Shunt was having a conversation with one of the guys from Management.
“What’s your annual salary, sir? Rounding down?”
“Mike said you know where the paper goods are kept.”
“Just tell me your salary. I’m curious.”
“Could you get me one of those packets of napkins?”
“Here’s what I’m wondering: I’ll bet you make at least five or six times what I make in a year —”
“You know, those refill packets for the dispensers?”
“— and yet, and yet, you don’t have to put up with the noise, the constant shouting, the grease, the all-day idiocy of the condiment routine, the uncertain hours, the bitching, the monotony, the constant standing, the heat of the grill for ten, sometimes eleven hours.”
“Mike said you know where the napkins are kept.”
“I guess what I’m saying is I’m wondering why I’m getting minimum wage for a job that is more dangerous, more monotonous, and closer to the customer than yours is.”
“We need these dispensers to be full.”
“If my job is more difficult, shouldn’t I get paid more instead of less?”
“Look. I’m paid for my expertise. I’m paid to think. You’re paid to work manually. I’m like the brain and you’re like the muscle. There’s no better or worse. We work together. Now. Napkins?”
“But I actually think a lot when I’m on the job. I’m thinking all the time.”
“Could you get me one of the packets they use to refill the dispensers?”
“Would you say that my brain is an unnecessary byproduct? Would that be fair?”
“You must have a supply closet somewhere.”
“Would you sell my brain if you could? For a profit?”
“Look, fine. I’ll get my own goddamn napkins. Thanks for nothing, kid.”
Someone somewhere was talking into a loudspeaker. I couldn’t hear the words. A truck was backing into the driveway, beeping. People scattered away from it. I couldn’t see what was happening inside the building. There were flashes of light in the windows. I went around the corner.
A path to a side door surrounded by shrubs and woodchips had been marked off with yellow tape. They were getting ready to film a scene there. People were crowded up against the tape, watching.
Some of the guys from BQ were standing near a split-rail fence. I recognized Johnny Fletcher and Kid. Johnny dribbled a Coke can between his feet. Kid passed out pieces of grape Bubblicious.
Cameras were set up in the parking lot. Two girls in blue polyester graduation gowns were being coached. A man yelled at them, “Keep thinking: This is the first day of the rest of my life!” They were supposed to be laughing and stumbling out of the glass doors. In one hand they held their mortarboards. In the other they held O’Dermott’s bags. A prop man was filling up the bags with more paper. I guess he didn’t fill them with real food because the grease might bleed. I watched the girls put out their cigarettes and, after one coughed a few times, they suddenly were happy. They jostled each other. They practiced throwing their mortarboards up in the air. The director asked if they could get more spin. The prop guy came out and I could see him showing them a wrist action. The yellow tape rippled in the breeze. The director yelled that he wanted to try a take. One of the girls yelled back that she still didn’t get it with the mortarboards, was it overhand or underhand. The other one yelled that she had a migraine.
Suddenly I felt someone at my elbow. My co-conspirator.
“Top o’ the morning,” said Shunt.
“It went off great,” I said.
“We rule.”
“I’m feeling kind of guilty.”
“Guilt’s for the weak.”
“A lot of damage has been done.”
“To multinational corporations. Cry me a river.”
“No, not that. More Turner. I feel like I became what I hate most. But a clumsy, stupid version.”
“Heads up.”
“Hm? I’m saying I think my greatest enemy was really myself.”
“Heads up.”
“It was stupid, what I did to Turner.”
“Um, enjoy the ride,” Shunt said, and stepped backward.
Someone grabbed my neck. My shoulders hunched. A voice said near my ear, “Hey, bendy-boy. How’s my girlfriend?”
“Turner!” I choked.
“I heard about everything. You have made a really, really big mistake.”
“A really big mistake,” echoed one of his friends.
He shoved me hard. I staggered and almost fell. I caught myself and stood.
“I’m gonna beat you so hard, crap’s gonna come out your nose and ears.”
