Layman's Report

by Eugene Marten

  The warden looked at him. “Well you know if you need a little help.”

  “All I need is to make an honest living thank you like anyone else.” And he inventoried familiar grievances, then added some new.

  “They again,” the warden said.

  “I’ve made enemies,” Fred said.

  He’d sat in courtrooms making statements before God, against people just trying to do a dirty job.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Fred said. “I thought you were on my side.”

  “Just saying,” the warden said. “I believe the word is repercussions?”

  “Tell it to my ulcer,” Fred said. He used a speed loader, this time the plus P rounds—flat-nosed, hard cast—shoot somebody in the smile and they’d lose more than a few teeth. Clipped a fresh enemy on the hanger and sent it back. “Feels like I swallowed a hot coal.”

  “I might have you beat there,” the warden said. His Colt was also a .32 but it was an automatic made in 1903, its body embossed with swirling patterns like vines. It held eight rounds and he pulled the trigger in a slow deliberate way, the way he spoke, as if every sound made in the hour were part of one conversation. Fred rapid-fired as before, and this time he pushed the retrieve button first so he could shoot a charging target, a darkness in the shape of a man growing at him from the back of the range.

  The rangemaster knocked on the glass. “Shooter!” He spoke through an intercom. “Hey Dirty Harry. Do that again you can go shoot beer cans in your backyard. We have rules here.”

  The warden walked back to the table again, put down the Colt and took up the Makarov. He came back to his bay slowly, pale and wheezing.

  “You all right?” Fred said.

  “Just acting my age.”

  “That’s nice-looking iron.”

  “Don’t let’s get started on iron.” He put in a clip. “Made in Bulgaria. Cold War shit.”

  “Looks like James Bond.”

  “I guess you should know,” the warden said, “being a man of intrigue now and all.”

  “I’m not making it up,” Fred said.

  “But you wouldn’t take anything back.”

  “It’s out of my hands—I’m told I’ve been translated into four languages.”

  The warden either smiled or winced. “Sounds like you need an agent. Translate some of that into green.”

  “I’m not in it for the money,” Fred said.

  “I never said you were… Told by whom?”

  “They wouldn’t let me testify. People have a right to know.”

  “And what if you’re wrong?” the warden said, more or less to himself. Then, louder: “Went in for my annual last month—I tell you?”

  “There’s iron in brick,” Fred said. “That’s what makes it red.”

  “Says he wants to do some more tests.”

  “Ferric-ferrocyanide.”

  “I love the way you say that.”

  Fred kicked brass across the firing line, down the lane. “Soaks it up like a sponge. No so-called expert is going to tell me…I believe the word is perjury?”

  “There’s iron in white brick too.”

  “They got to him,” Fred said. Then they’d gotten to Missouri, Delaware…

  “There’s iron in blood,” the warden said. “Think I’m feeling it now.”

  Fred came back a little. “What?”

  The warden started, stopped. Decided against. “Maybe next time we shoot skeet.”

  “These days I only want to shoot what’s coming at me,” Fred said.

  “Well how about it then,” the warden said, and they riddled the rest of the hour. When the rangemaster tapped on the window behind them, Fred turned with such intent it seemed the confrontation he’d been rehearsing was finally at hand.

  Their time was up. They went through two doors and the next group of shooters were waiting in the gun shop, an old guy and two kids who must have been his grandchildren. Boy and girl.

  “Time to teach em how to protect their loved ones,” the old man said, like there wasn’t a moment to waste.

  “You too?” the warden said.

  “That was a short hour,” Fred said.

  “You get to a point where even the bad time flies,” the warden said.

  Fred handed in his goggles. “So how did your checkup go?” he said.

  He walked up to the counter in his three-piece suit, asked for a cup of coffee and told the kid at the register he was interested in the management position. A man in a light blue shirt with a dark blue tie gave him an application and asked him if he needed a pen. Fred said he didn’t, and filled in the blanks in the smoking section while he drank his coffee.

  They called him a week later. He wore his other suit. The first assistant manager came to the counter and shook Fred’s hand. He was dressed like the man who’d given him the application but he was younger and he told Fred to come around back. Next to the restrooms a door said EMPLOYEES ONLY and the first assistant manager opened it and let him in. There was a time clock by the door, then a stainless steel walk-in freezer and a stainless steel sink where a kid stood mixing Mac Sauce. The sauce vegetables and the sauce base came in separate containers and the formula was a closely guarded secret, like that of Pepsi-Cola or the ink used for printing money.

  “I thought it was just ketchup and mayonnaise,” Fred said.

  “I didn’t hear that,” the first assistant manager said. You could smell the grease trap. A cockroach disappeared.

  Hamburger buns in big plastic trays stacked eight feet high. They squeezed past them to the restaurant manager’s office. The restaurant manager sat in a chair studying Fred’s application, looked up gradually as if tearing himself away. He was a stocky man with thinning red hair and also wore a dark blue tie but his shirt was yellow. He did not rise, which was understandable considering his bulk and the size of the chair, but gave Fred his hand and a first name and told him to sit. The first assistant manager stood in the doorway. The office was tiny.

