Getting Higher (14 page)

*****

Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Joe applied for the job at Burger World on Thursday. Friday evening, while he and Rocky were watching T.V. and drinking beer, the phone in Rocky's apartment rang.

"It's for you, Joey," said Rocky after answering it.

"Who the hell'd be callin' me?" wondered Joe, who had just about forgotten about the job by that time.

"I dunno'," shrugged Rocky. "How 'bout you come over here and find out?"

Rising from the chair which he'd been sprawled on, Joe set his beer can on the coffee table and plucked the receiver from Rocky's paw.

"Yeah?" he said into the phone's mouthpiece. "This's Joe."

Five minutes later, Joe hung up the phone and shuffled back to his seat.

"So who was it, Joey?" queried Rocky, popping open another beer.

"Some restaurant, man. I got a job there."

"No shit!" shouted Rocky. "I don't believe it! Little Joey finally made good!"

"Hell," frowned Joe, "it ain't nothin'. The place is called Burger World, down on Wayne Avenue. It's a real dump, man, and all I'll be makin' is minimum wage. It's really gonna' suck."

"It's better'n nothin', Joey."

"Just barely," grumbled Joe. "I gotta' cut my hair, too, an' shave off my beard. That
really
sucks, man. They said their workers gotta' look clean-cut an' all that shit. I don't know why I'm even takin' this damn job. Maybe I'll call 'em back an' just tell 'em ta' fuck off."

"When you start?" quizzed Rocky, sucking from his beer.

"Tomorrow," supplied Joe. "I gotta' go in tomorrow an' get a uniform an' shit, an' then they're gonna' show me around. I guess they're gonna' start trainin' me after that...if I don't quit first, that is."

"You won't," Rocky assured him firmly. "You need the damn money. So, I guess you're gonna' hang around Bartlett a little while, huh?"

Joe paused for a moment, suddenly aware of the consequences of his actions. He couldn't just travel back to Brownstown now, unless he really did want to lose the job. "Yeah, I guess I'll stick around. You don't mind puttin' me up a little longer, do ya'? I can chip in on rent an' shit, now."

Rocky smiled broadly, showed his opalesque teeth. "Joey, Joey, Joey. Do you even gotta' ask? We're friends, man."

"That's cool," acknowledged Joe with a nod. "If this stupid job don't work out, though, I'm takin' off. I'd just as soon be broke in fuckin' Brownstown as be broke here. I ain't takin' no shit, man, from bosses or nobody." As if to affirm his gutsy stand, Joe forcefully snagged his can of beer and took an enormous gulp from it.

"That's what they all say," quipped Rocky. "Hell, that's what
I
said. Just wait till you get in that place and people start tellin' you what ta' do, Joey. Wait till you're in there makjn' money, an' the boss says do somethin' or you're fired. I know you ain't had a job for a while, man, but you remember how it was when you did. You gotta' take lots'a shit, man, from lots'a asshole people. It sucks, but if you want paid, you'll smile an' play along. Don't go in there with a bug up your ass or you won't last a damn day."

"Maybe I don't want to," posed Joe. "Maybe I don't care. I don't need this job, y'know? It's just somethin' ta' get money so I can help you out with th' rent. Man, I got by fine without it before, an' if I have to, I'll get by without it again."

"No," argued Rocky, "you won't. Things're different now. I think you need this fuckin' job more than you think."

"We'll see." Joe crushed his empty beer can and lobbed it into the brown paper garbage bag in the corner.

'All Burger World employees,' the manager had said, 'must maintain a helpful and clean-cut image.' Joe couldn't picture himself as helpful or clean-cut. He thought about the whole thing, and it was so ridiculous that he had to laugh to himself. This was not going to work out, he thought, this was definitely not going to work out.

The next morning, Joe woke at about eleven o'clock. The first thing that he did after crawling from his blankets on the floor was to head for the bathroom. Sleepily, he filled the sink with warm water and splashed some on his rumpled, reddened face. He found one of Rocky's razors and some shaving cream and started to remove his shaggy beard.

There was a lot of hair on his face, the thick foliage of several shaveless months, and it took a while to get rid of it. By eleven-thirty, however, it was gone; he drained the hairy water from the sink, wiped the extra gobs of fur from the basin with a piece of toilet paper, and slapped some of Rocky's shaving lotion on his cheeks and chin and neck.

Joe gazed into the mirror at his image. He looked completely different, almost unrecognizable, even to himself; for years and years, he'd sported a beard and mustache, and now they were suddenly gone. It was like looking at a different person, somebody else who had replaced Joe Jones in front of the mirror. Befuddled by the change, the new man reached up and ran his hand over his chin, staring.

