The Waiting Room

Riley deep-fried everything at Uncle Louis’s Eatery. Of course, there were the typical deep-fried items on the menu: french fries, chicken wings, corn dogs. But, when the restaurant was empty and our manager decided to clock out early, Riley would get creative in the back of the house. Have you ever tried a deep-fried cheeseburger? Or scoops of fried potato salad, smothered in ranch dressing? Riley was a connoisseur for all things battered and fried.

“It’s not so simple,” he lectured, “Mastering the deep-fryer takes practice.” Riley spoke as though he had years of experience over me, even though we were both high school seniors.

“Jo, why don’t you try frying something,” Riley coaxed. My mind immediately went blank. I opened the fridge and reached for the first thing I saw: a hard-boiled egg. I felt its smooth surface on the palm of my hand, marred by a small divot towards its bottom hemisphere. Riley cocked his head and furrowed his brow, questioning my choice before nodding with cautious approval. I coated the egg with a generous portion of batter and tossed it into the fryer with a satisfying sizzle. The battered egg shimmered through the vat of oil.

Riley was an attractive boy with shoulder-length hair and chipped, black nail polish. He had several large tattoos across his arms and legs, including an unfortunately phallic-looking koi fish on his forearm. When I questioned him about its meaning, he paused.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he conceded. The trust he had in himself and his tattoo artist was astounding. I could never imagine getting a tattoo on a whim. Maybe that made me stuffy. Maybe that made wise. Choices made in a moment are often regrettable, and impulsivity breeds penis-fish.

A familiar chime sounded, beckoning Riley and me to the front of the house where we were greeted by a stout middle-aged man with a receding hairline. It was Uncle Louis himself.

“Well, well, well. How’s the team doing today?” Louis shouted like a gameshow host, “Can I speak with Adam?” Adam, our manager, always left an hour before closing, blaming his absence on some vague excuse about banking issues. Riley and I looked at each other, unsure if we should be honest or cover for him. A violent siren followed by a puff of smoke interrupted our thought process, replacing our flustered looks with a new type of panic. Louis hurriedly made his way to the back, grabbing the fire extinguisher without breaking his stride.

“Jesus Christ, what did you guys put in this thing?” Louis scolded. Riley started to laugh, but I froze. The egg. We had forgotten about the egg. Riley always said that it was hard to judge the time it took when frying new foods, and we had just discovered that twelve minutes was too long for a deep-fried egg. Riley and I ran to open all the doors and windows while Louis fished out the blackened sphere.

“Who the hell left this in the fryer?” bellowed Louis, before his eyes fixed on me. “Jolene, this is why I didn’t want you working in the back.”

My heart sank. I felt bile build up in my throat. The word “Jolene” hung in the air like a punishment. My name was Jo. Jolene was my mother’s name. Louis never respected my name, but it felt improper to correct him while being reprimanded. I finished out the rest of my shift in relative silence. I stayed in the front, where we only had a couple of regulars come in. Riley sat in the back cooking the orders, and Louis was on his phone for the rest of the shift. Nobody mentioned Adam’s whereabouts again, and I wondered how he managed to disappear so effortlessly.

After my shift, my father picked me up behind the building. I didn’t want anyone to see me get into the car with him. I didn’t want to explain why I didn’t drive anymore. A cacophony of silence filled the car. My father was a decent man, but we didn’t have anything in common. We did not enjoy the same type of small talk or music, and we didn’t want to impose our preferences on each other. Instead, we stared out of our respective windows, listening to the familiar rhythm of bumps on the route home.

I didn’t have to go to school the next morning. It was finals week, and my high school excused passing seniors from taking their exams. There was a class trip to Six Flags on Thursday and a graduation ceremony on Friday, but all of our academic obligations came to a halt. Summer had arrived early, and others enjoyed spending their final moments of childhood together underneath the lingering sun. Adolescence and I had already said our goodbyes, and there was no one else to part ways with. The sun had always burned my shoulders raw, anyway; it was better to remain inside.