“Turner —” I said.
But it was a fight. There was nothing I could do. I tried to think of something funny to say, but there wasn’t time. His friends were clearing room. He was putting up his fists. He had a stance.
I saw faces collecting around us. I heard shouts. The director was screaming at us. Then the first fist fell. It slammed across my cheek like nothing I’d ever felt. I couldn’t breathe. I reeled. I tried swinging. Nothing there. Another punch in the gut. I choked. I gagged. I bent over. Everything else, that had just been bully fighting. This was the real thing.
He wanted blood.
I stood. He was waiting. I shot toward him, hit his arm. Didn’t even faze him. He grabbed my wrist. With the other fist, slammed me full in the face. My head shot back. Fresh feeling all across my nose. Numbness. Blood. My neck was what hurt. Lips buzzing.
He was holding me up. My legs limp. Arm wrenched. Diana’s face, mouth open.
He pummeled my trunk. I felt the knuckles in the ribs. Little blasts of pain. Blood on my shirt. Stumbled back against the tape. Snapped it. Slapped at him. Felt the contact with his cheek. His head hardly budged.
He threw me down.
The voice of Kid — “Hey, Turner!” — voice of Fletcher — “Turner! Payback!” — Turner yelling something at them.
Rage as I lay there. Saw Turner’s work boots, big and stupid. Grabbed his ankles. Yanked. He fell.
Wrestling. Now I got his neck. A hold. My contortion paying off. He gasped. His head in my locked arms. Banged it again and again against the pavement. Him blinking. His neck in my hands. Thumbs jabbing the throat. Kid and Fletcher looming.
Knee in my groin. Saw stars. Black ones glittering. Fell to the side. Smelled the grass. Freshly mown. Fletcher’s heel whacking my gut. Turner yanking away from Kid on the ground. Clawing toward me. Fletcher’s heel. My ribs.
Anytime, I thought. Anytime, just let me pass out. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Fingers holding my chin. Felt his forehead slam mine. Turner. Head butt. Held me steady. Slammed again. I’m going. Held me steady. Slammed again. Going. Held. Slammed. Gone.
And there was a voice from above us on high that said, “No. Stop. What is the meaning of this?”
I started to breathe again. He didn’t move. They didn’t move. My eyes were closed. I smelled my steely blood.
And the voice above us spoke again, saying, “Stop fighting right now.”
And I opened my eyes to see who it had come from; I opened them to see before me, toes turned up, the massive elfin shoes of Kermit O’Dermott.
He towered above us, looking down. His face was a face of anger. He didn’t have his harp, with which he would often charm the fries to dance. He said to us, lying before him, “Order must be restored.”
And Management came behind him. They were clothed in dark suits. They spoke, giving directions, and said to their Staff, “Pick them up. Get security over here. Send these boys on their way.”
Their paid servants came, clothed in white. They extended their hands to us. They picked us up from the earth. They set us on our feet.
I could hear Shunt proclaiming loudly to reporters, “Gentlemen, I think I speak for myself and other upstanding suburbanites when I declare emphatically that this goes beyond the limits of healthy compe
tition. That’s Cyril with a C, Einstein. And I think the dazed, anemic-looking kid’s named Anthony something. Sirs, I’m all for a free market, but when it becomes violent in a way which disrupts my hard-earned bourgeois spending patterns, I know things have gone too far. Everyone in town thinks that’s what’s happened here between these two brutal franchises, and though I know none of the participants personally, frankly the whole sordid scene shocks me — shocks me! — as a responsible citizen just trying to do my job peacefully and occasionally purchase some animal flesh soldered into disks by cash-hungry imperialists. You getting all this?”
Rick and Jenn were on either side of me. “My God,” Jenn was saying. “My God, my God. Are you hurt?”
“Thanks, guys,” I said. My nose and mouth were stinging. I could feel them starting to puff. I was wet with blood. My head hurt badly.