"Fuckin' Burger World," he mumbled. "Fuckin' job."

He stared at the dark pips of fuzz that still stuck to the sink, the last remnants of his old face.

Then, a little more slowly, he reached for a pair of scissors. His hair was next.

*****

By one o'clock, Joe was standing in the manager's office at Burger World. His beard was long-gone and his hair didn't hang below his shoulders anymore; though his barbering had been unprofessional, with too much hair hacked from some patches and not enough from others, the cut was apparently good enough to satisfy the boss. Joe's bangs now ended an inch above his eyebrows, the hair at the nape of his neck had retreated far from his collar, and his ears were visible for the first time in a long time. Though he was glad that the haircut had passed inspection, he still felt uneasy without the mane which had once swaddled him; the hair and the beard had been more than decoration-- they'd become an integral part of Joe's persona over the years.

The manager of Burger World hovered before him, looking him over and delivering a seemingly endless lecture. "Now that you're a member of our...well, I like to call it our family...you'll find that you have a great deal of responsibility. For instance..." The manager was a middle-aged man with short, black hair and a tall, lanky frame. As the guy rambled on, Joe noticed that he had a very deep voice, booming yet restrained in its tone. He wore a plain white shirt and blue tie, and his name was Mr. Stevens.

"I think that you'll like it here, Mr. Jones," said Mr. Stevens, checking a sheet of paper on his clipboard, "or may I call you Joe? We like to be informal around here."

"Yeah, sure," shrugged the fledgling employee. "Joe's fine."

"Good. Well, I guess we might as well get you started, Joe. Follow me." Mr. Stevens whisked through the restaurant's small dining room, a cluster of yellow tables between the service counter and the windowed front of the establishment. With Joe trailing after him, he strode through a door marked "Employees Only" and walked out into the long, narrow space behind the counter.

"This, Joe, is the Customer Service Facility. As you can see, it's basically composed of a counter and cash registers. Since we usually have our girls working out here, I doubt that you'll be at the counter much."

Joe stared at everything as he followed Mr. Stevens across the floor. There were two cash registers, planted at opposite ends of the shiny, metal counter. One was being operated by a good-looking young brunette, a slim, perky girl who was probably in her twenties. She was talking to an old guy, taking his order and punching keys on the computerized register.

As Joe and Mr. Stevens strolled through a swinging door, the manager's voice again caught his disciple's attention. "This is the kitchen, the heart of Burger World," he smiled proudly. "This is where we do all the cooking and preparation of our product, whether it be hamburgers, fries, or Captain Burger Matey Meals. It's all here." He waved his arm in a wide arc around the room, displaying the glories of his precious domain.

A large, flat grill occupied most of one end of the kitchen, separated from the space behind the front counter by a partition that reached to the level of Joe's chest. Atop the partition was a counter where the cooks would place finished food, a metallic surface from which the cashier was at that moment hoisting a paper-wrapped burger. There was a deep-fryer beside the grill, an oven, and a bulky piece of equipment that Joe didn't recognize. One man was running back and forth amid the cooking apparatus, flipping burgers on the grill and slapping food around with hasty skill. He wore the orange Burger World uniform, and glanced up briefly when Joe and Mr. Stevens entered the room.

"That's Mike," pointed out Mr. Stevens. "You'll be working with him quite often. Mike, meet Joe."

"Hey," muttered Mike without smiling, giving Joe a cursory nod.

"Let's get you a uniform," suggested Mr. Stevens.

The manager led Joe to a cramped closet at the rear of the place, a cubbyhole with a sign on the door marked "Employee Dressing Room."

"Try this on," he said as he handed Joe a plastic-wrapped bundle. "Let's see if it fits."

Once he'd entered the dressing room and put the outfit on, Joe felt utterly ridiculous. It was all orange, with a yellow stripe running down either side from his shoulders to his trouser cuffs. There was a short-sleeved, button-down orange shirt, loose-fitting orange slacks, and a floppy orange cap which was supposed to resemble a chef's hat. When he looked in the mirror, he groaned; the uniform was ugly and silly, and he thought that it made him look like a clown. At that moment, he considered taking it all off and quitting, abandoning ship before he could be subjected to any more embarrassment.

He needed the money, though, so he decided to grit his teeth and give it all a try. Swallowing hard, Joe marched from the nook, his orange circus uniform rustling as he walked.

"That looks fine," said Mr. Stevens approvingly. "Just fine. Now you're one of us. Welcome to Burger World."

