Issue #1 Winter 2002
The Man Who Killed Antaeus
by Joel Chafetz
Before the new Assistant Manager come, we was shirking our labor. We was taking pay for being there and doing little as we could, picking up bits and pieces that was ours by right of not being paid well—and as always complaining about it—but actually getting more than we was worth. Nothing in our store ever went right. Waitresses, cooks and utility people—like me, doing the dishwashing, table busing and cleaning up—wouldn't be on time for their shifts or not show up at all without so much as a call. We'd run out of whites to wear, napkins for customers, the three best sellers on the menu—fried clams, franks and Salisbury steak. There'd be customer complaints at the register and nasty notes on the green cards on the tables and counter. They'd be nasty to even me who don't have nothing to do with slow service, burnt food, or surly waitresses. The customers, they on the road all day, heading for Disney World, Universal Studios, Silver Springs, Miami, all them tourist attractions, gobbling up vacations with one eye on their wrist watches, sweating, squabbling with their teeth on edge, throwing their voices around like they was rich and at the same time wrinkling their noses at us people who works for so little.
Even Ms. Craditch, the manager, didn't care. She snarls at the customers, says take it or leave it under her breath, comes in late and leaves early. I clean up after them all. Even then they'd sass me so much you'd think we was relatives.
Oh, we'd hum and polish when the District Manager’d stomp in with his clipboard, making check marks and poking his nose in places he thought he should be, and then when he was through, he'd yell at Ms. Craditch and she'd storm through the kitchen and dining room, cussing and blaming and we'd all nod and say yes ma’am, right away ma’am. But soon as the District Manager was gone, things’d go back to their regular chaos.
Most all that changed the day Mr. Allison strode in the front doors with his polished shoes, black pants, white shirt, and his tie knotted so crisp to his collar you'd think he was head of the county. His sleeked hair was so trimmed it looked like fresh cut grass. The minute he was in the front double-doors, he went to work, looking all around, at the ceiling, at the floor, not even bothering to go straight away and ask for Ms. Craditch and introduce himself. It was like he was three seconds on the job and had to do a lick for his pay.
The restrooms being right by the front doors, he checked them, knocking on the ladies, of course, but it being three o'clock in the PM there was hardly anyone in the restaurant. Vacationers riding the highways want to make an extra fifty miles before they stop, but you never know about some people.
Anyway, he marches into the ladies room and there's a scream and he comes out with a red face on his polished shine. But that don't stop him. He goes on into the mens restroom and comes back out with a handful of dirty paper towels and a little frown on his brow. He puts his pick-ups in the trash basket behind the cash register and takes in the service of the two tables like a willow hanging over.
He blinks away his scowl into a smile at Linda, the trailer trash who works the fountain. She eyes him like a filthy dog she's going to have to beat to tame the way she did the last assistant manager. We'd heard he was coming from Ms. Craditch, who said, "Break this one in right."
Mr. Allison nods at Linda and then Geselle out in the dining room pouring coffee to old Miss Hubbard who lives on a farm that ain't no farm no more—it’s just an old white house sprouting weeds sitting beside the freeway. She's hard of hearing and likes her tea with steaming boiled water so she can lean her head over the cloud and clear her sinuses. Mr. Allison inspects the place where coffee cups is supposed to be instead of all the turned over and jumbled empty racks. No saucers, no underliners or water glasses left either; day-shift never fills up for us. They walk off when we come in and never help us get steady before we get our bearings. They just unties their aprons, digs their stuff out of the lockers and goes home.
Me, I'm in the kitchen at an angle so I can see the front, sorting the piles of leftover dirty dishes, racking and sliding them into the chuffing machine which is making a racket. I'm watching to see if Mr. Allison's going to do something about the problems and challenge Ms. Craditch right away to get those other people working right. She sits back there in her screened office with the safe underneath the desk adding up the money taken in during breakfast and lunch, smoking her cigarettes and sometimes slipping a few dollars into her pocket when she thinks nobody's looking.
But Mr. Allison's still out front and checks the toast crumbs and messes on the stainless steel servicing areas, the coffee getting old in the pots on the burners, the milky splashes around the ice cream bins, the dirt and paper on the floor that ain't been swept or mopped. He don't say nothing, but you can see he's making notes in his head. Then he whirls around and heads toward the kitchen. He says, "Hi," to Florence the cook, whose hands are slapped on the big Hobart mixer while it frapps round and round with tomorrow's scrambled eggs, doing the morning cook’s work and not getting her dinner set-up done.
But when Mr. Allison sees me with the pile of nine-inch plates in my arms rushing into the horseshoe serving-area of the kitchen where the food's actually prepared and the waitresses can pick it up, he makes way for me. I drop the plates in the bin, and when I heads back to the chuffing machine, he pulls at his chin then steps in front of me as if he don't realize all the work I got to catch up on before dinner time.
