Pallet Meltdown*
*I want to write a lot right now, but I also want to watch this movie, Koyaanisqatsi, that my head chef's letting me borrow.
Pallet Meltdown
"You wear underwear, don't you?"
That's Jasmine, 16, gorgeous, smart, funny, 16, asking me if I wear underwear. We're in the part of the kitchen that amounts to an office, dry storage, cooler, and locker room. I've just changed out of my chef duds, tying my shoes. I don't know how to respond to the question: "Yeah?"
"I saw Martini's dick today."
"What? Martini? What are you talking about?"
"When you change, do you change one article of clothing at a time?"
"Yeah. More or less always."
"Ok. Ok. So you don't ever just get naked in here?"
"No. Why?"
She winces.
"Does Martini?"
"Yeah."
"Oh geez."
"You know what he said to me when he saw me looking at him?"
"I don't want to know."
"'Most girls call it The Monster'."
"Oh geez."
"I can't stop thinking about it," she admits the next day, laughing maybe because she doesn't know how else to handle it.
"Oh geez. Don't. You have to fight it. If you don't find something else to think about, the terrorists win."
"God damn it."
"He knows you're 16, right?"
She sighs.
"That's... just... I don't even know what to say."
"Did you hear what he said to me today?"
"I don't want to know."
"'Did you notice it was shaved'?"
"Do you know how old Martini is?"
"He's somewhere between 43 and 46."
"So we'll say he's in his forties, anyway."
"Yeah, for sure. He's in his forties."
"I can't believe I've seen a 40-year-old's dick. I'm 16. I only made it 16 years of my life without seeing a 40-year-old penis."
"Welcome to the club," I joke, and she laughs.
I tell Gautama, my head chef, that I haven't enjoyed anything about eating for the past three days. I say: "I've been having trouble going forward lately. It's very difficult to propel myself through my days. I woke up today and immediately regretted it. Everything tastes like shit lately. Everything I put in my mouth is a chore to choke down. It just all tastes like shit. I had a few fries the other night and I just had to spit them out, I hated the way they tasted. The way they felt in my mouth, you know? This has never happened to me, but I'm telling you, if I can't start eating food and liking it. Have you seen that movie--oh, yeah: we were just talking about it the other day. You know that scene where the two Nazi doctors are hiking through the Berlin underground to get to Hitler's bunker? To instruct him how to best commit suicide, right? Or to make sure he was properly instructed on the way to best do so. Or something, whatever. And they're walking through the Berlin subway, among soldiers who have given up the fight; SS Youth whose parents have pulled them from the streets; men and women in their nineties, witnessing what they thought they'd seen the last of twenty years earlier. And these two Nazi doctors are walking through all this, and the camera follows them and we see all the faces of the men and the women they're passing and as casually as anything in the world, though beset by crippling fear, a man on the right decides to take the plunge into the great unknown and he shoots his brains all over the wall behind him. And the woman to his right hugs her small daughter, but aside from her, no one in frame flinches. I've been thinking about that scene a lot lately. It just keeps replaying in my mind's eye."
Martini approaches me from the other side of the window. The line is hot but quiet for the moment.
"So two necrophiliacs are hanging out in a cemetery, right? And the one asks the other guy: 'Yo, how are things going with that one chick you've been seeing?'
And the other one says: 'Man, that fucking bitch split on me', hahahahaha."
We're all sitting around the bar after work because it's my roommate's 24th birthday. Martini comps a shot for Douglas, then calls out across the room: "Hey Jasmine, you know which two fingers are best to masturbate with, right?"
He sticks out his hand, with his index and middle fingers extended from his fist: "Mine, hahahahaha."
Jasmine goes home something like five minutes later.
It's late, now, and there are only two others in the bar with us. Martini regales us with stories about the '80's.
"I haven't touched that shit since the early nineties. It's just pot and beer for me, now. But it wasn't until my dad committed suicide that I started drinking like I do now. When I stopped that shit, back in the '90's, I was strictly smoking pot. I was like you, dude."
"I haven't had much to drink in the past year, but I drank a lot in college."
"Yeah, not me. I was running track in college. I mean, I drank, but only two or three times a month."
"Man, I was drunk my entire senior year."
I leave the bar and head for the showers at the other end of property. The florescent light flickers and goes out, but the water is warm and it feels good.
A 400lb. black bear rummages through the dumpster across the way.
