After the failed college attempt, the father began to accept certain things about his son. Perhaps he was not as bright or resourceful as he had imagined. It was a hard fact to swallow, harder perhaps than any of his own rarely acknowledged failures. Unfulfilled fantasies grew like an irritating skin over his eyes. The unfolding universe that had opened to him, during fleeting moments of his youth, revealing certain secrets that he had long since forgotten, now rained down rods of crushing, inflexible steel. He was pinned in by forces beyond his control. The feeling would pass, he knew as much by now, just as he also knew it would inevitably return, with growing frequency and duration, like the pain in his back. His victories in business and in the eyes of his employees would come to be invaded by his greatest, piercing failure. Remembering his son’s first job, he let the tears fall over his cheeks like a warm blanket.
The father had befriended the general manager at the Wendy’s he frequented on days when it was his turn to watch his son. His name was Marlin, like the fish. Marlin was a corpulent, ball-busting go-getter with middle management emblazoned across the stained pocket of his white short sleeve as boldly as the neon red and yellow of the drive-thru sign. He had thick glasses that were constantly falling from his face and a pair of grey slacks he was always pulling up over his ballooning waste. The son hated the way his father would lean out the driver’s side window, cocking his elbow, to give Marlin the hey-bro hand shake, like they were best buds. Then they would exchange jokes; his father laughing raucously and Marlin maintaining his poker face. The son did not listen to the content of the jokes but watched his father wretch with laughter while Marlin only blinked his eyelashes, as big as waving palm fronds behind his bulbous glasses.
That summer, the father asked Marlin if he could give his son a job. On his first day, the father gave the son advice which he was to use to get ahead. “This shitty job,” he said, carefully modulating his voice below the sound of the air conditioner, “this shitty job will teach you something about the real world.” The father watched his son walk into the bronze tinted glass door of the Wendy’s with a tear in his eye. He would only last a month, six weeks tops.
The son’s first task, for which he was not paid, was to watch the Wendy’s corporate video designed to welcome new employees into the exciting world of franchise fast food. Afterwards, he punched in and Marlin had him empty the trash, clean the bathrooms and then wipe down the salad bar. Marlin, it turned out, was a big fan of some of the young girls he was going to high school with and wanted to know if he had “banged” any of them. In the cramped quarters of the kitchen, he asked for details under his breath, nudging the other grill man who rolled his eyes all slow and sticky like a slug. When he gave none, because in truth, there were none to give, Marlin called him a faggot and made him scrape the charred nuggets of hamburger fat from the blackened grill into a large silver pot. “That,” he said, pointing to the spent carrion trembling in the bottom of the pot, “is for the chili.”
N. C. Stern
