I Will Rise Read online

  The American Dream and I’m still waiting.

  Thirty-three and I’m still waiting.

  Waiting, but I get this sucking feeling in my stomach, as if it’s trying to eat itself, as if it’s trying to pull me in and tell me something: disappear, give up. Somehow I missed my chance or my chance missed me and suddenly (always suddenly) I’m too old and too ugly (uglier with each passing day). There’s little chance of me being in the next big boy band. Career paths require skills I never attained. So here I am: signed, sealed and doomed to minimum wage forever.

  I must have been one evil fuck in a past life. The caste system in full effect. Why not a bug or an animal or a sponge? Stupid question. If reincarnation exists, then it’s the good, worthy people who come back as animals and insects and plants. They deserve as much.

  There are people who tell you that true happiness comes from within and it doesn’t matter what you do with your life so long as you enjoy it and make the best out of it. I agree. Completely, totally. Just look at Anne Frank. Look at Gandhi. Look at the martyrs and the hostages and the oppressed peoples throughout the world who somehow manage to crack a smile and transcend their horrible situations.

  Look at them and remember that they’re not me.

  They haven’t been brainwashed by the almighty power of the living room sofa and Nintendo and MTV and People magazine. They can look within themselves, past the beast, and discover an Inner Light that can transmogrify them into angels on earth. But me, when I look inside seeking refuge, searching for salvation, I realize I am far more messed inside than the world is outside and there is really no way I can just smile along and make the best of it. If the world gives me lemons, I’m not the type to go out and make lemonade. Not any longer. Believe me, I’ve tried and no matter how much sugar or water I add, the lemons still burn and sting and wreak bloody havoc upon the sensitive tissues inside my mouth. Maybe it’s time I accept the fact that some things are just sour and no matter how you treat them they will always be bitter and acrid.

  Chapter Three

  Blue

  Tonight that fucker is going to pay!

  Mr. Shithead is going down!

  Down, down, down, Mr. Shithead’s going down!

  But wait. He’s really not as bad as I let on. I don’t hate my boss. I don’t think he hates me. But then again, I could be wrong.

  Although, I’m probably not because the call never came and I still have my job. Apparently he likes me (pities me) enough to give me another chance.

  Sweet.

  Heartrending.

  I’m all warm and fuzzy inside.

  And I am when I stop to dwell for a minute. Unfortunately for Mr. Shithead I don’t have a minute. My mind murmurs on and on and on, nonstop, a plotting machine, restless. I guess I’ve reached some sort of frustrated, epiphanal, fuck-all state of crisis. My thoughts can’t sit still. That intense library freak-out, my near relapse into hormonal hell, a world of the dead, family organs and my gray matter’s recent propensity for self-evaluation, have triggered a consuming, burning pathos deep within. Discontentment, big and sick. No matter what, trying to fool my thoughts, trying to keep busy, I can’t get comfortable. Something has to be done. No more excuses. Longstanding dissatisfaction has surfaced and this time it won’t take no for an answer. I can’t force it down any longer, it has grown too big and black and vile to contain. It’s time to make good on some deep-seated internal promises.

  Unfortunately for Mr. Shithead my body and soul have chosen now. Years upon years of being shat on and kicked around and scowled at materialize thick, viscous, bubbling in the hollows of my spine like the purest evil. Poor Mr. Shithead has blossomed within the rage chambers of my brain. He has become much, much more to me than he deserves to be. He has become the all-encompassing embodiment of defeat and failure and injustice. To me, he is no longer a man of flesh and bone. He is a symbol. He is a target. He is an escape route. He is my salvation.

  * * *

  Wandering into Albertson’s I am uneasy dread and creeping déjà vu. My throat lumps out, fearing a repeat of earlier. I scan the corridors for the red-haired girl. By the time I reach the detergent aisle I have managed to refocus my thoughts. Back to purpose. Realigned. It’s all about Mr. Shithead and The Many Dangers of Food Poisoning and Ajax and before you know it, it’s like the red-haired girl (God, I sound like Charlie Brown) doesn’t even exist. She doesn’t know my name and she isn’t following me and she no longer disappears around corners in billowy afterbirths of red smoke. The only thing that matters now is the suave face that glints back at me from the mute, semiglossy containers of cleanser lining shelf upon shelf. I squint and sure enough I see Mr. Shithead’s smug, smiling face, tiny, many, winking at me from the “C” in Comet. There’s one dead center on the “X” in Ajax. There’s another smirking and laughing from behind the giant “S” on a bottle of Sun dish soap.

