Slammer came in early.
He had worked at the restaurant for about four months. It was on the other side of the river, the sort of place where a burger cost ten dollars and bacon and cheese were extra.
He called out but nobody answered. It was gloomy like this, with the lights off and the chairs up and no radio. It made him think of when he was a kid and they woke him up early to help prepare mass in the sacristy.
Christine waddled out from the back as he started punching his code into the register.
“What are you doing?”
“Clocking in.”
“We’re not open yet.”
“But I’m working.”
“You got too many hours this week. I need you off the clock til Monday.”
“Okay.”
“You need to start coming in earlier. I need you to be here at least ten minutes early so you can be ready to go.”
“I’m ready.”
Christine scowled, scratching at the brown cysts that trailed down her face to her neck and chest.
“Well, come on then,” she said. “Hurry up. I got a business to run.”
#
Usually Slammer worked in the hole, the small dark space next to the oven where the sinks and basins sat. But today Christine made him clean the bathrooms and took him to the stockroom first.
“I need you straighten up in here,” she said. “We got an inspection next week, so I need you to do a good job and put some effort into this. Make sure you put everything back where it belongs when you’re done.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“This should take you about an hour,” she said. “Come on, get to work.”
It took him two, which pissed her off. She spent the last hour going in and out of the storeroom to yell at him for being too slow. He was relieved when she told him to get started on the dishes.
The cooks were in the kitchen now, chattering in spanish as they fired up the grill. He wondered what they were talking about — something about a party, the rest went by too fast for him to catch.
He pulled on his gloves and rubber apron and started on last night’s pans. Those were always the toughest.
Abby poked her head in on the way to the lockers.
“Hey, Slammer,” she said. “Did she make you come in early again?”
He nodded.
“What a bunch of crap.”
Abby was the hostess. She was a freshman in college. Pretty. A little awkward when she wasn’t with customers. She didn’t need to work but she liked the extra money.
When he first started he thought she might be interested. One night, as they were putting up the chairs, he went over and got a little close.
She gave him a look. He thought wrong.
But she was still nice to him and they were still friendly and that was enough. He smiled as he sprayed off a plate and set it in the next basin.
On the radio, the Eagles. Life in the Fast Lane.
Slammer cleaned the dishes good.
#
By the time his shift was over, the dishes were still coming fast.
Slammer was exhausted. Pain arched around his back and the straps of his apron kept biting into his shoulders no matter how he moved them. His shirt stuck tight to his skin. He was dying for a smoke, even though he could barely breath in the thick, hot air.
Christine came in and turned off the radio. Stood next to him. Stared. He knew better than to ask what she wanted — better to wait her out.
“I need you to work the floor tonight.”
“What?”
“Elaine called in sick. Get going.”
“I need to take a break–”
“No,” she said. “Come on. I’m your boss. You need to do what I tell you to do.”
“Christine, please, I’ve been here all day–”
“You’ve already been written up twice, John.”
She’d written him up twice the first week he was here. If she wrote him up again, she could fire him.
Usually he gave in. He’d been giving in from the start, the best he could. But he’d been working forty hours a week on the clock and another twenty off it for a long time now and he didn’t have that much left.
“Ten minutes,” he said. Not arguing. Not rude. Just honest.
She looked mad — no. Not mad. Disgusted.
She snorted, fixing her droopy eye on him.
“Ten minutes,” she said, like it was a warning.
#
He took off his gloves and apron and went out and sat on the bucket next to the dumpsters. His hands were cramped and shaking. It took him a long time to remember he didn’t have any cigarettes.
So he sat there, flexing his fingers, staring through the chain link fence. It was mostly covered with thin metal slats so he couldn’t see much — a group of laughing college girls. An old woman in a scarf. A redhead wobbling on high heels, leaning into her boyfriend.
It bothered him, seeing them out there, but he didn’t stop looking.
Abby poked her head out the door. He looked up at her. She winced, sympathetically.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She gave him a sandwich somebody sent back. Turkey, but he was too tired to care.
#
He washed up the best he could in the staff bathroom. Changed his shirt. Rolled his sleeves down over the tattoos and scars. Put on his nametag. Tried to not look in the mirror.
