Dirty Mouth

I woke up the next morning not knowing how I’d fallen asleep. I hated that because I couldn’t help but spend a good chunk of my morning wondering about it and recalling the last thing I could remember. I spilled coffee down my front because I was so distracted. It was a damn shame.

I had to work from 9 to 5. At least it wasn’t a graveyard shift; I’d gotten stuck with those one too many times. Those were terrible things. Barely anyone came in and if they did they were ten sheets to the wind drunk or the grumpiest sack of shit I’d ever met. Not that I really had to deal with them since I was a cook, but I had to put up with the demanding orders. “Hurry up and make it quick. If he doesn’t get it in the next five minutes you’re not getting paid.” It’s not like I can touch a damn burger and cook it with my mind. I hated impatient people who thought the world could pause and do whatever they wanted before continuing on. It was rude as hell of those people to think that way. If you’re one of those people chances are I hate you a lot.

The coffee maker gurgled and dripped on my counter. I just sat there at the end of the counter with my chin in my palm and watched it the whole time. I almost fell asleep but then Sid got up and walked over to me, nudging my leg with his little wet nose. He was hungry.

I got up and put food in his bowl and then leaned up against the counter and watched him. All I could think about was how terrible I felt. All I felt was that ache in my chest. I didn’t feel happy or particularly sad or anything. I didn’t feel anything but that damn ache. Nothing excited me. I didn’t want to do anything. I barely wanted to have a smoke. I could stand there all day watching Sid eat his food and not care either way, honestly. Normally I got a kick out of watching Sid’s little tail swish back and forth as he ate but I felt nothing when I watched him. It didn’t entertain me. All I could feel was that numbness. I’d rather feel anything but that.

Somehow I got out and got to work without getting in an accident and dying. You know, the morbid part is, I was kind of hoping I’d get into a crash on the way there. Just for the hell of it, I guess. How dumb is that?

I got into ol’ Marty’s and brushed past Mandy on the way. She smiled at me and batted her fake eyelashes like she did everyday. I had to smile back, because that’s just the custom. It’s just what you do when a pretty girl smiles at you. But when I’d gone past her into the kitchen and my smile had faded the heaviness of how shitty I felt weighed on me twice as bad. It was kind of like when you have a split lip and you forget about it and you crack a big grin or you laugh and it re-splits and hurts like a bastard. It was just like that.

“Hey, Maxi-Boy!” Tad greeted me far too happily for my mood. I winced when he chirped my name. “Whoa, what the hell happened to your face?”

“Hi,” I mumbled. I hated mumbling and now I was doing it. It made me more upset just thinking about it. “I got in a fight, it’s nothing big.”

“Oh. Sure. Besides the bruising, why do you look so down?” He asked. “Did that girl ditch you after all?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied, snatching my greasy apron off the hanger and tying it on my body. Even that took more strength than I’d thought.

Tad half-laughed, obviously not picking up on my mood as well as he probably thought he was. “Oh c’mon, Max! You always tell me about that stuff. She must’ve really thrown you under the bus, huh?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped. “Get it?”

He blinked at me. I’d never blown up at Tad before. Granted I didn’t blow up at him as much as I could’ve just then, but I rose my voice at him for sure. I just wasn’t in the mood one bit. Being around happy people when you’re depressed just makes you feel even worse about yourself because you can’t feel like they do.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he stammered. “Sorry.”

I felt kind of bad for losing my cool at Tad. He kind of deserved it in my mind since he wouldn’t leave it alone. But still, I try not to snap at my friends since I don’t have many to begin with. I’ve grown to be pretty damn afraid of losing everyone even though it was happening to me everyday. I guess it doesn’t make much sense to be afraid of something that’s inevitable, but I think everyone is afraid of something like that. Death, life, embarrassment…it’s all inevitable and there’s people who are terrified by it everyday. It doesn’t have to make sense, I suppose. It just exists.

Tad left and I was alone in the kitchen. I fired up the grills and washed my hands and everything, same as I do everyday, and then I swept the floor a bit, just for something to do. Normally I’d go out front and visit with Mandy or something until a customer came in, but I really didn’t want to talk to anybody. My mind was all scattered. I wanted to focus on sweeping the floor but I kept thinking of Emmie and her dad and my dad and pretty soon I was sweeping my damn feet. I really was a useless prick.