  Wiping the sweat from my forehead I bite my lower lip and tap my feet. The faces seem to be multiplying, closing in. Small panic.

  My left palm begins to buzz.

  I don’t have any money so I take off my hooded sweatshirt, wrap it around four tube-shaped cylinders of Ajax, shove the bundle into my backpack and rush for the exit.

  Outside, the night air cools me down and I’m able to get my head on fairly straight. I slow to a walk. Nobody noticed me swipe the cleansers (nobody ever notices me swipe anything) and, lucky, lucky me, I am in the clear.

  * * *

  The ritzy seafood restaurant I work for closes at eleven p.m. every night. Sometimes obnoxious customers (oblivious customers) force the restaurant to remain open later. Customer service policy disallows asking a paying patron to leave and I think this is bullshit. It’s not like food service employees are on salary. It’s not like they enjoy waiting around for inconsiderate assholes.

  As a line cook I generally don’t have to put up with it.

  As a saboteur with destruction on my mind, it pisses me off royally.

  Crammed up under a table, I watch a heedless couple prattle on. They paw each other while sipping coffee, laughing and making dewy eyes.

  At exactly 10:50 p.m., I snuck in through the side entrance, made sure not to be seen, and tucked myself away. Once the dinner rush dies off, the back half of the restaurant is shut down, cleaned and ignored until the following day. The plan: wait under one of these abandoned tables until every last person has left the building. After cleaning and closing duties, that’s about 12:30-1:00 a.m. tops. But now my timetable is off, it’s already thirty-nine minutes past closing and the heedless couple still prattle on.

  At a certain point their server will have to break protocol and ask them to leave. Unfortunately for me their server is Becky: overeager, overearnest, by the book, wannabe cop, manager in training, she-bitch Becky. Yet, despite her tenacious zeal, from my secret place across the restaurant I can see strain slowly creeping into her habitually pleasant face. She’s going to crack any minute. She has to. This is forty minutes out of her life. She’s tired.

  Any minute now.

  She speaks, nods her head and makes happy eyes at the heedless couple.

  Any minute now.

  This is it.

  But no! Here she comes with the coffeepot and there she goes topping off Mr. and Mrs. Inconsiderate.

  The remaining staff is no doubt bitching and moaning and talking shit about the customers in question. I can even picture Buck, the headsman, the night manager, in his office pretending to do paperwork, cursing out Becky’s earnestness and wishing death upon the heedless couple that has doomed him here for an extra forty-plus minutes.

  After Becky finishes refilling their coffee she fishes the check out of her apron and places it in front of Mr. Inconsiderate. You can tell that it kills her to hurry them along with this ultimate gesture of severance, but even for Becky enough is enough. As she returns to the kitchen, waitress strut, coffeepot steaming, I notice a telltale sparkle in her eyes and at first I think I am caught. I think
somehow, some way, even though I am folded into darkness, she has spotted me. But then, she continues on, her sparkling eyes looking past me, unaware, untrained.

  Revenge?

  By-the-book Becky?

  Heedless patrons beware!

  If you are of this constituency, I suggest nursing your drinks. Do not accept refills or order anything else once you’ve passed a certain point. You have overstayed your welcome and though restaurant procedure prevents the staff—especially a by-the-book devotee such as Becky— from making it known verbally, there are other ways. And believe me, with her maliciously sparkling eyes as testament, even someone like Becky isn’t above spitting in your coffee or wiping her ass with your change.

  Even though my legs are savagely cramped and my back hurts like hellfire, this delay isn’t a complete loss. Watching those heedless fools sip their tainted coffee— smiling, taking their sweet-ass time as secret filth steams down their throats—makes me smile. By-the-book Becky’s bold act of vengeance sends a quick relay of tingles up and down my spine. Bravo. My heart applauds.

