James Van Pelt - Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille

VJ says, “Voices in your brain, Carter?” He hunches his right shoulder up and rests his ear on it. A gray-streaked lock of hair hangs over his eyes.

“Always,” I say. He may be a bum, but I can tell him anything. What will it matter? He listens. Lots of times he asks questions, too. Always interesting ones. Nothing about how many sixteen ounce cups I’ll need for the next week, or how many gallons of fry oil. Most of the street people I give coffee to are good listeners.

I tell him about Howard Fisk, about how much I hate him. I tell him about the stuff inside my head.

VJ asked me about the dreams before I ever mentioned them. A month ago, right after they hired Howard, VJ said, “What’d you dream last night?” And that was kind of funny, because I never dream, but when he asked I remembered that I had dreamed that night. I’ve dreamed regularly since then, too.

In the dream I am sitting by the cases of lettuce, like I am now, doing preinventory, marking my sheet with a pencil, which Howard Fisk will erase before he writes his count in pen, and then I’ll signature each total in ink after I’ve confirmed his work. Triple check. I purposely miscount sometimes to find out if Howard actually does his job. Only, in the dream, I’m seeing myself rather than being myself. My hair is thinning on top. My shoulders are brutish, hands fat, fingers grossly squat, belly sagging onto my lap, white shirt greasy, black pants greasy, black shoes greasy. A funhouse mirror version of myself. A troll me. In real life I’m… husky, not like this vision.

I hit the dream me with the lyepit pole, a heavy steel rod with a hooked end we use to pull the broiler parts out of the lye each morning. My head wraps around the pole. No blood but lots of hamburger grease. I strike myself again and again, pounding myself into a flat, slickly shining blob.

I woke up, my T-shirt bunched under my armpits, my blankets tangled around my feet. I went into the bathroom and toweled the sweat off my chest and back. I put baby powder between my legs to keep them from sticking together.

I told VJ about the dream, and he said, “Tell me something mean about yourself.” I thought about it for a while, then said, “The nice thing about managing a Burger Land is I can fire sixteen-year-olds for being immature.”

I learned about sixteen-year-old immaturity in my brief teaching career. “You’ve got to learn from the past,” is what I said my first day in American History at Lincoln. I was wearing a suit that I’d bought just for teaching. Thirty-two sophomores sitting at their desks stared right through me. That was my best day at the school. At the end of the third week, someone had written my name under the hugely fat caricature of Boss Tweed on the bulletin board. The principal asked me to quit at the end of the year.

I fired my first employee the third day after I took the day manager’s job. Her name was Femi and her parents were Nigerian. She had burned a basket of fries.

“But, Mr. Carter, you told me to fill the napkins.” Her huge lower lip trembled. Her hair net pulled kinky hair tight away from her forehead. Her dark skin looked dusty to me. She would be a junior at Lincoln High in the fall. I’d seen this act before, the quivering voice, the sincerity, the dropping of the head. All high school students adopt it when they blow a responsibility.

“Food in the fryer comes first,” I said. We went back and forth for a couple of minutes, then she got belligerent. That’s step two in the immature person’s repertoire of tactics.

She shouted, “You tell me to do one thing and I’m doing another. Am I supposed to be telepathic?”

Some of the lunch crew on break were watching us. Howard Fisk had come in to pick up his paycheck. He held his little woman, hands up to his mouth, and looked pained. There’s got to be respect. I fired her.

She said, “I hope you can’t sleep at night,” and flipped me off when she stomped out the back door.

In the summer the day crew has thirty to thirty-five teenagers working. I fired one every four or five days. At the time, nights were great.

VJ says, “How is your wife?” His face is dirty, but the coffee has cleaned his top lip, which is red and chapped. I tell him.

Tillie and I don’t make love. She shares an apartment with a nurse, and I see her twice a month when she picks up her check at the end of my shift. I’ll see her tonight. I’m tense, thinking about seeing her. I check my fly all the time, as if I’m afraid she’ll come in and I’ll be exposed. Usually she comes through the employee door, doesn’t smile, talks in monosyllables, wears nice clothes I didn’t buy her. She’s lost weight since we separated.

Last time we talked I said, “How are you doing, Tillie?”

“Fine.”

“Car running okay?”

“Yes.”

“I was thinking of taking some graduate courses at the university. Maybe something towards an M.B.A.”

“Good for you.”

“Do you want a burger?”

“No. Thanks.”

She went out through the dining room, talked to Howard Fisk, who was eating his dinner before the night crew came in. She always talks to Howard. I watched her through the one-way mirror in my office. She ate one of his onion rings. He didn’t look at her. Kept his head down. When she went out the front door, he smiled at her and half-waved. She smiled back. She hasn’t smiled at me for years.

VJ says, “I stay away from women.”

Despite the almost palpable odor of lettuce, and the underlying hints of lye, cooking meat, old grease, soaps, Styrofoam, cardboard and plastics, VJ smells like an alley, a reminder of trashcans, a wetgutter. I think the women stay away from him.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, and I go up front to see how they are doing.

The secret to running a fast food franchise is knowing what the customer wants before he can think to ask you for it. Most of the time I work pushout. The rush adrenalizes me. People lined up out the door. Green-screened television monitors filled with orders. Voices whispering in my earphone. My hands flying. Burgers out from under the heat lamps and into the bags (mayonnaise makes the waxy paper wrappings slick). Fries fresh from the vats hot enough to blister if I held them that long. Drinks all in order, all in a row.

I’ll say something like, “That’s two quarter pound Burger Land burgers, three small fries, a small coke, a small lemonade and a coffee.” I’ll place the two bags on the counter. The order might have flickered onto the monitor eleven seconds ago. I’ve timed myself. During the rush I average fourteen seconds an order.

I’ll say, “Would you like some ketchup with those fries?” I throw a package in. Some people want the condiments, some don’t. I’ve got a feel for condiments. Hardly anyone asks me for something before I ask them if they want it. The owner, Mr. White, told me that I’d have to read their minds if I was going to be good. In the rush, when I’m on automatic and my analytical side has shut down, I can. I’m good at clearing my mind.

I walk behind Ashmid, a scrawny seventeen-year-old with hairy arms. He’s dropping raw, red patties onto the broiler belt.

“Broil dem burgers, yeah, yeah,” he sings over and over under his breath.

If I say, “Go wash the tables, Ashmid,” he’ll say, “Yasuh, boss.”

“Tote that bale,” I say.

“Yasuh, boss.”

Janet Sims, staring absently into an empty fry bag, stands next to the shake machine.

“How’s the dining room?” I ask.

“Fine, sir.”

“Straw dispensers?”

“Filled, sir.”

A large mustard stain shaped like a breast discolors her uniform pant’s blue and white pinstripes.

“Go clean something,” I say.