Work was the main event of the day. The doors were locked when I arrived, so I sat down on the curb and watched the passing cars. When the intersection turned red, I would look through the windows to catch a glimpse of the people inside. I saw a woman with her teenage daughter inside a white sedan, greyed with time. I imagined that they were on their way to eat brunch at some restaurant with linen napkins and four-syllable dishes. She looked like the type of mother who would plan little excursions with her daughter. The type of mother who would offer her daughter sips of wine at dinner and participate in schoolgirl gossip. The light turned green, and the car drove off, my mind lingering with them.

“Oh crap, what are you doing out here?” spat Louis “You should’ve knocked.” His eyes were bloodshot, and there were clumps of dirt underneath his fingernails. He balanced a cigarette between his teeth, frantically patting his pockets in search of a lighter. He found it and raised the cigarette to his lips, exhaling towards me.

“Jojo,” Louis spoke, getting dangerously close to my actual name, “I have a special job for you.” There was a new promotion with our barbeque wings, which were now twenty-four for twelve dollars. To celebrate, he had pulled out a chicken costume leftover from when our restaurant was a “Cluck-U'' location, which I would wear while holding a promotional banner. There were so many questions I wanted to ask. Like, why would a chicken want to promote a sale on barbeque wings? Was it a cannibal chicken? Was that the message we wanted to send to our customers? The promotion itself was nonsensical since our wings were already twelve for six dollars, so nobody was saving any money. But my biggest qualm had always been with the name of the location itself, “Uncle Louis’s Eatery.” If our customers couldn’t trust us to use an apostrophe correctly, how could they ever expect us to thoroughly cook their chicken? Despite the many grammatical, mathematical, and existential questions that remained unresolved, I bit my tongue. Arguing with Louis wouldn’t change his mind, and it certainly wouldn’t make my life any easier. Sometimes it was better to put on the chicken suit and wait it out.

The chicken suit was as bad as it sounds. It was terribly itchy, and the wide footwear made it difficult to lift my legs off the ground. Inside the mask, I could smell the despair of every other minimum-wage employee who had been forced to wear it. I tried to hold my breath, but the smell worsened underneath the summer sun as the feathers became moist to the touch. However, the worst part about the costume was the humiliation that accompanied it. Whenever there was a red light at the intersection, all passengers would turn their heads in my direction. I imagined they were talking about me, as I had thought about them. My attempts to hide behind the sign were futile. There was no escaping their judgment.

After a few hours, I returned to the restaurant. Louis had already left, and we needed more help inside. I hurried into the stock room, desperately wanting to shed my outer layer. No matter how hard I stretched and shimmied, I couldn’t reach the zipper. As I was about to admit defeat, I heard the door open.

“It looks like your day may have been worse than mine,” Riley laughed, “Can I help you with that?” I nodded and turned around. As he lowered the zipper, he grazed the skin on my neck, making my hairs stand on end. I shuddered as I dropped the costume to the ground, revealing my uniform underneath. We shared a tender smile, which slowly turned into laughter. Riley was failing algebra II and had not been excused from finals week. I had seen the embarrassment in his eyes when he had to disclose this information to our manager, who had originally scheduled him during the morning. Both of us had spent the day dealing with our own form of humiliation, and now, in the stockroom, we could allow ourselves to breathe. The moment left just as quickly as it came, interrupted by bells, and then an angry huff.

“Hello?” barked an older man, “Is anyone going to help me?” Half-dressed and sweaty, I let Riley take the customer’s order. The customer ranted about the quality of service, questioning Riley’s competence. I saw a vein bulge out of Riley’s neck. He slammed a menu on the counter and stormed into the back.

“I’m sick of this bullshit! How are you not sick of all this bullshit?” Riley huffed as he dumped french fries into the fryer. “Don’t you just want to do something about it, Jo? Anything.” We dealt with difficult people every day, but none had affected Riley quite this much. I had never seen Riley angry before. It scared me. He was pacing back and forth, his hands grasping the sides of his face. His eyes darted across the room until they fixed on a roll of paper towels. Riley took a clump of paper towels, rolled it around in the batter, and threw it into the deep fryer. A few moments later, he put the perfectly golden-brown creation into a to-go box.

