Young Writers Society

David was late for work again. On a technicality, he wasn’t late at that precise moment, standing in front of the mirror, but the bike ride to Steggy’s Woods Resort would ensure he would be in the red upon his arrival. And when he did finally enter the restaurant, his legs tense and sore, his lateness was as much of a non-event as he thought it would be a calamity. No one had even noticed; the whole ordeal upset him greatly.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked Greta, a plump black forty-year-old who was now chopping up tomatoes for the salad bar.

“Why would I call you?” Greta scoffed, using her knife hand to carefully itch at her scalp.

“I was late.”

“Ten minutes? That’s not late.”

“Five minutes is the window.”

“What’s that?” Greta asked.

“The window?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like the amount of time you have before you’re considered late.”

Greta raised her eyebrows and scoffed. “So if you’re five minutes late, you’re not late. But if you’re ten minutes late, you’re late.”

“Precisely.”

“Man I wished that worked for pregnancy.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just clock in, David. No one cares.”

David did as he was told and joined Greta in chopping up the vegetables. It was a good thing the servers had the knives before they served the customers, or some unruly guest might lose a finger. After finishing the cucumbers, David started chopping green peppers. He noticed they were a little behind “Where’s Marie?” he asked.

“Who knows? Late late. Not like you.”

David nodded and began on the onions, their potent smell causing him to sniffle.

“You know, I don’t really watch that political stuff you seem to like,” Greta began, “but I saw Barack on the TV last night.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s gonna be president. A black man as president. I didn’t think I would see it in my lifetime.”

“I don’t really think it’s that crazy. I mean, it’s not like racism is what it used to be.”

Greta smirked gently. “Honey, you’ve got some learning to do. They’re just better at hiding it now.”

David continued to chop the onions, trying to keep his eyes and his ego from burning too hard.

---

“There’s a new guy,” David’s boss Bill said, walking into the kitchen. “His name’s Juan.”

“Oh, I haven’t met a Juan I’ve liked,” Greta responded. “Will he be cooking?”

“Serving,” Bill replied, unperturbed. “David, you’re training him. But he’s new so start with the groundskeeping. We’ll put Greta and Marie on the floor tonight.”

“Marie didn’t show,” Greta said defensively.

Bill waved off the comment. “Yeah, she’s out in the lobby showing the new guy how to sweep.”

David and Greta looked at each other, and then back to Bill.

“I better get out there,” David said. When he got to the lobby, Marie was complaining to the new guy, a broom in his hand. He was tall and dark and looked thoroughly out of place in his street clothes

“He’s not dressed to code,” Marie said as David came up alongside her. Like David, she was a college student looking for ways to pay her bills. These included drinking tabs, past and future. Her hair was dark and kept a peculiar curl to it that entranced diners while they ate their meals. She always sounded as though she spoke through clenched teeth, and this time was no different. “His jeans don’t fit right. Hang right down, reveal his boxers.”

David stood and took in this new kid. He looked to be just out of high school. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. “It’s his first day; he hasn’t received the employee handbook so he hasn’t read the dress code.”

“His boxers are red and black plaid.”

“It’s not against the code.”

“It’s against human decency.”

David walked to a small closet filled with employee polo shirts and took one out. “Here you go, Juan.”

“How did you know my name?” Juan asked, putting the polo over his T-shirt.

“I guessed,” David said jokingly.

“That’s racist,” Marie said. “Not everyone Mexican is named Juan.”

“My name is Juan,” said Juan. “And I’m Guatemalan.”

“I’m Marie,” said Marie. “I’m French Canadian.”

“I’m David,” said David. “I’m German-Irish. As they say, I’m fifty percent alcoholic and fifty percent alcoholic.” He looked at Juan and considered the situation with the jeans. “The jeans can hang as low as they want,” he went on. “The dress code only addresses khakis. It doesn’t say anything about how low jeans can hang.”

“That’s because they’re not in the dress code,” Marie replied.

“Precisely.”

“But he shouldn’t be wearing them.”

“It’s okay, Marie,” David said. “We’ll be working outside today anyway. Come on, Juan, follow me.”

The two started off, but Marie let out a small squeal. “Let me have that,” Marie said to the new guy, grabbing the broom from his hands. “You’ll just break it, and we don’t need anyone getting splinters.”

David led Juan outside. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “I think she’s got a splinter in her snatch.”

Juan laughed. “I’ve never liked that word.”

“Splinter?”

“No,” Juan replied.

“Snatch?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Are you offended? Do you think it’s sexist?” David asked.

“No. It’s just the word itself sounds awful.”

The two were tasked with raking the grounds surrounding the restaurant, a half-acre of miserable green. They grabbed a pair of rakes from the groundkeeper’s shed, one a mangled toss of metal, the other made of cheap plastic, several tines missing. They began at the front lawn, mindlessly collecting sticks and leaves and needles and drawing them away in blue tarps. It was a tedious exercise.

