Shut this Toilet Down!

Chapter 1 of a novel-in-progress in which MC Guimond expiates his accumulated demons from an 11 year career of waiting on tables.


CHAPTER 1--PIGS AT THE TROUGH


I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful--a faery’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild.
--John Keats

Peggy Martinez zipped into the waitress aisle, her pink ponytail whisking side
to side. Multiple urgencies cast stones for her attention. Her section was brimming with
the hungry and the pissed. Her armpits were soaked. Fuck pope Joe. Nutty fuck sits and
leers at my tits pretending to sip coffee. No one drinks that slow. She shuffled through
her ticket orders attempting to make sense of them. Table 56. Pork chops and liver.
Shit! I punched that in twenty minutes ago. And where the fuck are the spaghetti dinners
for 58. Peggy sucked in a mouthful of air tasting like greasy onion rings, licked her ticket-
flipping finger and gazed in resignation at the next overdue order. Goddamn it! I don’t
wanna get Donkeybrains to deal with this. “Hey, watch out.”
Larry bore past her, sweating and mumbling. He twisted his tray to avoid
colliding with Mary the hostess, dropping french fries and f-bombs before vanishing
into a fat cacophonous fog of flapping arms and accusing voices.
“Peggy,” hailed Mary, slouching from the burden of menus stacked heavy and
thick as two phone books under each arm. “You have a four-top waiting.”
“But Mary,” Peggy glanced out at the eaters. A baby screamed. Ominous clang
of a dropped fork. Chewing faces of the swine. “Forget it.” I can’t show my face out
there empty handed.
She walked up to the kitchen window. In order to see the cooks she extended her
five-foot height by standing on tiptoes. Fred kept his back turned, slopping cheese sticks
onto hidden plates. Two grey, smudged handprints glared from the gorilla-strong
shoulders of his grease-blotched, untucked smock. Fred was in a zone. He was method-
ical in his sloppiness, took his work as a serious charge and hated above all else to be
interrupted.
Dale, sweating at the grill, glanced up at Peggy through pink slits in his eye
bags, wearing the hunched, glazed look of a man wanting above all to kill himself but
lacking the guts. My God, Peggy’s heart turned mush and dripped at the misery. Dale’s
mouth twitched like that of a hooked fish. He looked down and flipped another patty,
charred and shrunk to a miniature hockey puck.
Peggy steeled her courage and cleared her throat. “Um, Fred?”
“Arrrrrrrrrrrgh.” Fred kept his back to her, his bristled buzz cut glistening and
ruddy scalp skin beading under the heat lamps. He shoved his meaty paw into a cubby
hole below, yanked out a pile of plates, and clanked them onto the countertop. Onto each
he plopped careless fistfuls of cheese sticks, several of which ricocheted off, joining the
other mashed inedibles on the floor.
“Fred? Fred! You have anything for me--please?”
Fred stopped working. He gripped the edges of the mounted cutting board and
disconcertingly rocked on his feet from soles to toe tips. Peggy was transfixed by the
cold, autistic back and forth rhythm. Silent and neck-knotted, Fred fixed his gaze to the
dull steel of the grill’s upright grease-catching extension. Rocking to and fro, the squeals
of his heavy, swollen shoes sliced through the rushed kitchen clamor like a scythe
through living gristle.
“Look Fred,” Peggy sighed. “I don’t wanna get donkeybrains again but tip
money doesn’t grow on trees you know. Please--”
“Hmmph!” With preternatural quickness Fred wheeled around, his sharp Adam's
apple bobbing up and down its red-necked length, his ice cube eyes glowering with grey
hate, his frown tight and crooked from teeth biting hard and deep on the inner cheek
He lifted a plate of limp onion rings, mashed down with half the breading gone,
exposing unappetizing tubes of rubbery yellow. Curling his closed lips into a smirk, he
cocked his wrist and flicked the plate across the counter towards Peggy’s face. She
jerked her hand up just in time to avoid a broken nose.
