by
Michael Werner
Aaron thought this guy was a real slug. Sal was a fat, or to be more fare a round pudgy man who looked like his body was a barrel with arms and legs sticking out of it. Sal was a kiss ass to the customers because they gave him the only thing he cared about in life; money, but he was an asshole to everyone else, especially his employees at the restaurant.
Although he was nice to all the pretty girls until they rejected his advances, then he was just as mean to them until either he forgot about how much they didn’t like him or enough time went by that time healed all wounds, like time does, even with homely men like Sal.
He seemed to not care what he looked like, always wearing that white greasy apron and hastily combed to the side middle age man hair.
Aaron was amused at how the thick skin of Sals forehead came down over his eyes making his face look like a bulldog. His grunty talking even made him sound like one.
“Pick up all the garbage as far as the eye can see.” Sal said as he floated his hand across the horizon out in front of him, and then handed the broom to Aaron.
'As far as the eye can see' Aaron repeated in her mind taking the broom and dust pan in hesitation. "I'm not cleaning that up." she told Sal in a firm typical uncooperative teenager tone. "All that junk out there is from the carnival." her face was all soured up in reluctance.
Aaron was defiantly a pissed off kid, and she was also lazy which is the worst kind of kid. But Sal was also lazy and was always trying to get everyone else to do his work for him if he could get away with it. A couple walked by and noticed the two lazy people arguing with each other.
"Look I'm not going to argue with you. Just get the job done!" Sal pointed hard back out to the parking lot trying to strengthen his demand, then he turned and stormed into to back door of the restaurant slamming the metal door behind him with a loud clank. Aaron remained outside with a scowl on her face looking out at the chore in front of her. If this was her first day of work at the fast food joint Aaron would have told Sal to go screw himself then quit and walked off the job. But the problem was this wasn't her first day working here. She had been working here for going on two years now and had been fired or quit so many times she had lost count. Sal kept hiring her because he needed somebody to do the dirty work, the work no one else would do. And this is the only job Aaron could get. No one else would hire her, not even her own dad who worked at the local Wal-mart. No Aaron was stuck here. She needed this job to pay back her father for wrecking his car.
Aaron watched two seagulls fight over a piece of her garbage pile. Their bird friends were sitting on top of a light post squawking down at her. They were probably making fun of her in bird language because she had to clean up the mess that they had gotten fat on. Fat from eating cast-off fries and cheese stuck on burger wrappers. "Awe the life of a bird" Aaron thought... 'getting to eat junk food all day and do nothing but socialize with bird friends'.
One seagull was on the ground pecking at a pack of tarter sauce that had busted on the ground. Then jumped up on some old weathered dock polls that were sticking out of the unkept shrubbery next to the drive-thru.
They were meant to look like part of an old broken down sea dock, with thick three inch rope wrapped around their tops to make them look more authentic. Aaron wondered why they were even there. They looked like they should be a part of a seafood restaurant. At one time this place may have been an old seafood restaurant and those polls were all that was left of it. Now it was a 'Burger Joint' with a menu that consisted mostly of burgers, although they did serve a fish sandwich. Aaron kicked an empty cup that was on the ground in front of her, it rolled and tumbled until it came in contact with a puff of cotton candy that was apparently debris from the carnival next door. There was no fence or anything to keep the people from walking right into the carnival from any spot or keeping them from walking through the Burger Joint parking lot and tossing there garbage on the restaurant property for Aaron to clean up.
Most of the people walking by Aaron were just trying to have fun, but to her young rebellious mind they were just worthless slobs trying to make her life hell. There were about a dozen people walking through the parking lot now, coming in and out of the darkness and neon lights. They didn't have cars or cars on the lot Aaron was in. They must have been coming from the mall a few blocks down. The parking lot itself was surprisingly void of cars most of the time. Aaron assume everyone must be parking in the even larger parking lot on the other side of the carnival or surrounding area. She looked down at the cracked and faded pavement she was standing on. She figured this side of the carnival and old abandon stores around had become known as a shady and run down place. People were kind of scared to park their cars over here. When you walked past the restaurant and away from the neon lights it became kind of depressing because of the neglect of this area by the city. The lights of the carnival and restaurant kind of pushed back the depression and so people were alright with staying close to it.
