Losing in Gainesville (9781940430331) (7 page)

“You did the right thing, Brooks,” Jeremy says. “Go finish the rest of the tables.”

Brooks grunts an affirmation, swivels a 180 to the unbussed tables. “So, Stevie wants a dishwashing job?” Dale Doar, Director of Partytyme Pizzatyme Anytyme Affairs for Grandfather's Olde Tyme Good Tyme Pizza Parlour, says, removing the yellow, red-lettered regulation work cap (the Employee Manual calls it a “party chapeau”) and running a hand through receding brown hair he used to comb back into a pony tail. He steps away from the counter, laughs his just-had-his-first-post-work-hit-off-the-one-hitter
heh heh heh
. “I'll let you handle this one,” he says to Jeremy while walking to the kitchen, to the back door. “Just give him an interview while he's eating. Make up whatever excuse you need to.”

Jeremy stands behind the counter holding the application, in this all-too-familiar perspective of the gold peppermint candy dish and the red plastic “take a penny/leave a penny” tray next to the register, the Elton John/Kiki Dee duet “Don't Go Breakin' My Heart” that the adult contemporary station feels necessary to share with North-Central Florida at least five times a day coming over the paneled ceiling's speakers, the red and white checkerboard-topped tables in the middle, the red vinyl booths—ducttape covering the tears and containing the inner foam—lined along either side of the room, the walls, like everything here, the colors of pepperoni and extra cheese, Polaroids of kids celebrating their birthdays with candles in pizza slices pinned in rows of twenty above friendly posters of “Grandfather Fredo,” the jolly cartoon mascot for all three hundred and seventeen Grandfather's Olde Tyme Goode Tyme Pizza Parlour locations, offering litigious-proof advice like “MAMA MIA! BE CAREFUL EVERYBODY! THAT PIZZA! SHE GETSA SO HOT WHEN OUTTA THE OVEN IT COULDA BURN YOUR FACE OR THE ROOFA OF YOUR MOUTHA! OOF MADON!” while spinning flattened circular pizza dough on his index finger like a basketball. The placemats offer the sole nod to the Old Country—between mazes challenging children to “Help Grandfather Fredo ride his gondola through the Venice canals to his Olde Tyme Fun Tyme Pizza Parlour!”—and drawings of mozzarella stix that need coloring—some Italian fun facts underneath the heading “Did You Know?”, e.g., “Italy is a country in Europe,” “Rome is the capital of Italy,” “Dante, an Italian, sent all of his fellow countrymen to Hell in his book
The Inferno
!” and so on. Through the front windows, through the credit card stickers, the “Now Hiring Dishwashers” sign and two-of-these-for-only-one-of-those sales, beyond the compact parking lot, 34th Street leads to Newberry Road which turns into University Street and that leads to Waldo Road to 301 North to Interstate 95 North which gets you to New York. For two perfect seconds, Jeremy Moreland dreams of that day in August when he's clocked out of here for good and walking out that front door, never again having lousy tasks like these pawned off on his scrawny teenage back. Doar had seven years seniority and career ambitions far beyond afterschool/summertime employment, and that's all he had. Doar was a lifer. Jeremy Moreland scored a 1590 on the SAT (only temporarily forgetting that cadaverous: sarcophagus :: billingsgate : Oakland Raiders, a mistake which haunted him for weeks), had effortlessly ascended Grandfather's ranks in just eighteen months—from Dish Machine Operator to Yummytizer Preparation Specialist to Smiley Service Liaison to Assistant Director of Partytime Pizzatime Anytime Affairs. During this part of the lunch shift, when Dale leaves, Jeremy often feels like a virtuous Caesar—the benevolent rulers Gibbon immortalized—as he overlooks what he thinks of as his store and the aftermath of another busy All-You-Care-to-Load-Up-On-Your-Plate-And-Eat-And-Try-To-Enjoy-Because-It's-Yummy-Five-Dollar-Lunch-Buffet, as the Table Removal and Replenishment Coordinators—his Table Removal and Replenishment Coordinators—clean off the tables, and the Smiley Service Liaisons—his Smiley Service Liaisons, are sent home at his behest. Only one customer left. Stevie, who's hunched over stacks of plates, pizza slice in right hand, marinara-tipped breadstick in the other, alternating bites from one to the next. Unshaven and doughy, in a black bulbous Misfits t-shirt covered in crumbs and sauce, working the food like a cud-chewing cow, always in the same booth in the corner, every weekday lunch. And now, evidently, he wants to work here. Jeremy inhales, exhales, indulges in one brief vision of putting all of this in the rear view mirror, grabs fistfuls of the bottom of his red regulation polo shirt with the yellow “GRANDFATHER'S OLDE TYME GOODE TYME PIZZA PARLOR: WHERE EVERY PARTY IS A PIZZA PARTY,” with Grandfather Fredo kissing the tips of his fingers, tucks it into his black regulation work slacks, steps up to Stevie's usual booth.