  The oblivious couple finally wanders off into oblivion and the restaurant staff finishes closing up. Buck walks by my hiding place twice, his shiny new loafers squeaking, creasing and breaking themselves in. One hundred and fifty dollars easy. Imagine that, one hundred and fifty dollars for a pair of shoes. I hit payless, buy one pair for $14.99, get another at half price, and sneak a third pair into my backpack when no one is looking.

  But goddamn, Buck’s shoes sure are nice.

  I imagine grabbing his ankles, yanking him down and twisting those shiny leather bad boys from his feet. Yeah right. Where would I wear shoes like that? What would I wear with shoes like that? Why would I want to wear shoes like that?

  I bite my lower lip hard. Sharp pain and the taste of blood snap me back into reality.

  Why would I want to wear shoes like that?

  Where would I get the desire, the stupid, drooling, sickening desire, to want a pair of shoes like that?

  Media twisted, remember? I can’t help it. High-gloss magazines. Entertainment Tonight. Inundated and mutated by a TV world. A culture that keeps giving and giving so we all keep buying and buying.

  But I don’t want this.

  Yes you do.

  But I don’t need this.

  Yes you do.

  You are what you own.

  Buck’s feet alone are worth one hundred and fifty dollars.

  Bruno Malie puts out shoes that cost upwards of four hundred and fifty dollars.

  Me, if you count that a third of the time my shoes are stolen, a third of the time they’re half-price and a third of the time they’re under fifteen dollars…well you get the picture, I’m not worth much.

  Needless to say, Buck and his one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar status boosters never notice me. A little after one a.m. the restaurant is completely closed down and I’m ready for action. Shaking out the leg cramps, I crawl out and stand.

  When I work I make a beeline for the kitchen and when I leave I jet for the exit so I generally don’t spend much time in the dining room. Right now, amped-up and sick on the idea of a world lost to materialism, the fine wood and ornate fanciness makes me want to puke, puke, puke. I can see the dinner crowd, glasses clinking, teeth sparkling, finely manicured asses wriggling, downing bottle after bottle of overpriced wine, happy to shell out thirty dollars a plate. Do you know how many groceries I can buy for thirty dollars? Nausea rising, I scoop up my backpack and run to the kitchen.

  Just as I enter the server station a red streak flashes within the corner of my eye. I pause and backpedal. Nothing. Focus. Turning on the kitchen light I remind myself to ignore the hand tricks. There’s work to be done.

  Tonight’s special is stuffed prawns served with wild rice and asparagus tips. Twenty-three ninety-five a pop and it won’t even make you full. People buy them up just the same. Mr. Shithead anticipates moving about two hundred plates, so Jose and I spend two days prepping over eight hundred giant prawns. Maybe one of the reasons Mr. Shithead never gave Buck orders to terminate me is because Jose and I still have tons of prawns to stuff and bread. Maybe he’s holding off until the prawns are ready. This thought really makes my blood boil.

  The secret to the success of the Stuffed Prawn Dinner Special is the breading. Mr. Shithead doesn’t use traditional bread crumbs; he uses a mixture of flour, fresh basil, thyme, marjoram, Parmesan cheese and garlic. The basil, thyme and marjoram are dark in color and their dirty green, almost bluish tint is what I’m banking on to conceal the Ajax. I’m not sure if it will work, the contrast might be too obvious. If it looks wrong and blends strange I will have no choice but to cut my losses and destroy the prawns. I suppose canceling Stuffed Prawn Dinner Night would be a nice, tidy victory in itself. But successfully poisoning all of those rich fool motherfuckers and watching the ritzy seafood restaurant I work for come apart sure would be nice.

  The first thing I do is drag the fifty-pound vat of flour mixture from its storage space. I take a tube of Ajax, open it and sprinkle a little into the mixture. The speckled cleanser doesn’t exactly blend, but then again, it doesn’t jump out at you. Chances are Jose won’t notice. Mr. Shithead might, but as busy as he is, he might not get the chance. Fuck it. I grab a gigantic serrated knife, cut the top off the Ajax tube and dump its contents into the mixture. With a wooden mixing spoon I go to work. Once satisfied, I grab a second tube of Ajax and do the same. Surprisingly, the vat of mix looks passable.

