Running on Empty

by Don Aker

  The cook stuck his head out through the swinging door, spied Ethan, scowled, and disappeared again.

  “I’m not feeling the love,” said Ethan.

  “Oh, don’t mind him. Ike’s a sweetheart when you get to know him.” Taking chairs down off tables, she nodded at Ethan’s feet. “Where’re your dancin’ shoes, darlin’?”

  Ethan grinned. Although still tender, his feet felt better than yesterday thanks to the cream he’d put on them last night and again this morning. Not to mention the cross-trainers he was wearing. They’d cost him close to three hundred bucks at The Running Room, but at the time he’d only been thinking about how great they looked. Moulded specifically to Ethan’s feet, the shoes now cushioned them perfectly without chafing the blistered parts. “Like them?” he asked Lil.

  She whistled. “Honey, they’re a thing ‘a beauty.”

  Then he noticed the shoes on her own feet—no-name athletic wear she’d probably bought at Zellers for fifteen bucks—and felt awkward. “So,” he said, quickly changing the subject, “what do you need me to do?”

  “For one, keep wearin’ those tight jeans you got on. I got lots ‘a comments about you from the girls yesterday.”

  Ethan tried not to shudder. “The girls” were four old women, obviously regulars, who had come in just before the end of his shift. None of them looked under sixty, he doubted any of them still had their own teeth, and he was pretty sure one of them was wearing a wig—a dirt-cheap job with straw-thick “hair” and an obvious seam on one side. But they’d been nice to him, asked him all sorts of questions, and ignored the fact that he dropped their napkins, sloshed a coffee on their table, and mixed up two of their four orders. “What’d they say about me?”

  “That’s just between us girls,” Lil winked, reaching into the pocket of her apron. “But they left you this,” she said, and handed him some cash.

  “Hey!” Ethan exclaimed as he took the four fives. “That’s the best tip I got all day!”

  “After you left,” said Lil, “the girls were askin’ me how your first day went, ‘n’ I happened to tell ‘em how you’d ended up owin’ more’n you earned. A few minutes later, they come up ‘n’ give me the fives and told me to make sure I gave you the money. Said they all knew what it was like to have rough first days.” Lil reached out and, much to Ethan’s surprise, plucked the bills from his hand. “Now you’re all paid up. You’re startin’ with a clean slate this mornin’.”

  Ethan sighed. “Easy come, easy go, huh?”

  Lil studied him for a moment, glanced down at the money in her hand, then looked at him again. Returning the cash to her apron, she continued, “Just so you know, Ethan, twenty bucks is a whole lot ‘a money for those four. One of ‘em barely gets by on her widow’s allowance and the other three earn minimum wage cleanin’ rooms over at the Marriott.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened. “Kind of old to be working, aren’t they?”

  “People gotta eat and make their rent no matter how old they are.”

  Ethan felt his face redden.

  “Just so you know, okay?” she repeated.

  Ethan nodded.

  “Now, we got tables to get ready, darlin’, so move those sweet jeans ‘a yours.”

  As he helped her hoist off the remaining chairs, Ethan could tell it was going to be another long day, but he was actually looking forward to the work. It would help keep his mind off the bomb his old man had dumped on him that morning.

  His second day wasn’t worse than his first. He dropped only one meal—and that was because the plate was extra hot when he grabbed it—though he screwed up at least as many orders as before. As Lil had warned him, Sunday was The Chow Down’s busiest day of the week when the weather was good, and no sooner did one group leave than another horde took their place. He didn’t even have time to wipe off the tables before the next bunch sat down, so he mentioned to Lil that a “Please Wait to Be Seated” sign might be a good thing. Lil had just laughed. “Darlin’, customers been seatin’ themselves in this place for years. If I put up a sign like that, you’d hear ‘em hootin’ clear over to Pier 21.” So Ethan had wiped around flabby arms and beer bellies, welcoming everyone through clenched teeth as he laid out paper placemats and filled customers in on the day’s special, which made him think of Allie.