“Thanks Fred,” said Peggy, placing the scattered onion rings as neatly as she could
back onto the plate. “You’ve taught me patience, and for the record I want you to know
that not only am I not afraid of you.” She slowed her enunciation. “No one is.
You’re the punchline of our jokes. Your gift is slapstick. Have a nice life,
Neanderthal.”
“Huh?” Fred said.
Peggy seized the plate, started walking away and lifted her voice. “That means
you’re subhuman, sweetie. You should seek out others of your own kind. You’d be
happier.”
“No little wetback bitch gonna talk to me like that.”
Peggy set the plate down on the beverage expediting counter and stuck fingers in
her ears. “Blah blah blah--Ears open only to Homo sapiens’, Fred.”
“Be careful Peg.” The timid voice belonged to Robert. The glass racks screeched
as he yanked them out of their metal slots. Greasy ropes of black hair whipped from
underneath his work cap. “Don’t want Fred walking out, Peg. Don’t want donkeybrains
in the kitchen again. That would be hell.”
“Oh Robert.” Peggy surveyed the carnage as other servers crowded and clamored
for drinks. Hot vapors streamed from the just-washed glasses. Sweating, Robert pressed
a glass against the coke dispenser. It hissed with sick crackling. Robert cursed, then
turned to the bus tub on the floor brimming full with broken glasses, adding the latest ruin,
his face a white flag with darkly suffering why me hole-punched eyes. Peggy yanked on
her bangs. Not dreaming. “We’re in hell already.”
She considered the sad plate of onion rings. Sorry table 60. She tried to
pray, but the chewing and chortling of the pigs at their table-troughs made that impossible.
How can I retain my integrity tonight. How can I deliver this shit to people without.
More crackling glass. Peggy felt a stabbing in her head. Then it was gone, replaced by a thought. “Robert,” she said. “Put a knife in the glass before filling it. The metal acts as a
conductor to the heat. It won’t crack.” Now where did that come from? Robert took the
suggestion and it worked.
“You just saved me from a meltdown, Peg,” Robert said, lifting four drinks to the
counter. “So you get served first. Here’s 60’s order.”
Peggy smiled and shrugged, centering the drinks and onion rings on a tray. How
did I know. I‘ve never heard that. She glanced up at the ceiling fan thrumming loosely
upon its axis, then sauntered like a sleep walker, expressionless and unperturbed by the
general mayhem, to the next work station.
Sally the young salad girl was struggling, her white blouse rendered diaphanous
from sweat, her nipples like tight little berries budding through a red bra. She slapped at
the pink and green lettuce in the bin, flashing worried looks at the overhead ticket
carousel.
“Got something for me, Sally?”
“Yeah. Thousand Island for 60, but be careful.” Sally tried to untwist her bra strap
and grimaced. “Sue’s lookin’ for ya.”
“I’ll deal with donkeybrains shortly,” Peggy said. She adjusted her hand’s position
under the tray for proper balance. She breathed in, blew out. Is the bullshit worth it. Am
I not worth more than a pet gerbil spinning itself to death on its toy wheel. Noises stung
her ears like hot sand whipped in a desert wind. Forms brushed past. Shuffles of harried,
desolate co-workers. Angry customers’ heels clacking the floor’s lacquer. Peggy started
moving. At least the gerbil has fun till his little heart bursts. She stood before her
section and slouched. The hostile snapping of fingers. Shouts. This isn’t fun.
“Sister Peggy! Sister Peggy! The ciborium needeth filling.”
“Sarah should be coming round with coffee soon, pope Joe. I, I gotta go now.”
“Wait, dear child.” He squinted at her breasts like a pilgrim upon first coming into
view of Jerusalem. His pallid jowls were flapping folds of sweaty baloney. His under bit
lip was puffy and trickled drool. Tufts of hair like grey weeds angled wildly about the
borders of his glazed bald spot. “How long since you’ve partaken of the Holy Eucharist,
child?”
