Almost immediately when I get back from Thailand, I started plotting my return trip and convincing my friends to go back there with me after we graduate. This presents all of us with the issue of funding the proposed adventure. I set aside a day to begin turning in applications all over town, but am hired on the spot at the Taco Bell / KFC. Apparently at this location the management has trouble keeping their employees around. I soon discover why. Manager Hateface is a balding, gun-toting homophobe whose disgust at his own horrible existence manifests itself in the form of abusive power trips and the unnecessary belittling of his workers. He sucks. Luckily for me, he spends most of his time in his office with the door closed; I imagine he’s likely watching child porn or snuff films and masturbating frantically.
On top of that mess -and you might not believe it- the clientele of such establishments don’t tend to exude much respect or sympathy to the constantly bombarded robots handing their food to them in order to satiate their throats.
I work with a pretty colorful cast of characters now. Besides myself, the only other kid from high school who works here is my good buddy Sam Zaillian. Sam Z is suffering the same disgrace for the greater good – post-graduation travel. We tape little stickers of Thailand related kitsch to the underside of our KFC/Taco Bell baseball caps, since clearly now we know there couldn’t be a God and we need something to gaze upward to believe in.
When I am filling out my paperwork there is a box labeled: DESIRED NAME. I feel that this is a pretty ridiculous question but manage to put together that this indicates what will be printed on my name-tag. I scribble down “BUG”, mostly arbitrarily, but also because I am fascinated with insects and the fact that my first car had been a Volkswagon Beetle. I am unaware at this time that this will be an alias of mine for years to come.
The positions in fast food restaurants turn out to be predictably type-casted. If the option is available, those who can scrape together some sort of semblance of enthusiasm tend to be assigned to the front counter &/or drive-thru so customers don’t directly have to associate their meal purchase with depression and hopelessness. Those who have already given up on the possibilities of life or who possess a visage of undesirable quality are usually tucked safely away in the back. The distance from the front counter is based on a gradient scale of how hidden said employees are deemed to be. There will always be positions available to run the fryers at fast-food restaurants; even if your face is missing or you have got a really bad case of Tourette’s syndrome.
At some point, almost everyone works the line. The line peeps make the food, take out the trash, clean the place…etc. These seem to be generally the most quality people around – and in a way possess the most desirable position as they don’t have to work with burning hot oil or have to deal with unpleasant dumb-fucks.
Interestingly enough, it appears that the most desired quality for a manager is to be generally sad. It behooves one to be also contented with coming to terms that this position may be the peak or rather more accurately the plateau of their time on this planet. The companies like these people. They are non-threatening, virtually powerless, and malleable as putty. This position is not the place to be. This is shooting real fucking low, even by career standards of the mentally retard and paraplegic.
However this rule does not quite apply to Assistant Managers. These individuals have not yet necessarily made the commitment to the depraved lifestyle of a fast-food restaurant manager. Their superiors have merely noticed a potential weakness and lack of real ambition or self respect and have positioned them in a place where they can be tested – or broken.
Don is my assistant manager. I had originally become aware of his existence when Charlie and I were getting Taco Bell with an oversized plush bear chained in the back of his GMC Sprint[1]. Don asked Charlie at the check-out window, “Heeeeeeeeey, what’s with the bear son?[2]”
So Don is basically my boss when Manager Hateface isn’t currently present. We get along alright. He is from the deep south, in his late forties, and has leathery brown skin and sad, sad eyes. When we work night shifts together, he often will open up to me and talk about his problems or minor victories. He groans over his difficulties, which he appears to have many of. Covering rent on his limited income, the deterioration of his living space, his lack of quality friends, and mostly the absence of a female presence in his life. I try to have empathy for him. I like the guy and he’s been mostly nice to me but I never really know anything to say. I just nod and throw in comments like, “That really sucks boss” or, “You have got to be kidding me. Seriously?!” Despite my lack of real contribution to the dialogue, I do feel better because he seems to feel better vocalizing his grievances.
I don’t know it, but this is the last evening that I have a closing shift with Don. We are standing at a counter sorting the food filth that we can legally save for the following day from the filth that legitimately has to be tossed. Don’s voice is solemn. His works are spoken slowly and with emphasis. I imagine that this is the same tone of voice that a father uses who is saying goodbye – forever.
“You know Bug? I been lonely. Maaan, lately I been real lonely. I feel like only so many days s’possed to pass where things don’t get better and you deal.” At this point, his gloved hands stop filtering out the quality of the detritus we shove out to the masses. He intertwines his fingers together and his head tilts down slowly. I try to keep him only in my peripheral vision, as eye contact seems inappropriate and probably somehow against company protocol.
“Well Bug… I need a change. I’ma done waiting for things a get better. I gotta leave this place. I gotta go somewhere where there are some fine black women who can appreciate me. You know, man?”
I do not know. This is a phenomena that I have never known. “Yeah….” My confusion and discomfort is transparent, ignored, or unnoticed. Don squints around at the remaining “food” we need to gauge before done. He begins to strip off his gloves as he says, “We just about done. You finish this up, eh Bug?” When all the work is done, Don locks the door behind his sad robot army and I’ll never see him around again.
