Donald

Short Story by Rey David Morales of Cerro Coso Community College
2015 Met Awards - Second Place for College Fiction

Foamy water swirls and crashes in the stainless steel sink. It washes over white porcelain as plates are heaved, one by one, out of their sudsy depths. Set aside to dry after inspection, the dishwasher contemplates a time when dishes were in fact made of pearl. Pearl diver, that sounds much more impressive. The Crew Cuts play on the radio. The cook, a man in his twenties with a short stature but athletic build, sings along to the hopeful dreams of ancient pop stars as he prepares the next meal. The front door bell jingles loudly.

“Looks like he’s here,” the cook says with a smile. “After this order I am going out there to the front to cover for you-know-who. Be on your best behavior with Big Chief, okay?”

Big Chief is actually the owner of the restaurant and the boss, and genuinely an easy going guy. Cook makes his exit out the Westernesque red double doors to the main dining hall to take on his new role as a waiter. The boss makes his entrance. He is a short, slightly overweight man of fifty-ish, wearing a signature trucker cap with the name of the eatery embroidered on the front. They exchange pleasantries and continue working.

After a few orders business dies down. The boss, in his idleness, strikes up a conversation with the dishwasher.

“¿Como Estudo?” he asks. The boss speaks no English. Though he can read and write it and somewhat understood when someone is trying to get his point across, his tongue never mastered it.

“Bien, mas o menos,” the dishwasher responds in his Chicano tongue. They then discuss other areas of life such as one’s condition both in health and romance. The dishwasher always says he’s doing well in both (a harmless half-truth). Another subject that comes up is family, particularly how the dishwasher’s two sisters are fairing since leaving his employment the previous spring. They were peaceful departures. The dishwasher says they are both fine. One has gone into business with a friend and the other now works as a social worker in the city. The boss admits that he misses them. They were good people who would never pull the “crap” his senior waitress—the woman the cook is filling in for now—pulls.

The boss asks how his studies are going. The dishwasher states (like a Catholic prayer) that he graduated high school last year, and furthermore, it’s now the middle of summer. The boss nods in remembrance and asks what he’s planning on doing now. The dishwasher doesn’t know.

Soon a big table arrives and the dishwasher is thrown to the front so that the cook can help the boss with the order, as the Cook puts it, of “Ronald Calderon” proportions. The dishwasher hates working the front. For some strange reason he feels a strange wave of embarrassment whenever he sees a familiar face. It’s not so much the individual that gives him shame but the blank smiles they give him, eyes that say they are but common restaurant-goers with no concern for anyone outside their booths, a look that the dishwasher had not experienced a year earlier. Maybe he had given it, too.

No faces today. The dishwasher works the floor efficiently and at ease. Eventually the customers leave and the day turns to night. The boss leaves early, telling them they did a fine job and to keep his share of night’s tips. The cook gives him some anyway.

A lonely stranger stumbles in toward closing time.

“Hey, can you handle this?” the cook says, “I’m going to start getting ready for clean up.” He heads into the kitchen.

The stranger staggers to the cashier’s counter and stops himself from slamming into it. He asks if they sell chile verde but wrapped in a tortilla. The dishwasher asks if he means chile verde burritos and receives a fervent “Yes! To Go.” He pays with a debit card and attempts to get cash back. The dishwasher tells him that service isn’t offered here. The man apologizes and sits down.

When his order is finished he grabs it with shaky hands, states, “The Misses thanks you,” and stumbles out. The dishwasher goes to the back.

“Geez, did you see that guy? He was on something for sure.”

“Yeah, I know him,” the cook says. “Name’s Donald.”

“Donald?”

“Yeah, went to school with my dad, I guess he was some kind of genius. Got a perfect score on his SATs, every university wanted him.”

“What HAPPENED?”

“Don’t know exactly. Stayed for some girl, girl got hooked on meth, he did too. Last I heard his ‘Sweetheart’ left a few years back and he shacked up with someone else.”

“A genius … he could have gone anywhere he wanted.”

“Where else would he go, this town’s awesome.”

The dishwasher refuses a ride home only to discover he can’t be picked up. He begins his thirty-five minute walk home. There are few street lights in town. Save for a few passing cars, the trek is mostly dark. Along the way he passes streets where old friends once lived, illuminated by dull moonlight.

He still thinks about her sometimes. About words unsaid and flesh that never really touched. But the stars are beautiful here. He takes a short-cut through a dirt alleyway lined with wooden fences. Halfway through the path one of the town’s only streetlights illuminates a familiar figure, a crushed Styrofoam container lying next to it. Heart pounding, he walks up to it. It’s Donald, apparently mugged, face stomped, a torn wallet at his hand.

He fought desperately for that wallet, not for the currency in it but the words stitched into it: To my Einstein. –B. Between his fingers is clutched a picture—of a younger man and a pretty woman.

The dishwasher quits the following month. He is gone by summer’s end.