“Have some onion rings, pope Joe.”
“But sister Peggy, I didn’t--”
“Manna from heaven, and I’m heaven’s waitress.” She stayed in the
moment, ignoring the near cries of seated beasts. You’re not a bad man. Lonely and mad
perhaps but you were never mean to me. And now and then you made me laugh. Joe
held aloft the pitiful ring, tenderly pressing its rubbery texture, moving his lips in silence.
“Pray for me, pope Joe. Please.”
“Till the third day, child,” Joe trembled. “Then you’re on your own.”
Peggy’s ears crackled. A tide of suns swept through her, wave upon wave,
burning away the dreaminess. Her heart sizzled in her ears. Here I stand, she thought.
And here I come, table 60. Her tray now weightless as she sliced against a sensate
current of hostility. Ice cubes tinkling glasses like summer wind chimes. She set the salad
before a thin man with red bushy arms, purple cheeks and whiskey eyes touched by fire.
“Can we see your fuckin’ manager. You know how long we been waitin’?”
Peggy passed the drinks out. To the man. The fat wife with a baby nursing at a
watermelon breast beneath her filthy t-shirt. The two little boys with Nascar ball caps
jabbing at each other with table knives. “Twenty-three minutes sir.”
“Listen college sweetie pants,” the wife said sardonically as the baby’s fabric-
shrouded body squirmed amid harsh, unpleasant suckling. “We gonna eat for fwee.” Her
sole bottom tooth bit into the upper lip. The baby farted. The boys chuckled and
clanked knives. “You tell dat to yer boss.”
“Thank you,” Peggy smiled. “I’ve waited a year and a half for this.”
“Don’t be thankin’ me,” called the wife as Peggy turned to leave. “You won’t be
thankin’ me in the unenjoyment line. We gonna get you fired!”
“Thank you,” Peggy bounced away, spinning her empty tray with nimble fingers
and flipping it to the other hand. “You’re my table of angels, calling me forth to greater
things.” She hummed to herself all the way to Sue’s office, the busy world squawking
and buzzing around her. It’s a movie, she mused. I’ll see it that way, and enjoy the next
scene, and see if I can guess what lays ahead. She stood at the office door and knocked.
No reply.
Peggy went around the corner and peered into the little round window. There she
is sitting on her fat donkey rump chain-smoking on the phone as usual. I’ll keep my
integrity. It’s just a movie. Peggy rapped on the window. Sue swiveled around in her
chair and screamed, “What!” her arms raised and trembling in a violent V over her head,
the phone dangling by the chord and whacking against an open desk drawer as it swung.
Peggy pointed at the door. Sue mashed her cigarette into the ashtray and jerked out of
her chair. The door swung open. Sue stood with hands on hips, black hair tied back in a
tight bun, her nose upturned and fleshy at the tip, casting blue shadows. Pig snout, Peggy smiled.
“Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t fire you right now,” Sue hissed.
“Because I quit, donkeybrains.”
“What did you call me? No one quits on me. Get back out there to your--”
“You’d be suckin’ dick on the streets without your daddy’s business, bitch! Go
wait on the hayseeds yourself and keep the tips.” Oh my god--did I say that.
Sue made blowing sounds, her grey eyes darted.
“It’s called work, Sue. Maybe it’ll make you a better person. I’m finished here.”
Peggy handed over her table’s tickets and work apron then headed for the vestibule. Be-
fore exiting she looked back. Sue tentatively crept past the patrons, head lowered and
turning to check the table numbers. The eaters kept on eating. The unfed snorted and
roared. Like wild boars, Peggy thought
A loud smack. Fred’s crude laughter. Sue rubbing her buttocks with a confused
look on her face. More laughter. Another smack. A shout: “We gonna eat for fwee!”
Sound of ripping clothes. Sue shrieked. As the restaurant erupted into hysterics Peggy
left and headed towards the bus stop. Goodbye donkeybrains.