So there’s this young woman who is probably three years older than me who just calls herself, “Tinkerbell” or “Tink.” She spouts obscenities like a sailor and has lived her whole life in trailers thus far. The boys she hangs around with all wear that costume that looks purchasable at gas stations in its entirety. You know those sparkly gangster baseball caps, shiny blue football jerseys, and gigantic diamond looking earrings? Those costumes.
Despite what I consider poor taste in men, I still really like Tink. She often careens around the restaurant drunk, slamming orders out on the line. She barks instructions and frustrated obscenities while flirtatiously inquiring about casual sex during break-time in my car. I smoke weed and Tink cracks her window and smokes cigarettes. Her mind is kind but mildly warped. She is ingrained in her culture and somehow maintains a seemingly, if blurry, happiness with her lifestyle. Our class difference doesn’t impede on our tossing of smiles and mutually exponential shit-talking. I think we respect each other. Her explosive personality is sexy, as is the shape of her body, but the abrasive and bitter words she spits out of her pinched, blotchy pink face, remains distinctly unattractive.
Needless to say, Tink provides an interesting variable at work that consistently keeps me entertained. Inexperienced young men like myself are pleased with almost any kind of attention. One night, while I am mopping out the hallway, I hear a sharp, double knock. I look to the window in the door to the kitchen and see Tink pressing a naked breast into the window while massaging her other with her hand. My mouth drops and my face snaps away from the startling display I have just witnessed.
Jose works solely on the line. His English is limited but his smiles are infinite. Jose sets the standard that the Taco Bell/ KFC Corporation uses to justify not replacing all their employees with robots. He was fast. Faster than robots are. I feel guilty sometimes knowing that he works much harder than I for the same money that means much more to him than vacation spending cash. He is happy though, at least to be employed, and well, he is the backbone of the restaurants functionality. He thinks it’s humorous when I make monstrously hideous faces at him. This means that he must understand that I like him.
I feel like you should make the most of a situation when your environment gets you down. Job stress can be completely relieved by pushing boundaries and succeeding with it. My first real push is when I realize that a 25lb box of small robot toys have been abandoned in the storage section near the backdoor. Our location didn’t even put toys in the kid’s meals at this point, so our stockpile of un-used toys has been stacking. These cheap plastic nothings are fair game – and I want them.
During my first break I walk into the back, pull the box off the shelf, and exit through the back door. I weave through the drive-thru car barrier and break through into the parking lot. I am feeling pretty fuckin’ conspicuous as I pop the trunk of my car and place the contraband inside. However there were no repercussions. The box of toys will only be missed by kids who wouldn’t have seen them anyways. It is a victimless crime.
The trek to my car in the parking lot is not an out-of-the-ordinary event. In fact, it’s an everyday thing. During my ten minute delusions of freedom, I usually sit in my car and smoke a bowl or two. Ahh, yesss. I justify this as a way to cope with my predicament. Because of this particularly heavy smoking period of my life, I’ve begun to develop phlegm. The thick build up of mucous that now congests my airways has just recently introduced itself to my life and will soon be the cause of a moment of utter panic in the workplace. I head back to join the line. It’s the tail end of the lunch rush and both Tink and Jose are fabricating edible looking sacks from bubbling bins of whatever at a frenetic pace.
I merge into the middle of the assembly line with foggy eyes and am trailed by a billowing scented cloud of skunky grade A marijuana. I look to the TV that commands us and my brain registers the order of constructing ten regular hard tacos. This is a relatively simple process. With slick gloved (or sometimes not!) hands, one cradles an empty taco shell upright as a taco shaped spatula is dunked into the primarily liquid beef-excuse. This is lifted above the vat and allowed a moment for the excess liquid to drip back down. Slam that shit into the shell, drop lettuce shavings, sprinkle cheese gratings and wrap in origami paper. Easy.
However, when I reach Taco #7 I experience an unpleasant surprise. A sharp burst of a single shotgun cough launches a whirling, semi-liquid disc of yellow throat discharge into the vat of liquid “beef”. As I am stoned, freshly paranoid, and disgusted with myself, the addition of being sandwiched between two co-workers spirals me into a fitful state of panic. There is only one option here. I ruthlessly assault the floating village with my taco spatula, beating it with repetition into the liquid, scattering its mass into floating particles of additional flavoring. I am very, very sorry if this story is real and if you maybe ordered tacos after that happened that day.
I meticulously gauge the day that I can quit and still afford my planned adventure. I give Hateface my two week notice. I find that on my pre-determined last day, I have a considerable quantity of energy built up in reserve in my emotional capacitor. On impulse, I pass out a handful of flyers at school. They read:
EVAN’S LAST DAY AT TACO BELL/ KFC!!! WEAR A COSTUME AND BRING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT!!!