"Hello, Brad," he say with a glance at my name-tag. "I'm Mr. Allison."
He sticks out his hand like I was his long-lost brother. I wipe mine on my apron. His hand is bony and firm but the businesslike look in his eyes tells me he ain't no friend of mine. You never know what some people think about my kind, and when he asks where the manager is and I thumb over my shoulder to Ms. Craditch, his look at her don't tell me any more about him than I knew before.
When he interrupts Ms. Craditch and nods, using his hands like he juggling when he talks to her, I wonder if she going to take a bite out of him, chew him up, and spit him out, but she don't. She listens, then she shoves the cash register drawer with all the receipts at him, scribbles something on a piece of paper, probably the safe combination, throws a set of keys on the desk and grabs her coat and purse. She leaves by the back door.
While he's finishing the money count and doing the paperwork, Linda, the trailer trash, makes her first play. She marches back here in her quick waitress walk, her rubbery white shoes making marks on the greasy floor and starts talking before Mr. Allison lifts his head. "I need Tuesday and Wednesday off," she says and throws her wad of chest out at him.
Mr. Allison, he don't even look up. "Okay," he says and she waits a second with this question mark from forehead to mouth, then marches back out front with her skinny hands in acorn fists at her sides.
Two seconds later she's right back at the counting desk. "Who you going to get to work the counter while I'm gone?"
Mr. Allison, he looks up. He's got these thin gold-rimmed glasses on and looks more like he should be teaching at some university instead of counting money with his haircut straight across the back of his head. "I'll find someone," he says. "Or I'll do it myself."
Linda, she's tapping her foot. I rush a pile of platters into the serving kitchen, making too much noise to hear what she's saying, and when I come back she's smiling at him and says, "Never mind. You make the schedule out anyway you want."
And I think for the first time, that maybe things is going to be all right.
I notice Mr. Allison is all business and he knows his stuff. He checks all the kitchen drawers and refrigerators that need to be filled or prepared for the evening meal, then goes into the walk-in refrigerator and freezers and brings out what's gotta be there. Whisking an apron on from the wire-bin cabinet he mixes the biscuit batter, rolls the dough, cuts the rounds and pops them in the oven. He sets the timer and points at Florence, who's eyeing him like he’s the wrong side-dish of vegetables. When he sees things in the kitchen is on the way he gets packages of paper placemats and napkins out of the dry storage room and takes them out front for the waitresses. At the cash register, he takes Miss Hubbard’s dollar for the tea and leans on an elbow listening to her then pointing around the dining room. She nods then pokes her cane at Geselle, who waves to her. Mr. Allison says something to her and Miss Hubbard laughs. I don't think I ever heard her laugh before. Then she pats Mr. Allison a good luck pat on the shoulder and he gives her a lemon-flavored lollipop from the bin underneath the register where they keep the cash box to make change. There’s always twenty dollars in it because they don't like nobody to open the cash register without ringing up a sale.
He sees me eyeing him as I set the underliners near the bread warmer out front, then dips down into the lollypop box and tosses me a grape. My favorite. I puts it in my shirt pocket for later. Friday night is the busy meal, our worst problem day. But this meal goes so easy I watch to figure out how. Florence don't get backed up in the kitchen ‘cause Mr. Allison is there, keeping her one step ahead of trouble, pushing the food up under the heat lamps and spinning the wheel with the checks. The food's served hot ‘cause he hustles out front and grabs rolls and butter and the check and puts it right on the tables so the people can eat and run if they want to get back on I-95 and make another 50 miles before they hit the motels in Daytona. The tables get bussed ‘cause he grabs a bus box and clears them one then another right along with me, even helping while he keeps an eye on the cash register. He makes ice cream cones and pats the little kids on the head and gives them suckers. He sees me watch, picks up another grape and raises his eyebrows. I shake my head no, look at my pocket where the top of the grape sucker sticks out. He winks and takes more cash.
Sometimes he comes back to the dish area where he helps me stack and rack, and that's where I draw the line. "You go on," I say. "I can keep up. You don't need help me." I push myself up a notch or two, and when the meal's over and we're cleaning up, he's right there too. He doesn't help me with the rest rooms, which I hate doing, but when I come out of the ladies room after we're closed, he goes in. "Brad," he says, poking his head out the door as I'm about to do the floor outside the counter area with the mop. He wiggles his finger for me to come in. I shrug.
"This isn't cleaned the way I want," he says.
I check what he's saying and I see the counter's still water spotted cause I just wiped it, didn't wash it down with soap and I just whooshed the toilet bowl and quick mopped the floor. And his eyes are waiting for me to apologize. But I don't. "It's ‘cause I'm black, ain't it," I say, slipping my tongue to down low talk so I fit his image of me. He just blinks for a second.
