Run-On

Chapter 5, The One With The Tragedy

I'm shuffling through the city streets, a dark scarf crowding my breathing space and a long coat adorning my shoulders. We're still going strong, it's going to be 10 months on the twenty-second. That's three days before Christmas. Now it is the twelfth, and I am trying to push my way through the crowded lane under the roofs and extensions off of shops and restaurants that are just happy to get the attention from everyone. I am holding my messenger bag close to my body, it has my laptop in it, where my precious projects are kept. We can't really afford sufficient internet access anymore, which has Jonathan going nuts. We can't afford much, barely the house. I have to start making some money.

So in hopes of such activity, I am making my way to the restaurant where I work, where I will bring my preferred work and also I will take a lunchtime shift. I am being pushed and pulled in every which way, shoved by people in dark coats and gloves and snow caps, and I think to myself, if this were any other day, they would be considered suspicious. I hang on tightly to the buckle of the bag until I safely take shelter into the shop. It's very busy; people tend to usually go to soup & sandwich shops on the rainy days. But as it drizzles outside, I can't help but smile. The smell of fresh air and the sound of rainwater, hitting the pavement and cleansing all that once was, clearing bugs out of their cleverly hidden shelters and driving people back into their own is absolutely ridiculous. I love it.

I hear the bell clink as I open the door and the little girl who is the waitress who's shift I am taking looks at me in distress and then relief. She is really very adorable, in her own right. Her hair is falling out of her ponytail just slightly and she hands me a list.

"Table 9 is wrapping up, I'll go ahead and finish up who I have already, but once that queue is up, you take over, right?" She says with tones of immense pressure underlying her voice. I nod, pulling on my uniform and logging into the system. A bundled up family walks through the door, a man holding the hand of a little girl and a mother holding a little boy close to her face. They are all wearing thick coats and hats. The young man takes off his hat and I smile and go through the welcome protocol. They are very friendly and polite and as I seat them, they are patient and gentle and they love each other very much. Without really thinking about what I'm doing, I write down their orders. I head to the kitchen, sticking the ticket into their queue and fill up 2 cups of water and 2 cups of apple juice. They are beautiful people. I wonder if one day I'll come into a bustling restaurant with my family. I wonder if my kid will drink apple juice. I wonder if I will have a family. I wonder who will help me build one.

My shift is long but not long enough for me to notice. I'm pretty good with food service; I don't have to be the customers' best friend and I can very much be in my own world half the time, now that I'm used to how it works. Tonight I'll work a shift at Ginger's Bar & Grill until two a.m., and then I'll make it home. The guys haven't been around much lately; Trev's finally able to get his hand back into regular condition. We've had to help him around the house though, he played up his injury really bad. But the funny thing is, no one ever questioned how it came to be. I think maybe we just served him without questioning so we can use it again later against him- probably. Or maybe we were being selfless. I highly doubt any of us had good motives.

I end up staying for dinner because I kind of enjoy working there, a little. I like seeing kids get excited about their food and I like observing the conversations, the facial expressions, reading people and trying to figure out if I can tell their story just from the way they behave. Some of them I'm pretty sure I could tell more accurately than others. I wonder what people think when they see me. As things slow down in the restaurant, I wipe off the tables as the last 2 families leave. It has been a hard work day but I hardly notice, my mind is a hundred thousand miles away. I'm brainstorming, I'm developing characters and situations and I am just waiting to be able to write them all down, capture them so they can never leave. I shuffle through the cleaning and toss chairs up on tables and head back to my locker. I change out of my uniform. Meredith, the little waitress, comes back in the restaurant. I smile at her.