Noah Cicero - The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. II

“I know, I fucking know. But I didn’t graduate. I dropped out and became a dishwasher.”

“I guess you’re fucked then,” Sasha says.

“Get me a Captain and Coke. I need to get drunk.”

Sasha pours a Captain and Coke and hands it to me. I take the small straw, stir it around, and throw the straw on the bar and drink.

While gulping the drink, a song comes on. “Strawberry Wine” by Deana Carter.

Everyone becomes quiet.

During the chorus, me, Chang, Sasha, and everybody else in the bar sing along.

When the song ends, a menacing silence encompasses the bar.

Sasha picks up an empty glass and flings it at the wall!

It shatters!

No one even mentions it.

It’s Saturday.

The busiest day at the steakhouse.

I hate Saturday.

It’ll be like Wednesday and I’ll lie in bed and think, Saturday is coming, it’ll kill me.

I dread Saturday.

I have fifteen minutes till I have to start so I’m standing at the bar being useless.

Beth, an attractive twenty-two-year-old with a two-year-old daughter, walks up to me and says, “You have that belt on.”

I’m wearing a robin-egg blue belt. It holds up my pants.

“Yeah, so.”

“People are talking.”

The phrase, ‘Hell is other people’ zips into my brain as I say, “What are people saying?”

I feel like I’m playing some deranged game, because this conversation is so predictable I could kill myself.

“They are saying you might be gay.”

“Gay?”

“Yeah, gay.”

“Is there anything wrong with being gay?”

She looks confused and says, “Hmm, no.”

“Then I’m okay.”

“Are you gay?”

“Do you mean I take it up the ass from men?”

“Yes, do you do that?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I have hemorrhoids. I would bleed horribly.”

“You’re weird, Vasily.”

“So are you, Beth.”

Beth walks away.

I’m sitting on a milk crate outside before I have to start.

Larry is there.

Larry is a crackhead.

Larry is five-foot-five, 130 pounds, has bad skin and spits a lot.

He has worked at the steakhouse for five years and makes $7.50 an hour.

The boss hates him.

Once the boss screamed, “Larry, if you want to leave, you can go.”

Larry stayed.

Larry knows the boss hates him and it pisses her off more that he stays.

The boss won’t fire Larry because she knows he wouldn’t get a job and would collect unemployment and smoke crack with it.

Larry says to me, “You got any metal?”

“Metal?”

“Yeah, metal, for scrap.”

“You scrap shit?”

“Yeah, that’s what I do to make extra money. I scrap shit. I go into abandoned houses in Youngstown and take the copper pipes. I get $2.60 a pound for copper.”

I don’t believe he gets $2.60 a pound for copper, but I don’t care anyway.

“I got some stoves in the garage.”

“How much do you think they weigh?”

“I have no idea how much the stoves weigh.”

“Probably like two-hundred pounds.”

“Yeah, probably.”

I start work.

There are a million dishes to wash.

They are stacked up three feet high.

I’m not daunted.

I’m the uber-dishwasher.

Diego Jones, an older black cook who used to be a crackhead, runs over to me and says, “I need ramekins.”

Everybody always needs ramekins.

I throw the ramekins in.

I start to contemplate suicide.

There are large knives everywhere.

I could grab one and plunge it into my stomach.

Say something really profound like, “I hate Saturdays.”

Then die.

I go out to smoke again.

Crazy Dennis is there.

Dennis looks like a man.

But tells people he is a woman.

Dennis does have small tits though, and a bulging ass.

Dennis tells people that he was once a woman, that he got into a car wreck and had to go on steroids, and the steroids made him into, in his words, ‘a morphidite.’ (Which always makes me think of

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

.) I always imagine Dennis morphing into a robotic tiger when he speaks.

Dennis also says he was in the army and a Green Beret, once a mechanic, once a trucker, and even at one point a belly dancer.

As we smoke on milk crates, Dennis says to me, “They won’t give me a black hat.”

The managers gave all the cooks that have been here for at least six months black hats, but they didn’t give one to him because he has only been working here for five months, and they don’t like him because he’s lazy and insane.

Dennis keeps talking. “They won’t give me a black hat. I’ve worked for this company for three years. I mean it was down south where I worked. But I was transferred here. I have seniority over most of these cooks. The managers don’t understand how important I am to this business. If I left, half their customers would leave.”

“They didn’t give me a black hat either,” I say.

“You’ve only been here four months.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been working for this company for four years. I should get a black hat. Instead I’m walking around with this dirty blue one. I have the mind to just walk out of here. Then they would know how important I am to this business.”

“Those bastards,” I say earnestly.

“Yeah, those bastards. Why won’t they give me a black hat? I show up to work on time. I put in my hours. I work hard here and they won’t give me a black hat. Even fucking Larry got a black hat, and he’s a crackhead.”

“Larry’s been here for five years.”

“That don’t mean shit. He’s still a crackhead.”

“My cigarette is done. Gotta go.”

I’m back at the dish-tank.

The dishes keep coming.

The host, Jeremy, comes up to me.

Jeremy is seventeen and still in high school.

He just spent two days in a juvenile detention center for breaking his stepdad’s jaw.

“Jeremy, how was the pen?” I say.

“It was boring. I feel really bad.”

“For what? I thought you said he was an asshole.”

“He is, but I’m totally not like violent.”

“Who cares? Violence is awesome.”

“No man, I feel bad. I don’t feel good about it.”

“No, it’s cool. Beating up your parents is awesome!”

“Dude, but like.”

“No, don’t worry. Life is awesome. ‘Beat your parents,’ that’s what I always say.”

Jeremy realizes he’s getting fucked-up advice that totally contradicts everything everybody has been telling him for the past week, so he leaves.

I’m walking around.

Gina comes up from behind me and says, “I like your belt.”

“Thanks.”

“And I can see your underwear,” she says, giggling.

I go over to the dish-tank and pull my pants up.

I wonder if that means she likes me.

She likes looking at my underwear.

Why didn’t I think of something witty to say like, ‘Oh yeah, wanna see the rest of them?’

Or, ‘You wanna see what’s underneath?’

Or, ‘You like looking at my ass?’

But no.

I say nothing.

I get nervous and go over to the dish-tank and pull my pants up.

I’m such an ass.

Why can’t I do anything right when it comes to girls?

Especially Gina.

I should blow my brains out.

I’m standing at the dish-tank.

Beth comes over and says, “You going out tonight?”

“No, I don’t drink on Saturdays.”

“What the hell does that mean, ‘I don’t drink on Saturdays.’ Everybody drinks on Saturdays.”

“That’s exactly why. The bar will be full of assholes yelling stupid shit at each other. I start to hyperventilate around a lot of people.”