  After she had watched yet another pay-per-view basketball game with him last month, Allie had made Ethan suffer through a program on the Food Network about high-end restaurants. Boring as hell, but he’d learned that one of the first skills servers in fancy places mastered was something called “romancing the food,” which involved describing for customers in vivid detail any item on the menu—how a particular cut of meat was prepared, how the ingredients of a sauce complemented an entree, stuff like that. There was, of course, no romancing of food at The Chow Down. “Today’s special is Wieners With Sauerkraut,” he told each new group and was surprised at the number of people who ordered it. He had trouble just looking at it when he carried it out of the kitchen holding his breath because it smelled a lot like ripe compost.

  On the plus side, learning how to ring in the orders wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it would be, mostly because the owner, the elusive Mr. Anwar, had installed a touch-activated computer, similar to an iPad, that fast-tracked the process. During Lil’s demonstration of the system that morning, Ethan figured out a couple of shortcuts she hadn’t known about herself. “Cute butt and brains, too,” she’d said.

  As the day wore on, he found himself wondering whether “the girls” would return, but they didn’t. Instead he had taxi drivers and truckers on their breaks, clerks and cashiers who worked at the shops down on the waterfront, and family after family who seemed to eat whenever the mood struck them. And then there were the weird ones: a man in a too-big trench coat that he kept buttoned up to his neck like he was hiding explosives strapped to his chest; a woman who hummed to herself, rocked back and forth, and kept slipping food into her purse; and a long-haired guy with fully inked arms that reminded Ethan of snakeskin. For some reason, that last one creeped him out most of all. There was something snakelike about his eyes, too. Cold, like he was studying everyone who came through the door, calculating striking distance. Ethan thought he could feel those eyes following him whenever he came out of the kitchen, but he knew that was just his imagination working overtime. Still, it was a relief when the guy finally left.

  Many of the customers who came in greeted Lil by name, calling to her from across the diner as Ethan was seating them.

  Few bothered asking him his name even though he hadn’t yet gotten his tag, but he liked the anonymity. It wasn’t like he’d be bragging to people about working there.

  During his half-hour lunch, which he finally got at two in the afternoon, Ethan sat on the back step in the alley behind the kitchen revelling in the simple feeling of not standing on his feet. He could go hard on a basketball court for a long time, but he’d never known his legs to be as tired as they were now. At least he didn’t have more blisters.

  Lil had told him he could ask Ike to make him something for his lunch, but Ethan had served—and cleaned up after—so much food that putting any in his mouth was about the last thing he wanted to do. Besides, he wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask Ike anyway. During a brief lull that morning when Ethan hadn’t been rushing out of the kitchen, he’d found himself studying a tat on the back of the guy’s neck. Ethan couldn’t see it all—part of it extended down inside his T-shirt—but the part he could see showed a heart with the word Mike inside it, which Ethan found more than a little surprising. He’d been standing there grinning to himself when Ike suddenly swung around and barked, “Wha’choo lookin’ at, dipshit?” Which was when Ethan had grabbed the too-hot plate. The tirade that followed the loss of a Linguine With Mushrooms and the plate it was on still echoed in Ethan’s ear. There wasn’t much to see out here in the alley, since it bordered a three-storey brick building. According to Lil, the place had been a lot of things over th
e years, including a box factory and a brothel, and it was now being converted into condominiums—expensive ones, judging by the big sign out front. He’d overheard a customer asking Lil about it, and she’d told the guy she wasn’t the least bit surprised. “Too many young people are headin’ out west for jobs,” she’d sighed. “Pretty soon Halifax won’t be much more’n a summer home for retirees.

  When I win the lottery, sweetie, the only things I’ll invest my money in around here is pharmacies and funeral homes.”