  The restaurant manager looked at Fred squarely. “Takes balls,” he said.

  “How’s that?” Fred said.

  “Switching tracks like this at your age,” the restaurant manager said. “Takes some real stones. My hat’s off to you.”

  Fred thanked him. “It’s not like I have a lot of choice,” he said. He had not thought of it in terms of genitalia.

  “If it’s any consolation,” the restaurant manager said, “Ray Kroc was fifty-two when he sold his first shake machine to the MacDonald brothers.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Fred said, unconsoled.

  “You didn’t go to Hamburger U,” the first assistant manager said.

  “There’s such a place?” Fred said, fairly amazed, as if he’d seen the Hamburglar on America’s Most Wanted.

  “Oak Brook, Illinois,” the restaurant manager said, but he was looking at the application again. “You’re some kind of engineer?”

  “I’ve done engineering-related work,” Fred said.

  The restaurant manager frowned slightly. “Well we ain’t smashing atoms here, this is fast food. Any management experience?”

  “I’ve run my own business,” Fred said. “It’s all there.”

  The restaurant manager moved his lips. “I see references in the corrections field.” He glanced at the first assistant manager and grinned. “You go out the door or over the wall?”

  “I’m a contractor,” Fred said. “I design, repair, and maintain certain facilities…some training…It’s a very specialized field.”

  “I’m sure,” the restaurant manager said, and looked again at the first assistant. “I used to be a teacher. High school—the Young and the Mindless.” He seemed to drift out, then back in. “So welcome to the private sector.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” Fred said. “Like I say, I don’t have much choice. Government contracts have a way of drying up.” They stopped returning your calls.

  “No shit,” the first assistant manager sai
d and they both looked at him. “I mean the government and all.”

  “Shift change,” the restaurant manager said abruptly, and the first assistant manager gave him a puzzled look, then went away.

  “I taught him social studies his junior year,” the restaurant manager said.

  “Small world,” Fred said.

  “Straight D’s.”

  “Grades aren’t everything,” Fred said.

  “My point is if he can do it,” the restaurant manager said, and Fred nodded. They weren’t splitting the atom, and Fred nodded again. You started at the bottom. Management Trainee. In this capacity learned all the jobs, working alongside the kids who flipped and seared meat, shot tartar sauce out of a caulking gun, passed free food to their friends through the drive-thru window, groped each other in the cooler. Then you were a Second Assistant Manager and there was paperwork and training new employees and staying till three in the morning closing and cleaning, dumping putrefied grease that smelled like the final corruption of matter, which you wouldn’t have to do as First Assistant even if you couldn’t get days, for you would be more concerned with building sales and controlling costs, honing leadership skills, controlling profit and loss line items, and always, always, whether you were Trainee or Restaurant Manager, which you would eventually become because luck was not a factor, it was simply a matter of hard work, patience, and the availability of positions, always maintaining Quality, Service, Cleanliness, and Value (QSCV), and Ensuring That A Respectful Workplace Exists In The Restaurant.

  “That means no grabass to you,” the restaurant manager said.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Fred said.

  “I’m not worried,” the restaurant manager said.

  “Define Q,” he said.

  “Quality,” Fred said.

  “Quality is doing the right thing even when no one’s looking,” the restaurant manager said.

  “You come up with that?” Fred said and turned. The first assistant manager was standing in the door with a plunger.

  The restaurant manager groaned. “Not again.”

  “I’ve done a little plumbing too,” Fred said, but couldn’t remember if he’d put it on the application.

  The first assistant manager waved the plunger at him. “You’ll get your chance.”

  “Just give him the tour while I make the call,” the restaurant manager said. He scribbled on the application and they shook hands one more time.

  The restaurant was divided into management zones. The Grill Zone smelled like reconstituted onions. The hamburger patties were frozen solid and made a wooden clacking sound when you slapped them down. The dressing table stood behind the grill (mustard adds spice, ketchup adds moisture) and there Fred was introduced to a management trainee, a tattooed and crewcut woman of about thirty who neither spoke nor offered her hand but grimaced like a chimpanzee for about a tenth of a second. The first assistant manager said, “Right,” and showed Fred the Drive-Thru Zone. Then he guided him to a door at the back of the building. On the way they passed the walk-in where a girl was cleaning the stainless with a sponge, the metal in her mouth the same color.

  “Go with the grain,” Fred said, already managing her, psyched by the tour, “stroke down, not up,” and smiled his yellow smile. She looked at him through a faint reek of vinegar.

  They went outside. It was mild and sunny but Fred still smelled reconstituted onions. Walking across the parking lot the first assistant manager asked Fred if the restaurant manager had said anything about him, and Fred replied, “Only the good stuff,” and the first assistant manager said, “If they take you on I’ll tell you why he quit teaching.” They reached a wooden enclosure in the corner of the lot. Inside were a dumpster and an incinerator and now all Fred smelled was garbage. A man about Fred’s age leaned on a shovel before the furnace with a cigarette in his mouth, watching a blue plastic milk crate melt in the flames.

  “What’d I tell you about that?” the first assistant manager said.

  “What you tell me about what?” the man asked the flames.