“Order’s ready,” he spat, tossing the box into the customer’s lap before storming out the back door. I knew I should have gone to the front to apologize to the customer, but part of me wanted to console Riley. Unsure about what to do, I took the french fries out of the fryer and began to stress eat. I looked at the man. He looked back.

“Are those my fucking fries?” he yelled as he peered into the backroom, stringing together an artful collection of profanities. I made another batch for him, and gave him a full refund. When the man finally left, I went outside to speak to Riley, but he was gone.

I didn’t want to go on the senior trip. I went because teachers would worry if I didn’t go. If they worried, they might try to make me talk to one of the counselors again, which was more vomit-inducing than the tilt-a-whirl. Sitting by myself still seemed depressing. The closest thing I had to a friend was Riley, and his parents didn’t let him go on the trip after his little stunt at work got him fired. Or so I heard. We didn’t get a chance to speak since the incident. I couldn’t tell if he was angry at me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know. As I took my seat on the bus, I heard my name.

“Jo, come sit with us,” chimed a familiar voice. It was Jenny, who invited me to sit with her and Madaline. Jenny and Madaline were my closest friends from before last year’s incident. Maybe their invitation meant that they missed me? Or perhaps it was given out of pity. Both options seemed highly probable, but I wasn’t in a position to refuse. The three of us walked around like nothing had happened. Our small talk was light and entertaining. Jenny cracked jokes about the attractions, and Madaline talked about her crappy boyfriend. We explored the park, stopping to take pictures with a Daffy Duck impersonator. I smirked as I watched him shuffle away, struggling with his webbed feet. There was a cotton candy station adjacent to the photo booth. We each ordered a cola and a cone. Jenny and Madaline both ordered pink cones. I asked for blue, but they were all out, so I settled for pink. I placed the sweet floss into my mouth and let it liquefy, coating the back of my throat with a sugary sap. For a few hours, I let the outside world dissolve and pretended that everything was normal again.

Jenny and Madaline were excited to ride Kingda Ka, some famous roller coaster. While queuing, the soft drinks caught up to me and I became desperate for a bathroom. We passed the bumper cars as we searched for one. My eye was drawn towards a woman riding with a young girl. Probably her daughter. They hit the blue car, and their bodies flung forward. My heart started to pound. My stomach churned. My legs violently shook, and I rushed towards a bench.

“If you need a moment, you can stay here. We’ll be right back,” Jenny blurted before she and Madeline disappeared into the herd of people. I heard the frustration in her voice. The familiar annoyance.

I saw Jenny and Madeleine take their seats on the roller coaster, strapping themselves into the ride.

I felt so dizzy. My head was pounding, and it wouldn’t stop.

The roller coaster made its way up the hill.

The feeling spread to my chest. I thought my heart was going to explode.

The coaster rested at the top of the hill.

I couldn’t control myself anymore. My blatter gave way. I watched my hand move, but I was not the one moving it. I was only a spectator, a passenger in my own body.

The roller coaster began its descent down the hill, and I heard the riders scream.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. The whole world was moving around me, and nobody saw that I was suffocating. This must be what dying feels like.

My father picked me up from the field trip. One of the chaperones saw me on the bench and insisted that I call him. I hated asking my dad to leave work early, but I was grateful that I wouldn’t be forced to endure the bus ride home with my peers. The change of clothes was also a relief. A delightful silence hung in the air, and I allowed my mind to drift. A flatbed truck passed by. I recognised it immediately. It was the type of truck that launched a piece of scrap metal into my mother’s chest. It was December of last year. We were running late after I forgot my history assignment on the kitchen table. She was speeding to get me to school on time, and our car was too close when the truck stopped short. I didn’t know a person’s body could collapse like that. I tried to do compressions like I saw on TV, but my hands sunk into the cavern in her chest. The winter air was crisp, but her heart was warm. I felt the moment it stopped beating. I pressed down again and again, until my arms were numb and my tears froze over. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe. The paramedics had to pull me off of her. My history homework was still resting on the back seat, unmoving and unscathed. I looked down at the blood on my hands.

