The bus rolls across the California state line, but it doesn’t look like it’s supposed to. I’d imagined that California would mean an immediate change, that as soon as I crossed the border, the grass would turn green, the ocean would be out there on the horizon blue as hell with surfers cutting across, and on the beach, hotties walking big, fancy dogs. But the desert just goes on and on until we climb over some small mountains and drop down into the twinkling L.A. basin. It’s dark, and all the towns that list their names on the tops of highway signs seem to be wasting their time. It all looks like L.A. to me, all of it blending right into the same sea of lights and highways. I don’t see any ocean, but the bus finally moves into the city that’s been hanging on the horizon of lights for about an hour or more. We make our way into the bus station area. It’s dirty and shady looking, not a lot of people walking around like in downtown San Antonio. Just a few homeless people and junkies. There’s chain-link fencing everywhere, with aluminum warehouses that look abandoned but are still protected by rolling barbed wire. Gigantic trash Dumpsters, corroded and overflowing, line the alleyways.
The bus station is sleazy. Makes me homesick for the one in San Antonio. It smells like burning diesel fuel. There’s a long line of people wanting to get out, and here I am, happy to be getting in. In front of the greasy snack bar, there’s a cop, and he’s keeping a lookout for poor homeless types who want to crash. He walks up to this one old guy, old enough to be his father, who’s put his head down, and he says while tapping him with his fingers in this very official way, “This isn’t a hotel.” Not exactly a welcome wagon. I walk through the terminal and head out onto the sidewalk when it hits me that I don’t know where I want to go or what I should do exactly. I can’t call my moms. She doesn’t even know I’m here yet, and I don’t want to call out of the blue in the middle of the night. I don’t know where my pops is staying, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to head there. I feel like calling Grams and letting her know I’m alright, but it’s too late to wake her up.
I decide to take a cab to Mission Viejo, where my moms lives with Abuela. The ride there is long, much longer than I remember from the last time I was here. But I don’t remember much about the last time. When Naomi came to S.A. to take Moms and Antony away, she told my grams that it would be “healthier” for me to come along, to see where they were going to be living so that I wouldn’t feel like they’d dropped off the face of the earth. It didn’t work.
The trip was miserable and long. We drove with my aunt at the wheel, a little U-Haul trailer swaying behind us the whole way, my moms out of control, crying a lot and then talking manic about how good it was going to be for her to get a rest and how I’d be able to come visit as soon as she got better. We played road games, but I wasn’t into it. I sat in the back and didn’t say much of anything. I was too down. I was mad, too. Mad at Naomi for bringing her big ass down there and taking Moms and Antony. I was mad at my moms for being weak, for not having the guts to say that I had to come live there, too. I was even mad at poor Antony because he was going to stay with Moms. When we finally got to Mission Viejo, I couldn’t think of anything but that I had to go back to San Antonio. I never talked about it, hoping that maybe somehow they’d forget. But just a week later Naomi put me on a plane and that was that.
I pay the cabbie nearly sixty dollars. He made damn sure I had the money before we took off. After the bus drive with all those people all crammed in and hot, sitting alone in a car feels like a victory.
Mission Viejo is cool in a fake-assed way. It’s full of malls and has this artificial lake right in the middle of it. There’s huge stores, a gigantic Sizzler, and a movie gigaplex on every palm tree–lined street corner. It’s early now, ready to dawn. I’m tired. I get the guy to drop me off at a Motel 6 just off the highway. I’m probably only a couple of miles from my moms’s place. It’s weird being so close but not being able to just knock on the door. I decide it’s better to sleep here tonight, scope out the neighborhood, and think things through tomorrow. I’ve gotten phase one over with, and now I need to be creative if I want shit to go down right. In the motel room, which is nice for a Motel 6, I think about the reasons that I need to play up in my talk with my moms to convince her to let me stay: that Antony needs a father, that I’m going to work and help her out with the dough I’ve saved up, that I’ll get my GED. But mostly that we need to be together and that I miss her and Antony.
I’m trying to keep it simple; I’ve changed and I’m here to prove it to her. Reasonable. Direct. Honest. How can I lose?