Diana was standing in front of me. I tried to smile with my broken lips. I held my scarecrow arms out to her. “Diana,” I said. “Diana.” I loved the name, and wanted to repeat it. “Diana,” I said warmly, “I did this all for you.”
“I know,” she said. “You really are an idiot.”
“You’ve seen me only in the getting beaten up parts. But really, I —”
“Do I want to know? No. I’m telling you, you’re an idiot.”
“Everything I’ve done, I did because I love you.”
“You really think I’m going to be flattered by this? Think about it, Anthony.”
“Diana, I was getting revenge. I couldn’t stand that he’d stolen you.”
She jabbed her finger into my chest. Rick and Jenn followed it with their eyes. “That’s exactly the problem,” she said. “Did you ever think about this, Anthony: Turner didn’t steal me. I’m not a piece of furniture. I went to him. It may have been stupid. It was stupid. But that was my choice.”
“But when I felt so —”
“Listen. He didn’t take me. It’s not between you and him. It was my choice. And I’m finished with both of you. This is gross. This is totally repulsive. You are both completely pathetic.”
And with that, she left.
“Diana?” I whined.
“Buck up, pal,” said Shunt. “The hemorrhaging will stop eventually.”
He looked grim, but satisfied. He was watching the elf.
“Well,” he said. “Mission accomplished.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Shunt,” I said. “I used the cause to get back at Turner. That’s what it was really about.”
“Don’t sweat it. I knew you thought that’s what it was about. But it wasn’t about you or your problems. They’re tiny. It was all for the cause. Disrupt the filming. Show people the fangs behind the bright O’Dermott’s smile. Stir up local indignation. I thought it was pretty likely there’d be a high-profile fistfight today on camera between Turner and either you or me. Glad it was you. I took the liberty of inviting our friends from BQ. Anything to discredit the system.”
We watched Diana and her friends get into a car. They drove off. She looked sorry for everything. Everything in the world.
“I loved her,” I said.
Shunt gave me a weak smile. He looked down at the ground. It was the first time I had ever seen him look nervous. He looked back at me. He said, “Love is just a myth made up by the middle class to convince themselves they have an inner life. To convince themselves they’re more than the meat they eat.” He looked fiercer and more vulnerable than I had ever seen him look. “See you, man,” he said. “I follow elf-boy wherever he goes.”
With that, he dodged off into the crowd.
“Geez,” joked Jenn, to break the silence once he’d gone, “I wonder what was eating him.”
Rick and I looked at Jenn. Rick rolled his eyes. It was pretty funny. We all had to laugh.
After that, some executives scolded me. They told me I was fired. Turner was led past me. He hissed that he knew where I lived. I went inside with some men in suits. I signed some papers. The executives sat on two corners of a table and explained to me, one after the other, that I would not return to the premises, and that my final paycheck would be sent in the mail.
They gave me a form in triplicate. They said, “Read this and sign.”
I stared at the page. They stood apart from me and whispered. I tried to read my paper. I couldn’t read it. I felt dazed. I lifted up my hand. A lot of the skin was scraped off. I looked back at the page. One of the men was whispering to the other, “Can you tell me what the hell kind of manager runs a place like this?”
“I agree, Dave. This is unacceptable.”
“I found the manager’s copy of the ad script.” The guy took a folded piece of paper out of his suit pocket. Unfolding it, he said, “It’s covered with these . . . with this . . . this gross . . .” He scratched at the paper with his fingertips, speechless.
“Writing?” the other one suggested.
“This gross writing. All over it. It’s like it was written by some kind of . . .”
“Some kind of animal.”
“Yes. But what kind of animal would write this? You know? Does the manager find this funny?”
“Get him in here. Mike or whatever his name is. Tell him —”
“I’m ready,” I called. They stopped whispering and both turned to look at me.
They came and took my papers. They didn’t thank me for signing.
