Toxin (5 page)

“Because she made you and Mom break up,” Becky commented.

“Good gravy,” Kim snapped. “Is that what your mother says?”

“No,” Becky said. “She says it was only part of it. But I think it was Ginger's fault. You guys hardly ever argued until Ginger.”

Kim went back to drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Despite what Becky had said, he was certain Tracy had to have put the thought in her mind.

As he turned into the Onion Ring parking lot, Kim shot a glance in Becky's direction. Her face was awash in color from the huge Onion Ring sign. She was smiling in anticipation of their fast-food dinner.

“The reason your mother and I got divorced was very complicated,” Kim began, “and Ginger had very little . . .”

“Look out!” Becky cried.

Kim redirected his gaze through the windshield and saw the blurry image of a preteen on a skateboard off the right front fender. Kim jammed on the brakes and threw
the steering wheel over to the left. The car lurched to a stop but not before colliding with the rear of a parked car. There was the unmistakable sound of breaking glass.

“You smashed the car!” Becky shouted as if it were a question.

“I know I smashed the car!” Kim shouted back.

“Well, it's not my fault,” Becky said indignantly. “Don't yell at me!”

The skateboarder, who'd momentarily stopped, now passed in front of the car. Kim looked at the child, and the boy irreverently mouthed: “Asshole.” Kim closed his eyes for a moment to control himself.

“I'm sorry,” he said to Becky. “Of course it wasn't your fault. I should have been paying more attention. And I certainly shouldn't have yelled at you.”

“What are we going to do?” Becky said. Her eyes anxiously scanned the parking area. She was terrified lest she see one of her schoolmates.

“I'm going to see what happened,” Kim said as he opened his door and got out. He was back in seconds and asked Becky to hand him the registration packet from the glove compartment.

“What broke?” Becky asked as she handed over the papers.

“Our headlight and their tail light,” Kim said. “I'll leave a note.”

Once inside the restaurant, Becky immediately forgot the mishap. It being Friday night, the Onion Ring was mobbed. Most of the crowd were young teenagers in a ridiculous collection of oversized clothing and punk hairstyles. But there were also a number of families with lots of small children and even infants. The noise level was considerable thanks to fussy babies and competing ghetto blasters.

The Onion Ring restaurants were particularly popular with children mainly because the kids could doctor their own “gourmet” burgers with a bewildering display of condiments. They could also make their own sundaes with an equivalent number of toppings.

“Isn't this an awesome place?” Becky commented as she and Kim got into one of the order lines.

“Just delightful,” Kim teased. “Especially with the quiet classical music in the background.”

“Oh, Dad!” Becky moaned and rolled her eyes.

“Did you ever come here with Carl?” Kim asked. He really didn't want to hear the answer because he had an inkling she had.

“Sure,” Becky offered. “He took Mom and me here a couple of times. It was cool. He owns the place.”

“Not quite,” Kim said with a certain satisfaction. “Actually the Onion Ring is a publicly owned company. Do you know what that means?”

“Sort of,” Becky said.

“It means a lot of people own stock,” Kim said. “Even I own stock, so I'm one of the owners too.”

“Yeah, well, when I was here with Carl we didn't have to stand in line,” Becky said.

Kim took a deep breath and let it out. “Let's talk about something else. Have you thought any more about skating in the Nationals? I know the entry deadline is coming up.”

“I'm not going to enter,” Becky said without hesitation.

“Really?” Kim questioned. “Why not, dear? You are such a natural. And you won the state junior championship last year so easily.”

“I like skating,” Becky said. “I don't want to ruin it.”

“But you could be the best.”

“I don't want to be the best in competition,” Becky said.

“Gosh, Becky,” Kim said. “I can't help but be a little disappointed. I'd be so proud of you.”

“Mom said you would say something like that,” Becky said.

“Oh, great!” Kim exclaimed. “Your know-it-all therapist mother.”

“She also said that I should do what I think is best for me.”

Kim and Becky found themselves at the front of the line. A bored teenage cashier gazed at them with glassy eyes and asked them what they wanted.

Becky looked up at the menu mounted over the bank of cash registers. She screwed up her mouth and stuck a finger in her cheek. “Hmmm . . . I don't know what I want.”

“Have a burger,” Kim said. “I thought that was your favorite.”

“Okay,” Becky said. “I'll have a burger, fries, and a vanilla shake.”

“Regular or jumbo?” the cashier asked in a tired voice.

“Regular,” Becky said.

“And you, sir?” the cashier asked.

“Oh, hell, let me see,” Kim said. He too looked up at the menu. “Soup du jour and salad, I guess. And an iced tea.”

“Comes to seven ninety,” the cashier said.

Kim paid, and the cashier handed him a receipt. “Your number is twenty-seven.”

Kim and Becky turned around and left the order area. It took some hunting, but they found a couple of empty seats at one of the picnic-style tables near the window. Becky squeezed in, but not Kim. He handed her the
receipt and told her he had to use the men's room. Becky nodded absently; she had her eye on one of the cute boys from her school who happened to be sitting at the next table.

It was like a broken-field run for Kim to make his way across the restaurant to the anteroom leading to the restrooms. There were two phones, but both were tied up by teenage girls. Behind each was a line. Kim reached into his jacket pocket and extracted his cell phone. He punched in the numbers, leaned back against the wall, and held it to his ear.

“Ginger, it's me,” Kim said.

“Where the devil are you?” Ginger complained. “Have you forgotten our reservations at Chez Jean were for seven-thirty?”