* * *
The next morning, I take a hot shower, shave, brush my vampire teeth, put deodorant on, and get in my best T-shirt and jeans. I head straight for the giant Sizzler I saw the night before. It’s morning and there’s no customers yet, just a few waiters and waitresses putting the salad bar up. There are two Mexican guys sitting at one of the tables. They both have mustaches, porn-style, and are wearing short-sleeved dress shirts, the type that make you look like a tent revival preacher. One’s nametag reads JUAN AYALA/MANAGER. The other guy has a nametag that says SETH PONCE/ASST. MANAGER. Ayala and Ponce, a very good welterweight matchup, or a pair of knucklehead conquistadors who got lost before they found shit.
They stop talking when I get up to the table. Ayala looks up at me. He’s got terminal fuckface. It’s a lethal combination of stupidity, pissed off–edness, and arrogance that always equals asshole boss. “Yeah,” he says like I just interrupted a meeting of the joint chiefs of staff.
“I’m just wondering if you need any help. Are there any openings?”
“How old are you?” he says, looking me over.
“Sixteen, but I’ll be seventeen in a few months,” I say way too quick. He laughs, looking over at Ponce like he can’t believe the sight of me.
“You got experience?”
“I can bus tables. I’ve also worked in a molino.”
“This isn’t a molino. It’s a restaurant, and we keep things tight. You want to work here, you gotta be quick, on time, and you gotta be available.” He’s trying to look intense, icy. Ponce is looking at me, too. The stares are supposed to be giving me a sense of just how intense they are, of just how tight a ship is kept, that they crunch balls like cough drops and eat nipples like potato chips.
“Yeah, I can work whenever you need me. I’m good.”
“We’ll see about that,” he says, looking over at his silent partner. “Go get your shirt. You’ll need to start tomorrow evening. I need a closer.”
I get my Sizzler shirt from this sleepy looking white chick named Megan who’s wiping down the front counter. “I’m the cashier,” she says, handing me my brown polyester shirt. I guess I’m supposed to be impressed and I say, “Cool,” and take my ass back to my room to plan my next move.
So right out of the box, I’m employed. Granted, a screwed job, but it’s a start. Now I have to call Grams. I dial her number and after about two rings, she picks up.
“Hello?” She sounds tired.
“Hi, Grams,” I say like I’m calling from down the street with nothing too important to say.
“Robert,” she says, sounding excited. “Robert, boy, is that you? Where are you?”
“Grams,” I say again and then stop, because I’m not sure what to say. “Grams, I’m in L.A.”
“Oh Roberto, Roberto,” she says, and the way she says it makes me sad, not only because I can hear how heartbroken she sounds, but also because there’s something in her voice that tells me that most of all, she’s sad for me.
“It’s okay, Grams.”
“It ain’t okay, boy,” she says. I know that it’s true. “You’re hurt, probably haven’t had anything to eat. Where are you? Are you at your momma’s?” It’s a reasonable question, but one that if I answer will sound bad.
“I’m not quite there yet. I’m taking my time. I have money,” I say, trying not to give in to the sad tone of the conversation. I want to sound confident, like I have a good plan. “I’m feeling good, Grams.”
“How long you gonna stay?” she says.
“I don’t know, Grams. I really can’t say because a lot of that depends on how Moms and Antony are doing. They might need me.”
“Boy,” she says like she doesn’t really want to say what she feels she needs to say, “I don’t want you getting hurt on the inside like you’ve been hurt on the outside. Your bones’ll heal, even your poor belly’s going to heal up. I don’t want you coming back here with your corazón todo quebrado.” Funny to hear her talk about heartbreak. It shakes me up a little to hear Grams getting weepy.
“Grams, it ain’t about that. I’m just here to make sure everything is alright.” There isn’t much more to say and she doesn’t try. Before I hang up, I tell her to please not call my moms looking for me, at least not right away. “I need a few days to settle in. I have a plan. I’ll give you a call so you won’t worry.”
First thing I do is to find my abuela’s house. Mission Viejo is complete suburbia. The streets are wide, with palm trees rising up every few dozen yards just to remind you that you’re in goddamn California. It’s sunnier than in Texas, only not nearly as hot. People look healthy, confident, like they don’t have a goddamn care in the world. And cars? It’s like a parade of shithead BMW-owners on every street.