  Taking a long swallow of a root beer he’d grabbed from the fridge, Ethan leaned back against the top step and studied the brick building. Since most of the structures in this area had been destroyed in 1917 during the Halifax Explosion, this one must have been built sometime after that. Not long after that though, Ethan thought, since the exterior was in pretty rough shape. He briefly wondered why the owner hadn’t just torn it down and started fresh, which probably had more to do with city bylaws than preserving historic property. His old man had done some legal work for an architectural firm, and Ethan had heard him tell Jillian over dinner one night how builders often had more leeway when renovating than with brand-new construction. Sooner or later, Ethan thought, everything came down to loopholes, something his old man was an expert on.

  Jack had been out somewhere with Jillian when Ethan had gotten home last night, which had postponed the blow-up he’d expected after their earlier confrontation. And, extra bonus, Jillian hadn’t stayed over. Ethan figured she went home to catch up on all the beauty-product infomercials she’d PVRed—it was a full-time job being on the cutting edge of cosmetics, right?—and he’d idly wondered if Moore-or-Less had any New York artwork honouring that kind of commitment.

  His old man was in the kitchen when Ethan came down for breakfast and was visibly taken aback to see his son up so early. Ordinarily on a Sunday, Ethan didn’t drag himself out of bed much before noon. There had been a few awkward moments as Ethan pawed through the refrigerator for orange juice and eggs, and he was surprised his dad hadn’t launched into lecture mode already. But that was only the first of his surprises.

  “About our talk last night,” Jack said.

  Standing in front of the open refrigerator, Ethan sighed. “Look, I have to be somewhere in an hour. Can we make this quick?” He waited for his father’s usual opening volley.

  “I want to apologize for losing my temper,” said Jack.

  Ethan closed the refrigerator door and turned to him, astonished.

  “I should never have shouted at you,” Jack continued. “And I shouldn’t have called you a smartass. I’m sorry.”

  Ethan gaped at him. “Yeah, well … okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” said Jack. “I let my anger get the better of me.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure what was expected of him here. Was this supposed to be one of those moments like on daytime talk shows where family members buried the hatchet, embraced, and lived happily ever after—at least until the next commercial break? Was he supposed to apologize now, too? But he’d already said he was sorry for forging the note he’d given Moore-or-Less. What else was he supposed to apologize for? Criticizing his father for defending a prick? Walking out while his father was still screaming at him? Ethan wasn’t sorry for either of those things. It was safer not to say anything. He nodded.

  A moment passed, during which Jack cleared his throat, got up from the table, and walked over to the window. Beyond the glass, Ethan could see the corner of the garage that a carpenter had repaired the day before, and now the siding was flawless again. Too bad. He’d grown used to seeing the damage. It was evidence to anyone passing by that life at 37 Seminary Lane was less than absolutely perfect, no matter what his father might like people to believe.

  “Look, Ethan,” his father began, turning to face him, “I had a couple of visitors last night before you came home.”

  So that explains it, thought Ethan, remembering how he’d found it unusual to see his father sitting in the January room.

  His mind ran through a number of possibilities. Moore-or-Less and the guidance counsellor, Mr. Rahib, were the most likely candidates. Although he couldn’t imagine teachers making house calls, it would explain his old man’s Nothing Seems To Matter To You speech. Maybe house calls from teachers were one of the perks of owning a McMansion in Cathedral Estates. If you could call that a perk.

  Jack brushed at a non-existent piece of lint on his shirt, an action Ethan had seen him perform a hundred times and had always interpreted as preening but now realized was a way of buying time. “I’ve been asked to run for public office,” his father said, his face crinkling in a broad grin. “A few months ago, a committee was struck to review my work, my political affiliations, and my public persona, and last night two of the committee members officially asked me to represent their party in the provincial election next year.”

  “That’s great,” Ethan said. Was it? He didn’t know.

  And then, suddenly, he realized what was happening here. His father was asking him if it was okay to run for public office. His father was asking for his permission.

