1987 (First Draft)

Prolouge

"...so, and that concludes today's safety training, I wish you all a good weekend!" I concluded, as a wave of about twenty-six people, most dressed in a brown uniform, stand up and collectively walk towards the only door, through which the flickering, fluorescent lights of the office hallway filled the darkened meeting room.
"God, that was a handful," I sighed, inhaling the old smell of the meeting room, as I feel a heavy load falling off my shoulders. Suddenly my whole body twitched as someone laid their warm hand on my shoulder.
"Jeremy, that was great, I knew you had it in you!"
It was John, grinning ear to ear, showing his crooked, yellow teeth. I wonder to this day if he has ever seen something like toothpaste, but you can't hate on John. He is that "Happy-to-be-here" kinda guy, as he kept everyone's morals up in such a dead-end job.
"Hey John, don't sneak up on me like that, you know I have a sensitive heart." I laughed, to which he quickly pulled his hand away.
"Heh, yeah, your right, silly me keeps forgetting it."
"God, I'm happy this is finally over, I can't believe they picked me, a simple waiter, to hold the mandatory security training this week..."
"Hey, come on, it wasn't that bad now, was it? You did a great job, and you helped making this job this tiny bit safer!" John exclaimed as he slapped me on my back... Maybe a little too hard.
"Yeah, but I just can't with so many people." I exhaled tiredly, rubbing my shoulder "Tommy would've been perfect..."
"Well, Tommy works the graveyard shift, and he took a week off to relax, so..." he began to talk nervously, "Let's just give him his deserved free time."
"Yeah..." I sighed, "But still, why me?"
"Well, I wouldn't be this annoyed, I mean, they give you a juicy 50 cents more per hour this week!"
"Even with the extra pay, 3,85 per hour is not a lot, John."
"I mean, yeah, but-"
"Just leave it be." I sighed, " Let's get back to work, we still have two hours left until shift's over."

