The BOYS

Episode nine

On Friday, the first of October, Walter Fales slept late... for him... rising well after nine. Missy sliced half a banana, which he ate with shredded wheat, milk, juice and two cups of hot, black coffee. Rested and refreshed, almost chipper, he turned the pages of the morning San Diego paper and, also, the San Cris Courier, even venturing to engage his wife in genial, morning conversation.

"They found more dead birds with the West Nile."

"If it isn't one thing," Missy replied, looking out the kitchen window towards the back yard fence, "it's the other." The old lady who lived beyond the fence having died, a new owner finally had moved in. A black man. A few days before the nine oh eight, Walt had remarked, only half-facetiously, that it was O.J.... the fellow did look rather like him in a muscular, clean-cut way. He'd caught Missy looking out that window often, since.

"And they also say that there are dangerous toys still out there. They paid some fellow to dispose of them and he sold them, instead, to gas stations. Kids put them in their mouths, you know, choke? Says to beware of Wendy Wagon, Sam Sedan and Tony Turbo," Walt added, crinkling the paper to attract his wife's attention. "And they're recalling Vioxx."

"Is that because the Governor doesn't want people using drugs from Canada?" Missy asked, still gazing out the goddamn window.

"No, it's some health issue. Government doing its work. When Vioxx is outlawed, only outlaws will have Vioxx?"

"What?" Missy recoiled, finally turning away from the window.

"Figure of speech."

He finished his coffee, shaved and showered, put on a dark suit and white shirt, and was knotting the maroon Italian tie Herman had sent, from Nebraska, two birthdays ago, when, catching a glimpse himself in the mirror, Walt was assailed by the unmistakable certainty that he was overdressed for a fast-food franchise, even first day. So he undressed, threw on a pair of tan slacks, a polo shirt and a dark sportscoat. Driving cautiously, at only five miles above the speed limit, catching only the tail end of Morrow in the Morning on Action 87 radio, he hummed and drummed his knuckles against the steering wheel when some fool caller, probably some gay... or working in what was referred to as the industry... porno... kept denigrating the President for three full minutes... Walter's President, three minutes!... until chainsawed.

Morrow was losing his edge - he was a large fellow, maybe he tired by the end of his shift. Anyway... Walt crammed George Jones into the tapedeck and nodded along with the song: "Things Have Gone to Pieces."

What was it that kids said, these days? Dope!

At seven minutes to eleven, Walt stepped confidently through the front door of the Dog Pound and approached a middle-aged Latina at the register. The place was almost completely empty - a thin fellow under a Diamondbacks cap nursed a small coffee, a white van from an electrical company idled at the window.

"Breakfast or lunch menu?" smiled the cashier.

"I'm actually, uh, supposed to meet a Mister Cullery here... about the job opening?" Now that he had all-but-declared himself a member of the team... or, at least, a prospective member... his confidence started ebbing. The cashier squinted at him and, it seemed, the rest of the morning crew stopped what they were doing to give him the once-over... a black woman, an older white gal who reminded him of the lunch ladies of his high school days. And a couple of Mexican kids, of course, and Chinese girl. Fuckin' rainbow coalition! And some sort of major shift change was in progress - this young white guy in a hat, jeans and one of those Western shirts with the buttons and piping was coming through the door when the cashier said "Tex, tell Barry that the new guy's here..."

"Sure," said the newcomer, lifting a slab of the counter by depressing and jiggling some hidden switch, crooking his finger to beckon Walt forward. Swallowing the impulse to remind Garth Brooks that he'd been a fuckin' Vice-President at BCM with a million-dollar portfolio before Braxton screwed him, he followed the kid along the right side of the cookspace, past the large, open grill that was the centerpiece of behind-the-register Dog Poundland to a timeclock on the wall.

"Barry likes to mess with your head if you're even a minute late," the young man warned, apologetically. "And he gets really steamed if you don't call him Mister C. Big ego, tiny brain... but I didn't say it. You can call me Tex."

"From... Texas?" Walt deduced.

"Arkansas, actually," Tex shrugged, "but I grew up in Texarkana, and that's just over the line from Texas. Ross Perot came from Texarkana."

"He's... rich," Walter observed.

"Yeah." Tex replaced the timecard in its slot and led Walt past the freezer and cooler to a little corner office. "Mister C!" he knocked. "New guy here... good luck," he whispered, rolling his eyes like a sidekick in a Western serial, "you'll need it."