Then his words are hot. "I don't care if you're green," he says. "I want these bathrooms cleaned right." Then he reaches outside the closed door and grabs the deck brush in the soap bucket and scrubs the tile floor with a hard and dangerous fury. I stand there with my mouth open and my hands on my hips as he cleans the gunk out of the corners which is probably been there since the place opened. He takes fresh cloths to wash and wipe the counter, uses Windex on the mirror and cleans it off with paper towels and a flaring twist in the corner so no streaks is left. Then he gets down on his hands and knees and cleans around the toilet bowl. "This is how I want it done," he says and marches out.
"I'll do the other one better’n this," I say to his back.
He checks my work after I'm done—not like he's waiting for me, but later, while I'm scrubbing the kitchen tile floor so clean your shoes would squeak on it. I see him go in the men's room and come out nodding. Only I see him checking everyone, helping people do it like he wants, so that the place sparkles out front and then, when the waitresses and the cook are gone and the old assistant manager used to get himself a beer and count the cash register, Mr. Allison helps me. He vacuum cleans the rug and is done before I finish replacing all the dishes in the front and in the kitchen. He glances at my dish area, which I wipe so clean there's not a streak on the stainless steel anywhere. He rubs his chin and goes into the supply room. When he comes out with a gallon can of stuff, he says, "You're working too hard on this," and plunks down some stainless steel polish. "One lick of this will shine it up without a lot of elbow grease." Then he wipes a swatch across the stainless and it glistens. I take it from him.
"I'll do it," I say, but he's brought two cloths and while I'm doing the dish area and set-up tables he does the stainless steel in the horseshoe-shaped kitchen. Since I'm finished first I go out to the dining room and get all the stainless counters and refrigerators and ice cream cabinets the customers can see. When I'm done I look around to find him and see if there's anything else, but he's standing there with his sleeves rolled up, a smile from ear to ear.
The morning waitresses tell me Saturday afternoon when I come to work they've never see the unit so shiny and for once I raise my head and accepts their compliments. Mr. Allison don't tell say nothing even though he's right there, restocking the candy bars from the cases underneath the cash register and straightening up the fliers and refilling the lollipops as I head for the changing room to get ready for another night’s work. I check the bulletin board to see how our unit stacks up against the other stores in the district. We're always last, but I see things is going to change.
For a few months every day is the same. Mr. Allison don't let anyone slide, and pretty soon I hear Linda humming as she makes her way back to the freezer to get another drum of ice cream herself, not yelling at me to get her a chocolate chip or pistachio. Geselle's raving about the big tips she's been getting and wondering where these customers have been all these years. Florence asked Mr. Allison for a raise of ten cents an hour to pay her child care which has gone up. He gives her a quarter raise and argues with Ms. Craditch until she agrees. I'm about to ask for some myself, but he still checks to see if my work is right, so I wait.
Another strange thing happens. The day people begin to leave their shift nice for us, the way we leave it for them though Ms. Craditch don't seem to notice nothing. She just grumbles and waits for Mr. Allison to come in so she can leave while he counts out the money for her. When I check the new ratings for our unit we've moved three notches up from the bottom and our gross profit, what we make on what we sell is next to the best, but nobody beats Miss Hill down the highway at Daytona. Mr. Allison happens to be looking over my shoulder. "Next month, number one," he says and smiles, then tells me to go pick up the cigarette butts in the parking lot.
That night as he passes me in the kitchen he says, "Change your apron. Keep your shirt clean." I got all I can do to handle leftovers and sweat next to the steamy dish machine without having to look like James Bond. The summer night business is steady, but we're short a waitress—Carla got sick enough she had to call her husband and shouldn't have even come into work, but she couldn't leave Mr. Allison short-handed. We're doing okay in the back of the house. I help Florence by frying and setting up the plates and lately she comes back to help me catch up the dishes while I'm out busing tables. Linda breaks her rules and takes tables in the dining room. Mr. Allison races place to place like the little Dutch boy with his fingers in the dike. I'm about to pick up the bus boxes on the fountain and unload them when Mr. Allison throws me a clean apron and jerks his head to follow me, smiling. He shows me the cone scooper, and the number twenty round, demonstrates how to fill them with ice cream and put them on the cone, then tells Linda to take another new table in the dining room. She don't even smart-mouth him—she just rushes away with menus, napkins, placemats, silverware and three glasses of water for this family looking like they been road warriors for too long.
