It’s almost the end of lunch when I sit down with my tray. Gordy is out sick, and I plan to eat alone to avoid unwanted peer contact. I took my time leaving class and visiting my locker and stopped twice, without really needing to, in the bathroom so the food line would be almost closing when I got my plate of mac and cheese. I found a table on the outskirts of the room where I could sit by myself. Actually, there is one other person at my table—a stooping guy with a stubbly jaw, in a white uniform and a cloth cap that resembles a dinner napkin. He’s the worker who sets up and removes the food in the steam tables, and he’s taking a short break.
“How’s the macaroni?” he asks. Despite the hat, his professional interest gives him a kind of dignity.
“Pretty creamy. You should find better tomatoes, though.”
“You know how it is,” he says. “They go with the cheapest stuff they can find. Every place is like that.”
I heard a rumor that this guy, Ray, has an alcohol problem. I wonder if he deliberately went looking for a job in an institution in which most of the people have never had their first drink. Maybe it makes him feel safe. Innocent, even. Like he’s one of us, just starting out in life.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we’re two peas in a pod, but our sitting together seems right. Ray and I, Ray and me. Not really innocent, but two guys who’ve been batted around by life. The drunk tank, the shock treatments, the carnival jobs and the cafeterias, maybe one or two eviction notices, desertion, disappointment, we know it all cold, and what I don’t know I can imagine. Bits of a song enter my mind, a blues song, Ray’s blues, and I wish I knew him well enough to try it out loud.
They don’t like what I’m dishin’
No, not they. She.
She don’t like what I’m dishin’
She (something something) bad
She only knows she’s missin’
What she never should have had.
Well, this is real life, baby,
It’s what’s cookin’ everyplace,
And if you don’t like what I’m servin’
Find someone else to feed your face.
I’m not sure that captures Ray, though. I don’t think he would turn mean like that at the end. If his wife or girlfriend were dissatisfied with him, he’d be more the type to just live with it, grateful for what he had.
The first bell rings and the shuffling starts—just a few sneakers at first, then hundreds and hundreds of them, an orchestra of feet. Mitchell and Andy walk by in the crowd. Andy spots me and stops, but I shake my head, look down at my plate, and wave him along. For once he does the right thing: He keeps moving.