by Adam Ellis
TO SERVE AND ANNOY
I had a fight once with my friend David about altruism. He claimed it didn’t exist and that people only do good out of inherently selfish desires. I think he’d just read Atlas Shrugged and was on an Objectivism kick. I tried to no avail to convince him that at the very least it was a gray area, but he wouldn’t budge, and the more we argued, the more I worried he might be right. Stubbornly, I refused to concede, so the argument went nowhere.
I choose to believe in the goodness of people. I make it a point to notice when people do unwarranted good things, and try to live life by that example. At the grocery store recently the cashier forgot to scan a bar code on my to-go box of lobster meat and raw shrimp. The guy at the seafood counter had put my lobster and shrimp into the same container and affixed two separate barcode stickers, one on the top and one on the side. When I took the box to the cashier, she scanned the top bar code, missed the second one, and placed the box in a bag with the rest of my items. Without missing a beat, I pointed out her error.
“There’s a second bar code there, on the side,” I said. “There’s lobster in the box too, not just shrimp.”
“Oh, thanks,” she replied, lifting the box out of the bag and scanning the bar code she’d missed. I paid her and left the store, and it didn’t dawn on me until a few minutes later that I’d done something honest without even thinking about it. At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I might get free lobster and nobody would be the wiser. I’m such a good person, I thought. No, I’m a fucking saint. I was so proud of myself that I had to text my friend Kristin and tell her the good news. Despite the fact that my abundant self-praise probably negated the good deed altogether, I tucked it away as proof of mankind’s innate virtue and deemed myself a model citizen. Humanity was good, and I was a shining example.
Of course, even saints stumble now and then. After my arrest for trespassing, I was assigned three days of community service in a cafeteria-style meal center for homeless and disadvantaged seniors. It was a small, shabby place with faded yellow linoleum floors and aging wood paneling on the walls. My job was to clear plates and trays of leftover food, sort dirty dishes, then wash those dishes at the end of the day. I didn’t love it, but I did my job without complaint because it was my punishment, and in the end I was probably getting off easy. Likewise, I knew in the back of my head that there were people in the world doing far more grueling work voluntarily, and I had no right to whine about giving a weekend up to do community service.
During that weekend, I worked with a number of people who were also clocking service hours involuntarily. On the first morning, I learned that most of them had been assigned hours for DUIs or MIPs, and were quite put off to be working on a weekend. I reminded myself that a bunch of people who had recently been arrested might not be the greatest sample group from which to judge society, and I found myself clinging feebly to the notion of humankind’s inherent goodness.
The first day I was paired up with a girl named Heather. I took one look at her perfectly coiffed hair and lavender cashmere sweater and knew she’d be trouble (I mean, who wears cashmere to work at a soup kitchen?). The first thing she said to the center director was that she’d like to work in back in case somebody she knew walked by the building and saw her through the windows by the street. “None of my friends know I’m here, and I’d like to keep it that way.” Her request was honored, which meant she was paired up with me at the cleaning station. The two of us were in charge of taking messy plates from patrons, clearing away leftovers, and sorting dishes and utensils.
As we worked through lunch, I learned she’d been assigned twenty-four hours for a second DUI, an infraction she felt was of little consequence.
“I swear, it’s like cops have nothing better to do in this town,” she prattled as we cleared trays of food. “I wasn’t even that drunk, and I’m a good driver anyway. They should be catching murderers or whatever. It’s so annoying having to be here.” I tried to engage Heather as little as possible and busied myself clearing trays as they were handed to me. The bulk of the work fell to me, as Heather seemed more concerned with keeping her clothes clean. She’d scrape food from plates slowly and methodically, then dispose of the trash gingerly and carefully, as if everything around her were covered in Ebola.
Near the end of the lunch rush, she disappeared into the kitchen somewhere and didn’t return. I didn’t mind, since I actually worked faster without her. After the cafeteria had mostly cleared out, I took a stack of dishes into the back to wash and found Heather reapplying her makeup in a mirror over the sink I needed. I stood behind her, my arms straining from the weight of the dinnerware. When she noticed me, she exclaimed, “I’ll just be a minute!”