Worked the floor.
#
It was a little after seven when the priests came in. They were supposed to go to the new girl working the west side, but Father McClary made a beeline for Slammer as soon as he saw him.
“John! It’s wonderful to see you!”
“You too, Father.”
“How’s the job?”
“It’s fine.”
“Is Christine giving you a hard time? I can have a talk with her–”
“Please don’t.”
“She’s going through a difficult time, John. She doesn’t have your compassion. You must try to forgive her — you must pray for her.”
“I will, Father.”
“I have a very old friend with me tonight,” said Father McClary. “He says he knows you.”
The rest of Father McClary’s party caught up with him — his assistant, her husband, and an old bearded man Slammer didn’t recognize. Definitely a priest, though. Slammer could tell, even if he was out of uniform. Something about how he carried himself.
“This is Father Stephen,” said Father McClary.
Father Stephen looked Slammer over carefully before he spoke:
“Good evening, John.”
Slammer froze. The voice brought back copper, chalk, tile, moss. Dusty classrooms. Faded posters. Bloody elbows.
Dark spaces.
He remembered everything else, but there was a hole where the old man should be.
He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to push it all away..
“You taught at Emilion,” Slammer said.
The old man’s bloodless lips curled.
“Yes.
“It’s so good to see you.”
#
Slammer was so rattled he couldn’t say much after that. He got their drinks, took their order — they didn’t have the wine Father Stephen liked so he just had water. Father McClary went with soda, saying that he really shouldn’t, like always, his weight, the diet.
It was a bad night for Slammer. He had a table of college kids who made a big mess and tipped shitty and one of his old regulars, a salesman with a goatee who liked to take his dates here who never stopped talking.
Slammer kept hearing pieces of talk at Father McClary’s table, mostly sports and old friends and some big environmental program the city was promoting. They didn’t pay much attention to Slammer until their food arrived.
“John,” said Father McClary. “Perhaps you can help us settle an argument. Are you familiar with the enneagram?”
“No.”
“It’s a system for categorizing personality types.”
“Like a horoscope?”
“Well, not quite. It’s a little more scientific than that. There’s a series of questions, to figure out what type you are — there are nine types, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, I’m a nine, which is a peacemaker. So that’s my dominant quality, which is good, but it means I need to be careful to avoid giving up too easily.”
“That’s very true,” said Father McClary’s assistant. “That’s just like you.”
“Sounds complicated,” said Slammer.
“It’s nonsense,” said Father Stephen. “No different than tarot cards.”
“That’s hardly fair,” said Father McClary. “Have you read Richard Rohr’s book?”
“Rohr is a heretic.”
Father Stephen sipped his wine. It took him a while to notice the table was quiet.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have not been in the United States for a very long time. I sometimes forget how liberal it has become.”
“And this town is more liberal than most,” said Father McClary.
“Yes, quite right,” said Father Stephen. “But it distresses me. I hear a lot of talk about enneagrams and feminism and liberation theology as if these things were of no great concern — and perhaps they aren’t. But the people who are drawn to these sorts of ideas — some priests, in fact — for them, it can become an obsession. They cannot let go. I have seen this personally. And, in time, these ideas come to mean more to them than the Church itself.”
“It’s unfortunate — truly — when that happens,” said Father McClary. “But I don’t believe we always need to be in lockstep with the Vatican. Why, even in your home country, there are married priests in the Uniat churches.”
“Is that true?” asked Slammer.
“It is,” said Father Stephen. “Although they were ‘grandfathered’ in. But I admit, we must be respectful of the… variations in tradition, even if they may seem strange to us. Have you ever been to a Dolorosan mass, John?”
“No.”
“Oh, you must,” said Father Stephen. “You should come visit Saint Claudia, in the southeast. We celebrate mass in the old way, the same way it has been done for a thousand years. It is so beautiful, you will cry, I promise you.”
“Uh,” said Slammer. “I don’t know. Maybe some day.”
“Ah, John, would you be so kind?” asked Father McClary, holding up his empty soda.
#
It was near closing when Father McClary and his friends finally got up to go.