Eventually the usual morning rush came in and I started cooking up orders by myself. Tad came in every now and again but he didn’t say anything to me. I think he was scared. Every time he came into the kitchen I wanted to apologize, you know, so he didn’t feel so bad about it. But I couldn’t open my damn mouth even if I really tried. It’s not that I was too prideful to apologize or anything, I just couldn’t muster the right words from my lips. Everything I thought of saying didn’t seem right. I was never good at apologies. A simple “sorry” never seems to be enough in my mind. And people always mumble their apologies, too. I hate that.

I had a pause in the cooking process and I scraped off the grill and I went to get more boxed stuff from the freezer since we were running low in the kitchen. When I got back Mandy was standing there with a plate of food I’d just sent out in her hand. She damn near scared the skin off of me.

“Jesus Christ, Manny,” I breathed, throwing the box of frozen shit on the counter. “What do you want?”

“Max, this burger is burnt to a crisp,” she said. She had concern in her voice. I hated when people sounded concerned while talking to me.

I lifted the bun off the burger to inspect it and sure enough she was right. I poked it with my finger and a chunk fell off.

“Shit,” I sighed. “Sorry. I’ll make another one. Toss it out.”

“Are you okay, Max?” she asked. She was tapping her fingernails against the ceramic plate. It drove me nuts.

“Can you stop tapping your fingers like that?”

“Tad said you were short with him earlier,” she said, dumping the burger in the garbage. “And now you’re screwing up on burgers, which is something you’ve never done before. I just…well, I want to make sure you’re alright.” She started to tap her fingers again.

“I’m fine,” I sighed, throwing a new burger on the grill. “I asked you to stop tapping your fingers like that.”

“Maxi—”

“Go tell the son of a bitch he’s getting a new burger,” I growled, pressing down on the meat with my spatula.

She stood there for a little bit—I was watching her out of the corner of my eye—and then she just sighed and walked out again. I didn’t mean to be so short with everyone, I really didn’t. I was just bothered by a lot of things. I wouldn’t have minded if everyone could’ve just left me alone about it.

I made the sap a new burger and set it out on the window, hitting the bell so Mandy knew it was there. I could hear her high heels ticking on the tile as she came to grab it. I didn’t toss her a wink or a smile like I usually do. I just turned my back and pretended like I was doing something worthwhile.

I grabbed a couple more frozen patties and decided to toss them on, anticipating our lunch rush, if you could call it that. Normally we got an influx of about 10 customers at once and that was it. If you compare that to the big expensive restaurants in town that was a slow day. But that’s how it went at Marty’s Diner—nothing really happened, ever.

When I tossed the disgusting meat clumps on the hot grill, they sizzled and spat grease on contact. I watched them bubble and hiss and I got thinking—now bear with me, I know it’s kind of twisted—but I got thinking, would skin do that? I mean, would skin bubble up and sizzle like the meat patties do? Essentially it’s all just meat one way or the other, I guess. Maybe skin wouldn’t be the same, though. Maybe it’d just lie there and get all red and blistery and gross and stink up the whole place. I couldn’t even fathom at the time why I was thinking about that crap, but I didn’t care that I was thinking about it. I was curious about it.

Then I started to think about something really twisted. I thought about the pain, you know, what it would feel like to be burnt alive on a greasy grill like the one before me. I know it wasn’t normal to think like that but I didn’t mind pain. What I mean to say is, I have a high pain tolerance. I’d gushed blood on occasion and broken a bone or two, all on accident of course. But for some reason I wanted to see if it’d be the same if it wasn’t on accident. I wanted to see if my skin would sizzle.

I guess that wasn’t all. If you want to get all psychiatrist about these things, anyway; I wanted to see if by providing myself with physical pain I could distract myself from the mess in my head. Maybe I was so numb I wouldn’t even notice it. I guess if someone’s in enough mental pain they’ll look for any escape; any kind of distraction, even if it’s so twisted they wouldn’t dare say it out loud.