  The first assistant manager grinned at Fred. “Guess what Zone this is,” he said and tugged the cigarette from the man’s lips. He lit one of his own, pulled up another plastic milk crate, a red one, and sat.

  “How long have you been doing this?” Fred asked either of them.

  “About three years,” the first assistant manager said and stood suddenly.

  “Watch this,” he said and picked up the red crate and pushed it into the incinerator.

  Presently it began to sag and puddle, spreading slowly toward the blue in the great heat.

  Something ran under the dumpster.

  “Thank you for calling National Engineering, Inc. All lines are busy. At the tone, please leave your name, number, and a detailed message, and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.”

  [Tone.]

  “Hey Fred, pick up. Pick up, Freddy, I want to talk. You know who this is? Don’t you want to talk? Pick up. We need to clear up a few things. Hope this isn’t a bad time for you…should I call back? Maybe I should stop by instead so we can chat in person. Pick up. Pick it up, you fuck. You busy? You got your prick up that pig’s ass and you can’t come to the phone? [Music.] Knock that off! [Music stops.] Jesus, I can smell it from here. Take a break. Pick up. Jesus, I’m doing you a favor…Okay, be that way. Ready or not, here we come.”

  [Tone.]

  [Hangs up.]

  [Tone.]

  [Child, unintelligible.]

  He was sitting at the counter when they came in. He didn’t have to see them to know who they were. They took the booth behind him and to his left—he didn’t look but that was where they always sat. The waitress hurried over with her coffee pot. “My husband said the same thing,” Fred heard her say. “Is that good or bad?” He didn’t hear the answer but it made her giggle. It always did. “You guys.” He glanced over. One of them was wearing a baseball cap. The waitress came back around the counter. Fred finished his cup but when she swung the pot his way he held up his hand.

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “In a minute,” he said, and slipped off his stool and walked over to the booth. His hands were at his sides.

  They didn’t look up till he said, “Gentlemen.” The one without the baseball cap had red hair and was dunking a tea bag.

  “I hate to interrupt your breakfast,” Fred said, though they hadn’t yet been served, “but I’d like to ask you something.” They glanced at each other but neither of them said anything. He could see what color their eyes were.

  “I’d like to ask you,” Fred said, trying to maintain a volume, “why you’re following me.”

  They looked at each other again with blank looks. Then the one wearing the baseball cap said, “You’ll have to speak up, I’m a little deaf on this side.”

  Fred started to repeat himself but the one who was dunking a tea bag said, “I thought it was the other side. He wants to know why we’re following him.”

  The other man nodded as if this was what he thought he’d heard. He seemed to think it over and then said, “You following this guy, Mikey?” like his name was Mikey. And calm, a whole dialogue in a glance, but that was what gave them away.

  The guy dunking the tea bag shook his head. “Not that I know of, you?” He seemed to be trying to count.

  “Not that I’m aware,” the one wearing the baseball cap said. He looked at Fred apologetically and picked up his coffee cup.

  Fred nodded, smiling. “Okay,” he said, nodding and smiling. “Okay. Now that that’s out of the way.” He stopped nodding and smiling and then his hands started shaking. “Now that we’re past that,” he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”

  The one with red hair stopped dunking his tea bag. “Stop what?”

  “I thought I was the one with the ear,” the other one said. “You heard what he said to stop.”

  “I will if you will,” the one with red hair said. He
poured honey in his tea.

  “Done,” the one with the baseball cap said. He looked up at Fred like all you have to do is ask. As if to ask if there was anything else.

  “I’m not joking,” Fred said.

  “Neither are we,” the one who wore a baseball cap said.

  “I’ve got nothing against you people.”

  “Well that’s a relief,” the one drinking tea said.

  “Don’t be a wiseass,” the other one said.

  “I won’t if you don’t,” the redhead said.

  “It’s out of my hands,” Fred said. “I understand you’re just following orders but I’m asking you to leave her out of it…my wife. I’m the one you want.”

  “Is it hot in here to you?” the one without the baseball cap said. The other one was thoughtfully looking at his menu.

  “It’s getting there,” he said. They’d stopped looking at Fred, and now they were barely looking at each other. “What is so hard about getting over medium over medium?”

  It had grown quieter in the diner. A customer squeezed past. An autographed picture of Telly Savalas hung over the booth.

  The strap chafed his armpit.

  The waitress came back with two plates of toast. White, wheat. She set them down, looked at the three of them a little uneasily and said, “I didn’t know you guys knew each other.”

  “Me neither,” the one with the wheat toast said.

  “Somebody thinks we do,” the other one said.

  She didn’t understand. She looked at Fred.

  “Mossad,” he said.

  Her lips formed the letter M but she didn’t speak.

  “Moe Howard…mo money,” the one with white toast said.

  “Mossad,” the other one said. “Kinda like the Jewish CIA, right?”

  “Israeli intelligence,” Fred said to the waitress.

  “There you go,” the one wearing the baseball cap said. “Is the manager around by chance?”

  “I’ll handle it,” the other one said.

  “They don’t want you to handle it,” the one with the baseball cap said. He picked up a piece of toast.

  “I’ll see if Dimitri’s still here,” the waitress said and backed away.