A/N: Oh, it turned out longer than I meant between posts, sorry! Thanks, Beanchop99, for the nudge :)
Ahem, slightly questionable sexual behavior ahead, let's remember Dom was incarcerated a good while. (And to be honest, he was never exactly enlightened before he went inside!)
Baldy might have a sense of humor after all.
Yeah, that must be the reason he set me up here. 'Cause I feel like I been set up, for sure, as I look up, and up again, at the face in front of me. At the man mountain who just told me to call him 'Tiny'. Never had much to do with blacks before, not before Big Mac and sure as hell not in there. Aside from this one time, right before I left, when there was some kind of liberal-ass, do-gooder inspection an' this mixer got staged in the mess hall, there wasn't no fraternizing between racial groups. 'Tiny' would have been in a different block from me. He's grinning at me like a long lost friend though, right now.
"Name's 'Valentine' for real, my mama was a romantic," he rumbles, in explanation.
"Dominic." I watch as my hand disappears inside his handshake. "Mine was a Catholic." That makes him laugh and he slaps me across the shoulders.
"Okay then, Dominic, let's get you into your uniform."
That freaks me slightly, but it turns out he's only referring to an apron that I get to sling around my middle – it overlaps significantly – as he orients me inside the kitchen.
"You wash your hands there, even if you're goin' right to dishes, which is there. Dirty dishes pile there, clean ones go here. This is food prep, this is service - see the tickets on there? They stays in order, no matter who's hollerin' blue murder that they're starving, got it?"
I nod.
"An' this..." He runs his hand lovingly over the edge of the stove top. "This is Aretha. She don't like no one but me to touch her, so if I catch your hands on her, there will be consequences..." He picks up the biggest kitchen knife I ever saw and beams at me. "Got it?"
I am trapped in a place full of sharp objects, boiling oil and hotplates, with a madman who named an appliance 'Aretha'.
I nod.
After I break the first plate, LouAnn, who looks old enough to be God's mother but has a mouth like a sailor on her, tells me I am just the latest in a long line of fucking liabilities and she will happily wave goodbye when I get sent back inside, like the rest of 'em.
"Ain't you never washed a fucking plate before?" she snipes, over her shoulder, as she backs out of the kitchen, carrying two full dishes and a side of fries. I am tempted to tell her the truth which is 'no', but I bite my tongue.
Baldy might think this is a joke, but I am dead serious about staying out of jail and if I gotta jump through his hoops until this freaking parole is done, then that's what has to be. Tiny catches me gritting my teeth at LouAnn's criticism though, but for some reason he grins and points at the clock on the wall of the kitchen.
At exactly one minute after eight, LouAnn hangs up her apron and stalks out the back door, telling Tiny 'goodbye' and me that she don't expect to see me back tomorrow, 'cause the cops'll be hauling me back in before morning. Tiny's response is to mime a countdown, until her taillights slide away and she is officially gone.
Tiny takes a deep breath and switches on the radio with a grand gesture. The music fills the kitchen and he starts bumping and grinding, oohing and ahhing along.
"C'mon, white boy," he teases. "Even you gotta hear the rhythm in this one..."
I don't dance.
It's another ten minutes before the next waitress shows, but luckily there is only one customer and he seems happy to doze over his meal, because I haven't been allowed out front while LouAnn was here and I don't know how to work the cash register yet.
It amazed me when I found out I was going to have to cover the counter, take the cash and all, any time the regular waitresses ain't around. But Baldy seemed like it was no big deal. Although, I wonder about that, given that LouAnn's opinion of the ex-cons who've worked here is so low.
The girl who rocks up ten minutes late is a pretty brunette chick and she takes Tiny's pretend complaints in her stride, nodding hello at me.
"I was babysitting. I can't be in two places at once." She's throwing her hair into a ponytail, so her words come out around the tie in her mouth. Once she's done, she dances with Tiny for a minute, laughing about the fact that LouAnn would have been having kittens if she heard the music.
Customers start rolling in, stretching necks and spines as they leave their rigs and their pickups and making for the counter or the booths, mostly calling for coffee before their asses are even down. Penny, the waitress, insists that I follow her out front, so I can watch her process the orders and learn where everything is. 'Everything' includes a baseball bat under the counter, 'in case of trouble'.
"Like what?" I ask. Wouldn't be the first time I used one in a non-sports context, but I'm pretty sure it'd break my parole if I clock someone, even in the line of duty.
She laughs. "I dunno. That's what I was told, so that's what I tell all the new people. Most of the customers are sweet enough." She sloshes out coffee and deflects a smutty comment from the trucker who wanted the refill. He grins back good naturedly.
"How long you worked here?" I'm watching her carefully, as she writes down an order for a double burger with fries 'and hold the coleslaw' as '2xF nix slaw'. Half of what LouAnn shouted at Tiny was in another language. Penny slaps the order on the clip above the kitchen hatch and whistles to let Tiny know it's there. He whistles back to show he heard.