"A double dip cone of cherry and a large fudge ripple," he shouts at me from the cash register, two teen angels smiling like they're ready to flap their wings and land next to me. I dip the scoopers into the freezers and feel the cold blaze of frost on my face, which is hot and serious. "Here you are," I say, and one of the sweet things turns so shy I think she's going to melt before her ice cream. Later Mr. Allison asks me to help the waitresses account for their checks on the form. He gave me my own checkbook to write orders and asks Linda to show me how to do it. “Check each line has the amount of what's bought, then add tax on it,” Linda says. “The check has to be in the cash register slot before the register will open. The register stamps the check and makes the same stamp on the register tape so they agree with the money inside. Then the checks are put in order and Mr. Allison sees they're all there.”
It ain't hard and not a word comes from her about my black ass. I'm beginning to see how things work. Sometimes I do Linda's and Geselle's checks when they're having a busy time setting up and they want to get out early. I catch up on my work and fly around like I'm tossing gold coins to bums. One night as I'm doing the checks for all the waitresses I see Mr. Allison watching me from his desk. He's staring hard and I try not to look up at him ‘cause my shirt is already sticking to my back like I dove in the ocean.
Mr. Allison is always there after I leave, counting the money, doing the paperwork and the ordering so we don't run out of stuff anymore. Sometimes Mr. Allison brings a book with him and I imagine him sitting there with the one last light on, leaning back at the caged desk, reading. He don't read those best-seller type books. I don't recognize the titles from the grocery store and I don't know any of the authors, but sometimes when I'm mopping, I try to see into the screened locked office to tell what they are.
One night I come around the corner and see the office door wide open, the padlock hanging on the hasp like a hooked fish. The safe is wide open, too. Mr. Allison's in the freezer organizing it alphabetically. In the safe, the morning receipts have a rubber band around them—maybe a thousand dollars and then there's the rolls of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies and fifty-dollar ribboned stacks of ones and another stack of fives.
"Too easy," I whisper under my breath. "Way too easy." I close the safe and twirl the dial, then I'm about to lock the door when I notice the book. I lean on the mop handle and read the title. Hard for me since I ain't practiced reading since I quit junior high ‘cause I was getting in so much trouble. "Ant-aeus," I pronounce. "What the hell is Ant-aeus?"
"Antaeus," Mr. Allison says, coming out of the freezer in a burst of fog cold air. I see him glance at the closed safe, but its just a quick look, like he sized it all up and assumed that I'd done like any honest person. "In the time of Hercules, Antaeus was a giant, who forced strangers to wrestle him. If they lost, their skulls would be added to the roof on the temple he was building. As long as he touched the ground he was invincible. Hercules, for all his faults, was strong enough to lift him off his feet and strangle him."
"Hercules was a hero then."
"Well, yes. But Hercules was a flawed man. He killed his own wife and children, but the worst part of it was that he blamed others for it, even if his deeds were heroic."
I'm breathing heavy and don't say nothing more. As he pulls off the freezer coat and hangs it on the hook, he rubs his hands. "You really should consider going back to school and getting your GED," he says. "You're too smart and to waste your time at the job you're doing."
Now I don't know that he didn't mean that as a compliment, but I do good work so I'm backed right up.
"I checked your file," he says. "I also talked to the District Manager and asked him about scholarship money for worthy individuals. I hope you don't mind, but I took it upon myself to look into it for you."
"I ain't interested," I say and shake my head no.
"It's up to you, Brad," Mr. Allison says, "and if you like I'll give you a hand with your studies."
"I'll have to talk it over with my Mama," I say, but I know it’s what she wants, and that begins what seems like a long path of backing down for me. And so I take a step my daddy would like and still see him in my eyes going off to New Orleans with his tail between his legs.
Mr. Allison, he a man of his word, and after we finish up at night, we lean over the shiny stainless steel with my books and he helps me with my pronunciation, my math, my studies of state government and history in preparation for the test in January.
Sometimes, when I'm sorting dishes and stacking them in the racks, I'm going over Jefferson's argument about slavery and wondering if a man who own slaves can still be a good man. I get to work earlier than I should ‘cause I don't take something for nothing. Before Mr. Allison comes in, Ms. Craditch goes through her routine, smoke her cigarettes and leaves the paperwork for Mr. Allison, but don't even notice I'm there early. Mr. Allison eyes me helping the day man when he comes in, even though I don't check in until my regular time. He don't say nothing, but he kind of winks at me when he sees me there at the chuffing machine.
After we beat Miss Hill in Daytona and moved up to number one in profits, the District Manager comes around and he's all smiles. But Ms. Craditch isn't, because he comes to the night shift and she has to stay past three o'clock because it's the boss and the boss has power and that power means you got to suck up or lose your job. Mr. Allison don't suck up, though—he hired new waitresses and he has to show them everything himself before he turns her over to Geselle or one of the other old pros to get experience. I hear him explain the system of checks and register, each check has to be rung and accounted for at the end of the night or have some good reason why not. Mr. Allison don't seem to notice that the District manager wants to talk to him and not Ms. Craditch. I want to tell Mr. Allison that he's missing an opportunity, but then again I don't—they'll just take him away and make him a manager of another store and I'll never see him again. The District Manager talks loud so Mr. Allison can hear him though. "Your unit is doing great," he says to Ms. Craditch. "Never seen such improvement. The home office is wondering how your profits could get so high so fast."
