Burger Wuss (10 page)

I nodded back.

Finally, I said, “Okay. What did she say? Can you tell me?”

“She said she was really sorry. I think she is. She said she —”

“Anthony!” said Mike, walking around the fryer. “Explanation as to why you are not at the register? Explanation about the shake mix? Which you were supposed to get? Hello, hello, Anthony!”

“Oh, man, Mike. I’m sorry. I’ll go right now and —”

“No, Anthony. Turner will send Rick to get the shake mix. Rick will work a register. You’re going to have a little talk with me.”

“Oh.”

“We’re going to have a little talk about team spirit. Would you come into the office?”

I went into the office.

“Anthony,” said Mike, “I’d ask you to take a seat, but this is a five by seven cubicle with only one chair.” Mike thought for a minute. He felt his mustache with his finger. He stopped feeling his mustache. “Anthony, we have a problem. We have a problem, don’t we?”

“No. No, sir.”

“Yes, Anthony. A problem is exactly what we are having. Let’s look at you for a second, Anthony. Let’s look at the person you are. You’re a person who can’t be relied on, because you won’t go back and get the shake mix. Instead of that mix, you start flirting.”

“I wasn’t flirt —”

“Tsh!” he hissed, holding his finger up to his lips. “Tsh! You’re a person whose uniform is wet. Who wants to see a wet uniform? People will think, ‘Look at that boy. I bet he wets the nuggets.’ You’re a person — here, look here — you’re the person who — look at this past week in the log book. Look at it, Anthony. We’re talking shortages. Major, major shortages in your drawer. Fifteen to twenty dollars almost every day. A few more days like this, and we’re going to have to let you go. Are
you bad at math? I mean, really, really bad? Or are you stealing? That’s something we have to establish.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “Mike,” I said, “I’m pretty good at math. I don’t understand. I’m pretty good at it.” I put my hand on my stomach.

“Think, Anthony. Maybe thinking will clarify the problem. For example: I can’t say I’m good at everything. I can’t ride a horse. I can’t shoot a rocket to the moon. We can’t be good at everything, Anthony, that’s what I’m saying. So think about it. Go home at the end of your shift today. Go upstairs to your room. Look in the mirror. Ask yourself: ‘Am I really, really bad at math?’ If the answer is yes, we’d better do something about it.”

“How did you know my room is upstairs?”

“See? You’re the kind of person who develops paranoia. Anthony, everyone’s room is upstairs.”

“Look, I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“That’s exactly the kind of lack of awareness I’m criticizing. You are not someone who takes stock of your surroundings. But you have to take stock. Taking stock is what it means to be part of a team. Part of a family. Part, specifically, of Team O’Dermott’s. Okay? Got it, Anthony? I don’t mean to be harsh. But I like to run a tight ship. I like everything to be spick-and-span. Clean as a whistle. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No: Is it understood?”

“It’s really understood, Mike. I’m really sorry about the shortages. I honestly don’t know where they’ve —”

“I’m sure you don’t, Anthony. But that’s not good enough. I’m going to be revising your schedule. You’re going to be coming in for the early morning shift. You’ll hear about it. Now go out there and move some product.”

I went out to the counters. A bus of senior citizens had just arrived. They kept Rick, Turner, and me busy for a while. We got them all coffees. A lot of them wanted fries or hamburgers, too. The whole time, I was thinking about how much I was screwing up. I felt like I was going crazy. All I wanted was Diana. Somehow I thought if I were kissing her again, and telling jokes, everything would be all right. I pictured us watching some comedy, some zany comedy, with our arms around each other on the sofa.

“Hey,” said Rick, shaking my arm. “You zoned.”

“Sorry,” I said. Now I was screwing up because I was standing around thinking about screwing up. There was no time to think. I struggled to get the lid on a coffee. The coffee spilled down the sides. It browned the gutter. It stung my fingers. I took a napkin and daubed the cup. I took the cup to the register. I counted the change exactly. I didn’t make any mistakes.

The next person wanted a Big O Meal. After that, a hamburger Happy Lunch. After that, a cheeseburger. After that, a Big O Meal, a Chicken Special Meal, and a medium fries. After that, four iced teas.