Barry Cullery opened the door. Same frizzy hair, same orange glasses. Bill Braxton often sported red shades, he'd remind the salesforce that there was hard science behind the old saw "rose-colored glasses". "They inhibit ultraviolet light, the deep blue," the old crook used to say, "so rose glasses are a sort of defense against the blues, you keep a positive attitude that the suckers pick up on." He'd sort of suggested, without actually saying so, that they ought to wear red glasses, too, then Ev, ever the pragmatist, asked whether the company would pick up the tab.

"You think I'm fuckin' crazy?" had been Braxton's reply, and that was the end of Walt's flirtation with red glasses. What kind of mental state was produced by Barry's weird orange shade, he had no inkling of, and no intent to ask.

"I remember you," Barry squinted

"Small world," Walter shrugged.

"Did you pull that shit on me deliberately? Making me fire Jason so you could take his job... if you did, it's not a bad thing. It shows initiative, and I respect initiative. And Jason was a loser, I needed an excuse to get rid of him and you provided one. And now, the loser's gone. So it turned out to be a good thing. You're not a loser, are you?

"I'm between jobs," Walter allowed, "and Mr. Z. figured that this was the place that I was needed, for now..."

"If it were up to me, of course," Barry warned, "we wouldn't be here, talking like this. I know trouble when I see it, and you're nothing but. I comped you and the rest of the persons in the car because I run things by the book, Mr. Z's book, but there's something wrong with you, Mr. Fales... Fails, that's a good one!... and I'm going to find out what it is. One way or another. At least you made a half-hearted effort to suck up to me," said the manager, rotating his wrist like a swell motioning a bum to hurry his pitch before asking for a dime, or quarter. "Your clothes. Nice try. This is a hotdog stand, remember, we work here, we get dirty. Tex, over there, thinks somebody from up north will blow in and discover him and I let him go on, and I don't want to see you or anyone in a t-shirt, but anything between's alright. So I'm going to let you put your nice coat on my rack there, just for today. And... you can put on these."

He reached behind his desk... in the interval, Walt noticed a rather horrifying poster of Britney Spears over the file cabinets, facing some kid with big hair across the room... and came up with something white, and something other. An apron, which he'd expected, and that other thing which he'd somehow deluded himself into believing wouldn't apply to him...

A paper hat, white, netted over the scalp, with the fat, drooling face of the idiot Dog Pound puppy. Walt took it, under Mr. C's glare, placed it on his head and left it there, as if forgetting it, tying the apron around his waist. Good to go.

"Now, I'll show you the ropes," Barry smirked.

The guy with the baseball cap having finished his coffee and left by the time Barrry led Walt towards the counter... a couple of Marine recruits were the Dog Pound's only patrons, deliberating their orders in front of the only open register while two of the staff in their little paper hats were leaning against the frypit, shooting the shit with three newcomers who'd clocked in, but hadn't yet started their shift. It was 10:58 and an old Cadillac, chooglin' and smokin', circled the DP. Bitch-slappin' cop-poppin' rap music blared from its speakers.

Barry rolled his eyes.

"That's Achmed," he said, "our very own ambassador from Baghdad. You'll get to know him real well, Mister... people," Barry appealed, voice rising half an octave, "people!... this is the new member of the Dogpound team, Mister Fales. Walter Fales!

A dirty blonde girl, round as a bowling ball, exploded into wet sneezes and giggles, and the rest of the crew cracked smiles. Some tried to hide them, some didn't.

A brown, pockmarked kid with an old-fashioned Afro and gray silk shirt with the top three buttons undone pimpwalked past the group, lunged for his timecard and clocked in.

"Right on time, Mister C," he crowed, grinning like one of Osama's retarded nephews. "Six days running... how 'bout that?"

"That's good, Ach, real good," Barry said

The manager began his introductions again.

"Alright, this is Mister Fales. He's a real college person, with an M.B.A., so pay attention, education doesn't always lead to better living. Under the hat, he's no better than the rest of you."

Then he waved in the direction of the blonde, the Latina at the register, a sleepy looking black kid and an unsmiling Mexican man Walter's own age with several gold teeth and the wispy moustache of a singing cowboy. "Those are my breakfast people but you don't have to worry about them," Barry said dismissively, "they're all gonna be gone by noon. Should let 'em go at eleven, but Mr. Z's a soft touch," the manager sneered.

