|
When I graduated from high school, I won an award for "Most Improved Student." How I won this award, I'll never know,
but it came with a $500 scholarship. I was heading into my busiest summer with work and my new girlfriend. I still lived
in the same town as my parents, but we managed to avoid each other for four straight years. Life was falling into place,
slowly but surely.
Ty and I had applied and been accepted to college out east, and my girlfriend was coming with us.
How we survived is beyond me - we had no food, very little money, no furniture, no transportation - we lived like paupers
and it ruined all of us. I broke up with my girlfriend in the first month and Ty and I fought all the time. By May, we were
ready to move back home.
I realized while I was out there that architecture was not my calling. I had always liked
building things with Lego and blocks as a kid and liked to draw, but I had never considered how much work actually went into
designing stuctures.
To help make ends meet, I got a job in a restaurant. It was a national franchise thing that
drew in the seniors, teenagers and lower-middle class folks that every place like this does. The menu was simple - eggs,
meat, potatoes - and I fell in love with cooking. My co-workers were great for the most part and my boss - what a guy. If
I needed extra shifts for the money, he'd throw as much as he could my way. The other guys on the line were awesome to work
with. We were always joking around about something, usually one of the servers, but managed to get our work done.
I
remember my last day there. I had given my notice a month earlier, just to make sure that my boss could get someone to replace
me in time. The shift was winding down and I was dreading what would happen at the end of it. I'd heard stories from everyone
about what they'd do to people on their last day: cream pies, eggs in the hair, spraying with the hose at the sink... good
thing I thought to bring a change of clothes.
I worked the evenign shift that night - 4-12. We were a 24-hour operation,
so after work, the evening staff usually hung around for coffee after work. It was 11:30pm when my boss came into the kitchen
and told me I could leave early.
"Ok. Are you sure that it's okay?"
"I'm the boss. What I says goes. You
got that?" Gino was a large, middle-aged Italian guy with a kick-ass sense of humour. He hired me on the spot when he saw
me. "You're skinny. You can clean the tight spots." That was my interview.
I walked around the corner of the kitchen
into the dishwashing area. The lights were off, a common occurance at that time of year. It was too hot out to have the
lights on all the time, so we shut them off in the dish area and sometimes on the line. I kept walking down the hall to the
change room and figured I'd managed to escape the attack. I changed into my regular clothes and headed back out to the restaurant.
I walked back through the dish area and didn't notice the giggles. I was almost out of the room when they struck:
cream pies in my face, eggs raining down on me, water from every direction, god-knows-what sauces poured over me. Someone
brought a camera to take a picture of this most auspicous event. All I knew at that point was I wanted to strip naked and
shower off with the hose from the sink. I was sticky, wet, smelly, gooey... overall, gross. The floor was a mess; my co-workers
were smart and wore plastic bags over their clothes.
I stood there, dripping who-knows-what on the floor and thanked
them all. My hair was helmetted to my head by what I knew was eggs, but there was a mystery liquid there too - teryaki sauce?
Maybe condensed milk. I didn't know. All I could tell was that whatever made it on to my face tasted good.
I cleaned
myself up - "Get the hell out of my dish area! Matt wants to look nice for the girls!" My boss could make paint peel if
he wanted to - and went out to the front. I sat down with Mike, Chris, Samantha, and Jenny. I'd had a crush on Jenny the
entire time I was there. She was one of those 'untouchables' - a girl that any guy would kill for, but all were afraid to
date. We'd gone out a couple of times for coffee and to a movie, but nothing major.
I must have struck it lucky that
night - I sat beside Jenny for the entire night. None of them worked until 4pm the next day, so we stayed out all night.
We talked about everything - jobs, sex, current events, movies, books... it was great. We left at 6am and stood out in the
parking lot saying goodbye. I was moving the next day - my entire apartment was packed into my little pickup and I was going
to spend the night at a motel before heading out the next day.
"Um, Matt? I know you've got nowhere to stay till
later. Did you want to come crash at my place and maybe we can hang out later?" Jenny was the most beautiful being I'd ever
seen. She was tall - 5'8", 115 pounds, red hair, green eyes, athletic, dainty, absolutely amazing. I knew that if I went
with her, the only sleep I'd get would be after we had sex. I couldn't do that to her - I was leaving in 24 hours, never
to return. Even more, I couldn't do it to myself.
"Jenny, I like you. I like you a lot. But I can't. I wish I could,
but I can't. I want to remember you like this - with the sunrise shining off your hair and looking into your sleep deprived
eyes." I must have been sleep deprived, too - mushy stuff like this _never_ came out of my mouth.
We hugged, exchanged
phone numbers and addresses and climbed into our vehicles. I watched her pull out of the parking lot and turned to stare
at my windshield. Realizing what I'd just done, I let my head smack onto the steering wheel and swore. I could do the totally
romantic Hollywood thing and go follow her and let things happen, but no. I had a moral or two that I needed to uphold.
So I went to a park, stretched out on the bench seat of the truck and slept the day away. I've never forgotten her.
"Hey,
Matt, right?" I was being bellowed at by Charlie, or Crazy Chuck as I liked to think of him. I'd been listening into their
converstation while my eyes were closed and to tell you the truth, these guys seemed reasonably intelligent. For the last
10 minutes, they'd tried to figure out why we were here.
"Yeah... yeah. What did you say?" Never a smooth one, me.
Nope, not at all.
"Al and Ed were discussing how likely it was that this was a government conspiracy. I pointed out
that if it was a government conspiracy, they would have already fed us teh halucinogenic drugs, right?"
"True, Chu-Charlie.
Very true. Consider what we had for breakfast - rather, um, disgusting, right? But we all ate it up like there was no tomorrow.
See, who ever is behind this knew what they were doing - they fed us crap, knowign that we'd eat every last bite because we
didn't know when our next meal would be. Yes, Charlie, you are absolutely right." Like I actually believed what I was saying.
I had no idea what was going on and I wasn't going to start jumping to conclusions before I found out why we were here.
A
buzzer sounded overhead and a voice come on over the PA system. "Would all residents please report to the dining hall. Failure
to report results in severe penalty."
"Wow. Finally. I hope they serve some grub." Ah, Ed... the human garburator.
Once
inside the dining hall, we made our way towards the left side. I sat down on the outside with Ed on my right. A podium was
set up at the front of the room. Someone had set up a projection screen and a small table with some papers on them. There
was a quiet murmer going through the audience.
"Hey, Matt - what do you think this is all about?" Seems like Ed was
a little scared. Hell, so was I.
"I don't know. " The room was filled with tense anticipation. Somewhere behind
me, I could hear a conversation.
"I got $20 on aliens."
"Hey, I want to put $50 on that and $25 on mass coverup."
"What
did I tell you before? You can't place two bets. I'll put you down for $75 on mass coverup."
Wow. People sure were
taking this seriously.
A sharply dressed, middle-aged man walked up to the podium. "Turn the lights down, please."
The
room went dark and the screen went bright white. "Ahem, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for attending this meeting. I am
Hugo Heyden, your group leader. I will begin by handing out a package that will introduce you to the facility and your purpose
here."
A couple of the security people I saw at the front desk yesterday began handing out these manilla envelopes
around the room. I got mine and opened it. Inside was a couple of pamphlets and a book - 'How Your Life Has Changed'. Strange.
"Now
that you all have your envelopes, please direct your attention to the screen at the front of the room. Mack, could you get
the lights, please?" This Hugo guy seemed to take control of the place without any effort. Every head in the room was facing
directly forward and focused on the screen.
|
