January 4, 1998
“Let the freak get ‘em,” one of the girls said. Carla, I thought. She looked like the other girl. Patty. It was my first day. I knew these identical twins in high school. At first, they looked exactly alike, but after a while I could tell each right off. ‘I guess it’s the same when you meet a lot of new people all at once,’ I thought, ‘they are all identical twins.’
Carla and Patty had fake blond hair held in ponytails with scrunchies. Patty was training me. The ‘freak’ was a quiet girl with purple hair and almost matching purple lipstick. She had several piercings, including a hoop through her nose. I can’t remember her name right now, as I write.
There were five old men waiting for a table near the host stand. One of them kept staring at Carla with a creepy grin. She smiled back with that fake smile you do when you’re at work, then she pretended to busy herself behind the lunch counter. “They don’t need menus,” Patty said. We walked through the main dining area of the restaurant with the salad bar. The smoking section had big windows facing the gas station pumps, the street, and the highway entrance ramps.
“The girl with the purple hair will be right with you fellas,” Patty told the four who had sat down at the booth. The other man dragged a chair from non-smoking, I still can’t remember her name. He said something about the cold weather and the other men agreed. “You don’t want those guys,” she informed me, “they just drink coffee for hours and tip you a quarter, each one of them.” She then motioned to the quiet girl. “Coffee, and don’t forget that Doug gets decaf this time!”
I followed Patty back behind the lunch counter and watched the orders come up through the window that created a connection between the kitchen and the counter. One of the cooks stabbed a ticket through a metal stick and rang a bell. “Shit boy,” he yelled through the window, which was really just an empty space. No one knew why they called it a ‘window'. “How old are you?” I told him I was 19. “Shit, you look like you’re 13 or something.” I knew he was in his 50s but he looked half-dead.
A mom, dad, and their kid walked in and stood by the ‘please wait to be seated’ sign. They kept staring at me and I realized that I was the only one at the hostess stand. I smiled at them. I didn’t know what to do. Carla said something about ‘sections.’ There were a lot of empty tables, would it matter if I sat them wherever? I turned around to ask the cook but he wasn’t there anymore. I laughed nervously in the direction of the family then put my finger up and mouthed ‘one moment.’ The mom smiled at me with that fake smile that you do when you’re embarrassed for someone and then she brushed the snow from her daughter’s cap. The girl squirmed to remove her mother’s hand.
I went to the back, behind the stoves and ovens, and found Carla smoking a cigarette at a little table. I called her Patty when I told her that people needed to be seated. She didn’t correct me but kind of stuck out her chest to highlight her name tag. I felt bad.
She swore as she put out her cigarette and mumbled something about the girl with the purple hair. “If this says ‘dirty’ don’t go in the walk-in, alright?” It was one of those magnets you put on the dishwasher so you know if the dishes are clean or dirty. I told her I wouldn’t but didn’t inquire further. It was my first day.
“Hi there, terribly sorry about the wait,” Carla’s concern was sincere. “Smoking or non?”
“Non,” the mom said; I think the dad was disappointed.
Carla warned me not to go into the manager’s office without knocking as we walked back to the kitchen and then scolded the purple-haired girl for not seating the family. She asked me where I was from and I told her.
“Why’d you move here?”
“My mom got a job here,” I lied.
“Huh. Where’s she working at?”
“I can’t remember what it’s called.”
“You ever waited tables before?”
“No.”
“Shit, my cig,” she said and then went into the back. She pounded on the metal walk-in door and told Patty that she had a table and that she was supposed to be training me. I waited for Patty at the counter but when she came out from the back, she went straight to the family still sitting where we had left them.
“Sorry about the wait,” Patty told them. She was not sincere. I walked over to the salad bar while she took their order and pushed the lettuce around with a tong. The cherry tomatoes looked weird under the fluorescent light. The purple-haired girl walked by with two coffee pots—one with a brown handle and the other was orange. I figured one was the decaf. For Doug. I watched her bend slightly into a cloud of cigarette smoke to pour the coffee and I think Doug said something about wanting Carla as a waitress next time.
The little girl wanted a strawberry milkshake. Patty ordered the purple-haired girl to make it for her. I offered to help so I could learn how. I think that offended Patty and she walked away.
I just wanted to be close enough to her to see what her name tag said. She had already told me her name, so I didn’t want to ask again. Yet, once she was close to me, I was too worried that she’d think I was trying to look down her shirt. I still didn’t know her name.
Two scoops of vanilla ice cream. One spoonful (the big spoon for milkshakes) of strawberries in that can of red jelly they come in. Two squeezes of the strawberry sauce. Then you put the metal cup into the mixer. Whipped cream and then more sauce. She was very nice while showing me, and she smelled as if oranges were flowers.
♦ ♦ ♦
4° Fahrenheit outside. I figure now that I’m back in my motel room, it’s a good time to update my situation. My name is Sanford, I’ve come from Cleveland, and I intend to arrive in Los Angeles. I’ve made it to Nebraska. I’m stuck here.
I can’t get this motel room warm. My clothes smell like the diner’s kitchen. I put a towel against the bottom of the door to stop the snow that drifts through the gap. The heater makes this rattling noise so it should work. I guess it kind of works. The comforters have this weird smell, like old and sex. The faucets run brown with rust for several minutes. Everything I own is in boxes between the far wall and the one bed. Except my car. Piece of shit car.
I wonder how long I’ll have to work in the restaurant until I have enough money to get it fixed. Frank, the manager, stayed in his office most of the night. He is weird. I wish I knew her name, the girl with the purple hair. She gave me ten dollars even though I’m not supposed to get any tips yet. It wasn’t a ‘real shift,’ Frank said, that’s why I didn’t get a shift meal. I guess I get a free meal every time I work.
What if I had gone east instead? I could call home. No, I can’t do that, not until I’ve made it.
It’s the walk over the highway to the motel that gets me. There’s nothing to contain the wind, so it breaks across my face. I had felt it when I went to my interview, but it’s so much harsher after an eight-hour shift. It only snows sideways here, little frozen needles that poke into my cheeks. My eyes.
Across the street there’s a building that’s half convenience store and half bar. You can see into the bar side from the cash register, down a darkened hallway. In less than two years I can go in there and drink. I bought a box of Lucky Charms and a quart of milk for dinner on my way to my room.
My motel curtains are stuck closed and the walkway to the rooms has a roof with dim yellow lights hung from wires. I haven’t seen the sun since I’ve been here. There’s a man who screams at a woman, maybe she screams back but I haven’t heard her. Tomorrow I’m going to start learning how to put orders into the computer for the kitchen. I don’t have a spoon. Or a bowl.
Tomorrow, I will get some bowls and plates and silverware from… somewhere. And God damn it, real or not real, I’m getting my shift meal.