“The Takeover”

I navigated the various individuals, repeatedly, who would come into work with bodies and eyes full of tension and struggle, like this everyday enterprise were a beguiling dragon to slay, for them, of sorts. Over and over, little bouts of conflict would occur, not over anything semantic or tactile in the spatial realm of the universe, but rather just because our minds were driven to enact competition against those around us. I’d chosen kitchen work because I didn’t have to talk a lot and could be a cussing smart-a**. A lot of people saw that and hated me because of it. I had a lot of good experiences too, especially the free crab cakes and lamb chops on wedding days. Still, I should have seen it coming — the blue shift toward energy drink sovereignty, toward backwards-hat authority and toward the favoring of druggies who always need a ride and who screw up orders on their station, of course, sidestepping blame’s totality at the expense of all of us. There was the day the kid got a cramp. I told him, “Drink water… Cramps are a by-product of dehydration.” He replied, “No… I just gotta rub it.” I think he was literally afraid of drinking water. He probably would have willingly downed five energy drinks, had I provided them. Days passed, more half-naked girls walked through, more awful, fast-food-jingle music emanated from the speakers, and finally, the populace got what it wanted — the ability to mend a cramp without water. Granted, I haven’t checked in on them lately. I haven’t checked the local news lately.