Here’s part of my life:
Working at The Kettle in San Marcos, Texas. 2001.
Working all the time, because the pay was shit, and I was young and stupid and had big dreams, and I thought I was making something happen.
I was a short-order cook, but I had moved up from bus boy, so that was impressive. Are you impressed?
I worked the graveyard, usually, 10 PM until 6 AM. Go home, shower up, grab some food while I watched cartoons, and then bed. Wake up around 1 in the afternoon, try to live some life, and then back to work.
I had started out cleaning tables and washing dishes, an easier shift: 2 PM to 10 PM. But the pay for a cook was better, so there were nights I’d stay at work and learn the menu, learn how to make everything on it. Learn the damn numbers, because that’s how it was written on the tickets. Number 32, two pancakes two eggs, two pieces of either bacon or sausage, and a piece of toast. Number 33 was pretty much the same thing, but with French toast. 63 was catfish with fries, but I never understood why the hell anyone would order catfish at a breakfast place.
People did, though, and they were always mad that it tasted like garbage.
For catfish, what you did, was, you microwaved a frozen piece of fish for 3 minutes, then dropped it into the fryer for a few more. Usually, the middle was still frozen and raw, but people ordered it.
I had started out cleaning tables, but because I worked for free so much, and because the regular graveyard cook cut off his finger, I got to be cook. He was working on his car while he was at work. I got a frantic call from my boss, telling me I was ready, telling me I had been promoted to cook. The other guy, he had been working on his car, messing with a belt of some sort, and he didn’t realize his key was still set to the “on” position. So when he shoved things around, the car started up, and his finger got caught between a belt and a sharp piece of engine. So long, finger. And then I was a cook.
There was this week, I don’t remember much about it, because I was sleep deprived and delirious. I had to take my girlfriend to Austin to catch a flight. It was at a reasonable hour, for normal people. Like 11 in the morning, probably.
I got called in the day before, not my normal shift. Here’s how it goes, in case you don’t know: Morning Shift is 6 AM to 2 PM, and it’s the busiest time, if you sell things like pancakes and waffles and French toast and catfish. Day Shift if 2 to 10 PM, and it is the slowest. That’s where they stick the new-hires and the people they don’t like. Graveyard: 10 PM to 6 AM.
Graveyard is absolute lunacy. Drunks, druggies, and psychopaths, that’s your demographic for Graveyard.
I worked Graveyard as a cook, because the guy cut off his finger. But I had been called in to work Day Shift, because the regular shift cook had gotten fired for being involved in a bacon/prostitution/drug ring.
Yeah, that’s a thing, when you live barely above the gutter. It’s also a thing for a different story.
The point is, I worked Day Shift, then Graveyard. Then I went home, showered, and took my girlfriend to the airport. Came home, took a twenty minute nap, and then went back to work. Day Shift again, then Graveyard again.
The entire week was screwy, and I ended up working most of it. Sleeping whenever I could, which wasn’t much.
And one morning, I decide to grab breakfast on the way home: McDonald’s because Sausage McMuffins are the best thing. I can barely see, it’s so foggy, and my eyes are having trouble focusing, and the only reason I made the trip safely is because my job, my apartment, and my job were all very close to each other.
I didn’t have to work for the rest of the day, and I even had the next day off. I wanted to shower, eat, and sleep.
I sat out on the porch, watching the fog. I lived about 50 feet from the highway, so I could hear the traffic, but the fog was so heavy that I couldn’t see it.
I stared at the fog, hallucinating, almost. I saw the swirls of gray twisting around each other, and I imagined monsters in that gray, fighting among each other because they couldn’t find me. And I ate my breakfast.
And then the fog cleared some, and I saw a carnival set up on the other side of the highway. I knew I had lost my mind, at that point. I finished my breakfast, and then I lit a cigarette, and I called to the mystery carnival, and I heard voices calling back, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying.
I went in and got my disposable camera, and I took one picture, because I didn’t want to waste film on a hallucination, and then I went to bed.
When I woke up 27 hours later, the carnival was gone, as I knew it would be. But when I got the film developed…