On the second day, right before dinner service, a woman arrived with her two preteen daughters and was assigned to the cleaning station with me. The woman was dressed conservatively, her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. Her daughters had similar ponytails and wore subdued collared blouses. They looked like they came from the type of family that shuns R-rated movies. The mother cheerfully explained to me that she and her daughters had been assigned a few hours of community service by their pastor, and made some inspirational quip about feeding the hungry “just like Jesus did.” Since I was a dish-clearing expert by this time, I gave them a quick rundown of the process. “It can get sort of hectic, so it’s easiest to just form a line and pass dishes down as you clean.”
The mother nodded. Then she asked, “Do you know when dinnertime is over? We’re parked outside and we have to leave before the meter runs out.” I shrugged and told her that dinner ended at different times every day, whenever the dining hall cleared out. Secretly I thought, I wonder how often Jesus was concerned about parking tickets.
During the dinner period, the mother stood motionless with her arms folded, seemingly content to monitor her daughters’ work. They were helpful enough and did the job dutifully, although more leisurely than was necessary. At the very least neither of them complained when they got splashed with murky dishwater, which was often. Many of the patrons seemed to have Tourette’s of the limbs, sending their trays and dishes flying toward me at mach speed.
Near the end of dinner, an elderly man with a yellowing beard and drugstore eyeglasses approached me, jabbed his empty tray at my chest, and griped, “There were no fucking cucumbers today. I asked for cucumbers. Why didn’t I get any goddamn fucking cucumbers?”
“I’m sorry about that,” I replied. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been back in the kitchen today.”
“Make sure they got cucumbers tomorrow,” he stammered and wandered off. There was a lull, so I took the opportunity to check on things in the kitchen. Since the man had brought it up, I was curious as to why no cucumbers had been included in the meal when they were apparently supposed to be available. I snapped off my latex gloves, asked the mom and her daughters to staff the station for a moment, and walked toward the back of the building.
I glanced around the kitchen and spotted a girl at one of the counters. She couldn’t have been older than seventeen and wore heavy raccoon eye makeup behind choppy, stringy bangs. She held a long knife in her left hand and was chopping absently at a cucumber. In her other hand she held a BeDazzled iPhone and was speedily texting someone with her thumb. She seemed to be giving the bulk of her attention to the text instead of the food. On the counter, to one side of her, a large pile of cucumbers rested, waiting to be chopped up. On her other side was a neat little pile of cucumber slices, perhaps ten or twenty little green discs in total. That explains the shortage of cucumbers, I thought.
I couldn’t see what she was texting, but I imagined how her message read.
I watched as she halfheartedly chopped at the vegetable. The knife slipped a little, causing an entire cucumber to roll off the counter and onto the floor. She glanced at it, resting on the dirty wet ground, then finished her text, pocketed the phone, and picked the cucumber up off the floor and placed it back on the cou
nter. She continued slicing it into discs.
I would have been disgusted by her total disregard for cleanliness, but I was too horrified by the lower-back tattoo I’d caught a glimpse of when she bent over. It was a poorly drawn rendition of a stripper adorned with massive butterfly wings, the sort of tattoo you might see on a fifty-year-old Hell’s Angel with a nicotine-stained beard.
I furrowed my brow and sent judgy vibes at the back of her head, then grabbed a new pair of gloves and went back to my station.
On the third day, Heather was back at the cleaning station with me and I could tell she was eager to be finished with her hours. She folded her arms and leaned against a door frame.
“These people all have such terrible attitudes. We’re feeding them for free, they could at least show a little gratitude.”
“I mean, I guess so,” I replied, careful to avoid conflict. “But we don’t really know their stories, y’know? And this food isn’t exactly tasty, right? Would you eat it?”
“Of course not.” Heather rolled her eyes. “I pack my own vegetarian bento box every day.”