"Hard work," Ms. Craditch says and smokes her cigarette, leans on my stainless steel with her fingerprints mussing my shine. Around seven o'clock, the district manager leaves and so does Ms. Craditch without a word to anyone. It's Friday night and busy as a train wreck when two buses full of salty-haired Japanese pull up to an already-full dining room.
"Open the Lamplighter room, Brad," Mr. Allison yells and we seat all ninety of them at once. Everything bottlenecks. I help Florence, clear tables, pass Mr. Allison at the counter making cones. "Want me to do that?" I ask. He pauses a moment, assessing me, makes two cones, takes cash and grabs my arm. Then he drags me back to the office where he pulls out another white manager's jacket and a name badge that's already made up. "Take off your apron," he says. He checks my white shirt to see if I kept it clean, then he buttons my top button and clips a black bow-tie there. He helps me slip my arms into the jacket with the name badge that says Mr. Jones on it.
"You're going to take cash," he says. "We'll catch up on the dishes later."
And so I learn to take fistfuls of money from the customers, while Mr. Allison and Linda, that trailer trash, take care of the Lamplighter room in back. I take orders when people come to the counter, and Florence keeps my dishes up pretty good. I make ice cream cones, give out lollipops and make take-out orders. I help seat people in the dining room. One woman, who looks like she's gone a thousand miles with three kids hanging onto her long black hair, smiles at me when I bring them water. "Thank you, Mr. Jones," she says and for a second I don't recognize my own name.
We make it though without a hitch, no complaints, everyone served like it was a normal night and even the two new waitresses is pleased they got to wait on tables before they was ready and did fine anyway with all of us helping them. When we close the doors Mr. Allison looks like limp lettuce as he slaps me on the back. "Good job, Brad. Couldn't have done it without you. Hope you made a few bucks in the process." My pockets are full.
One night Mr. Allison is nervous. I can tell because he don't throw me a grape lollipop like he usually does. But he goes about his business until about nine o'clock when things slow down and then I see him rush to the front door to hold it open. A young woman comes in. She's probably ten years younger than Mr. Allison, who I guess is about thirty-one or two. This woman's all dolled up with a waist you could probably put both hands around fingertip to fingertip, this pile of golden hair French twisted atop her head like she was going to the Twenty-One Club. Mr. Allison ushers her into the Lamplighter room to one of the booths with the windows facing the open fields out back. He's turned down the lights in there ‘cause we generally only use it when we're expecting a lot more business. But he pulls out the table like a regular maitre'd then sits himself next to her. Linda throws her hips a little more than usual as she brings them menus. Even though she works the counter, she helps out in the dining room now, and when it’s rush time I throw on my white manager's coat and bow tie.
Business suddenly picks up, but we get through the rush without Mr. Allison. He doesn't get up. He doesn't see nothing else but this girl next to him. He leans toward her and she plays with the corkscrew golden silk twining down by her temples and cheeks. She glances around and smiles with her mouth closed, takes no notice of Linda hovering around even though Geselle waits on them. They have dinner like they're out for an evening and he even walks her to the car when they're done. When he comes back in, he's sweating and his lips are pursed. Geselle asks him what she should do about the check. He says to give it to him, he'll take care of it and even though he does what he always does and even helps me with some geometry after work, he's all business, even when I asks, "Is that your girl?"
"Hope so," he says without looking up, "her name's Carol Jean."
Carol Jean comes in regular. Looks like her clothes is always new. Sometimes she fingers what looks like new gold, a necklace or wrist gold or a broach with a green stone in it. One day she comes in and is playing with her hair so much I notice the sparkly on her hand.
I asks him that night. "You going to get married?"
"If she says yes," he says and gives me a quick smile, then wipes the kitchen stainless with a swirl.
When the figures come out at the beginning of the month we dropped a notch in the standings and I notice Ms. Craditch is stomping more around the kitchen when I arrive. Smokes her cigarette and talks with it in her fingers, waving it at the ceiling making smoke lassos under the florescent lights. When Mr. Allison comes in I go into the dry storage area to get placemats and napkins for the waitresses because it’s near the safe where they're talking, and I can listen.
"You're going to blow our bonuses with whatever you're doing," she says. "I want this store wailing like sirens again." Mr. Allison has set his jaw, crunching his teeth. "What the hell are you doing?" Ms. Craditch says to me when I come out with stacks of stuff the waitresses will need for the evening meal.
"Helping out," I say.
"You do your own job and let others do theirs," she says.
