At the Y

At the Y

       By Him

Sneiko (that’s not pronounced like the watch but as in “hide” and “abide”) bullied his way to the front of the line and demanded some attention. He was a Slav (slave--as we all are to ours--to his culture). You can tell by attending to his name, by its look and sound. Sneiko, Kreiko, Javeikochuf. All Slavic names, right?

       Anyways, Sobchuk walked up to the MacDonald’s waitress and yelled at her as if she were deaf: “I want a burger and fries! I’m in a hurry!” She continued doing something on her little monitor and did not raise her eyes, as if she were accustomed to men who yelled and bullied. She suddenly looked at him in her sweet way and, bending toward him from the waist, actually pulling her slight frame up onto the counter and leaning as far into his face as possible, screamed with highest energy, “Get off my case, you asshole! You’re all alike! Fuck off! Just FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF!” And then she went back to her studied figuring and smiling while she punched in numbers and selections of food and drink.

       Sneiko stood there for a minute and then reached in over the counter and took aholt of her shirt at the throat and tried to drag her up and over. Big mistake. In a twinkling, before he could have a thought or even part of one, she felt under the counter and out came a butcher knife that gleamed as she raised it and then came down frequently, fast, like in speed that someone might achieve who has ADHD and is playing a piano arpeggio. Into his face, across his nose, twice into his throat and down his hairline with blood spurting and him realizing all this only once the cutting was done. She put the knife back in its place after rinsing it and after sliding back off the counter. 

Again she went on with her figures and then smiled at the next customer, bending at the waist to one side to look around Sobchuk’s large frame, who stood there transfixed and worried. He realized after she had finished with the person to his rear what had happened to him and instead of showing the good sense of turning and leaving he sat his bum on the counter in order to put his legs over so he could really get at her. Now she was angry. Grabbing his hair while he was off balance, she pulled him onto the floor with surprising strength. She dragged him over to the French fry vat, him kicking and screaming and calling her a slut and worse, and without any sign of deliberation or slowness she hoisted him up with a single heave and shoved his head up to the chin into the boiling fat. He sizzled and it hurt him. You could tell by the way his legs thrashed and his arms flailed trying to grab something by which to pull himself out. When she’d had him in there for a little while and his resistance was lessening, she lifted him bolt upright and hauled him to the ice cream dispenser. She held his puffy, golden-brown face upside down under it. She pulled the lever and the ice cream twirled into his mouth, which she had propped open with a plastic fork. When it was overflowing she asked him if he still had any complaints and dropped him. Leaving him lying there, she returned to work. No one said anything. The Slav lay quiet now behind the counter on the floor and all the waiters stepped over him with burgers, fries and milkshakes.