Most of the patrons who came to get meals were a little rough around the edges, though understandably so. Many of them were veterans who had been dealt shitty hands. They’d all fallen through society’s cracks one way or another. Some of them had mental illnesses, some were victims of poor investments and apathetic family members, and some were simply alone in the world.
The center had a few regulars. There was one woman, Luann, who came in each day for both lunch and dinner. I couldn’t tell her age; she could have been forty-five or eighty-five. She always had a messy look about her: unkempt hair, wrinkled clothes, fingernails all different lengths. Something wasn’t right with her, but I could’ve only guessed as to what it was. Upon arrival she’d make the rounds, greeting everyone loudly, mealgoers and staff alike, chattering incessantly about anything and everything. Her friendliness was the opposite of the other patrons’ demeanors. She chattered unwaveringly. I imagined she could’ve carried on a pleasant conversation with the cash register. After bringing me her tray, she’d linger at the cleaning station to talk. On my first day, she told me all about her daughter in Michigan (I’d later learn from the center director that she had no children). On my second day she bragged about the house she owned down the street that she painted a new color every year (I didn’t need to be told that there was no truth to this). The lady was nuts, but she was friendly and entirely harmless. Heather, however, was terrified of her.
“Did you see how much hair she has on her chin?” Heather whispered to me that afternoon as Luann walked away from us. “It’s disgusting. I feel like vomiting.” She stuck her tongue out in a mock gagging gesture. We both watched as Luann shuffled around, babbling at people. She seemed a bit more animated and excited than normal. Then she did something odd. She loudly announced that she was going to take off her shirt.
Before we knew it, Luann was peeling her shirt off, revealing a faded, flesh-colored bra that might have been white at some point. As she did so, I looked around at the other people in the room. Only one or two lifted their heads.
Nobody else in the cafeteria seemed to care about what had just gone down. I could only assume this sort of thing had happened before. Perhaps it was a regular occurrence. After a few minutes of parading around, Luann sat back down at a table—still shirtless—and began eating, as if all was well.
“Huh,” I said to myself. I noticed Heather’s mouth was agape. She was clearly appalled. She made a sharp huff sound, looked up at the ceiling like she was trying to gather her senses, and gasped, “I do not feel safe here.” She shook her head slightly, like she was trying to shake off the memory, and marched back into the kitchen, where the center director was filling out an order form. I followed her, curious as to how she would handle this.
“Something just happened,” Heather proclaimed indignantly, “and I don’t think I can stay here!”
The director, a portly man with thinning hair, looked up, bemused. He didn’t even ask her to explain. “Go get your community service sheet,” he said calmly. “I’ll sign off on your hours.”
Heather left, and I shuffled across the squeaky yellow linoleum and got back to work, cleaning plates until the crowd dwindled and eventually cleared out. By the time I was finished with work that day, I wondered if my friend David had been right about the state of humanity after all. The patrons I’d encountered over the weekend had been unfriendly, albeit understandably so, but worse, the staff had been completely indifferent. I finished my duties, took my sheet to the director for his signature, removed my apron and gloves, and left.
Outside the center, I took a deep breath. It was nice to have some fresh air, but I still felt bothered. I feared none of the people I’d worked with had really learned anything. I wondered if I had, either. Were any of us better people for having spent a weekend serving the community? Heather was probably getting drunk and whining to her friends about how awful her service was. The mom and her daughters were probably saying grace over a piping-hot pan of Tater Tot casserole, feeling smug about the 2.5 hours of good deeds they’d performed for Jesus. I’m not sure what I’d expected, really. I wasn’t exactly one to talk. It’s not like I’d been feeding the needy out of goodwill. It was court-ordered. I had no real right to judge anyone. I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps I’d held on to a false belief about human kindness my whole life. I pondered the consequences of such a morose revelation.
The sun was beginning to set, so I started on my way home, slinking along with my hands in my pockets, frowning slightly.
