Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“If you could get it, you’d take it — don’t tell me. It’s probably what you’re planning to do anyway.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Jesus, over three years I’ve been here, and you don’t know me at all. You see, I’ve cleaned up for you and all those other restaurants for twenty-some years because I never tried to do anything else. But I want to be…Well, I want to do…Ah, the hell with it. Sorry. And I’ve got to go.”

I put my apron on the bench, change into my street clothes, wipe the kitchen crap off my shoes with a paper napkin, and say “So, I’ll be seeing you, and I hope no hard feelings,” and start upstairs.

“Go, then,” he says, following me. “But you made a fool of me by not taking my pay raise, which I’ll never forget. Use my name as a work reference to someplace not even close to what you had here, and you’ll see what you’ll get. I’ll go out of my way, even, to make sure you don’t get hired. And if I hear you’re working in some joint, I’ll call the manager there and tell him what I think of you. I won’t say you stole. That, you never did, which is another reason I prized you. But there are other things I can say that will sound almost as bad, especially that you left me stranded today with five hours to go on your shift. That’s almost as bad as stealing, as far as we’re concerned. And if I can’t get someone in for you in two hours, just as bad and maybe worse.”

I buy a newspaper outside, go home and search the want ads for possible jobs. Computer programmer, machine operator, bank teller, and so on — nothing I could do, and they all say no on-the-job training. File clerk and messenger I could probably be hired as, but they seem no better and interesting as jobs than what I’ve been doing.

Next morning I get into my best clothes — my dress clothes, which aren’t much, but something — and go to a dozen or more employment agencies. The interviewers all tell me my experience and education qualify me for nothing much better than what I’ve been doing: cleanup man, dishwasher, busboy. I want to do something more challenging and personally rewarding, I tell them, and I’m too old to be a busboy.

“Busboys come in all ages,” the last interviewer says. “A man can retire at sixty-five as a busboy and get a reasonably good pension if he belongs to a good union. I’d suggest you find work in an expensive restaurant as one. If you work fulltime as a busboy and your waiters are fair with sharing part of their tips with you, your earnings should add up to more than you’d make as a cleanup man in even the best-paying restaurant. If you’re interested, I have a new listing here for one.”

“I’m too old to be called a busboy is I guess what I’m saying. I also feel I’m still young and healthy enough to hold down a better kind of job, and also, for a change, one cleaner. Maybe I should go back to school for something.”

“By your looks, you’re in your forties. You want my opinion? You’re also too old to return to school to study for a new profession. For an education, maybe — just to get one is what I mean. But that’s what you want? Go ahead — everyone can profit from more learning at any age. But I don’t expect you have much in savings? And just going to school without working at the same time, unless you want it to take you a few years, is one luxury I don’t think you can afford.”

I buy the evening newspaper, go home and read the want ads. Records assistant, operation analyst, registered nurse, data processor (manual) — half of them I don’t even know what they mean. There is an opening for someone to clean offices but that would be more of what I was doing and the ad says I’d need a car. It gets depressing, reading these ads, and I drink more than I usually do and soon I’m feeling drowsy. Well, maybe a good night’s sleep is what I need, and tomorrow I can start out fresh in looking for a job.

My ex-boss calls just as I’m getting into bed. “So,” he says, “find anything yet? Bank president? Water engineer? What?”

“I’m still looking. What do you want?”

“You sound different — your speech slurry. What is it? You became a drunk already in one day since you quit on me? Because you never drank at work that I know, or much ever.”

“All right, I’ll be truthful with you, for what do I got to lose? I had more to drink tonight than I’m used to. It’s depressing looking for work when you know there’s nothing much for you but the same lousy thing. And one full day of it and I think I got the picture what’s out there, not that it’s going to stop me from keep looking.”

“You know, you really got me mad yesterday,” he says.

“Oh, yeah? Well, if I made things tough for you, I’m sorry.”

“Shh — listen to me. And mad not just for that raise business and that I had to wash dishes for three hours myself. But as I said, good cleanup men are a rarity in this city, and great ones like you are a find I’d never let any other restaurant owner or manager know of. Start drinking on me, though, and I wouldn’t let you work another minute in my place.”

“Who says I want to work for you. I, in fact, don’t.”

“Wait’ll I finish, first. I think so highly of you that if you do come back as my cleanup man, I’ll also start training you under the cook.

‘Sous chef’—do you like the title? Because for an hour a day, we’ll say — or let’s just call it ‘sous chef apprentice’—that’s what you’ll be. Cooks are good-paying jobs and can also be very creative ones — not in my place so much but in others. And when you’ve learned enough, which, granted, takes time and the cook wants to go on his break, you can fill in for him instead of me or the salad man, and get plenty of practical experience. Then — though who knows when? — you really proved you can handle it, I might even put you in for him on his day off, though you’d have to work an extra day a week to do that, and with your regular wages. That might take a year. It might take two. And I’m only training you that one hour a day as I said. Though train as many hours as you want on your own time, if the cook doesn’t think you’re getting in the way, but only after the eight you work for the restaurant, which includes the one I’ll pay you for to be trained. So what do you say? It’s a big step up and can lead to who knows what. In two or so years you could be filling in for the cook on his summer vacation, and for real second-cook wages. It’ll mean I’ll have to get a cleanup man to replace you, like one of those bums, who’d make anyone look good, on your day off. It’s even, when you think of it, being extremely generous on my part, after the treatment you gave me. But I felt the offer worth it if I get a verbal guarantee of your cleanup work for me for two to three more years. And starting at the last salary I offered you, with regular increases, of course, which was what? — four fifty-five an hour?”

“It was up to four-eighty before you raised it another five cents.”

“Hey, mister, you drive a hard bargain and got too good a memory, but okay: consider yourself the winner. Now, as for your current drinking problem, we’ll call it an off night, right? Because I still appreciate you, and even if nobody else in the restaurant says to your face they do, I know they all think you’re a big plus for the place running so smooth.”

He says he’ll see me the regular time tomorrow, and hangs up. I slam down the receiver. I kick the chair and throw the ashtray against the wall. I slam my fist into the lampshade, and the lamp goes flying over the couch and the bulb in it explodes when the lamp hits the floor. The room’s dark, and that was my only lamp and bulb. I turn on the ceiling light switch, but that bulb went out a couple of years ago. I finger around for the ashtray pieces on the floor, and after nicking myself, give up. Now I know what was wrong with me all these years. I never once lost control.