I pushed John away and began treading towards the brightly lit hall, past the plastic stools and the unlit projector in the meeting room, until the lights hit me. I rubbed my eyes in an effort to somehow help them get used to the shiningly bright, fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
As the bulbs stopped blinding me, I saw myself in the office hallway, with its greasy, peeling wallpapers and the dust-grey, carpeted floor, but I didn't linger here for too long.
I immediately turned to the right until the hall intersected into another hallway. Here I turned right again, hearing only the echoes of my footsteps, and the cooks working tirelessly in the kitchen next to the hallway.
As I walked down the hallway, the smell of grease and sweat grew stronger, and the sounds of people talking and music playing in the background slowly mixed with my echoing footsteps into a dissonant orchestra of a busy day... I walked up to the dark wooden door that that amidst the beige wallpapers of the hall, like a white cat in the night. As I approached the door, I sighed in relief... These smells and sounds. For some they are just annoying side noises that they have to endure while eating or playing in the arcade, but for me. For me they feel like... a second home where I can lay down my fears and responsibilities at home. Some weird, very cheap restaurant-type home where I serve needy people, but still a home nonetheless.
I reached for the cold metal doorhandle and pushed the door open in a quick motion. Colors and the overwhelming smell of cheap, greasy pizza hit me. People were sitting at simple plastic tables with festive tablecloths on them, happily munching their pizzas and burgers, chanting with each other or watching as Philly and the gang were singing some cheesy song that you'd hear every evening on the radio.
Immediately someone bumped into me, slamming a pizza into my waiters' uniform, leaving a dark grease stain on the light brown.
"Oh, I am so sorry," the man quickly apologized, but I just shrugged it smilingly off, as the man walked off to his table. Nobody said the job of a waiter is clean one.
I walked towards the counter, where a familiar face was leaning on the glass separating the arcade prizes from greedy, greasy hands.
"Hey Ron." I said with a smile, as he looked up to me and immediately began grinning.
"Hey Jeremy," he smirked, "That safety training sure was... Uh..."
"A disaster?" I chuckled.
"I meant to say 'something', but if you say so." Ron raised his hands as if he was apologizing for some crime he didn't commit.
Ron and I were friends from the first day I began working here. He already was here for three years back then, and he pretty much took me under his wings, like I'm some egg he ought to protect against the head-pounding, cheesy music and complicated customers.
"I honestly expected more people to be there today, don't, like, 40 people work here? I only counted about 25." I asked Ron as I also leaned on the prize counter, as some kid was staring at a Harry the Hare plush.
"Well, it's winter and the flu is going around again." Ron answered, as he slurped down on a cup of Cherry-O Soda. "And I think that HR guy is on parental leave."
"Lou has a wife?"
"Yeah, nah, he probably found the baby on his porch, brought by a stork, with many kisses from Santa." Ron chuckled as he took another big sip, looking to me with a grin from one ear to another, "Not like your wife who their parents found in the trash."
I rubbed my head, "Ron, not now, that divorce is stressing me enough at home, I don't need that at work too."
"Yeah, yeah..." He took a big sip from his cup again, before crumbling it and throwing it into the trashcan behind him with pin-point accuracy. "How's the little Timmy though? How's he getting around with all it?"
"Well, first of all he misses his 'Uncle Ron'" I punched Ron into the soldier, "and secondly, he'll become eleven in two weeks, he'll push through it, he's strong."
"He is, he is..." Ron sighed, as another waiter quickly approached us, a plate with dirty dishes in one hand and a mop in the other.
"Ron, Jeremy, we have a spill at table six-teen," Mae uttered hastily as she handed Ron the mop, "-and table three is ready to order." She then turned to me, before sprinting off behind the counter into the kitchen.
"We'll, it was nice talking," Ron stood up "But now I gotta' clean a child's puke."
"Could be just soda..." I suggested.
"I'll find out." And with that Ron disappeared in the ocean of guests...
"Jeremy, are you deaf?" Mae exclaimed on the other side of the counter. "Table three! Need a map or wha'?"
"Yeah, I'm on it, Mae." She really shows you very single day why she is the headwaiter. She's assertive, respected... And annoying.
I quickly fought my way through the sheer mass of guests returning to their tables, dodging little kids with Harry and Wendy plushies, and grown-ups trying to not lose their wallet amidst this warzone of an eating hall.
Looking up at the main stage, I could see as the curtains began to close and the animatronics disappear in the darkness behind them, like some demons, ready to appear when they are being summoned again...
<Summoned to torture the mortals with the same song playing over and over again> I chuckled to myself, as I finally approached Table three. I took out a pen as well as a piece of paper, and then I went straight to work.
"What can I get ya'll?" I asked the family of three, a man, woman and their 4-year-old, who was happily munchin' on one of the tree decorations.
"I'd please have a Pepperoni Pizza for me and my wife," The man answered, before turning to his child and asking it what he wants.
"Uhhhhhhh... I waaaaant... Uh..." the child began to think, looking around the main hall, as if he was surrounded by 10 different menus.
"Today's Philly Friday, so our "Philly Pepperoni" Pizza is 50% off, and a child's portion is 2 dollars off as well." I asked the little guy, as he took the tree décor in his mouth again.
"Or-" I began, as I took the child the tree away, "You could stop munching on plastic, and take a couple bites from your parents food."
The child nodded in agreement, not letting the wet tree out of his eyes, as I asked the parents if I should just upgrade one pizza to extra-large. They nodded their head, quickly apologized for their child trying to eat the decorations, as I wrote down their order, before I quickly walked off, behind the counter, to the open window to the kitchen.
"Hey Jeremy," Dave asked from behind the window, in his white cook garnet. Covered in pizza sauce and grease, like he just murdered a family of 5.
"Hey Dave. One medium and an XL Pepperoni for table three, and, uh..." I hesitated, before asking "If it isn't too much work for ya'll, arrange the XL one into a tree shape, the kid... Uh... Likes 'em."
Dave shrugged, "I'll see what I can do." And walked back into the foggy, pizza-smelling kitchen.
But suddenly, Mae's southern voice sounded from behind me: "Jeremy! Mr. Schmidt wants to see you. Now!"
"What? Why does Mr. Schmidt want to see me?" but Mae only shrugged hastily, "I don' know and honestly, I don' care. All I know is that you should get that arse moving, if you don' wannna get fired."