I’d walked several blocks when I noticed a little girl with loose pigtails and knee-high striped socks staring at something on the sidewalk. I could see her mother about fifteen feet away at an ATM, poking at the screen. My eyes followed the little girl’s gaze. In the middle of the sidewalk was a dead sparrow. A pigeon was pecking at it, and the girl looked incensed.
“Hey!” she shouted at the pigeon. “Stop that!” I could tell she was gravely concerned for the sparrow. She must not have realized it was dead. Her little hands made fists when the pigeon didn’t follow her orders. “I said stop that! Leave him alone! He’s hurt!” The pigeon took no heed of her.
Then the little girl did something surprising. She marched forward and kicked the pigeon. Since the girl was small, there wasn’t much force behind the kick, but the pigeon was startled and it tumbled a few feet away.
My jaw dropped in a mixture of surprise and sudden admiration for the girl. The pigeon, its feathers ruffled, flapped about in the street for a moment, then flew away. I stared at the girl. She stared down at the dead sparrow. She bent down and gingerly stroked its wing with a few tiny fingers. When she realized it was a dead, she ran back toward her mother.
I stood there, dumbfounded by what I’d just seen, but more than anything I felt complete and utter respect for the girl. Despite her seemingly violent action, I knew in her head the pigeon was a bully and she’d done the only thing she could think of to protect the smaller bird. She had cared enough about that poor sparrow to try to help it. Suddenly I felt a little better about humanity as a whole. The world needs more pigeon-kickers, I decided as I walked the rest of the way home.
I thought back to the argument I’d had with David so many years ago, about how people only really care about themselves and just want to feel good, others be damned.
Maybe he was right. But maybe he wasn’t. The fact that it was still up for debate made me hopeful.
THE BREAKUP BREAKDOWN
In February 2010, I entered into a relationship. The following January, I exited. I dated Riley for less than a year, and the details of what occurred during that time are of little importance. It was not a remarkable romance. What is important is that I fell in love despite all my efforts not to. That’s the sneaky thing about love; you don’t know it’s there until it’s there, and by then it’s too late to do anything about it. I’d figured I had time to kill b
efore love grabbed me, so I just went along with it, telling myself I’d cut the relationship off if things got too serious. I wasn’t even especially happy, but I didn’t particularly want to be alone. Plus it was nice to have someone to sleep next to (although the fact that I was most content when Riley was unconscious should have raised some flags).
In hindsight, I should have aborted the mission after the first date, the moment I set foot in Riley’s apartment. Warning signs that we had nothing in common were conveniently parked in plain view, stacked on bookshelves and hanging on walls.
In an effort to rationalize our glaring differences, I told myself that what someone chooses to read or watch or listen to doesn’t determine their character. I was sure we could transcend these differences. So, I accepted a second date and then a third, and then seemingly out of nowhere I was six months into a dysfunctional relationship, torn between the stubborn love that had taken root in my heart and a nagging desire to escape something I knew was unhealthy. We argued, we belittled each other, we tested the boundaries of acceptable behavior, waiting for the other to break. Riley would intentionally show up late for movies and I’d purposefully wait too long responding to texts. “Oh, sorry. My phone was charging in the other room.” Honestly I’m not sure we ever even liked each other, but strangely that’s not always a factor in love. We grew accustomed to one another, and the hurt became routine.
To this day I’m still baffled as to why I let the relationship play out for months after realizing it was doomed. I wasn’t waiting to find someone new so that I could bridge my way into another relationship, and I wasn’t scared to be alone, at least not in theory. I’m an only child; I excel at being alone. I told myself I wanted to avoid the confrontation of a breakup, despite knowing our relationship was built around confrontation. I somehow convinced myself that everything would work out if I simply waited. Not surprisingly, things only got worse, and shortly after Christmas 2010 I found myself on Riley’s blue IKEA couch in the midst of being dumped. Somehow, astoundingly, I was surprised it was happening. I will not recount the conversation that took place. I cried. I wept. I sniveled. And then it was over and I was alone, walking back to my apartment, newly single and thoroughly stunned.