  Grabbing the remaining two tubes of Ajax I hit the refrigerated walk-in and pull out the prawn trays. Jose managed to finish prepping four hundred. I’m impressed considering it generally takes both of us most of the shift to finish. Opening one of the tubes I sprinkle a little onto a stuffed prawn. A fine layer of condensation turns the Ajax a brilliant blue.

  Fuck!

  Remember when I said that stupid people make better saboteurs?

  I said it takes a stupid person to go where a rational, logical person wouldn’t. If you’re stupid you don’t give a fuck about consequences because you don’t consider the consequences. But, after all is said and done, potential consequences aside, stupid people are still stupid. They may be able to concoct wonderful, destructive scenarios, but again, they are still stupid. Stupid people don’t think things through. They can’t. They don’t have the cognitive capacity. Stupid people may realize that Ajax looks different than flour and they may even take the necessary precautions to disguise and mix and blend, but what a stupid person might forget is that Ajax turns bright blue when it comes in contact with water.

  When we bread the prawns, they are slick and damp. There is no way the flour mixture will work. The moment Jose attempts to coat a prawn with the mixture it will turn cleanser blue.

  I was almost feeling good. I was finally acting out. I was obeying the fire inside and ready to make a change. Salvation, remember? And everything was going so well. Blending the flour mixture, I felt a sense of pride. I felt important. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was making a difference. Me, affecting. Me, changing the course of someone’s life. So what if I am poisoning them. I’m not trying to kill anyone. I’m just trying to bring them down to earth. I’m trying to give them a little taste of pain, a little dose of reality. Life is hard and these people need to understand that. They need to realize things like this happen. Just because you’re rich or well-adjusted or in control of your left and your right hand doesn’t make you invincible. Chances are you need a little Ajax to the stomach. You need a little agony.

  And I need a little success. I need to achieve. I need to be rewarded. I need something other than agony. A little is good, it builds character, but when you got it like I do you need a little alleviation. Sneaking about cool and quiet as a ninja, I thought I had found my calling. Formulating this plan, nearly carrying it to fruition, I thought that maybe this was my destiny, maybe I’ve been going about life all wrong, maybe I should give up on my limited career potential, my impos
sible success rating and defy the American Dream, ignore ideals, make my own happiness. Maybe sabotage, subversion and destruction are my bankable job skills. Maybe I fantasize about bringing the world down—a world of markers, a life remembered, not lived, because it is my true calling to do so. Maybe I am the chosen one. Thirty-three years old and wishing the world dead for my sins. Christ in reverse.

  Maybe.

  Maybe nothing, because I can’t even fuck things up properly.

  Staring at the Ajax-speckled prawn, impossibly blue, set apart from his brothers by a cloak of acrid toxins, idiot tears well up and my hand starts to buzz. I am the prawn and the prawn is I. How silly and clichéd. As if there wasn’t enough shit wrong with my brain, now it’s making weak metaphors. Always this need for metaphor. The whole world hooked on metaphor. Why can’t we all just be straight with one another? Why can’t we all be straight with ourselves? I have to start. I can’t get by. I don’t make sense. I am overwhelmed with feeling and anger and disgust and emotion, a black cloud (always this weak dependency on metaphor) fills my skin like a second skeleton.

  Defeated, past tears, I am ready to overturn the prawn trays and stomp tonight’s dinner special into mush. Prickly red anger raises the hairs on the back of my neck and dampens my temples. Everything I am is ready to explode and I turn myself inward to welcome the anger with a warm, wet, bloody embrace. But, before I can wrap my inner arms around the chaos, a pale, colorless, glimmering memory grabs my unhinging attention and shakes me numb.

  I am frozen, anger halted, reliving a moment.

  Here, but not really here.

  Birthday failure.

  I turned thirty-three years old nearly a year ago. I spent the day at home, staring into space, waiting. For what? I don’t know. Change? Maybe Alice Michael would have something new and important to tell me this year. Maybe God had big plans for me. Whatever the case, I was sure something special was going to happen. Finally, something special and important was going to happen to me. This was my time.