I stop at the McDonald’s just down a couple of blocks. I’m eating a cheeseburger when I spot Antony at the counter. He’s with my Aunt Naomi. It catches me by surprise and I almost don’t recognize him. I’m not ready for it at all. He looks twice as big as when I last saw him. His hair is darker, almost as black as mine, still curly, but long so that he’s looking like a big boy now, not a baby like I still picture him. He’s wearing white shorts and a light blue T-shirt that’s got a Pokémon figure on it. They look baggy on him because he’s skinny as me.
Naomi’s got him by the hand. She pays for a Happy Meal and Antony and her go to the back where they can eat outside. She’s gonna watch him play.
I can’t feel my legs. It’s a real shock, seeing him and almost not recognizing him. That means he wouldn’t know me at all. Maybe Naomi, but not him. Or would he have? He is my brother. Is there something about that, a sense, a brotherly sense that made me notice him and would have made him remember me? I want to go watch him play, but I don’t want Naomi to see me, so instead I dump my food and walk out. It’s getting time for me to go to work. I walk back because I have a while and I can’t help but think about Antony. It makes me mad, seeing him by accident. Shit like that shouldn’t happen with your own brother. I mean that if someone should be living with you, or you with them, you should know where they are and they should know where you are, and there shouldn’t be accidents.
After Moms and Pops split, Antony was my charge. My moms never had to ask me to take care of him; I just did. That kid was like my son since I’m twelve years older. I took him around a lot because even though Antony was a baby, he never acted like one. He never made a fuss or cried when I took him to the store. He wouldn’t even ask for anything like other kids always do. What was most cool was that even though he was just a little kid, he saw me as his pops, but not some blurred vision. He saw me at my worst and at my best. The thing was that even when he saw me at my worst, fighting with Moms when she tried to get me to stay home instead of running off and getting high again, he still knew he could count on me. I always came home, always took care of him. That’s important to a kid.
I walk to work, thinking about how goddamn big he’s gotten. You know, he probably would have recognized me.
* * *
First thing I notice at the Sizzler is that everyone looks annoyed. Even the customers. There’s a hundred people in line and dozens more milling around the salad bars. Everybody is poking their fingers in the bowls, scattering lettuce and egg crumbs to hell and back. Some of them are sucking down food right from the bar, and little kids are running around the ice cream machine throwing chocolate flakes and making a general shit sty for someone to clean. And for it being a salad bar, there are some hefty folks loading up on pudding and those little greasy meatballs. One guy, wearing one of those silly golf shirts that make wimpy dude’s nips look even more chicklike, is sticking his mits right into the cucumber slices, like he’s the only fucker alive in the restaurant.
Everyone is taking that all-you-can-eat deal seriously. People waiting for tables rubberneck at others who are done but still sitting around shooting the breeze. One guy says to his wife, “I’m going to shove my steak knife down that bastard’s gullet if he doesn’t hurry the hell up.” Then I notice the busboys running around with brown plastic tubs and white towels wiping down booths like there’s no tomorrow. I can see Ayala standing on the sidelines, trying to look imperious, convinced that he’s more Caesar than salad.
I’m about to turn around and get the hell out, but just then he spots me and nods me over. He’s got his arms crossed and he says, “Punch in and come back out with one of those tubs and a wet rag.” I remember that I’m here to prove I’m a man, that I can work. Besides, I can always walk, so I go in the back area. There’s a huge stainless-steel counter with a gigantic dishwasher and two sinks big enough to take a bath in. There’s a stack of tubs with dirty dishes sitting on the floor and covering the counter, but because he is so short, I almost miss the dishwasher himself. He’s an older black guy and he’s working up a storm back there.
He doesn’t even notice me. He’s stacking the dirty dishes in a wire rack. When it’s full, he pulls on this metal arm and the giant washing machine opens up and he pushes the rack inside it. Then he pulls on the arm again and the big door slides shut and the machine goes into action. It sounds like a miniature hurricane is taking place in there. After about two minutes, the machine stops. He pops it open, pulls out the clean dishes, and puts in a dirty batch. It looks cool except that the guy is sweating hardcore and moving so fast that it seems like he’s afraid of being swallowed by the mountain of dirty tubs. Every five minutes, more tubs are brought in by sweating busboys, and they grab a clean one and head out.