She shrugs. "Getting on three years. I'm working my way through college. This and babysitting, I do okay."
"Yeah? So, these 'new people' you showed around before, they like me?" She's real pretty an' I like the way she ain't fazed by any of the customers.
"Ooh, you mean, did they get sent here by Mr Hutchison, the PO?" She widens her eyes dramatically. "Were they ex-cons?" I nod and she nods back. "A few. You know," she leans in, whispering, "he got me this job too." Holy shit. She looks like butter wouldn't melt. And once she sees what I'm thinking, she hoots with laughter. "He's my uncle! Why? I look like a hardened criminal?"
Before I can come up with a smart reply, she grabs a plate from the hatch and walks over to one of the tables. And I get back to the dishes. I ain't pursuing nothin', not with the PO's niece.
It gets quiet around ten and Tiny shoves a plate of food in my hands and we eat in the kitchen, where it's so hot - even though it's winter - that he's jacked the back door open with a crate of canned beans.
I take a look at the messy notice board off to one side, half covered in receipts and orders. There's a map of the whole country lining the back board, although I can only just make it out under the postcards jammed in every which way around the road and rail lines that cut up the states.
"One day, man. One day..." I squint at the big guy as he sighs and follows up his comment with the explanation: "I get the regulars that come through to pick me up them cards. Mail 'em too, some of 'em. Leastways, they're all places I wanna go one day."
"Chubbuck, Idaho...? The hell for?" I can't help but ask, as I leaf through the scenes.
"'Cause it ain't here, man. What other reason do I need? Ain't there nowhere you wanna go? Wanna see?"
My hand is frozen over a view of the Golden Gate bridge when he asks that and I'm thinking about Tim and wondering if what he told Curly is true.
A new voice joins the conversation, with a surprising offer: "How 'bout Heaven, honey? Getcha there tonight, no problem." There's a chick in the open doorway, all red lips and attitude and...legs.
Tiny chortles, as much at the way I jump as anything, I reckon. I make an effort to close my mouth. She's wearing something that might count as a skirt in some country where denim can only be sold in inch wide strips. She tilts her hips one way and her tits definitely my way as she follows up with a wink, "C'mon, sugar. I'll take ya right round the world."
"Boy ain't been paid yet, so I'm guessing your chances are slim, Arlene. This here's Arlene," Tiny explains, in case I'm as stupid as I'm acting.
"I don't see no boy." She's talking to him, but her eyes are still on me. I'm pretty grateful for the freaking apron right about then, as she looks me up and down, but she winks at me anyway. Then she tries to wheedle some fries out of Tiny and he tells her no. She pouts, "It's cold out here, y'know." Something catches her attention, turns out to be a couple of semis pulling off the expressway and she pivots on her high heels and disappears into the dark.
I think I can actually hear my pulse thump and it ain't in my heart.
"Don't do it," warns Tiny. "Them lot lizards'll have your money gone in five minutes flat. Leave ya with nothin' but an itch, or worse."
I'm lucky not to break another dish as I crash the stuff in the sink together. Five minutes flat sounds good enough to me.
Sometime after midnight, when Penny clocks off, Tiny cleans down the counter tops and gets me to sweep the floor. The resulting crap overflows the garbage pail, at which point I discover that taking out the trash is my job too. The dumpster is around the side of the building and I lug the garbage out there, putting it down to open the larger container.
"Got a weed, sugar?" She makes me jump for the second time that evening.
I fumble with the apron, fishing out the half pack I have left and shaking a stick out for her.
"Got a light?" Arlene is up against me as if I was already holding out a match. "You sure you don't wanna have a little fun?"
"What Tiny said. This is my first day. Pay day next week, I guess."
"Hmm." Ma had a cat for a time, when I was a kid. Arlene has got that kind of rubbing-up-against-you vibe going on. When she says, "I'm sure we can think of something, sugar," there's only one topic on my mind. She reaches up and strokes my stupid fucking short hair. "I ain't sure this is a good look on you. But I'll bet it means you'd appreciate a little relaxation."
"I'd appreciate a straightforward fuck, if that's what you're offering. You wanna talk about some kind of credit?"
"Piss off, I ain't no charity." She don't make it, although she tries to twist away, because I got her wrist in my hand. She ain't no fool, she don't pull away any harder. "Maybe not credit, but maybe a little fair exchange?"
I seen a lot of bartering go down, in Big Mac, for just exactly this kind of thing. Not sure anyone on the inside would have worked out this exchange rate, though. Not sure I would ever have predicted I'd get what feels like the best blow job of my life next to a dumpster in the lot of a truck stop. I have a suspicion that the couple of hours I let Arlene sit in the warmth of a booth are worth more to her than the burger and fries she bargained so hard for.
Either way, I reckon I got the better deal.