Swing State (13 page)

23.

T
HAT GUY
G
ARY IS NO BIG
deal.

He was looking at my ass and tits especially the whole shift, but except for this one time his hand kinda brushed my ass when he was walking by, it was fine.

Besides, he had me on register. The last thing. I think I'm gonna get stuck there a lot because I'm fast. That's what he told me at the end of the shift when he had me come into his office. Dalton heard him ask me to come in and rolled his eyes.

People are weird. Like they haven't been to Burger Hut a million times. They stand there and try to figure out what to order even though they've been there for five minutes looking at the menu the whole time. I'm waiting at the register with all these buzzers going off in the back while they stand there. A couple of times I started over toward the fry machine without thinking about it and was like hah, whoops, I'm on register. Then another buzzer would go off while the same person stood there, still trying to decide.

It was like that all day. And questions.

That's how it happened. I was on register and this lady came up and said what are your healthy dietary alternatives? I wanted to be like lady, you're in Burger Hut, there are no healthy alternatives,
so just get a Downtown Deluxe. But instead I was like the Salad Supremo is very healthy. She said I was thinking more burger than salad. I said I wasn't sure. And Gary walked by. He said something about the Lean Supreme being the most health-conscious choice, and would she like to try one on the house? She said that would be delightful. Just like that: that would be delightful.

So when I finished the shift, Gary asked me into his office and Dalton was like good luck. I went in. It's this tiny little room the size of a closet in the back and has all these black and white TVs that show everyone working. He can sit there and watch everyone make burgers.

He said Dixon, we have not had the pleasure of working together since you started here.

I said no.

Then he goes this is the last of your training shifts, right?

I said right. Then he went on about how Burger Hut prides itself on offering a variety of healthy, nutritious food. He pointed to the TVs. In addition to using these monitors I occasionally listen in on transactions to make sure they are satisfactory. I have been paying special attention to yours today, since we have never worked together and since you are at the end of your training. What I have seen has largely been outstanding. I was particularly impressed with your speed on the register. You don't make many mistakes.

He was looking at me like he wanted me to say something. I didn't really know what, so I nodded and said thanks.

Then he said it's obvious to me you're good with your hands.

He waited again and I said thanks again.

After a second he said here, let me show you something.

He put one hand under his desk. Then a second later I could hear the restaurant.

Jack was on register: Welcome to Burger Hut. May I take your order?

A skinny girl with a kid was on one of the TVs looking up at the menu. She said uh. Then I'd like a Downtown Deluxe combo and a kid's meal.

He said I watched you today. I was also listening to you. You did a good job. You're very good with customers. For the most part. But there was one transaction that worried me.

Jack's voice cut out halfway through. That'll be nine dol—

I said you mean what I said about the healthy choices?

Gary said while you may have a way with customers, there's more to it than your natural talent. I came out of the back room because I recognized the customer. She can be difficult with her questions.

I nodded.

At the beginning of your training you were provided with menu descriptions for the items we serve, complete with nutritional information.

I hadn't looked at it since.

Before you appear on the floor, you need to know all the information contained in that packet. The healthy alternatives are there. If a customer asks—and they will—you need to know which items contain the fewest calories and the least fat and so on.

I told him I said salad.

He said salad is a good choice. But not everyone comes to Burger Hut for salad. Burger is in the name. They come for them.

I said okay.

He said I understand you're almost done with your training, but without the kind of knowledge we're looking for I'm afraid you might not be ready to start on the floor.

I don't want any more training shifts. Two-fifty an hour, or whatever it is. I want to get paid.

Without really thinking about it I pulled my shirt up and showed him my bra.

You wanna see these?

He started smiling real big. He said yes, I do.

I'll be ready to start working, right?

He said I can trust you to study the menu descriptions on your own.

I held up my shirt with my chin and pushed my bra down so he could see my tits. I gave them a shake and stood there for a sec before I pulled my bra back up and let my shirt down.

He said I'm glad we have this understanding. You'll be on the schedule.

* * *

I'
D GONE BY BEFORE WORK AND
there weren't any unlocked so I had to hitch. I didn't think about what would happen on a weekend, when there was no one there.