Since it’s last minute and with little incentive or graphic design, my plan recruits very few followers. I have some back-up though. I have Teletubby ear attachments that are wearable under my mandatory baseball cap. This definitely undermines the professionalism of my position, which is infinitely debatable in the first place. I also bring a small handful of fake blood capsules in my pocket, just in case.
Sure enough, a sordid procession of obnoxious high schoolers wiggles into the restaurant. Just a small handful of six kids led by Sam Z. Z had quit a few months prior to allow himself time to use his thespian abilities to act in & better the school’s final theatre production, Little Shop Of Horrors. He played the dentist, of course. Sam doesn’t hold anything back. His life is a performance. Not in the way that he is always playing a part but instead he considers every occasion as a one-time opportunity to make a memorable impression.
So they saunter around dressed like 80’s hair metal rockers while being irritating to the staff (including myself—backfire), the customers, and the management. They wield only unpleasant voices and battery powered Casio keyboards but manage to torment the restaurant to a point that interrupts Hateface during a session in his masterbatorial closet of an office and forces him to emerge into the real world.
Inevitably this makes him upset. He yells at the idiot kids, calling them “idiot kids” and such. It’s near the time when we’re supposed to be shutting down the front section of the restaurant that this is occurring. Due to the unexpected explosion of additional situational discomfort combined with the general atmosphere of the restaurant, people begin to leave. Manager Hateface presents the boys with an ultimatum. “Leave or I am calling the police.” His venom is sharp and his method effective. Sam Z lets me know that he’ll wait around outside for me to mop up.
I am sloppily mopping up the front service area when an unexpected rush assaults the drive-thru. I’m standing in sight of some goblin-faced customers when I decide to duck around the corner for a moment to pop two fake blood capsules into my mouth. I return to a visible position. I yelp as I pretend to fumble with the mop and slip. I am not actually slipping though, but instead kicking the guiding rails with my boots. Hopefully this simulates the illusion of hitting my face. I moan loudly and pull myself up to the counter. I lock eyes with a middle-aged woman in a suburban. I begin to sob hysterically. I drool, stunned for a moment, and then spit the fake blood onto the counter and slump back hidden to the floor. I overhear much hub-bub and enjoy the chaotic murmurings with relish.
Hateface emerges. Again, he is inevitably upset but his eyes are concerned, or rather likely worried regarding liability issues as he asks me, “What happened?!” and “Are you alright?!”. My mouth begins to twist into an uncontrolled smile and I start laughing hysterically while drooling the crimson remnants of the capsule out onto my face and neck. Manager Hateface’s eyes return to their usual hating squint.
“This is completely unacceptable behavior Bug.” He says my alias in poisoned tones. “Clean this up RIGHT NOW young man!”
I jump over the counter prepared to fulfill a long desired fantasy.
“NO WAY!!! I quit!” Fireworks go off somewhere, I’m sure.
“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. You’re fired.” Hateface says his favorite words and ejaculates. Again, of this, I am sure.
“NO!!” I am yelling now. The drive-thru customers seem bewildered. “It’s YOU who is fired!”
I point to the cook, who is a regular douche-bag, “AND YOU’RE FIRED!” Repressed emotions are surfacing uncontrollably.
I point to the bitch-goddess at the drive through station, “AND YOU’RE FUCKING FIRED!” I haven’t bothered to learn her name yet. Good call self.
I point to Jose, his slight grin is friendlier than sunlight, “And YOU! YOU are the new manager! You are AWESOME!”
Suddenly, Sam Z squeals into the drive-thru, his ebony wig is glinting in the florescent lights. He senses the tension and screams, “Evan! Let’s go!” He’s right about the necessity of fleeing this awkward moment and I run towards him. Hateface is seething. I begin my dive through the drive-thru window and Sam Z pulls me by the armpits into the safety of his truck. He slams down the gas pedal and screams dinosaur noise.
My time here is finished.
[1] A GMC Sprint is a car-truck combination, popularly associated with the El Camino. Imagine a scene; a dusty film of grit over a tattooed man with a thick moustache, an overflowing ashtray, with blood, cocaine, and semen splattered and scattered on the dash and upholstery. If all these factors are present, that person would be driving a GMC Sprint. A truck? No, wait, a car? A catruck? A truckcar? Wow! Oh man, that’s cool!
[2] On one particularly stoned Value Village adventure, Charlie and I became bizarrely enthralled with one of those excessively large plush animals that they make impossible to win at carnivals and that all children demand at Disneyland. Well, we purchased it and chained it up in the back of his Sprint. We named it Riley. Charlie would occasionally carry Riley around with him from class to class. He’d pretend that he had a delusional attachment to it, and would threaten temper tantrums at suggestions of separation. His teachers didn’t bother trying to take it away. The day we rescued Riley we swung through Taco Bell/KFC on the way back to Charlie’s. This is how I met Don. He often inquires about the bear’s health and I never bothered to tell him that Riley was eventually kidnapped. It would’ve just made him sad to know that the bear was found hung upside down in the cemetery; his disemboweled fluffy soul in a pile beneath him. Villians.
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