Today is the day. I know it. I have been offered another job, more money and nicer owners. Over the past four days it has become plain to see that Anthony and I will never get along. Sometimes I wish I was the type of person that could get along in a place like this; nodding assertively to the local cops, swapping 'fucks' and 'cunts' with the local drunks. Sometimes I wished I felt comfortable with the trendy boys and girls, the people with fresh haircuts, and $300 jeans, and those looks that say so much, look down from so far.
I am not ever going to fit in here. Anthony is a madman, he strikes me as the kind of guy that masturbates to snuff flicks, thickly drooling at the money shot, grunting angrily. His eyes are dead, his is not hollow; he is filled with icy-cold rage. I feel my edges melt in his presence, his outside is fierce and molten, not so much his body, more his aura. I hate using bullshit new-age garbage, but that man glows with dark.
I make up my mind. Still, as frightening as the man is, I can't just walk out. I decide to finish my shift, feel a burden lift from shoulders with each passing minute. As the seconds tick by I ask myself one more time if I really must quit. A few minutes later Anthony enters the room, shooting me a glare that confirms everything.
I wait until closing. I finish lugging rubbish to the cans out the back, return to the bar, grab my bag. He saunters out slowly. I swallow heavily. I feel sweat rising to the surface of my skin.
He explodes when I tell him. He fucking detonates with even more fury than I had dreamed he was carrying. Abuse erupts from his mouth, floating through the cafe in a thick mist, noxious and sharp. I fear for my safety. I wonder if he will grab a blade and tear my throat out. I picture him strangling me with an apron; my last vision the knives I had polished harder than I had ever screwed. His language is rotten, and despite my impressions of the man I still find myself suprised by the outburst. And then; I see it.
He is a little boy. He is a sad little boy, crying for a mother who never comes home. He is lonely and sullen and frustrated. He has been rejected in life, he is a child who never got the love he needed. Now, as an adult, power can come through the injection of fear into the veins of those around him. He can feel people shrink away from him when he pushes hate forward, and his reward is a power that replaces the love his mother never relinquished.
I prepare to leave.
"I'm sorry I wasted your time, Anthony."
"How about; Fuck off?"
I open the door, turning to say one more thing.
"Thanks for the opportunity."
The sad little boy replies the only way he knows how;
"Fuck off you fucking cockhead."
I am gone.