“We're not going,” Kim said. “I've had to change the plans. Becky and I are grabbing a bite at the Onion Ring on Prairie Highway.”

Ginger didn't respond.

“Hello?” Kim said. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I'm still here,” Ginger said.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Of course I heard,” Ginger said. “I haven't eaten, and I've been waiting. You haven't called, and besides, you promised me we'd eat at Chez Jean tonight.”

“Listen,” Kim growled. “Don't you give me a hard time too. I can't please everybody. I was late picking up Becky, and she was starved.”

“That's nice,” Ginger said. “You and your daughter have a nice dinner together.”

“You're irritating me, Ginger!”

“Well, how do you expect me to feel?” Ginger asked. “For a year your wife was your convenient excuse. Now I suppose it's going to be your daughter.”

“That's enough, Ginger,” Kim snapped. “I'm not going to get into an argument. Becky and I are eating here, and then we'll come by and pick you up.”

“Maybe I'll be here and maybe I won't,” Ginger said. “I'm getting tired of being taken for granted.”

“Fine,” Kim said. “You decide.”

Kim cut off the connection and jammed the phone back into his jacket pocket. He gritted his teeth and cursed under his breath. The evening was hardly progressing as he would have liked. Kim's eyes involuntarily strayed to the face of a teenage girl waiting for one of the wall phones. Her lipstick was such a dark red it bordered on brown. It made her look like someone who'd succumbed to the elements on the north face of Mount Everest.

The girl caught Kim staring at her. She interrupted her cowlike gum-chewing long enough to stick out her tongue. Kim pushed off the wall and went into the men's room to splash water on his face and wash his hands.

 

T
he level of activity in the kitchen and service area of the Onion Ring was commensurate with the number of customers in the restaurant proper. It was controlled pandemonium. Roger Polo, the manager who regularly worked a double shift on Fridays and Saturdays, the Onion Ring's two busiest days, was a nervous man in his late thirties who drove himself and his staff hard.

When the restaurant was as busy as it was while Kim and Becky awaited their order, Roger worked the line. He was the one who gave the burger and fries order to the short-order chef, Paul; or the soup and salad orders to the steam-table and salad-bar worker, Julia; or the drink
orders to Claudia. All the restocking and the routine, ongoing cleanup was done by the “gofer,” Skip.

“Number twenty-seven coming up,” Roger barked. “I want a soup and salad.”

“Soup and salad,” Julia echoed.

“Iced tea and vanilla shake,” Roger called out.

“Coming up,” Claudia said.

“Regular burger and medium fries,” Roger ordered.

“Got it,” Paul said.

Paul was considerably older than Roger. His face was leathered and deeply creased; he looked more like a farmer than a cook. He had spent twenty years as a short-order chef on an oil rig in the Gulf. On his right forearm was a tattoo of a gusher with the word:
Eureka!

Paul stood at the grill built into a central island behind the row of cash registers. At any given time, he had a number of hamburger patties on the cooktop; each one was in response to an order. He organized the cooking by rotation so that all the burgers got the same amount of grill time. In response to the most recent wave of orders, Paul turned around and opened the chest-high refrigerator directly behind him.

“Skip!” Paul yelled when he realized the patty box was empty. “Get me a box of burgers from the walk-in.”

Skip put his mop aside. “Coming up!”

The walk-in freezer was at the very back of the kitchen, next to the walk-in refrigerator and across from the storeroom. Skip, who'd only been working at the Onion Ring for a week, had found that a significant portion of his job was to carry various supplies from storage to the preparation area.

He opened the heavy freezer door and stepped within. The door was mounted with a heavy spring and closed
behind him. The interior was about ten feet by twenty feet and illuminated by a single light bulb in a wire cage. The walls were surfaced in a metallic material that looked like aluminum foil. The floor was a wooden grate.

The space was almost full of cardboard containers except for a central aisle. To the left were the large cartons full of frozen hamburger patties. To the right were the boxes of frozen french fries, fish fillets, and chicken chunks.

Skip flapped his arms against the subzero chill. His breath came in frosted clouds. Wishing to get back to the warmth of the kitchen, he scraped away the frost from the label of the first carton to his left to make sure it was ground meat. It read:
MERCER MEATS
.
REG
. 0.1
LB HAMBURGER PATTIES
,
EXTRA LEAN
.
LOT
6
BATCH
9-14.
PRODUCTION
:
JAN
12;
USE BY APR
. 12.

Reassured, Skip tore open the carton and lifted out one of the inner boxes that contained fifteen dozen patties. He carried them back to the refrigerator behind Paul and put them in.

“You're back in business,” Skip said.

Paul didn't respond. He was too busy setting up the cooked burgers, while his mind kept a running account of the new orders Roger had given him. As soon as he could, he turned to the refrigerator, opened the patty box and extracted the number of burgers he needed. But as he was about to close the door, his eye caught the label.

“Skip!” Paul yelled. “Get your ass back here!”

“What's wrong?” Skip questioned. He'd not left the area, but had bent down to change the trash bag under the central island's rubbish disposal opening.

“You brought the wrong goddamn patties,” Paul said. “These just came in today.”

“What difference does it make?” Skip asked.

“Plenty,” Paul said. “I'll show you in a second.” He then called: “Roger, how many burgers you looking for after order twenty-six?”

Roger checked his tickets. “I need one burger for twenty-seven, four for twenty-eight, and three for twenty-nine. That's eight total.”