Ponce, the assistant manager, gives me a blank timecard and I fill in my name. “Jus grab a tuv,” he says, “an go to it, my fren.” He sounds like Pacino in Scarface. I go back outside the double doors and Ayala is still out there. He looks over to see that it’s me. “A few quick ground rules,” he says sounding like a tough guy, but looking like the middle-aged guy going to fat that he is. “You got this job because this Dominican I hired a couple of weeks ago called in sick twice already. I don’t go in for that shit. So you get to learn from somebody else’s fuck-up. Next, my main rule is this, and it’s simple. Don’t mess with me. If you do, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. You come in late or miss work, or knock off while you’re here, I’ll give you shit schedules and a very few hours to work. If it gets to be a habit, I just fire you. There’s lots of wetbacks waiting for jobs around these parts. Get it?” He looks over at me and tugs on his pornstache. I try really hard not to smile. His tough-guy act is weak. My grams can be a hell of a lot scarier than that, but I nod. “Go to it,” he says. “Got a lot of tables to clean. I hate to see dirty tables.”
During a smoke break in the back, Jerry, this white busboy with manic blonde hair and a scruffy Fu Manchu, introduces me to Maurice, the black dishwasher. He’s kind of short, with a lot of white hairs in his beard. He’s sort of wall-eyed. Not too bad, but bad enough that you have to guess which eye to look into. He’s older, probably more than forty.
“Hey man, we’re at the bottom of this motherfucker. They’ve got hierarchy here. That means that there ain’t no solidarity in the workforce. At other places, the employees stick together in hating management, see?” Maurice lights a joint. “Want a hit? It’s the only way to work around this place. I need it to focus.” I take a hit and pass it to Jerry, but he turns it down. “I gotta go back in,” he says.
Maurice keeps on going. He talks fast and he makes what he says sound important, like he’s on to something you’re not. “See, at other jobs I’ve had, it don’t matter what you do or what you make. If you’re just expendable labor, you had something in common with everyone else around the place. But in the restaurant game, it’s different. Goes like this, young man: manager, assistant manager, head waiter, waiters and waitresses, head cook, cooks, cockroaches, rats, bad meat, and finally busboys. There’s no chance of mistaking that shit, either. That motherfucker Ayala and his little bitch Ponce, they mean that shit when they say they don’t want to hear noise from you. The busboy’s only reason is to whip around with a greasy brown tub and clean up after the guts as fast as your ass can take you.” He takes another toke. “I better get my own black ass in there and start to washing. I’ll give you some more info after work. You closing, right?” I nod. “Okay, then, I’ll check you after.” He walks inside and I hang back for a couple of minutes till I feel the buzz kick in and then I go inside and grab another tub.
The system is simple: As soon as the gut’s ass is off the chair or squeezing between the table and booth, you must be there ready to clean off the scraps, wipe down the mess on the tabletop, rearrange the salt, pepper, sugar, and centerpiece so that the next gut can sit down. You carry around a white towel soaked with a solution of water and ammonia. The fumes get everywhere and give you a serious headache. Meanwhile Ayala is walking around in the back yelling his head off that you’re not working fast enough. “Sonuvabitch, there’s a hundred guts in line tonight and you jerks can’t keep those tables clean! If I walk out there and see so much as one dirty table and a line of guts waiting, I’m gonna fire the whole damned bunch of you useless fuckers.”
But when you get in the groove, really get into a zone, and you’re running around cleaning those tabletops, it’s satisfying, almost a religious experience, setting things right, clearing away the shit to leave something behind that’s clean, neat, everything in its place. The problem is, people are just waiting to sit down and fuck everything up all over again.