Slammer dropped off the check and ducked into the bathroom to take a piss. When he came out, he saw Father Stephen standing in the narrow hallway.
“Ah — hello, Father.”
“Tell me, John,” said Father Stephen. “Have you remained in good standing with the church?”
“I — no, Father. Honestly, I haven’t.”
Something strange came into the old man’s eyes. He hobbled closer.
“I remember you, John. Even if you don’t remember me. You were a wonderful little boy, so thoughtful. So kind.”
He put his hand on Slammer’s arm.
“The most important thing we can do in this life is get ourselves right with God. We have been put on this earth to find His love again, so we can return to His embrace.”
“I’m trying, Father.”
The old man didn’t let go.
“We always believe we have time, but we do not. We never know how close we are from our reckoning. And so I feel compelled to ask you, John: are you ready to return to the fold?”
“No,” said Slammer, uneasy. Father McClary wasn’t anything like this.
He took a step back but Father Stephen followed him, out to the floor.
“I’m begging you, John. Please. You must. The devil is real, and hell is real, and there is so little time–”
“Father, please–”
In the middle of the restaurant, in front of everybody, the old man dropped to his knees, so fast Slammer thought for a second he’d fallen. He looked up at Slammer, eyes wild and bright.
“John,” the old man said, swaying, grabbing at Slammer’s shirt. “Please, I am begging you. Before it’s too late.”
Slammer tried to speak, to convince the old man to get up–
“What’s going on?”
Father Stephen ignored Father McClary until the younger priest tried to reach for his shoulder. The old man batted his hand away, still kneeling, still begging, over and over — his voice getting louder and louder.
“Please, John! There’s no time! There’s no–”
“Stephen!” yelled Father McClary.
Suddenly, the old man fell silent, resting his hands on his knees, wheezing, bowing his head. Slammer stared down at Stephen — the old man’s hair was thinning and grey–
“For God’s sake, get up!” said Father McClary.
The old man mumbled something to himself. Took Father McClary’s arm and rose, trembling, to his feet.
He was quiet now. Calm. Somehow, that made it worse. Arm in arm, the two priests stumbled toward the door.
“I’m so sorry, John,” said Father McClary.
And they were gone.
#
The few remaining customers were silent. Christine was staring at him, her face blank. She walked back into the kitchen as soon as he noticed, without a word.
He didn’t know what else to do, so he bussed the table.
Under Father Stephen’s plate was a small stack of hundred dollar bills.
#
Slammer walked home.
He was too late for the bus tonight. Some nights he’d call a cab but tonight he felt like walking, so he walked — shoulders hunched, head down, digging deeper into his coat.
He walked past the gyms and the clothing stores and the jewelry shops. He walked past the office buildings and expensive houses and parks. He walked over the bridge.
He crossed the freeway.
On this side, all the houses were empty, with padlocked doors and boarded up windows. The streets were covered in crushed beer cans and rotting leaves and broken glass.
A big empty neighborhood. Some nights the only way you could tell the world didn’t end between here and home was the gas station, always lit up bright. Sometimes Slammer liked to stop there on the way home and buy cigarettes.
But not tonight. Tonight, he kept walking.
He was almost home when he started feeling it, standing at an intersection, waiting for the light to change.
“Oh no,” he said.
No no no.
It came on suddenly — strong, like it had never gone away, like it always been waiting to come back. His head felt light, his stomach turned — and then it hit him.
He put his hands on his knees and squeezed his eyes shut but that made it worse.
He didn’t want to be sick. He didn’t want his heart to beat so fast. He didn’t want to shake so hard. He didn’t want to be here, alone in the dark. He didn’t want–
Acid climbed up his throat and he heaved once, leaning against a telephone, but then the feeling faded.
He hoped for a moment it wouldn’t be as bad as it used to be but then he gagged and he heaved again and the vomit hit the sidewalk — clean one second, spattered with wet chewed up bread and turkey and lettuce the next.
He stared at it. He was ashamed, but what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t clean it up or nothing.
When he felt steady enough he dried his eyes and started walking again. He did his best to keep his eye on the moon and the angle of the sidewalk and the reflections in the windows.