I'm about to say that I'm all caught up with my work when Mr. Allison gives me his a quick head shake no. Ms. Craditch sees and her eyes narrow to snake slits. She waves her cigarette hand like she's backslapping her old man's face and grumbles back to the cash drawer, doing the register receipts herself for a change. Mr. Allison takes my arm and moves me away from her. "Go on about your business," he says and I figure he's got it all under control.
The next day Ms. Craditch is waiting at the front door for Mr. Allison to arrive. He don't get his hand on the door handle before she yanks it open with her hand out. "Okay," she says, "give it to me."
Mr. Allison's shoulder's scrunch up in a kind of shrug. "What?"
"The ten dollars you stole from the cash box."
I freeze.
"I didn't take any money," he says. "I wouldn't take a nickel that doesn't belong to me."
"You took it all right. I set you up and you took it."
Mr. Allison's face is suddenly swollen and red. He whirls around and marches out of the store. I feel my future slipping away, the way I did when my Daddy left. I can hardly lift the stack of saucers I take out front for the waitresses. When I slop back to the kitchen, the phone rings and Ms. Craditch is talking fast. I can tell she's talking to the District Manager and then Mr. Allison walks back into the kitchen and begins his daily duties, except he's got no smile and is all business. There's a tension through the night shift with Ms. Craditch hanging around smoking her cigarettes and watching everything Mr. Allison does. I do my regular job and help Florence in the kitchen during the rush when Ms. Craditch isn't looking. I hopes Mr. Allison's girlfriend don't come in and she don't, but Mr. Allison I can tell ain't happy with any of this.
The next day, the District Manager is there counting things and checking when Mr. Allison comes through the door. Mr. Allison ignores him and goes on about his work. The District Manager, he stays on after Ms. Craditch leaves and he works a lot like Mr. Allison. He helps the waitresses and takes cash at the register, but he doesn't go back in the kitchen to help Florence or me. I'm restocking coffee cups on the fountain when the meal slows. I say, "Candy needs restocking."
The District Manager, he squints at me and eyes the candy levels in the shelves on the outside of the register. "The boxes is underneath the register," I say and hurry on my way. As I turn the corner I see him slump like he ain't worked so hard in a while. He bends down to get the boxes of candy to restock. He squats down to get level with the cabinet under the register, moves the box of lollipops and the cash box out onto the floor and then he moves one box of Baby Ruths which is packaged in our own label and another box of spearmint gum in our label and another, trying to find Mars bars or something, then he stops, straightens his back, reaches in, and takes out an orange roll of quarters.
"The ten dollars," he says. I can hardly hold my smile. I can see the relief on the District Manager's face as he slumps there in his squat, his arm resting on his thigh.
Ms. Craditch don't hang around no more, but she grumbles and sneers at Mr. Allison who is back to his old self and helping me with my coming test, quizzing me as he passes the dish area. "Who's the governor of the state? What's the formula for the area of a cone? What's the meaning of sophistry?"
Mr. Allison lets me off for my test day. He says, "Body work is harder than brain work," but I don't know as I agree. I study till noon and go take the test. The results won't be out for six weeks.
Carol Jean comes in one night wearing tight pants and boots, her top tied under her breasts so they're propped up like grapefruits. She don't sit down and Mr. Allison, I can tell he don't know she's coming because he's usually out there waiting for her when she does come. Carol Jean ain't real nice to the help. "Go get Mr. Allison," she says to me without even a please or a smile.
Linda takes cash at the register and glances over at Carol Jean. You can tell there's a tension between two good-looking women when both of them bitches, but Linda ain't been so bad lately. She don't like Carol Jean though. She smiles when Mr. Allison tells her to do something and she looks over her shoulder at him to see if he's watching her swing and she's generally sweet to the rest of us when he compliments her on the job she's doing. I don't mean there's anything going on. She's married and I can tell when her husband comes to pick her up and she reaches for his neck and gets a sucking kiss, they're pretty all right together. Still, if the opportunity presented itself, I don't know that she'd turn Mr. Allison away.
Anyway, Carol Jean bunches her mouth at Linda, her face hardened especially around the eyes, two cats about to spit. So I walk between them to go fill the bathrooms with my arms full of paper towels and wiping cloths. I keep the bathrooms pretty clean all the time now and don't want to let them get in bad shape anymore.
"I thought I told you to get Mr. Allison," Carol Jean says.
I'm about to tell her I'll do it in a minute, but Linda pipes up in a cheery voice, "I'll do it," and scurries back to the kitchen with that extra swing in her hips. I do a lickety-split on the bathrooms and hang around the front of the counter picking up. Linda's laughing at something Mr. Allison said and looking over her shoulder at him in that way she does when they come out front. I can tell Mr. Allison doesn't know it was Carol Jean waiting there for him.