The guts, they’re the worst angle of the job. Watching them eat is enough to turn you against humanity, make you wish you were a dolphin. It’s nauseating. People waste tons of good shit. They’re dirty, lazy, cheap, suspicious assholes. Any gut who comes into a Sizzler expects to be treated like a king. No matter what he may look like, what he’s wearing, what line of work he might be in—minister, lawyer, bricklayer, prostitute, mailman, mechanic, housewife, teacher—it doesn’t matter. Guts leave one greasy mess behind and some of them even shoot you a look of contempt that says, “Hey, suck my gut slime, busboy.”
* * *
My second day and I’m sitting there waiting for the Malibu Chicken, which I dig, and this waitress I haven’t seen before brings it out to me. I notice her eyes first. They’re light brown, and they’re big and shaped like little leaves. She’s got a pretty smile, shylike, with lips light pink, the bottom one real round the way I like. She puts the plate down and says, “Hi, I’m Marie. You’re the new guy, right?” It’s nice that she doesn’t call me the new “kid” or the new “busboy.” She’s about thirty years old, a lot older than me, but she doesn’t talk to me that way. “Well, I hope you like it around here. Don’t let Ayala get on your nerves. Just ignore him.” And she walks away slow, knowing she’s beautiful.
“That Marie is nice,” I say to Jerry during a break that night.
“Yeah, she’s cool. She’s kind of fucked up, though.”
“Yeah?”
“She’s always being stressed by her old man. He’s come in here a couple of times and got loud with her. Once he pulled her out of the restaurant after it’d closed and Ayala called the cops. He hasn’t shown up around since, but you always hear her talking to the other waitresses, especially Flora, about what ‘that asshole Joe’ has done.”
After we close, I notice her getting into a red Escort. There’s a bearded man in there, way older, looking short. There’s a little kid in the backseat who’s psyched to see her mommy.
* * *
After work that night, I’m telling Maurice and Jerry how much I hate the customers. “Guts treat us busboys like we aren’t even there. I don’t know how the waitresses keep it together.”
“Don’t feel sorry for those bitches,” says Maurice. We’re sitting in the back of his old Ford pickup. Jerry nods. “Fuck no.”
“They’re pampered by Ayala. They’re the upper class around here. They fucking call the shots. They shake that snatch for Ayala and Ponce and those two let ’em make up the schedules.”
“Yeah,” Jerry says. We’re drinking a couple of beers that we got at the 7-Eleven. “They look down on us busboys. And let me tell you, don’t let them fool you by trying to act nice to you. All they want is for you to do their shit for them.”
“If you’re going to make this gig pay,” Maurice says, “you’re going to have to steal some tips. Look, you do most of the work, and they sure as hell ain’t going to give you a cut. And I’ll tell you what, that’s about the truest thing you’ll hear about life. Remember it.”
Maurice tells me that he’s got a system down that’s guaranteed to make us all some extra scratch, no risk. It’s beautiful. We take tips and he backs us if we’re caught. “Sooner or later, you’ll get sick of working for peanuts and you’ll start taking those tips, so you might as well never get caught. Number one, don’t get greedy. This busboy last year, name of Jaime, used to go around to every table and sweep up everything, nickels, pennies, dimes, dollars. He wouldn’t leave jack for the waitresses. Hell, even the dumbest-assed waitress gets suspicious if everyone in her station decides to stiff her. What you gotta do is set a daily limit, and no matter how tempting it gets, don’t go beyond it. Don’t be like those goddamn all-you-can-eat guts.
“For instance, when I started I set a reasonable limit—twenty dollars. Just enough to buy a six-pack of beer when I got out of work and some gas. Brother lives all the way up in Northridge. Now, if you know you got a big event coming up and you going to need cash, you can make an exception—occasionally. Rule three, don’t get sticky fingers on really slow nights. Too much time for the servers to catch you in the act. The best nights are Friday and Saturday. And of course holidays. You can make a motherfucking killing on Mother’s Day. You can get fifty, sixty dollars if you know how. Bitches won’t know nothing. Rule four, never admit shit, even if you get caught red-handed. If they catch you with five dollars in your pocket, don’t admit shit. Ever. If you get the technique right, you can cover your ass easy, although sometimes if a waitress bitches enough, Ayala’ll come and have a talk with you. Just keep denying it, though. You got one of those innocent faces. I bet you could pull it off no problem. You down?”
I nod. “Fuck yeah. I can always use extra cash,” I say.