Then security guards led me to my parents’ car. They watched while I opened the door. Jenn had cleaned the blood off my face. I wanted to get out of there. My nose and lips were huge. I wanted to clear my head.
I was free. No more revenge. No more O’Dermott’s. I rolled up the windows, feeling good about myself. The hollering between Turner and the BQ crew got quieter as the glass slid up. I could hardly hear their threats anymore — Turner saying he was going to find out where they lived, Kid saying he already knew where Turner lived, Fletcher saying he didn’t know where anybody lived and they should all just break bottles and settle it right there. I did a four-point turn and left the parking lot.
I drove to the woods, and got out to go for a walk. I locked the doors, and set off up the hill. Insects swarmed in the light. I felt good about myself for the first time in months. Completely good. I’d left the smell of grease behind me forever. I headed along the path, limping toward the sunlight and trees.
By the river, redwing blackbirds were darting through the reeds. I felt a real lightness through all my body. It was not just the blood loss. I was through. Through with all of it.
The forest seemed full of beauty that day. It smelled as fresh and clean as laundry detergent. The sun shone down on pines and oaks. Hubcaps full of bullet-holes were hung on trees like artwork. Cicadas buzzed in the leaves. Their voices rose and fell. Vines and creepers were growing up the “For Sale” signs on the houses across the river.
I sat and thought about my future. So much for Diana, I thought. I really was an idiot.
And later, as the sun picked out the yellow industrial foam on the riverbanks and made it shine like some froth of gold, I told myself, After all, there are other fish in the sea.
About six months later, during Christmas break, I was loafing in Billingston’s new Starbucks. I was waiting for Rick. We were going to talk about the latest girl who’d told me she wanted to just be friends. Rick had broken up with Jenn about two weeks after the O’Dermott’s incident. They had done it and then decided they never wanted to speak again. It was something about whether to rent Moonstruck or Bordello of Blood.
I was sitting there watching the door when I saw a businessman come in. He ordered four bottles of water. He popped one of them open and began sucking on it. At first I didn’t recognize him. Then I was shocked. “Shunt?” I said.
He had short hair that was parted carefully on the side. He was wearing a nice sports jacket. His pants were pleated.
“Anthony! What’s up?” he said. He came over to my table. He gave me a firm handshake and smiled.
“Shunt,” I
said. “What happened?”
He looked down at himself. “What do you mean? I turned my life around,” he said. “I got my GED and enrolled in a business program. I’m on the road to success.”
“What road is that? Shunt, what have you done?”
“Burger U.,” he said. “O’Dermott’s management training program. I live in New Jersey now. Nice little apartment. Very comfortable.”
I stood up. I couldn’t sit any longer. “Good God!” I demanded, “Where did they put the implant?”
“Calm down, booj-boy. I’m an infiltrator. My Mr. Normal sports jacket has an orange and purple lining.”
“Thank God,” I said, and slumped back into my chair.
“I’m going to give you my card,” said Shunt. “I want you for the Resistance.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Going to stop at my folks’.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “Home for the holidays.”
“Yeah. Just long enough to piss ‘Merry X-mas’ in the snow on the front lawn. Hence the four waters. I’m out of here.”
He handed me a card. He waved and said, “Good to see you!” He raised two fingers, the pinkie and the pointer, as if he were about to make the “rave on” sign. Instead, he put them next to his head like a phone and jiggled them.
“Give me a ring sometime,” he said, heading out the door. And just before it closed pneumatically: “We’ll do lunch.”
M. T. Anderson is the author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One: The Pox Party, which won a National Book Award, and the sequel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume Two: The Kingdom on the Waves. He is also the author of Thirsty, Feed, and several books for younger readers. About Burger Wuss, he says, “When I was a teenager, I worked at McDonald’s. On my first day, I had to go into the women’s room and sponge up something that looked like an industrial disaster. I was almost fired for putting up a sign on the door that said OUT OF MCORDER. The whole experience went downhill from there.” M. T. Anderson lives in Massachusetts.