“How we doing today?” Jeremy says, trying not to look profoundly disturbed by Stevie's ravenous eating. “You applied here and I'd like to ask you a few questions?”

Stevie tries speaking, voice blocked by mounds of digested breadstick masticated in violent chomps. He holds out a “Wait a minute” right index finger, moves a stack of plates from what will be Jeremy Moreland's side of the booth, motions with “Have a seat” outstretched arms, tries wiping the grease off Jeremy's side of the table with a couple already soiled and crumpled brown napkins and succeeds in spreading the grease into circular smudges, swallows the breadstick and starts in with this torrent in the cadence, timbre and volume of a Florida used car salesman yelling about bargains in late night TV commercials, “Hey man, yeah, sit down and talk to me you probably know who I am ‘cuz I'm in here almost every day so you're probably like ‘Y'all, who's that who's always in here tearin' up the lunch buffet?' Well I figured I'm here enough already so might as well apply here since I obviously like the food so much anyway this buffet's the best in town so I saw that sign outside and figured why not?”

Jeremy slides into the booth, looks over the plates stacked five-six high, littered with pizza crusts and the hard ends of marinara tipped bread sticks, overturned dipping sauces (Awesome Valley Ranch, Totally Dudical Honey Mustard, Mama Leona's Fatten You Uppa Sour Cream and Chives, Peter Cetera's Moderate Salsa, Kansas City Dude Squad Mesquite Barbeque Sauce, Paisan Geoff's Zesty Garlic Butter), stray oregano and red pepper flakes scattered everywhere. “So. Stevie. That's your name?”

“Yeah buddy!” Stevie says, swallowing the last of the pizza while finishing the breadstick in his other hand. Jeremy Moreland hears the hick accent, sees the gold brah chain around Stevie's neck and the buzzed black hair and laughs the kind of superior under-the-breath chuckle that comes naturally from the mouths of high school seniors who have been told that they were “gifted” their whole lives. Stevie hears the laugh. “That funny, home slice?”

Jeremy says nothing, pretends to scan the yellow-papered, grease-smudged application for the first time. “And . . . do you have a last name, Stevie?”

“Yeah I gotta last name and a whole lotta other information I could give you, butI ain't gonna share that with you for reasons you know I know and I know you know, so I'm just going to keep that to myself for the time being.”

“You're saying you won't give me your last name?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying!” Stevie pounds the table, rattling the plates and the napkin dispenser. “'Cause I heard this thing on the radio that the government takes that information and after that who knows what they do with it man! They get that, and they'll know how to find me, and when—not if,
when
—society collapses, they'll round me up with the rest of you suckers—”

“Well,” Jeremy says, starting the scrawny-ass scoot out of the booth, “we can't hire you without a last name, so if you don't feel comfortable—”

“It's Walters,” Stevie interrupts, and Jeremy slides back across his side of the booth. “Steven ‘Stevie' Raymond Walters.”

“Thank you.” Jeremy writes in the new information in the appropriate lines. Stevie reaches for his massive red plastic cup and straw-slurps a mouthful of sweet tea. “I can assure you no one here will alert the government of your whereabouts should civilization collapse on us.”

“You say that now,” Stevie says, “but man, don't get me started.”

“I hope not to,” Jeremy says, wishing for these three months to move faster, pissed Dale isn't dealing with this. “What's your address, Stevie Walters?”

“Ok, well, that's a whole other story. I was going to Santa Fe Community College, right? But I wasn't likin' it that much so I dropped out. My parents found out about this and they kicked me out—they live out in High Springs now—used to live in Gainesville—but they moved out there when I graduated high school a couple years back. So right now, I'm living with Alvin—he's friends with my friend Mouse—and he's got a trailer real close—but that's not my home
home
, right? So I didn't know if you wanted my home-home or like where I'm living now because I ain't on the lease or any of the bills or anything. I mean, it ain't like my parents would get mad if I was using their address for a job application—they just kicked me out
'
cause I ain't workin' right now or goin' to school so they'd probably be glad to see me applyin'—”

“Your address now. In the trailer.” Jeremy hands Stevie the application, his pen. “Fill it in, please.”

