Нил Шустерман: Antsy Does Time

“That chews the churro, man,” said Skaterdud. “But ya can’t do nothin’ about no bad freakin’ luck, right? Everybody’s got a song on the fat lady’s list.” Then he thought for a second. “Of course I ain’t got no worries, “cause I know exactly when I’m doing the dirt dance.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Oh, yeah,” said the Dud. “I know exactly when I’m croaking. A fortune-teller told me. She said I’m dying when I’m forty-nine by falling off the deck of an aircraft carrier.”

“No way!”

“Yeah. That’s how come I’m joining the navy. Because how screwed would it be to fall off an aircraft carrier when you’re not even supposed to be there?”

Then he stood up and hurled his skateboard over the fence. “Enough of this noise.” He climbed the fence with the skill of a gecko, then looked back to me from the other side. “You wanna come over? I’ll teach you stuff the other kids gotta break bones to learn.”

“Maybe another time. Nice talkin’.”

“Yeah,” he says, and heads off. In a moment he disappears over the concrete lip, and I can hear him zipping in and out of concrete ramps that were slick with patches of ice, not caring how dangerous it might be, because he’s so sure he’s safe for another thirty-four years.

I got to the restaurant on time, but I felt like I was late because everything was in full swing. Since most of our Thanksgiving reservations were for later in the afternoon, my dad didn’t expect it to get crowded until around two, and he didn’t want me hanging around with nothing to do, since that was “a recipe for disaster.” But they hadn’t counted on all the holiday walk-ins. There weren’t enough walk-ins to fill the restaurant, but it sure was enough to make my father run around like a maniac, which made my mother do the same. Only my sister Christina was calm as she folded napkins into swans and unicorns, and placed them at each table. Dad had given most of his staff Thanksgiving off, since he’s such a pushover, so that meant more work for the family.

Just watching my dad work is enough to exhaust you. He’s like the plate spinner at the circus—he’s got to keep everything going, see everything at once. Maybe it’s because he’s overcompensating. He doesn’t have any formal training in running a restaurant, just a head full of great recipes, and a rich, cranky old business partner willing to give him a chance.

“Old Man Crawley is a very hard man to please,” my dad had told me. Having worked for Crawley myself last year—as the walker of his many dogs, among other things—I knew more than anyone how hard he was to please. Used to be my dad worked long hours in a job that he hated. Now he works longer hours in a job that he loves, but he seems just as brain-dead at the end of the day.

Anyway, when Dad saw me come in, he took a moment out of the mania to give me a hug, and a mini neck massage.

“Water-pouring muscles all ready?” he asked. It was a bit of an inside joke, on account of my shoulder muscles used to lock into a shrug after my first few days as a busboy. Who knew pouring water could be so strenuous.

“Yeah,” I told him.

“Good,” he said. “Cause one of these days they’re gonna make ‛The Water Pour’ an Olympic event, and I expect to see nothing but gold.” He handed me an apron, slapped me on the back, then went back to work. I really like being around my dad early in the day, before the stress turns him into what we in our family like to call “Darth Menu.”

Pretty soon my mind was occupied pouring water and taking away dirty plates, but thoughts of the doomed raccoon guy and Gunnar never entirely faded into the background.

By 6 P.M., we were already into our second seating, and I was a bit grumpy, because I kept taking away all these plates of food, but I couldn’t eat any of it myself. Both Mom and Dad had come up with great Thanksgiving recipes that fit the French/Italian theme of the restaurant. Pumpkin Parmesan Quiche, and Turkey Rollatini au Vin—stuff like that. I got so hungry I would pick at some of the leftovers I took away from the tables, and that got me a whack on the head from Mom. While the skeleton crew of regular staff had breaks every few hours, family members were slaves today, and I resented it.

So I’m moving plates and pouring water, and I can’t help thinking that here are all these people stuffing their fat faces, while some poor slob died simply because he got stuck holding on to a balloon—and then there was Gunnar. How could these people eat when he was suffering from pulmowhachamacallit?

That’s when it happened. The glass of ice water I was pouring overflowed. The moment I realized it, I jerked the pitcher back, but that only succeeded in sloshing ice cubes onto the woman’s dinner plate.

“Oops!” Then I reached onto her plate like an idiot and started plucking ice cubes out of her Garlique Yam Puree with my bare fingers.

“ANTSY!”

Like I said, my dad saw everything all at once in the restaurant, and I had been caught red-handed—or orange-handed, as it were.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I... I spilled. I was just—"

“It’s all right,” said the woman. “No harm done.”

But she was wrong about that. “We’ll get you a new plate right away,” my father said. “I’m sorry for the trouble. Your meal is on the house.”

By now my mom and the other waitress had come over to help clean up the spill. Dad handed me the plate of food and pointed to the kitchen. “Take this away and wait for me.”

He apologized to the woman again, and maybe even a third time. I don’t know because I was already in the kitchen, cleaning off the plate and awaiting judgment. It wasn’t long in coming. In just a few seconds, he was there, all fire and brimstone. I could tell the day had already burned him out, and he had gone over to the Dark Side.

“I can’t believe what you did in there! Where is your head?”

“Dad, it was just a spill! I said I was sorry!”

“Just a spill? Your fingers were in her food! Do you have any idea how many health codes you broke?”

I’ll admit that I deserved to be reprimanded, but he was out of control.

That’s when Mom poked her head in, and said in a whisper that was louder than most people scream, “Will you keep it down? The whole restaurant can hear you!”

But Dad was a runaway train. “How could you be so irresponsible?”

“Well, maybe I have something else on my mind!”

“No! When you’re here, you can’t have anything else on your mind!”

“Why don’t you just fire me?” I snapped. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t fire me—because I don’t actually work here, do I?”

“You know what, Antsy? Just go home.”

“Fine, I will!” And for my parting shot, I dipped my finger in the big pot of Garlique Yam Puree, and licked it off.

It was long after dark now, and the walk home was freezing. I thought my brother Frankie might be at home to keep me company, since he was back from Binghamton for the weekend, but he was off with friends, so I had nothing to do but hang out and stew.

The phone rang at about eight-thirty. On the other end was Old Man Crawley, who owned more of my father’s restaurant than my father did. Getting a call from Crawley was worse than getting chewed out by my dad.

“I understand service was sloppy tonight,” Crawley said.

“Did my father tell you that?”

“I haven’t spoken with your father. I sent an observer to eat at the restaurant.”

“You sent a spy to your own restaurant?”

“Espionage is a common business practice.”

“Against yourself?”

“Apparently it was warranted.”