“Why are we raking needles?” Juan said after some time.

“So the lawn is clear and looks nice,” David replied.

“No, I mean why are there needles to be raked? I thought evergreens were ever green.”

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that trees don’t lose their needles. Those who do have lost their marbles.” David raked a group of pinecones onto the tarp, but one of them was full of sap and stuck to his plastic rake. He shook at the rake violently until the pinecone detached itself, flying into the air and landing on his arm. Traces of sap stuck to him, pasting together the hairs on his arm.

“Damn it,” he said.

“What?” Juan asked.

“Nothing,” David replied. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “One of our coworkers thought you were the new cook.”

Juan let out a small laugh. “Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Does that offend you? Do you think it’s racist?”

Juan paused. “Why do you keep asking me if I’m offended by things?”

“How else can we learn what is offensive? Plus,” David said, “there’s a lot one can tell about a person by what they take offense to.”

Juan raked the remainder of a leaf pile onto the blue tarp. “I’ve learned a long time ago that getting offended doesn’t help anything.”

David wanted to continue the conversation, but something told him this would not be wise. The two had finally finished raking the half-acre and were ready to move onto the next task. Bill came rolling in a wheelbarrow, and brought them down to the lake’s small beach. “You know what to do,” he told David.

“We have to bring in new sand for the beach,” David said after Bill had left, as if this were a normal event.

“New sand? What are we doing that for?” Juan asked.

“The sand on the beach now is too old. The water’s been compacting it too much. So we need to bring in new sand that hasn’t been exposed to the water.”

“But isn’t that sand going to get wet?”

“Yeah. That’s why we bring in even newer sand to replace that sand.”

“Oh. Well what do we do with the old sand?”

“We dig a hole.”

“Dig a hole?”

“Yeah, so we can put the sand in the hole.”

“Oh. Then what do we do with the dirt that we shoveled out of the hole?”

“We put it in the dirt pile.”

Juan stopped asking questions, and instead focused on the task at hand. It was mid-afternoon and the sun beat down relentlessly on the two. They went barefoot as they shoveled the wet sand into a wheelbarrow.

“Not too much or you’ll never move the wheelbarrow,” David said.

“Does this job always suck this much? I thought this was a server position.”

“No, not really. Bill usually waits for a trainee to get here to do these stupid tasks. We’re getting paid wage, so he thinks he’s getting more work out of us.”

“That’s kind of bullshit.”

“It is bullshit, but it’s a day of it and then we’re done. Besides, it’s kind of nice to work outside every now and then.”

“I’d rather it not be now.” Juan scooped another round of sand into the wheelbarrow before he set down his shovel. He sighed and then pulled off his shirt, leaving only his jeans and the red and black plaid that hung out them. A tattoo of a full-bodied tiger wrapped itself around Juan’s arm and shoulder and onto his chest. David watched, but dared not say anything. He continued shoveling, his heart beating faster.

The wheelbarrow sat between the two. It was an excuse. A pretext. A justification for his short glances. The wheelbarrow sat. And he had to look while he tossed the sand that direction. It would be careless not to.

“So why’d you take this job?” Juan asked.

David started nervously, then shrugged. “I needed money and I’ve served before, so yeah. Here I am. You?”

“I left my old job.”

“Yeah? What did you do?”

“I was an altar boy.”

“Oh, really?” David said. “Do they…pay altar boys?”

Juan let a bitter smile through. “Not me, but it has its perks. The wine, for one. But you have to be smart enough not to get caught. And there were the communion wafers.”

“Wait, wait. You stole communion wafers?”

“Oh yeah. Good with peanut butter. PB&J.”

When David gave him a weird look, Juan laughed. “Peanut butter and Jesus,” he said.

----

The old wet sand was now in the wheelbarrow and there were David and Juan, struggling to keep the one-wheeled wonder from tipping side to side. They brought the whole thing to small spot marked off by spray paint. That was apparently where Bill wanted them to dig the hole to dump the sand. Off to the side fifteen feet was a looming pile of dirt.

“How are we going to get the dirt to the dirt pile?” Juan asked.

“The wheelbarrow.”

“The wheelbarrow’s full of sand,” Juan replied.

“You’re right,” David said. “I should have thought about that.”

“Haven’t you done this before?”

David scratched at the sap covering his arm. He looked at Juan’s tiger tattoo and pulled out two of his hairs. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “My mind was occupied.”

“Our wheelbarrow is occupied.”

David considered the situation. “This was poor planning. I think we will have to use the second wheelbarrow.”

“The second wheelbarrow?” Juan said. “There were no hints, no clues. No traces of foreshadowing. This is deus ex machina.”

“The world’s most boring,” David said.

“What are we waiting for?” Juan asked. “Let’s go get it.”

The two fetched the second wheelbarrow and began to dig at the dirt.