He stops short and this glow fills him at first, but as soon as he catches her folded arms and her lick of tongue between her pursed lips, he clears his throat. "What a surprise," he says and goes to give her a hug. She jerks away and bunches her lips. "What's wrong?" he asks.
"My apartment manager says my rent isn't paid," she says.
Mr. Allison kind of shrinks, his head lowering below hers. "I'll have it Friday," he says. "It's been a little tight, if you know what I mean," he says and takes her elbow, moves her along to the Lamplighter room. I hear his soft talk and her loud screech, then the folding doors open a slit and she's marching out chest first, her boots beating the carpet like she squashing grapes.
Mr. Allison, he looks beat, his jaw heavy, his eyes like they'd been wrung out and left wrinkled. I pump up the work I do so he don't have to help me at all. I help Florence finish the kitchen and I do the whole front myself. When I come back to say good-night to Mr. Allison after everybody leaves but me, Mr. Allison's counting the receipts and when I lean over his shoulder to learn what he doing, he covers it up and says, "Good night, Brad."
Mr. Allison, he comes to work one day with his brows knit up tighter than Linda's apron cinched around her waist. His tie's on crooked, his white shirt's wrinkled and not so clean. He don't say "Hey Brad," he don't say nothing or check to see what's going on in the kitchen or out in the dining room, but we do our jobs anyway, and ‘cause I don't want him to get in any trouble, I help Florence with the prep and take napkins and placemats and coffee packets and filters out to the waitresses. And Linda sees it, too, and she helps the dining room waitresses during the rush, taking cash along with me, both of us seating people. I help Florence rush the food out quick. Mr. Allison don't move from the desk in the screened room. He talks on the phone, making call after call, then burying his face in his hands and not looking at anyone. Still, he's got us trained so well we get through without no trouble or complaints. When I finish cleaning up after everyone else is gone I go back to Mr. Allison to tell him I'm done and ask do he want to check my work. He says no, his eyes red, and I can tell he's been crying. So I ask, "What's wrong, Mr. Allison?"
And as if my words were a cooling breeze, he folds back against the chair like a cardboard box with the corners cut down to the base. He stares at the floor and shakes his head. "She left me," he says. "She picked up and left."
His shoulders start to shudder. He gasps and sobs and lets his head bob, kind of hanging loose and barely attached. I don't know what to do. Then he puts his arms around me and spills tears on my shirt. I pat his back. Me and my boss, and me helping him.
It doesn't last long. He straightens up finally and sniffles. "I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't put this on you."
I shrug. "After all you done for her," I say. "She should be grateful to you," I say, "good riddance, ‘cause a woman who don't understand a man's love ain't worth loving." And Mr. Allison, he picks up his head and looks me long in the eyes and then puts a weak smile on his face. "I always said you were smart, Brad, but I didn't know you were wise too."
He don't know the half of it. Then Mr. Allison throws his arms around me and gives me a hug. "Go on," he says. "Get outta here." And for once I don't feel like I'm outside it all. When I go home and talk to my mama about it she says, she sorry I didn't have a man around when I was growing up, but I turned out pretty good anyway. Then she gives me a hug and I feel bad for her, ‘cause she don't know me, don't know what I know.
The very next day when I get there early I check the standings of the units. We've dropped three more places and there are three men in suits coming and going out of the Lamplighter dining room, which is closed off even though it’s Friday and we're going to need space tonight. But we got a few hours before then and Ms. Craditch is running back and forth with reports and bags of old waitress checks with the dates printed in magic marker on them and once I see her carrying a cash register tape which is unraveling behind her like a roll of toilet paper She's checking the purple print on it and yelling, "I been through this twice and there is no sale rung up for $15.73."
Mr. Allison comes in and he ignores what's going on and begins his work checking and helping, but when it comes to changing the register out, Ms. Craditch says, "I'll do it," and she ain't too nice about it.
One of the suited men stops Mr. Allison from doing the prep work for the dinner meal and starts asking him questions. I'm running the dishwasher and clattering dishes in the racks, so I can't exactly hear what they say. I think it’s about a date and was he working that night. The disgust on Mr. Allison's face tells me there's something going to happen and he don't like it much.
One at a time each waitress is asked to go into the closed off room. When it's Linda's turn, she has that spit-in-your-eye look on her face, but I can tell she's nervous about going in there and facing these cold stone-faced men. I hear her shout at them and I know why I like her. "I certainly did not," she yells. "And neither did Mr. Allison." She comes out shortly after with her face red and her teeth grit.
I make my way to the counter with a double rack of water glasses. "What they asking you?"
"Someone's been stealing," she says. She doesn't look up at Mr. Allison when he brings her refills for the ice cream bin and says, "There you are Linda, ready to go for the biggest ice cream rush in history."