The lines went back, and back, and back. More people kept coming in. Young and old. They yelled to each other. They gave each other the high-five. They cried in highchairs. They argued about directions. They
didn’t know what they wanted. Some of them were in families. Some of them were alone. The lines kept growing. I ran for the drinks. I got them fries.

They waved their arms. They tapped their fingers. Their mouths were always open.

Early in the morning. Turner and me leaning on the counter; both of us staring out at the fog. A kid I didn’t know working grill, singing, “Michael, row the boat ashore. Allelujah.” Outside O’Dermott’s, no motion, just gray. A few truckers had come and gone. That was all.

“So tell me,” said Turner.

“Mm-hm?”

He asked, “Distance equals rate times time, yeah?”

We could see our faces reflected in the glass.

“Yeah,” I said.

Turner shifted his elbows on the counter. The unsteady voice came from the back: “Sister, trim the flapping sail. Allelujah.” Through the fog, we could see the outline of a tree. The play area was almost invisible.

“My, uh, grandfather was from around here,” said Turner.

“Oh yeah?”

“Farthest he ever went was, I don’t know, Boston.”

I picked up a cloth and wiped down my register. Turner kept staring out the window. He was whispering to himself and pointing at the air. I stuffed the rag back in the space between the counter and the register.

“So this trucker comes in and orders like two hash browns,” said Turner, in a voice of awe. “Gets back on the interstate and takes off at like what, sixty-five miles an hour? Eats the hash browns. Shits ’em out what, like six hours later?”

“Eh. Our hash browns are pretty lubricated.”

“Five hours, okay, five hours. Some truck stop, guy shits ’em out. Distance equals rate times time. That puts him layin’ the cable three hundred and twenty-five miles away. Somewhere across the state border. See what I mean?”

I thought about it for a minute. “No,” I said.

With something like a gentle sadness, Turner said, “Man, what I’m saying is the hash browns I serve go farther than my grandpa ever did.”

Rain had been falling for two days. The woods were wet. They smelled like moss. The green was deep and dark.

In the ruined house, there were many leaks. Water tapped on the old, faded beer cans. It sounded like someone creeping up the stairs. Strange stains were spreading in the rumpus room.

I couldn’t do it.
I had the hacksaw in my hand, but it was resting on the floor. I slumped against the wall, one leg out straight in front of me. I stared at the condiment troll. The condiment troll was smiling. It was hopeless. I couldn’t do it.

I was supposed to saw off a finger or horn. Then I was supposed to send it to Burger Queen. That would make them sit up and notice.

I looked up at his big, goofy face. He was looming over me. He looked a little menacing. He looked pathetic. I couldn’t do that to something in human form. There was just no way.

“You are fiberglass,” I said. “You’re just a shape made out of fiberglass. You could be in a different shape.” I tried to think of the condiment troll as being just a condiment stand, not shaped like a person or any particular mythical being.

But he was smiling at me. I tapped the tip of the hacksaw three times against the floor. The rain pattered out in the woods. It fell through the leaves.

There was no way I could cut the troll. I could almost hear him scream.

Fiberglass,
I told myself.
Fiberglass!

It didn’t do any good. He had wide eyes. If you were sawing him, they would look wide with pain.

I no longer wanted to get revenge. I was falling apart. For a while, I’d been enjoying myself playing the evil avenger. I guess I’d enjoyed it too much. So much, I’d stopped feeling angry. It all seemed like a joke, now. Especially since Turner had turned down his jerk volume.

It wasn’t even funny anymore. That’s what I realized. I was getting bored with it. I didn’t feel as angry, and it was no good pretending I did. I just felt depressed about the whole thing. I sat in the ruined house, and felt depressed.

I have got to get a grip on myself,
I thought.
There has got to be more time spent doing my job right, less time spent mutilating trolls.

Sitting in a ruined house with a hacksaw suddenly didn’t seem very entertaining. It didn’t seem like a good way to get things done.

I decided to abandon the Plan for the moment. Take a few days off from being an insane genius. Calm myself down. See what I really wanted to do.

I braced myself against the wall and stood up. The troll was already standing. “Okay,” I said. “You’re off the hook.” I patted him on the head. “Fiberglass,” I muttered.

I tromped down the hall. I left the troll behind me. I turned back to look at him. I still couldn’t tell whether he was happy, hungry, or hysterical. I went down the stairs. They shook with my weight.