My father and I stopped at a McDonalds on the way home. It was the first place we saw off the turnpike, and we didn’t want to wait. It was an older McDonalds, built in the nineties. The restaurant’s eastern half was taped off, blocking the worn-down play place’s entrance. The exterior was painted with faded rainbow hues, hinting at a past joy. Inside, a young girl with short, black hair took our order. She looked younger than me, but she held herself with the confidence of someone much older. My father ordered a Big Mac with a medium fountain drink. I hesitated, then asked for a happy meal. The cashier rolled her eyes, but she accepted the order.

Once our food was ready, we moved towards a table in the back. A large mirror hung on the wall above us. My father immediately unwrapped his burger and took a large bite. I layed out my food first, pouring my fries into the nugget box’s upper compartment and peeling back the film on each sauce. I reached into the bag to grab my milk and felt something hard. A cheap, plastic doll from the Madame Alexander promotion. I set it on my lap and grabbed the milk jug, twisting off the cap. Before I could drink, I caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure in the mirror. It had puffy, red eyes surrounded by black streaks. There was a frizzy clump of hair resting on its head, and the plastic doll on its lap juxtaposed its appearance.

I spat the milk out of my mouth and pushed the carton to the furthest corner of the table. My father stared at me as I threw my food into the bag. He frowned before lowering his burger, wrapping it in its original foil. We exchanged a glance before scurrying past the boarded-up playground. It only took a few moments before we were back on the turnpike, riding in silence. The bag of food sat in the backseat of the car, and I kept the doll on my lap. The carton of milk remained on the table.

Graduation was the next day. Our class lined up in alphabetical order. I saw Jenny and Madaline a few spaces behind me. One unfortunate student stood between them, caught in the middle of their constant chatter. I stood on my toes to see who was at the front of the line, and I was pleased to see Riley, who must have passed his final exams. We proceeded single file onto the football field. As I saw the all faces of the parents, grandparents, and siblings in attendance, my ceremonial robes began to feel heavy. The fabric was terribly itchy, and the hat felt like a weight on my shoulders. Sweat soaked through the silver material, and I was sure everyone could see the large stains pooling under my armpits. I hated being on display, knowing that all eyes were on me. The ceremony continued, but I couldn’t focus. I drowned out the speeches, focusing on the sounds from the nearby highway instead. When it was time to move our tassels, I simply rested my hand on the side of my hat. This didn’t feel real. I wasn’t ready.

After the ceremony, my father greeted me with a high-five and a scratch-off ticket. I wasn’t feeling very lucky. I looked around at all the kids hugging their mothers and laughing with their peers, and all I felt was a hollow space in my chest.

“Jo,” yelled Riley, separating from his parents and making his way over to me. I was relieved to see that he didn’t hold a grudge. “I’ve been meaning to invite you to a grad party tonight. I’ll text you the details.” I nodded before grabbing my dad and insisting that we leave. Once we were in the car, I flung off my cap and gown, throwing it next to the old McDonald’s bag in the back seat. As my father drove away, I dug up a coin from the glovebox and proceeded to scratch the silver film off of the lottery ticket. It wasn’t a winner. Shocker. My phone rang, and I saw that I had received two text messages. The first was from Riley, who had sent me directions to the party. The second was from Louis, who needed an extra employee tonight. I looked back at the mess on the backseat and made my decision.

The restaurant wasn’t busy when I got there. There were only three customers during the first hour of my shift, and there wasn’t any sign that business would pick up. It was irritating to be called in for nothing, but I appreciated the quietness. It was short lived.

“Don’t just stand there and look pretty,” Louis griped. “I have a job for you.” Louis led me to the back and pointed at a small box underneath the stove. He gave me a bucket and explained that there was a grease trap that needed to be cleaned. I had never done that before, but I figured it couldn’t have been too difficult. I was wrong. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead as I pulled the contraption towards the back door. I looked at Louis for help, but he rolled his eyes and answered his phone. I was on my own. By the time I finally got the box out the door, the sun was beginning to set. I looked out at the cotton candy-colored sky for a moment before refocusing on the task at hand. I pried the lid off of the grease trap and gagged at its thick perfume. It smelled like rotten eggs. I stood there for a while, starting at the thick, putrid liquid. My head turned from the grease trap to the bucket, and then to the sky. I couldn’t do this.