So what I did next is still a secret to the general public. I mean, it’s not a secret that it happened, but the reason I did it is a secret. Lies sure come in handy when you don’t want the world to see you as a deranged masochistic psychopath. I was just feeling so damn lonely and I couldn’t shake it. So what I did is, I hurt myself.

Real slow-like, I held the bottom of my wrist out in front of me. I could feel the heat coming off from the edge of the grill and instead of making me retract my arm it made me want to hurry up. I bit my tongue real hard, just in case it hurt more than I thought, and I pressed my wrist to the edge of the grill. I didn’t hold it there for too long before I had to pull away. It stung like a motherfucker—a kind of pain I can’t really describe. I mean, I probably could, but it was a sort of psychological pain, too. The twisted part is I kind of liked that part of it.

I looked at my wrist and there was a red line on it. I pressed my thumb to it and it stung. It felt really hot. Like an idiot I just kind of stood there and stared at that mark for awhile until Tad came in and stopped dead.

“Max? What are you doing?” he asked, hesitantly coming closer. “Holy shit, did you burn yourself?”

“Um, yeah,” I murmured.

Tad grabbed the spatula from its hanger and pushed me gently. “Go get the first-aid kit; I’ll take over the burgers. That’s fucking nasty, man.”

“’Kay,”

I wasn’t exactly in shock; I was mostly just confused. My wrist was really starting to hurt, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about what I’d just done to myself. I didn’t care that Tad was giving me that worried look I hated. It’s like in that instant when I put my wrist on the grill I got turned into a zombie or something. I couldn’t even think straight. I just sauntered off to get the first aid kit in Marty’s office like I was walking to the store or something.

I knocked on old Marty’s door with my good hand. I could hear his chair scrape the tile floor and then his heavy footsteps as he approached. When he opened the door he looked a little confused to see me. He knew I was supposed to be at the grill but I wasn’t.

Marty was a short, fat old man. I mean, there’s really no other way to describe him. He wore a stained white dress shirt with a pocket protector, a greasy old tie straight from the 80’s, and wrinkled brown dress pants that he had to roll up over his not-so-shiny black shoes. He had more hair on his upper lip then he did on the top of his head. In fact, what hair he did have on top of his head was on the back of his head, and it was all grey anyway. He wore thick-rimmed glasses that made his beady little eyes look ten times their actual size. It was always uncomfortable when he took them off to wipe them on his shirt or something. You just get so used to seeing ol’ bug-eyed Marty peeping at you.

Speaking of his magnified eyes, they slid down and gawked at my wrist, which I was holding to my chest all limp-like. Then he sort of caught my drift and stepped inside to let me in.

“Christ all mighty, Maxwell, m’boy! What did ya do to yerself?” he exclaimed.

“Burnt my wrist,” I muttered, snagging the first-aid kit off the third shelf and flipping it open. “It was an accident.”

He got close to my side, watching me take out the burn medication and gauze. I was tempted to tell him to back off but since he was my boss I just kept my yap shut for the sake of my income.

“Now Max, you’ve worked here for some time now, and I’ve never seen ya burn yerself once yet,” he said. “Why’d ya all of a sudden do it now?”

I shrugged. “It was an accident.” I repeated.

“Sure, sure, I don’t doubt that,”

Funny, because that was the exact thing I was lying about.

“Anythin’ on yer mind, m’boy?” he asked. That was the thing about old Marty; he liked to get personal with his employees. I don’t mean sexual harassment personal, I just mean he liked to ask personal questions, you know, to make sure you’re doing okay. You could come in for work and he’d ask how your grandma was feeling, for fuck’s sake. It got kind of annoying, especially because I hate when people get too personal with me, but it’s easy to deflect it with Marty.

“Nope,” I lied. “I just wasn’t keeping track of what arm was going where, y’know?”

“Sure, sure,” he nodded. “Is Tad taking over?”

“For now, yeah,”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Does it sting?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna be able to work?”

I kind of paused as I was wrapping the gauze around my now medicated burn. I worked at a crappy diner off the side of a truck path; what kind of question was that? I barely worked as it was. The most I did in a day was cook a few slabs of meat, shoot the shit with Tad and flirt with Mandy. I had two arms anyway; if one got tired of flipping burgers I’d just use the other one. It really wasn’t that bad of a burn. It’s not like I broke my damn arm.