Outside, the air smelled musty. It was a little chilly. The rain had picked up again. I tried to cover my father’s hacksaw with my sweater to stop rust. I think rust can creep when you least expect it. I walked back along the path. Thunder started in the distance. Warm summer thunder. Water dripped off branches. Leaves that brushed my face were cool, and licked my forehead. My clothes stuck to me. The rain had made them wet. Somehow, it felt like the bath I needed.

No more Mr. Nasty,
I thought.
That’s it. I’m through.
Having said that, having made that decision, I felt a sudden lightness. I laughed out loud. I almost did a dance. I half-spun. I threw my arms out wide. I ran into a birch.
It shivered and dropped water.
Fine,
I thought. I shook myself. I was soaked.

“Whoops, that one got you!” said a man’s voice. I looked up. There were a young man and a young woman in rain slickers, going for a walk in the forest arm-in-arm. We all laughed.

“You’re soaked!” she said.

“Yup.” I grinned. “I sure am.” My hair was plastered to my head. I started to dry the hacksaw with the sweater. “Even my hacksaw!” I rubbed it vigorously. Lightning cracked above me. I looked up. They were looking at me funny and moving backward. “Oh,” I said, pointing toward the hacksaw. They started running. “This?” I said. They were running even faster.

I ran after them, trying to explain. “No, this is just . . . hey, wait up!” They ran faster than me. After a while, I was just enjoying leaping over branches and shrubs. My clothes clung to my body, and the air blew through them. I felt naked and free. When I got back to my parents’ car, I was laughing, but shivering with cold.

On the way home, I listened to pop on WBST, the Boost. The rain on the roof sounded happy to be there.

One day that week, while I was watching the tropical fish on television, she called.

“Anthony?” said my mother. “Diana’s on the phone.”

“Okay,” I said. I was suddenly nervous. There was a lot riding on every conversation with her.

My mother came in with the phone, talking and smiling. “So how have you been?” she asked Diana.

Diana answered.

My mother said, “I know, we haven’t seen you for ages. Now don’t be a stranger!”

Diana answered.

“Okay, here’s Anthony. I know he’s been dying to talk to you. Bye!”

She handed me the phone. She leaned on the door frame, smiling and watching me. I was trapped. Try to go to my room and I’d hear nothing but static. I put the phone to my ear.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, Anthony.”

There was a long awkward pause. On the television, a voice coming out of a big weed said, “The tautog darts for its mollusk prey, but cannot dislodge it. The tautog will have to feast elsewhere today.”

“Let me turn down the volume,” I said. I picked up the remote control. I muted the television.

There was another long awkward pause. Now there was nothing to hide the silence.

Finally, Diana said, “How are you doing?”

I looked at my mother. “Great!” I said.

“Look, Anthony: I just talked to Jenn. She told me you aren’t ‘great.’ I am really sorry about all this.”

My father’s voice came from the other room. “Invite her to dinner for tomorrow night. She can have chops, too!”

“Yes!” my mother whispered. “Dinner!”

I didn’t know what to say, with everyone watching me
and listening to me. I tried, “I’m watching a show about tropical fish.”

“Anthony, I was serious. It’s important to me that we really do be friends.”

“Yes,” I said warmly. “To me, too.”

“But when I say ‘friends,’ I mean only friends. I really apologize for that night with Turner. That was really stupid of me.
Really
stupid. But at the same time, it like showed me a lot of things.”

I asked, “What were the things?”

“I can’t talk about the things right now.”

“If it’s just Turner, I forgive you in like a minute. A split second.” My mother heard my tone. She heard the word
forgive.
She was starting to get a concerned look on her face.

“Has he asked her to dinner yet?” called my father.

I asked, “Was it the Turner thing?”

“It’s not the Turner thing. That Turner thing was just a symptom of the other things. Do we have to talk about this right now?”

“I need to understand.”

“Are you really trying to understand?”

“I need you to tell me.”

“Anthony, it’s just — look, I don’t know how to say this. It’s just —”

Mrs. Gravitz from next door said, “I cannot remain silent any longer. Little miss, you should be ashamed of yourself. Can’t you see you are breaking this boy’s heart?”