Linda wipes the counter and doesn't say thank you.
When he heads back to the kitchen I settle the racks of water glasses. She says, "It ain't me so it's got to be him."
She looks at me as if she's lost a part of herself, then all the tight goes out of her face. "That bitch made him do it," she says. She don't say more, but just moves slow, not like her at all, setting the placemats and napkins and silverware on the counter in front of each of the stools, a fork, a knife, a spoon, a sigh.
The District Manager shows up during the evening meal and when a phone call comes for him, Ms. Craditch—who's still here and working along with us for a change, taking cash and seating people—she tells me to go in the back room and tell the District Manager about his call. I slip through the folded doors thinking I should tell them we need the room because we got people waiting to be seated and the place is full. But the room is a mess, a blizzard of guest checks and unraveled register tapes. Guest checks are lined up on tables like solitaire cards so you can see every one in the deck. Register tapes are rolled out on the floor and back booths that run the length of the room. Reports are strewn over half the tables and even on the window-sills and it's like these men are wasps hovering over them looking for a shiny bent-over butt to sting.
The District Manager, he looks up at me. "Brad," he says. I know he knows who I am because of the scholarship and the promise that if my results come out well there’ll be more money to send me to junior college to take the restaurant and motel course. "What do you know about this, Brad?" he says.
I feel the heat on my face and I hang my head and shrug my shoulders so they think I'm just some dumb nigger who don't know nothing. "What do I know about what," I say.
"There's checks that haven't been rung up, like someone just took the money and put it in their pocket," he says.
"I wouldn't know," I say.
But the District Manager, he talked to me when I was studying for the GED. "We know you're here with Mr. Allison after everyone's gone and I know you don't miss a trick. If anyone knows what's going on, you do."
I look out the window at the dark field behind the restaurant.
"It ain't his fault," I say, and the four men look up at me like I'm a man with a gun.
When we close up, Mr. Allison is called into the back room and all three suits are asking him questions at once. I'm using the push sweeper on the carpet instead of the vacuum cleaner so I can hear what they're saying. They say they have proof Mr. Allison is stealing, taking money out of the register and not ringing up the checks. He's the only one who has access to all the processes involving the handling of money and checks. They say there's been reports. They’ve seen him with this woman having a good old time. They know her name. I hear him argue and say no customer or profit ever suffered from it.
But they say he didn't follow procedures. They ask about his Carol Jean and if he paid for the meals she had here, and he says, he didn't think there was any difference between her eating his meal which he is allowed to do because on the nights she ate here, he didn't. But I hear them say that he didn't follow procedures.
I remember how happy he'd be after his girlfriend left the restaurant, and how everybody felt better when he joked and laughed and said what a great crew we was. A young man in a shirt and tie shrugs in the front door and stands at the register until Ms. Craditch comes out to talk to him. She shakes his hand and then he follows her to the back of the restaurant where she points out things and talks to him like she's showing him what's going on everywhere.
Mr. Allison comes out of the back room with a slow stride. He looks at me when he passes and the sadness there is just as heavy as when Carol Jean left him. He goes straight to the front door. I don't wave or even say goodbye. We're closed and Ms. Craditch is there at the door with the keys to unlock it and let him out. I see her smile and something inside me fills with hate.
But when I think about it as I push the sweeper, move chairs and rock the tables up so I can get the crumbs under them, I feel like I did when my daddy went away, with Mama's telling him that she needs all the hard-earned money she makes and don't need no man taking it from her purse to go get drunk. He didn't say nothing when he left, but the way he looked at me was like he didn't want me to have strikes against me like he did.
The District Manager comes up behind me and rests his hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Brad. I know how you looked up to Mr. Allison," he says. "He did a good job for a while. I really thought he was on his way up. It's just that sometimes people do things for the wrong reasons. It's enough you understand he broke company policies. By the way, when you're done with your course at the Junior College we'd like you to start our management training program."
I shake my head. "Well sir," I say. "I thank you very much for the offer, sir. I think I'll do just that, but first I got to do a little traveling. Ain't seen my daddy in a while. And it's a ways off and there's this job. I need to stay where I am and help break in the new man."
©2002 Joel Chafetz
Joel Chafetz wrote his first (very bad) novel as a sophomore in college and
has been trying to write better fiction ever since. He spends non-writing time by teaching fiction privately and at the
University of Washington's Extension Center Writer's Program. With his "lawyer/poet/short-story
genius" wife, he cares for a two year-old daughter, Matti, who grants him just barely enough time to write.
His prize-winning fiction has been published in the Southeast
Review, Mangrove, African Voices, Boy's
Life, Gulf Stream, Byline,
Cricket, and many
other magazines and on-line journals.
Another on-line story by Joel Chafetz can be found here
at Kimera.