“Yeah, Marty, I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?” he sighed. Another thing about Marty is he liked to get dramatic at inconvenient times. “I just—well, I gotta have ya out workin’, Maxwell. You know that, don’t ya? Ya can’t work properly if yer mind’s all bogged up with things and I can see it is. So…well, ya gotta try an’ get over whatever’s botherin’ ya, okay? You know I worry for ya; yer like my own boy, you are. I don’t want ya hurtin’ yourself no more.”

I was silent for a moment as I let those tidbits of gold sink in. ‘Try and get over it’ he says, as if it’s that simple to get over being so lonely. A guy could have all the friends in the world and still be lonely as hell. It’s like that character from that book…you know, the one that said Old Sport all the time. Gatsby, or whatever. That guy was practically famous! He lived in a damn mansion with servants and huge parties all the time but he was so lonely. He had everything a guy could want and he was still upset with life. I live alone apart from Sid and honestly I like that. I can handle being alone, but I can’t take feeling alone. Those two things are completely different. A person needs to feel loved and cared for, as cheesy as it sounds. Feeling lonely can kill. Just look at Gatsby.

‘I don’t want ya hurtin’ yourself no more.’ It’s almost like he knew, but he didn’t know at all. If I told Marty I’d intentionally burned myself, he’d make a huge fuss out of it. Hell, he’d probably start crying for me and get his wife to bake me a comfort pie. The worst part would be he’d try and get me help. I didn’t want help. I didn’t need help. I’d just been curious. It’s not like I wanted to throw a noose over a rafter and hang myself. I wasn’t in that deep.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I consoled, putting the first-aid kit back. I was never sure why he felt he needed to keep it in his office; I don’t even think he was supposed to do that. I never questioned him about it, though. “It was my mistake, alright? I’ll get back to work now.”

“Take it easy, Max. In fact, why don’t ya leave Tad to the cookin’? You can sweep the front. Okay?” Typical Marty. So concerned for my health.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

I hated cleaning the restaurant, but I really hated doing it when there were still customers inside. Don’t ask why, it just makes me uncomfortable. I can feel all their eyes on me, judging all the grease stains on my apron and thinking to themselves, ‘that is who cooked our food?’ Nevertheless I snagged the corn broom on the way back to the kitchen and walked past Tad and Mandy as if I didn’t even see them. They watched me go and I half expected them to call my name but they never did. I figured they were either over it or done with me. Either way I was fine with it in the moment. It wasn’t like people hadn’t got fed up with my bullshit before.

There were a few people scattered in the dining area when I walked out there. They were all enjoying the final crumbs of their shitty meal and talking amongst themselves. When I walked out an older woman eyed me from her booth with nothing but the utmost distaste on her face. I took a wild guess that it wasn’t the food she was disgusted by, but rather it was me. I wished I’d spat in her order.

I began to sweep around the front counter and out on the patio. When I came back in I cleaned up a couple tables and began to organize everything behind the counter. I was polishing some stupid award Marty’d got years ago when I decided to look up. Not for any particular reason or anything; I was just bored of staring at my warped reflection in the golden statue. So I lifted my head and for a split second I caught dark eyes looking back at me. At first I dismissed it, since I saw it too late to really do anything about it. When it registered in my mind that someone was staring at me I did a double-take. They were still staring when I looked back a second time.

It was some Eminem-looking motherfucker, giving me his worst stink eye. He had his hood up and it shadowed his face a little, but I could still see his glare and his mouth as it twitched from side to side. He kept stirring his Coke with his straw. He barely even blinked. Now, me being a relatively normal human being, I was getting a little creeped out by his unbreakable stare. I tried to ignore it, I really did, but it was fucking impossible. I could feel his eyes boring into my skull. I ducked down behind the counter for a second to retrieve some tape and when I came back up he was walking over to me. That’s when I knew something was about to go down. I was just too stupid to put an end to it early.

I tried not to roll my eyes. I was tempted to call Mandy out to deal with him, since this was more her speed, but I stood my ground.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“We’ll see,” he grumbled. “You Max?”