There were only a handful of cars on the lot considering its size, and one camper truck that a homeless guy was living in. There were endless faded white lines painted on the ground hundreds of feet in all directions and kept going until they faded into the darkness of the night. All a person would see if they were standing far off is the Burger Joint sitting in the middle of the lot with the carnival as a back drop behind it.
Aaron could now make out the heavy set shapes of Shawn and Casey coming toward her out of the darkness of the lot. Another two of the lazy workers the restaurant had. There common laziness didn't make them friends.
"He's got you doing the grunt work again doesn't he?" Shawn blurted out as they came up to her. Casey had a dumb smile on his face in amusement of his friends comment. He had his oversized Burger Joint shirt over his hand and he was holding a soda in the other.
"Ahhhw..." Aaron managed to say, partly answering Shawn's statement without really having to reply to him and showing her disgust of her situation at the same time.
"Get out of the way Missy!" He shouted.
"God why so rude!" Aaron said while moving to the side.
"This is a drive thru not a social club!" He said giving her a mean look while driving by and up to the speaker.
"Yeah don't you have any manners Aaron?" Aaron herd Jarod say from the speaker honning in on the argument, trying to give Aaron more of a hard time.
"Give me a fish sandwich!" The old man blurted out before Jarod could finish his sentence. Jarod stayed silent for a moment.
"Yes sir. Anything el.......?"
"No thats it!" The old man blurted cutting Jarold off again. Now Jarold was at the whim of the old mans dander.
"Okay that will be 5.84 at the window please."
Aaron watched as the old man pulled forward in his sputtering old car.
" It rattled around the corner and out of site and Aaron was left alone again. The night was young and everyone else was haveing a good time in the restarant and at the carnival and she was stuck here she thought. She felt very sad.
here was a slight wind blowing.
Hours past and she had came and went in and out of the restraunt to come out here and clean the lot. It got dirty fast. As she was out there this time she noticed the old man that had honked his horn at her early was parked out in the lot, just sitting in his car.
An old trans-am came into view full of younger guys. With their headlights beaming into the cab of the old mans car lighting up his leathery face, they pulled into a car space a couple space's in front of the old mans car and stopped, their headlights still lighting up the old man and he irritatingly tried to wave the bright light away from his eyes. The 17 year old behind the wheel of the trans am shut off his lights and killed the engine.
Aaron could see the silhouette of a guitar neck sticking up in the back seat and the trunk of the trans-am was open and had drums popping up out of it. She figured they must be musicians.
"Well this is it." The old man said to the young group, extending his hand at the car. The boys walked around it eyeing it over. Aaron came to the conclusion that the old man was trying to to sell his car to them.
She continued sweeping up trash while keeping her attention on them without looking like she was.
The boys kicked the tires and fiddled will the exterior car parts. On kid picked at a piece of the ugly old worn and torn vynle roof thing that covered it. "I've been needing a car of my own. My sister's been letting me drive her Trans-am around but I can't keep that up." The seventeen year old said to the old man trying to get a conversation going. The old man didn't say anything back he just nodded his head a little and muttered something under his breath... seaming more irritated then anything else.
"Can we here it run?" One kid asked.
The old man hesitated a bit. "Yeah." He got into the car and turned the key. It kept turning over but it wouldn't start. Making the ever dreaded 'Henn..nen..nen.nen..na' sound over and over again. Then on the fifth try it sputtered to life.
The teens exchanged looks with smiles. They let it run for a couple of moments. "Can I drive it around a little?"
The old man quickly shut the engine off. "I'm in a big hurry to get somewhere." He said flustered while getting out of the car. "Do you want it or not?" he almost demanded to know.
"I'm not sure." The seventeen year old said while looking at his friends. They all seemed surprised at the old mans actions.
------------------To be continued----------------------