"So when do I start?" asked Joe.

"How about now?" smirked Mr. Stevens.

*****

"Okay," said Mike. "This is how you flip burgers. Pretty tough, huh?" He spoke to Joe without looking at him, concentrating on the grill instead. At the moment, fifteen hamburger patties lay on its flat, greasy surface, spitting and sizzling as he turned them with a spatula. Joe watched the grill closely while he listened, trying to memorize everything that Mike showed him.

"You wanna' give it a try?" offered Mike, stepping back from the grill and swinging his spatula toward his student.

"Yeah, sure. What the hell," angled Joe, moving forward and accepting the utensil. Lowering it to the grill, he slid the flat instrument under a hamburger, then lifted the meat up and threw it back down on its rosy, uncooked side. "How's that?"

"Oh, man, that was fantastic. You are just too much." Mike's voice was sarcastic yet friendly, a wry but inoffensive tone. Joe noticed that he always talked like that, with a cynical, disparaging edge to his voice; at least, he'd talked like that for the past ten minutes, which was as long as Joe had known him so far. "Do it again. You better get the hang of it, 'cause you'll be doin' it a lot more from now on."

"Great," said Joe, flipping another patty. "Is this all you do all day, man? Must get kind'a boring."

"Yeah, it's boring, but it ain't the only thing I do. I make fish, fries, and onion rings too, over there in the fryer." Mike indicated a squat, metal contraption to the right of the grill. It was rectangular, consisting mainly of a vat full of hot grease. Three wire baskets hung on a rod above the molasses-brown grease, baskets which were used to lower food into it for frying. One basket was currently submerged, its contents popping and crackling within the bubbling, volcanic depths. "I also gotta' heat up the frozen pies and make sundaes and milkshakes. Best of all, I get to put together the damn Captain Burger Matey Meals." Mike's voice was loaded with sarcastic disgust, a prickly, barbed tone of ironic displeasure.

"Wow, man. Sounds like fun. Matey Meals, huh?" Joe laughed and shook his head.

"Hey, don't laugh," contended Mike, raising his eyebrows. "You're gonna' be doin' this shit, too, starting now. Two guys just quit, so Stevens wants you trained and working fast. We're so damn understaffed, it ain't even funny. You're gonna' have your hands full, guaranteed. You're workin' rush tonight, so you better pull your shit together quick." Mike nipped the spatula from Joe and started to work on the grill again. Scooping burgers off the grill and smacking them down onto open-faced buns, he motioned for Joe to lend a hand. "Let's get you in gear, pal. You can start by wrapping these burgers. All you do is put the sandwich on one of these papers, and fold it in. Watch." Mike did one, his able hands flying swiftly over the crinkling wrapper. "There," he grunted, shoving the finished artwork aside. "You do the rest."

"All right." Slowly and awkwardly at first, Joe began wrapping, trying to adjust his fingers to the simple but brand-new task. As he labored, he noticed that Mike had fallen silent; the Burger World veteran was completely involved in his job, darting around and throwing things to fill the orders which had arrived from the front counter. Joe saw that the guy was sweating; his dark, straight hair was wet where it protruded from under his goofy cap. He was a young guy, maybe in his twenties, with a stocky build and blocky, blunt face. As he hustled, ample muscles bunched and twitched beneath his loose Burger World shirt. To Joe, he seemed out of place in the fast-food joint; he looked more like a construction worker or a bouncer from a bar.

"Hey," shouted Mike, tossing more burgers on the grill. "I want you to make fries. Take one of those brown bags outta' the cooler over there, and dump about half of it in one of the baskets on the fryer. Dump it and set the timer, okay?"

"Okay." Joe stopped wrapping and did as Mike requested. "Whatta' I set it on?"

"Three minutes," replied Mike. "Then get over here and get me some more buns."

Joe flicked the timer dial to the setting marked "3 Min," then hurried over to Mike's side. Glancing briefly over the partition, he saw that the restaurant was definitely getting busier. It was four o'clock, and the supper crowd was beginning to trickle in. Customers lined up at both cash registers, placing their orders and paying the cashiers.

"It's gettin' busy," he said, drawing hamburger buns from a sack.

"No shit," responded Mike. "It gets worse."

"I can hardly wait," muttered Joe.

"Hurry up with those buns. Watch the fries. Get me a chocolate shake and one of those Matey Meal boxes."

As the afternoon wore on, it got worse, just as Mike had predicted. By seven o'clock, when his shift was finally over, Joe was totally exhausted.