“My man,” he says, giving me his fist to tap. “The technique is simple. Your advantage is you get to the table first. Most waiters and waitresses won’t pick up their tip right away. It looks bad, like they’re only in it for the money. Those bitches gotta act like they’re there because they like watching guts suck a plateful of fatty shit. Now right inside that nasty mess those motherfuckers leave behind on the table, you’ve got to spot the cash immediately. As you bend over to wipe off the booth or chair, give a quick, sneaky look to see if you’re being watched. If all signs are clear, right in front of everybody put the tip in a “safe” place so you can clean the table. As you drop plates and utensils into the brown tub, accidentally brush a dollar or two along with the dishes. When you got this move down, you can progress to my patented move: tip-switching. That’s the busboy’s bonanza: When a gut leaves the waitress a five-buck or ten-buck tip, you pull a one lickety-split out of your pocket while pretending to clean something from under the booth. Then switch the one for the five or ten. It’s lucrative, but it’s risky business. See, there ain’t nothing so eye-catching to the average waitress as a ten-dollar tip. If the gut drops it in front of them, their breathing speeds up, pussy gets moist. They’ll hardly be able to concentrate. That’s the warning sign not to pull the switch.”
“Where do you come in?”
“If someone spots you, you just tell the waitress that you must’ve accidentally swept the money into the tub. Bring them back to check out your story. Act indignant. Say, ‘Your money is in one of these tubs.’ Then start looking and I’ll shove a couple of bucks in a tub near me. Then I’ll say to you and the waitress, ‘If you’re looking for money, there’s a couple of bucks in this tub.’ It’ll work every time. We split the money fifty-fifty.”
Ayala’s got me opening the next morning. It’s a Saturday and he’s let me know I’ll be on my own. “Get here ready to work, Robbie,” he says fucking with my name. Maurice and Jerry sympathize. “That’s screwed up,” says Jerry. “I’d been here about two months before they sprung that one on me.” Maurice drives me to the Motel 6. “Why you live here?” he asks.
“I’m just staying here temporarily,” I say being too tired to explain it. Maurice doesn’t take the hint. “Shit, I know it’s temporary. No one lives in a Motel 6, man. But you oughta be able to find a place around here that’s cheaper than thirty bucks a night. Hell, you’ll go broke.”
“I’m going to move in with my moms,” I say. “She lives around here.”
“Alright,” he says, but I can tell he wants to keep asking questions. Luckily, he’s tired and I get out of his truck. “Later,” I say and go into my room and go to sleep after I wash the greasy funk out of my Sizzler shirt.
It sinks in right away that I’m going to hate opening the restaurant more than anything else I have to do around this place. Most busboys hate closing because it takes until midnight or longer. After the cooks and waitresses are done, the busboy is still there, cleaning all the pots and pans and mopping the kitchen and washroom floors. But opening means cleaning toilets and bathroom floors. Then you have to vacuum the entire dining room, fishing out whatever pieces of salad or gristle have fallen beneath the booths or chairs. A quick look at the baby chairs shows at least six or seven that are crusted over with Jell-O or some other nasty shit. Babies are little animals.
After cleaning baby-gut slop, I go back to the washroom and clean out all the pots and pans from the night before that were full of crusted gravy and other heart-clogging shit. And I get all of forty-five minutes to do the whole job. Ayala doesn’t believe in giving extra hours. I run around the restaurant with the damned clunky vacuum, getting down on my hands and knees looking for that elusive chunk of meat that might start stinking up the place if it remains hidden. So I’m bustling to and fro, sweat’s running down my face, and it being Saturday, the place begins to fill up fast.
Ayala comes into the washroom where I’m already washing dishes. He looks at me hard. “Are you the one who opened this morning?”
I turn and look at him. “Yeah, what’s wrong?”
“Well, for starters, it’s hard for a gut to wipe his ass without any toilet paper.” He gives me this sarcastic smile that makes me want to cram his big stupid head in the dishwasher. “If you can’t do the job, you’ll be out on your culo fast around here.”
I think about my moms, who needs money, and instead of telling him to fuck off, I nod and say, “Yeah, I’ll pick it up, boss.”