"You've already met Tex Schlater, who thinks he's Duane Allman, or somebody, in his dreams. And Achmed. The old guy is Ed Musgrove, he used to be somebody, too, doesn't talk much. You don't want to get on his wrong side. Our fry guy, Davy Pearson, is a liberal..."

"I'm a Communist, asshole," said this twenty-something kid with a teenager's pitted face and a big, floppy purple velvet bow tie that probably stood for something...

"I thought you were an anarchist. My bad. The other boy is Pepe, and we don't ask questions about where he came from or what he's doin' here... sort of don't ask, don't tell, right? The Nubian goddess over at the window, there, is Fermeley... she works here for the half-priced dogs, and, finally, Eunice... who keeps the floor together. If you try dippin' into the register, she'll be watching."

"Don't listen to him," said the lunch lady sort, folding her substantial arms. "Everything's done by computers, here, computers and those surveillance cameras."

She pointed up to a metal box with a red, blinking light, poised over the bank of cash registers. "Things are everywhere, even the restrooms."

"Eunice, part of the fun is seeing how long it takes the new boys to spot 'em..." Barry whined. And then he waved dismissively at the other two girls slouched over registers. "They don't matter, they're temps. Let's go back into my office," Barry coaxed, giving the new boy a fraternal slap on the back and letting his bony hand linger between the Walter's shoulderblades. "You have to fill out an application."

"I already gave my resume to Mr. Z.," Walter replied.

The hand dropped off his back, sharpened into a finger, which Mr. C. aimed at Walter's face. "Do not contradict me. That resume was for him, the application is mine."

"Okay," Walter said, making a stab at nonchalance. If the guy wanted him to fill out another form, well, he was already on the clock. There were time-servers at BCM, too... office, not sales staff, and they usually quit, once the lousy pay caught up with them. Well, he thought, following the manager back to his office, I'm only doing this until the legal crap settles and, while Barry looked for his application pad, riffling through the drawers of his Formica desk, Walt gave the place the once-over. There was no window, but, to provide a view of the world outside, a bank of eight surveillance monitors was set up in two rows of four. The topmost row covered the Dog Pound's exterior and parking lot... he guessed that it was set up somewhere in the dumb, plastic doggie sign, as was another trained on the filthy kids' park... and on the main entrance and drive up window. The bottom four were interior... the one on the registers, another overlooking the salad and condiment bars and the dining area. And the last two were positioned in the restrooms... Walt wondered about the legality of that, but figured that, if somebody were to complain, it would be a customer, not an employee.

"Sit over there!" Barry pointed, as if speaking to a dog.

Walter's eyes narrowed, but he followed the manager's finger and squeezed into a tiny, surplus schooldesk that proved a tighter fit, even, than the furniture at the State Office. The application Barry had given him was the same as that at the tax company and a couple of other places he'd been turned away from, except that they asked for four references, instead of three. He turned it back over and began to fill out his name, address and telephone number.

"Mister Z told me a little about you, but I don't suppose that you have ever worked in the hospitality racket, have you?"

Mr. C. was pretending a sort of cordial curiosity that wore thin, quick. Behind the orange shades, his bullet-eyes flickered to the ladies' restroom monitor.

Walter, reaching the Education box, set off in black, and wrote in the name of his high school, back in Ohio, and, in the square reserved for "Curricula" carefully printed GENERAL. What other course was there in fuckin' highschool?

"Actually, I did deliver pizzas in college," he finally said. "Year and a half... not that bad a gig. Buck eighty an hour and tips, a lot of tips. I did alright..."

"I didn't ask about your experience in transport, I asked about your experience in meal preparation and production. Obviously, there hasn't been any. And I'd appreciate your not using obsolete slang like "gig", as well as "fab", or "gear", "groovy" and the like... the sixties are over, like your youth, Mister Fales." And then, he picked up the office phone...one of those old rotary models that was an affectation... Mr. Z's, Walter suspected, not Barry's, and began shouting at someone who'd delivered some carrots either too soon, or too late.

Walter ransacked his memory for an appropriate comeback while he set down the gist of his six years in Columbus... bachelor of arts, major in business, minor in English. Grade point average 2.7. MBA, honors... marketing, accounting track... fuckin' Rocket, he thought of writing, but didn't. Barry had already started to piss him off, but he'd expected that, or worse... wasn't likely he'd be around here by Christmas, let along spring, but, if he was, maybe he'd give Mr. Z the benefits of his tax expertise. For a price...

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