  Ethan’s head reeled. But, as he thought about it in the silence that settled around them, he could understand why his old man would want to ask, would need to ask. How many YouTube clips had Ethan seen showing husbands and wives and sons and daughters of politicians caught in the public eye? He remembered a news story not long ago about the teenaged son of a government official who’d wrecked a vehicle that was leased by the province. It had been humiliating for the official, and for the son, too, whose accident wouldn’t have been newsworthy if it weren’t for his mother’s job.

  For a moment, Ethan revelled in this new position. After having been told No! countless times, he would finally get to know what it felt like to have the power to do the same. Not that he’d made up his mind—he’d have to think all this through—but he was going to enjoy watching his father squirm for a change.

  Jack cleared his throat again. “The thing is—”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” said Ethan.

  His father raised an eyebrow. “Think about what?”

  “Whether it’s okay with me and Raye.”

  “Ethan,” said his father, and Ethan could hear something different in his voice. Embarrassment? “I’ve already accepted the nomination.”

  “You what?”

  “It’s the logical next step in my career, something I’ve been grooming myself for.”

  Ethan felt his fingernails dig into his palms. “And it didn’t cross your mind for a second that it could be a problem?”

  “Nothing worth doing is without its problems,” said Jack.

  “Let me guess,” said Ethan. “Another life lesson.”

  Jack frowned. “Look, I didn’t intend for this to be something else for us to fight about.”

  “Then why bother telling me about it if you didn’t care what I thought?”

  “Because,” said his father, “I’m going to need your cooperation.”

  “My cooperation,” said Ethan softly. Something was building inside him, and it was easier for him to parrot words than to try putting his own together. His hands clenched again.

  “You’re going to have to clean up your act, Ethan. Episodes like the other night have to stop. I certainly can’t have reporters photographing my son speeding through the streets of Halifax, or, for that matter, getting involved in any activity that would resonate negatively with voters.”

  His fingernails now carving half-moons in the flesh of his palms, Ethan struggled for words but could find none.

  “And you’ll have to start applying yourself in school. You’re graduating this year. You need to start thinking about what you want to do with your life.”

  Now, at last, his own words came. “Oh, so now you’re grooming me.”

  “Ethan, it’s time for you to grow up. You’re seventeen now and—”

  “Seventeen and a half,” corrected Ethan.

  “And a half
,” repeated his father. “Even more reason to put an end to the kind of ridiculous behaviour I’ve seen lately.”

  “You think maybe I should consider the priesthood?” Ethan heard his voice rising, his words caroming off the granite countertop and stainless-steel appliances. “That should get you the church vote.”

  “Ethan—”

  “And there’s always volunteer work, right? Soup kitchens, food banks.”

  “For heaven’s sake—”

  “Better yet,” interrupted Ethan, snapping his fingers to signal a brainstorm, “you could send me to some place in Africa. All those AIDS babies, right? Think about the photo ops!”

  “I need you to be serious about this, Ethan.”

  “What about what I need? Nothing is ever about that, is it?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m doing this as much for you and Raye as I am for me.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” Ethan snarled, turning and heading toward the hallway.

  “Can’t we have one conversation that you don’t walk out in the middle of?”

  Ethan continued down the hallway. “When did we ever have a conversation?” he shot over his shoulder. “And by ‘conversation’ I mean something that didn’t involve you telling me how to live my life.”

  “Ethan, please—”

  “The next time you’ve got another big announcement to make,” Ethan shouted as he strode toward the front door, “save yourself some time and put it in a memo. Your secretary can give it to me.” And then he was gone.

  Taking a final swallow of his root beer, Ethan shoved thoughts of his father aside and tried to prepare himself for the second half of his shift. He hadn’t meant to get all worked up again, but he could feel the heat in his face despite the cool of the alley where he sat. He turned his attention again to the building under construction. The builders certainly had their work cut out for them—lots of the bricks were missing, several more were crumbling away, and the rest needed to be repointed. Funny how everything fell apart eventually. Like his relationship with his old man. There was a time when he’d looked up to his father, admired how sure of everything he always was. He’d even hoped someday to find a job he loved as much as his dad loved the law. After all, people had to love something they put that much time into, didn’t they?