Stevie scrawls in the trailer's address. “So why do you want to wash dishes for us, Stevie?”

“You ever need money for something?”

“No.” Jeremy says, trying to make the best of this, indulging both his mockery at those who have never taken Advanced Placement classes and the sumptuous thought of taking money from his savings account for the first time, far away from here, happy and not working for nonworking Dale.

“Well, I wanna kick ass and take names. I like to think of myself as a modern-day warrior, and if that's what I am, then of course I need to learn karate.”

“Karate.”

“Yeah man.”

“Modern-day warrior.” Jeremy leans back in the booth, idea fully hatched. “What does that mean?”

“It means I'm a badass. It means, ok, let's say you hit somebody smaller than you. Not that that's gonna happen but let's just say. You hit somebody who's smaller than you who's defenseless and all that shit—oh, sorry man—didn't mean to swear—but what I'm saying is—if you did that I would hit you and fight you because that's what modern-day warriors do. They kick ass. If I see anything like that I get like ‘It's time to take out the trash: HI-YAH!' ” . . . And here, Stevie smacks the table with the side of his right hand, knocking two plates off the edge where they land on the extra-cheese-colored linoleum with a loud wobble-wobble. “I'll get that later, don't worry,” Stevie continues. “I mean it would be good practice if you hired me anyway, right? So I've been trying to teach myself karate and other bad ass moves like wrestling—”

“You're teaching yourself karate?” Jeremy Moreland laughs in cracked pubescent guttural hee hee hees.

“And wrestling too. It's all part of being a kick-ass badass. It's what I wanna do, and if I get good enough, maybe I can be an instructor or something. Teach kids how to be modern-day warriors.”

There's an awkward pause here. Jeremy wants to run to the back and laugh and laugh and laugh, but there's this awkward pause to fill, and filling it is beyond Jeremy's paygrade. He can't wait for Dale to meet this guy.

“Anything else I should know about? Prison time? Drug offenses?”

“No man. Just tryin' to be . . . ”

“A modern-day warrior. Got it,” Jeremy says. He points to the application sopping up even more grease from Stevie's side of the table. “I just need you to write down your Social Security Number, a couple references, and anything else on there you left blank, and then you're hired.” Jeremy slides out of the booth.

“Hell yeah, buddy,” Stevie says, extending a grease-laden hand to shake. Jeremy looks at it, smiles, turns away, says, “Your first job is to clean up your booth here.” He walks to the kitchen, turns, adds, “And clean yourself up before starting tomorrow at five.”

From the open window between the kitchen and the pass, Table Replacement and Replenishment Coordinator Brooks Brody watches Stevie deliver the twenty-odd plates he had used during today's assault on the buffet, walking back to his booth, swinging his arms in irregular unfluid air-karate motions. Jeremy approaches to the left, pats Brody on the shoulder. “You about ready to punch out and go home?”

“Did you hire that weirdo?” Brody asks, watching the same back-and-forth of remnants to the counter, air-karate to the booth.

“He's a modern-day warrior, Brooks,” Jeremy says, smiling in malicious adolescent vengeance. “He'll be Dale's worst nightmare.”

Brody shrugs.

“Wipe down his table, and you're out of here,” Jeremy says, basking in power, in anticipation for tomorrow, for getting out of here in August.

 

 

PLAY THE PIANO DRUNK LIKE A PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT UNTIL THE FINGERS BEGIN TO

BLEED A BIT: THE BAND (NOT THE BOOK)

 

So the audience stands there with all their tattoos, howling along to the songs, pulling their arms to the sides of their heads like they're in a great deal of trauma. And maybe they are. Even the most privileged members of Western Civilization must get the blues from time to time. The shirtless band—Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit, they are called—you know, after the Bukowski book?—have beards and muscletone and short hair and tattoos and they are one of those—they call them emo bands—who, when they sing, put a lot of feeling into stretching out their vowels. This, ergo, expresses the pain and intensity and uncertainty of life. Whatever they are howling about is very important to everyone packed into the Nardic Track on that Thursday night. To Ronnie, it sounds like they are worked up over paper cuts, like they're singing—“It hurrrrrrrrrrts / paaaaaaaaaper cuuuuut / feeeel the buuuuurrrrrrn / from the fresh copies,” but “It can't be that,” Ronnie thinks, in the middle of the audience, silently, shyly, observing . . . and the dozens concaved around the band will soon enough be hundreds and soon enough be thousands.