Pretty much right away some old guy with a pickup pulled over and asked me where I was going. I told him Burger Hut and he said get in the back. It was cold. I wanted to be in the cab with him. I had my knife with me.

I decided to just walk home instead of hitching but this car pulled up. It was Ding.

You need a ride someplace?

I said L'il Bee.

He said one ride to L'il Bee, coming right up.

I got in and showed him my tits right away. Twice in the same day. I never did that before.

He said very nice and passed me a flask. Whiskey. I took a pull.

Then he said we haven't been seeing as much of each other as we used to.

I said yeah, I know. I've been working.

Don't you like fireworks any more?

I said they're cool, but I'm trying to save. I told you that.

He asked where I was gonna move. I told him I wasn't sure yet. Just out.

He said you can always come to my place. I have a couch. My rates are very affordable.

I said thanks. I'll think about it.

Then he goes you know, if you're looking to make some real money there are better ways to do it than Burger Hut. You work there what, forty hours a week?

I said twenty. Part time.

He said why only twenty? I said school.

You do any good? In school?

I said you know.

He said if you have a job, why don't you work full-time? Make more loot. Drop out.

I said my mom's boyfriend would beat the shit out of me if I did.

He said well, maybe you need to start your own business, like me.

I said yeah, maybe.

Then he goes you can set up your own hours and starts laughing. Work from home. Think about it. I can set you up. You probably know a lot more kids than I do. Uh, kids your age, I mean. Be a chip off the old block. Just like your brother.

I was like wait, what?

He goes come on. You must know he deals.

I was like bullshit.

But then I thought about it. He doesn't work. And he smokes tons of weed. Tons.

I thought he bought from Steve. But I didn't think about where he got the money.

What was all this shit about me pinching off his stash the other day? If he deals?

I wanted to ask Ding more questions but we pulled into the parking lot.

Here you go. Think about what I said. Open your own franchise.

I was like thanks and got out.

* * *

I still don't know how I'm gonna get to work. I don't have a bike. I guess I can buy one.

* * *

I took some money out of my stash and went down to the sporting goods store today before work. I bought a bike and a lock. I was the only person in there. It was pretty much the cheapest girl bike they had. And the lock I got is really thick. The guy tried to sell me a helmet but I don't want to look like a tool bag biking around.

I'm out two hundred bucks.

I don't usually go to that plaza. It's also got a drugstore and a liquor store. There's good shit there. I'll have to remember it. Not as many wallets, but I got a laptop! So the bike will be discount when I sell it to Ding.

I guess maybe I thought Ross was doing the same thing.

* * *

Work today was okay. It didn't feel different. I clocked in and got on sandwich with Dalton.

He was like what happened yesterday? I told him I passed my menu test. He said I didn't have to take one. I was like I don't know.

Then he said that lady's rough. From yesterday. If I was up there I would have told you but I was on grill. I said you know her? He was like yeah, Barbara. She knows the answers to all the questions but asks anyway. I said why? and he said to get free food when you fuck up. He said was that it?

I was like what do you mean? and he said, well, you know that guy's got a rep, right? I was like yeah. He said I saw him touch your ass yesterday.

I was like that was an accident.

He was like come on girl, are you dumb?

I said I don't think it'll happen again. It's fine.

I didn't think of it until today. Until then. Maybe him not touching my ass is gonna make people notice. I mean, Dalton saw him do it yesterday, so if he stops people will think something is wrong. Maybe I should tell Gary to grab it and I'll tell him to stop. But if I do that he'll get mad.

I don't know.

Maybe I should quit, like everyone says. Deal. Like Ross.

I can't believe I didn't figure it out. But it makes sense. He's always at school. I thought it was for practice. Or lifting weights.

Anyway, I did early shift, so it was Judy all day. She came by and congratulated me and said we need to talk in the office.

She asked if I had ever been in there before. I said yeah, when I was talking to Gary.

She said this is about him. He can be out of line. I was like what do you mean? and she said to women. The only way to deal with him is to set boundaries. I was like what do you mean again
and she said the first time he lays a finger on you tell him to keep his hands to himself. He's all bark, you understand?