I shrugged. “Some days,” I answered. “Other days I like to dress in drag and call myself Mary.”

“Save your little comedy act for someone who gives a fuck,” he snapped, pointing a finger at my chest.

I held up my hands. “Alright, sir. This is a public establishment. Let’s maintain our manners, shall we?”

“Fuck you, punk,” he spat. “Cut the shit. I know you been foolin’ around with my girl.”

I tilted my head to the side all innocent-like. “Your girl? Who might that be?” I knew damn well who it was. I just didn’t want to go there.

“Emmie,” he replied darkly.

“I hung out with her once and happened to meet her on the street when I was bruised and bloody,” I sighed. “Forgive me for my moments of chance which I cannot control.”

“I’m gonna wring your scrawny neck if you ever ‘hang out’ with her again, got it?” he snarled, finally jabbing me in the chest with his stubby finger.

I could feel my temper heating up. “Sorry, but I have to ask: what control do you have over her exactly? She never mentioned that she had a stunningly ape-like boy toy hanging around her.”

“Listen you bony little fucker—”

He grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me towards him across the counter so the edge of it dug sharply into my hip bones. I didn’t swing at him because I wasn’t about to get fired for someone else’s stupidity.

“If I ever catch you around Emmie again I’ll bash your fuckin’ head in!”

“Max!”

Mandy’s voice almost startled me as the little female fireball raced out from the kitchen and started beating on my captor with a frying pan. He released me and I stumbled back into the shelves. Mandy was still beating the guy with the pan and yelling expletives at him as he headed for the door.

“I don’t ever want to see your grimy face in here ever again, do you hear me?” she screeched.

The little bells atop the entrance door dinged as he ran out. Mandy returned to me, dropping the pan on the counter and holding my face in her hands. I gave her a deadpan stare.

“Max, are you okay? Say something.” She pleaded.

“I’m fine,” I breathed, gently pushing her away from me.

“What’s going on out here?” Marty and Tad had decided to join the party. By that time every eye in the restaurant was on me.

“Some psycho attacked Max!” Mandy explained, waving her hands dramatically in the air. “I got him out but…oh, it was scary.”

“Max, are you alright?” Tad asked, giving me a worried glare. All aversion from our previous episode seemed to have dispersed.

“Like I said, I’m fine.” I repeated.

Marty gave me a look that was sympathetic and tired all at the same time. He was so sick of me and I could tell. The pit in my stomach got heavier as I looked back at him.

“Listen, Max,” he sighed. “Maybe you should take a couple days off, y’know, recuperate and whatnot.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You can’t do that! That guy—it wasn’t my fault, Marty!”

“I know that, Max, I know. And I’m not firing you. I’m just recommending you take some time off and relax. You’ve been under a lot o’ stress the past few days, am I wrong? I think it’d be best for ya.”

I looked around at my boss, my fellow employees, and the customers who quickly tried to avert their eyes as if they’d never been staring in the first place. Everyone was giving me the same sad look. It was a look that simply said “Your life is a shit hole and you need to get your act together.” For a split second I wanted to beat the shit out of everyone giving me that look. I knew I had a shit life. I knew it wasn’t getting any better. But I didn’t need their fucking sympathetic eyes to tell me that. I didn’t need them at all.

“Whatever,” I sighed, ripping off my apron and dropping it on the counter. “I’m out.”

“Max…” Mandy murmured.

I just shook my head and pushed past her through the kitchen doors. I was done looking at her stupid, pretty face. I was done with the whole idea of people. I was frustrated and tired and angry. I was letting my emotions get the best of me. That was just one of the many mistakes I made in my life.

Once I put my car in drive I had no idea where I was going. I was basically just driving with no intentions. I didn’t really want to go home because that’d be like locking a lion in a tiny cage. I drove around for probably twenty minutes to a half an hour before I parked by the bridge and headed down to the Wolf’s Den. In my current state of mind it was probably the worst choice, but it felt like my only choice. If I could find some drugs and a girl, I’d be in high spirits in no time. Any girl would work, so long as her name wasn’t Emmie. If I saw her when I was in that mood she’d make me feel worse, and feeling worse was the last damn thing I needed.

Emmie was the last damn thing I needed.