The Best Thing He Ever Wrote

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

If Jeremy, the man who owns the local mechanic up the road, hadn't rejected me for an apprenticeship. And if Bret, the man who works the fuel pumps around the other side of the mechanic, hadn't thrown me out because he didn't need me either. Then perhaps, by the slimmest of slim chances, I wouldn't have noticed that I don't give a crap about cars, trucks, motorbikes- anything with wheels. I would have made a mistake, and there for my parent’s sake, I wouldn't have been able to quit.

I don't feel discouraged.

I don't feel any rage.

I don't care.

The only problem is that now I'm stuck between asking the tip service for work or the deep fryer down the road- because they're the only two places that will probably take in the drop kick. In fact half the town’s drop kicks work at the fryer, flipping burgers and placing pickles perfectly centred in the bun. I must say, occasionally though, that pickle sometimes is hanging out the side of the burger. Sometimes the lettuce is so minimal that instead of classifying it as lettuce, it's as though someone’s dropped the burger onto a patch of grass by mistake and have only seen a few pieces of grass so they've just left it.

I suck in the air between my teeth holding the stack of paper under my arm; I head across the street and to the deep fryer. Trash doesn't seem so appealing. I stand at the automatic doors and have to wait at least ten seconds from them to open. When they do I can feel the cold air from the air conditioner hit my skin, sending the hairs on my neck to stand. The second thing that hits me is the smell of freshly made burgers and chips drowned in boiling fat. There's only two other people here other than the staff, a stubby woman with hair that too looks as though it's been in the deep fryer, and next to her is an older fat man, who rubs his butt a few times, not caring that he's standing in front of a glass door, or me in fact. I wait until they're served and watch as they walk out the door carrying their paper bags with them. I watch the stubby woman almost fall over and wonder whether the man who she's with either noticed or cared enough to balance her out.

“Can I help you, Sir?” The middle aged woman with a long scar down her chin asks.

I wonder what happened to her, a fall? An insane husband? A fight with her mother? Friend? Then I wonder if she's embarrassed by it or sick of people asking what happened. Thirdly, before I answer, I wonder if she knows people stare at her chin and not her eyes or very large rack.

“Uh? Yeah.” I say walking to the counter, “I was wondering-” A buzzer begins to go off, the woman frowns, hurries around the back of the building. The noise stops and she's back, “Sorry. There's a bit of a technical fault with the alarm system.” She smiles, her mouth forming a funny little line, “Can I get you anything?”

“Yeah, I'm looking for a job. Is there anyone here I can talk to about that?”

“We're not hiring, sorry.”

“Can I talk to someone else?”

“That would be me, I'm manager. See we have enough staff at the moment. But if you like I can put your name down-”

It's then that I stop listening. Not hiring? Not hiring! The one place in town that takes in anyone and everyone is not hiring? Or is it just me? It's a small town; people probably know that I'm that kid who dropped out of school. That now I'm most likely not reliable? I clench my fists dropping them to my sides, the paper I've been holding drops to the ground.

“Sir?” She says, “I'm very sorry, it's just the quiet time of the year.”

Sorry? Is that all she has to say; almost every sentence from her mouth had a 'sorry' in it. Of course she's not sorry; she doesn't give a rat about me. And when I'm gone, she might mention she pissed of some kid, the one who quit school. But after that, she'll forget all about me. There's no 'sorry' or 'caring' at all from her. Maybe the only reason she said sorry was because she knows that I have no future or something and now need a job at the one place that usual hires, but not today. I bend down, picking up the papers that I’d dropped, I can feel sweat starting to form on my forehead even though it's cool in here. For a split second I wonder if there's something wrong with me. When I stand I hold gaze with the woman, before turning, throwing the papers in the closest green bin and then walk out the door.