave gave just put me on edge. It couldn’t be that easy for him right?

He dropped me off a quarter mile from my place. I walked through the ankle-deep mud back to my little hovel.

I walked into my room turned off the lights laid there and drank in the dark contemplating. Looked up Dave’s name and the website said the victims’ age was under five. I passed out when the light began to show through the window.

The slam of the dishes seemed louder today. The door swung open people looked in, I looked back.

“I need a cigarette.”

“Okay,” Marty replied eyeing the load that was in the tub. We were a team, he would have to pick up the slack, then again I did the same thing every night that he decided to pick up extra work from the front staff so he could get enough for a fix. I’d be left with the worst part of the night and he’d be making tax free money.

I walked outside lit up and got about half a drag into it when the back door opened. The entire kitchen staff came out including Marty. They all sat in chairs or stood, in a small circle. A glass pipe was pulled out and the religious passing of the shit began. I was never a big fan of pot, stayed in the system for too long. I get fired far too often to risk failing a drug test. I watched them all converse about better lives and getting out of this place.

They are kept here and paid what they are paid because the higher-ups know they can’t go anywhere else. The debauchery continued because the slaves would assume they were getting away with something. Yeah, fuck over the boss for an hour while the boss fucks you over for life.

I waited until they finished and faked a phone call.

“I’ll be right in man,” I told Marty as he stumbled back inside looking relaxed and happy.

Inside the dishes were piled high. Marty scrubbing away. Laughter and joy from the other side. The dingy burning blue water. I walked to the sink. I must have given off a different scent or the pot must have made him paranoid.

“You alright?” he asked stopping his scrubbing to give me his full attention

“No.” I placed a dish back in the tub.

“What’s up?”

“I quit.”

“What?” His eyes widened and the kitchen silenced.

“Really man?” Dave said flipping his burgers.

“Yeah man. I’m done.”

“C’mon man you’re gonna leave right now?” Marty looked at the pile of filth.

“Watch me.”

I ripped off the hairnet, took off the apron and went to the bar.

“Employees aren’t allowed at the bar.”

“A beer please.”

“What you quit or what?”

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

I was free. She brought my overpriced booze and I gave her a card with a zero balance on it. They never bothered checking beforehand. I watched the local trash. The price they paid, stupidity, banality, and the most boring topics of conversation.

I ordered a scotch and people hissed as I drank. Their pallets were for beer, not a real drink. Go figure a dishwasher had more class than all of em.

“I’m gonna step outside for a cigarette.”

“I’m gonna run your card then,” she said

“Go ahead.”

I’m out the door by the time she finds out I’m broke. That place had taken enough from me. She could keep the card.