“What the hell are you doing?” Louis yelled, shaking his fists. He was not pleased to see the lack of progress I had made. He continued to berate me for my incompetence, stringing together an artful collection of profanity. I tried to tune him out by focusing on the highway’s sounds, but I couldn’t.

“Why can you never do anything right, Jolene.” I hated him. I hated how he called me by my mother’s name. I hated how he always tried to humiliate me. At that moment, I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to tell him that he ran a crappy business with a terrible, grammatically incorrect name. I wanted to push him onto the highway and watch him dance in the traffic. I wanted to pour the warm grease on his head and let the smell sink into his skin. But these options seemed improbable, so I did the next best thing.

I said, “I quit.”

The party was only a few blocks away, so I walked. The journey took longer than expected, and it was pitch-black by the time I arrived. Riley’s car was parked in front of the house. The front yard was filled with my peers dancing with red solo cups in their hands. Jenny and Madaline stood near a table. Music with vulgar lyrics blasted from nearby speakers, and Riley was dancing with a few people near the curb. A group of boys was sitting in the backseat of a pickup truck a few meters down the road. I quickly became uncomfortable and sat on the curb, hoping the darkness would conceal me.

“We’re getting more cigs, we’ll be back,” roared one of the boys in the back seat of the pick-up truck, slurring his words together. As they zipped down the street, Riley stepped into the road, not noticing the truck. I screamed for him to move, but it was too late. It all happened so fast. The boys stopped their vehicle, panicking about what they had just done. The human body doesn’t even have enough blood to fill two milk jugs, but I thought Riley had lost enough blood to fill an entire pool. His bone stuck straight up through his tattoo, and his face was bloodied beyond recognition. I checked the pulse on his neck. He was still alive, but time was not on our side. We needed a doctor.

The boys offered to drive him to the hospital, but there was no way I’d let them do that. The only person I could trust to be sober and attentive was myself. I felt for Riley’s keys in his pocket. Once I found them, I started his car while two boys lifted him into the back seat. Jenny was on the phone with emergency services, explaining what had just happened. We were halfway to the ER when we were held up at a red light. I ran right through it; I didn’t even pause. Other cars honked at me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was reckless. Riley was all that mattered.

Doctors met us at the ER entrance. Riley was wheeled out of the car before I had time to explain what happened, and a nurse told me to park in the visitor’s section. I found a spot near the back of the lot and made my way towards the familiar entrance. The waiting room hadn’t changed since the last time I was there. The seats were still covered with faded gingham fabric. The halls still smelled like clorox and wilting flowers. After a while, more people came into the waiting room. Riley’s parents sat in the chairs closest to the door. They gathered in a corner, but I remained separate and alone. I suddenly heard a door open behind me, and my father walked into the room. I’m not sure how he knew where I was. Someone must’ve called him. I think Jenny had his number. He sat down next to me and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

“Jolene,” he finally whispered. The word cut through me like a knife. I looked at the ground until I eventually managed to respond.

“I miss her.”

My father and I looked at each other, tears welling in our eyes. Both of our hearts were so heavy, and we had carried them alone for too long. He got up and bought an egg-salad sandwich from the vending machine. He offered me the whole thing, but I made him split it. Eating together brought us some relief.

Uncle Louis’s Eatery closed a month later. Louis had been using the business as a front to launder money, and the feds finally caught on. I received my final paycheck right before it closed, and I knew exactly what I wanted to spend it on. I made an appointment at a local tattoo parlor, and I had just enough money to cover its cost. O'Keeffe's Black Iris is now memorialized on my inner arm. My dad helped me pick it out; it was one of my mother’s favorite paintings. The day after my appointment, I visited Riley in the hospital. He was still hooked up to machines, but he was still Riley.

“Look what I got!” I announced, removing the plastic wrap from my arm. He brushed his fingers over the tender skin before grabbing my hand, which made me blush. A smile spread on his face.

“Dude,” he laughed. “It looks like a pussy.”