I said yeah.

She said girls who do not put their foot down quit. And you seem like the kind of girl I wouldn't mind working with. I don't say that to everyone. So be careful.

I said thanks.

24.

Z
ACHARIAH LOVED MAKING BREAD.
T
HE FIRST
time, years ago in home ec, his teacher (what was her name? he couldn't remember) showed him the process. His bread came out perfectly. He never needed a recipe again after that. And not just bread—everything he baked or cooked was great.

He mixed the ingredients gently. One-handed wasn't so hard. He just needed to slow the process was all. But the pain was all over. Back, chest. Muscles he didn't know he had screamed in protest as he moved. And the blood in his pee, though starting to subside, was still more concentrated than he'd ever seen it.

The pain was a constant reminder of how stupid he'd been in thinking he had powers. Or could control footballs with his mind. Or people.

But the prospect of Zachariah's life staying as it had been, staying in Armbrister, was too much to bear—worse than a dozen of his dad's beatings. There had to be something else besides getting picked on every day, then when he finished school, going to work at the mill. He had to finish
Love Balloon
. And even that might not work. He had to think it would, but he knew it probably wouldn't.

If he'd had powers, he could have used them the day before to keep himself from getting picked on.

Every day he removed his jacket when he arrived at school. The day before he'd done so immediately upon entering the building, walking right past Dixon Dove's locker in the process. She wasn't there, thank God. Neither, he noticed, was the old, smiling security guard.

Had he kept his jacket on, maybe it would have been okay. But he hadn't thought it through.

Zachariah realized he did that sometimes. Like at the L'il Bee. The guy behind the counter might have helped if he'd run in and said listen, I just got in a fight and my dad will kill me if I don't have a bottle of barbecue sauce when he gets back from the liquor store. The first one, dripping thickly from his head, would have been all the proof he needed. Please, Zachariah could have said. I'll pay you back.

But he hadn't run in. He'd frozen when Dixon Dove came around the corner. And she'd left, laughing, after upending the bottle over his head. He'd sat against the back wall, unable to stop his sobbing.

The realization that he'd been lying to himself hurt more than the fresh finger marks in his tietz, or the mix of sauce and paint in his eyes. He'd pretended that his weight gain had been balanced by getting a superpower, like in the movies. Which couldn't happen. He wanted it to and had tried to convince himself, time and again, that it had. Even though he forgot for days at a time, while working on
Love Balloon
or making bread, that he—supposedly—had powers. And even though he still got picked on all the time. And even though his dad hit him.

But the jacket came off and everyone was on him. He'd wear it from now on, but word would get around, if it hadn't already. It always did.

He had to find some way to keep Dixon Dove at bay. He couldn't fight her—maybe he could have before, had he not frozen, but certainly not now, with his cast. And hoping his arm would cause her to leave him alone was stupid. He couldn't sit around and hope. Not anymore.

He had to do something.

He greased the pan and put his dough on the metal table, dusted with flour. Kneading took more time one-handed.

The way she had touched him. Before she got mad at him—before she called him a perv—he felt like he was talking to her. Like they could be friends. If there was some way to impress her, maybe she'd do it again.

And as he mixed he had an idea.

* * *

The librarians were nicer to him than usual.

“Oh,” Ms. Petrie said, “what happened?”

He thought back to what his dad said in the car.

“I fell down the basement stairs,” he said.

She looked at him hard. “Really?”

He nodded. “I slipped. On the rug in front of them.”

She kept her hard look.

“I was getting some meat. Out of the freezer.”

Her face softened. “Well, I'm sorry to hear it.”

There was nothing in the basement except boxes of his mother's old stuff his dad didn't ever throw away. If anyone came, they'd see this. And through the story.

He didn't want to go to a boy's home. Even though, in the back of his mind, he thought it might not be so bad. The kids there wouldn't know about him pissing his pants. Or that he'd been a normal kid at the end of last year.

But it would be bad. He knew it.

Why did he always do that? Lie to himself? Try to convince himself about things that weren't real?

He had to stop.