Gautama tells me: "It sounds like you're exposing yourself to too much violent imagery. It's affecting the way you're seeing things."
Pallet Meltdown
"You wear underwear, don't you?"
That's Jasmine, 16, gorgeous, smart, funny, 16, asking me if I wear underwear. We're in the part of the kitchen that amounts to an office, dry storage, cooler, and locker room. I've just changed out of my chef duds, tying my shoes. I don't know how to respond to the question: "Yeah?"
"I saw Martini's dick today."
"What? Martini? What are you talking about?"
"When you change, do you change one article of clothing at a time?"
"Yeah. More or less always."
"Ok. Ok. So you don't ever just get naked in here?"
"No. Why?"
She winces.
"Does Martini?"
"Yeah."
"Oh geez."
"You know what he said to me when he saw me looking at him?"
"I don't want to know."
"'Most girls call it The Monster'."
"Oh geez."
"I can't stop thinking about it," she admits the next day, laughing maybe because she doesn't know how else to handle it.
"Oh geez. Don't. You have to fight it. If you don't find something else to think about, the terrorists win."
"God damn it."
"He knows you're 16, right?"
She sighs.
"That's... just... I don't even know what to say."
"Did you hear what he said to me today?"
"I don't want to know."
"'Did you notice it was shaved'?"
"Do you know how old Martini is?"
"He's somewhere between 43 and 46."
"So we'll say he's in his forties, anyway."
"Yeah, for sure. He's in his forties."
"I can't believe I've seen a 40-year-old's dick. I'm 16. I only made it 16 years of my life without seeing a 40-year-old penis."
"Welcome to the club," I joke, and she laughs.
I tell Gautama, my head chef, that I haven't enjoyed anything about eating for the past three days. I say: "I've been having trouble going forward lately. It's very difficult to propel myself through my days. I woke up today and immediately regretted it. Everything tastes like shit lately. Everything I put in my mouth is a chore to choke down. It just all tastes like shit. I had a few fries the other night and I just had to spit them out, I hated the way they tasted. The way they felt in my mouth, you know? This has never happened to me, but I'm telling you, if I can't start eating food and liking it. Have you seen that movie--oh, yeah: we were just talking about it the other day. You know that scene where the two Nazi doctors are hiking through the Berlin underground to get to Hitler's bunker? To instruct him how to best commit suicide, right? Or to make sure he was properly instructed on the way to best do so. Or something, whatever. And they're walking through the Berlin subway, among soldiers who have given up the fight; SS Youth whose parents have pulled them from the streets; men and women in their nineties, witnessing what they thought they'd seen the last of twenty years earlier. And these two Nazi doctors are walking through all this, and the camera follows them and we see all the faces of the men and the women they're passing and as casually as anything in the world, though beset by crippling fear, a man on the right decides to take the plunge into the great unknown and he shoots his brains all over the wall behind him. And the woman to his right hugs her small daughter, but aside from her, no one in frame flinches. I've been thinking about that scene a lot lately. It just keeps replaying in my mind's eye."
Martini approaches me from the other side of the window. The line is hot but quiet for the moment.
"So two necrophiliacs are hanging out in a cemetery, right? And the one asks the other guy: 'Yo, how are things going with that one chick you've been seeing?'
And the other one says: 'Man, that fucking bitch split on me', hahahahaha."
We're all sitting around the bar after work because it's my roommate's 24th birthday. Martini comps a shot for Douglas, then calls out across the room: "Hey Jasmine, you know which two fingers are best to masturbate with, right?"
He sticks out his hand, with his index and middle fingers extended from his fist: "Mine, hahahahaha."
Jasmine goes home something like five minutes later.
It's late, now, and there are only two others in the bar with us. Martini regales us with stories about the '80's.
"I haven't touched that shit since the early nineties. It's just pot and beer for me, now. But it wasn't until my dad committed suicide that I started drinking like I do now. When I stopped that shit, back in the '90's, I was strictly smoking pot. I was like you, dude."
"I haven't had much to drink in the past year, but I drank a lot in college."
"Yeah, not me. I was running track in college. I mean, I drank, but only two or three times a month."
"Man, I was drunk my entire senior year."
I leave the bar and head for the showers at the other end of property. The florescent light flickers and goes out, but the water is warm and it feels good.
A 400lb. black bear rummages through the dumpster across the way.
Gautama tells me: "It sounds like you're exposing yourself to too much violent imagery. It's affecting the way you're seeing things."