wetbacks

the entire kitchen staff at izumis quit wednesday. i came in on thursday night, and put an apron on to wash dishes. at first it was monotonous scrubbing, then the restuarant got entirely too busy and plates kept piling up in my plastic box and people were saying are there any more water glasses? and i'd say ok, i'll wash some more water glasses but i couldn't really keep up, and I just kept scrubbing away and then it wasn't so much monotonous as it was completely hellish. i wasn't gently tapping plates in the garbage can to dispose of excess foodstuffs anymore - i was grabbing piles of rice and half-eaten sushi with my bare hands and throwing it into the garbage, throwing dishes into the sink, half-scrubbing the shit off, no longer caring about touching vile foods. i remember the sink faucet running the whole time, and i squished my hands into soy soaked rice and not caring about all the disease festering in peoples' mouths, and all the food didn't really become food so much as it was just stuff, cold, wet stuff that needed to be moved. if i had to move fast, i could touch anything and never think twice about it. i'm done being prissy and clean i guess. and later in the evening, a spoon fell into the garbage disposal, and i turned the faucet off to look into the hole of that dark machine to see if i could locate the lost silverware. wearily, i thought about putting my hand down in that machine and imagined my whole hand getting chewed up, i imagined someone accidentally turning the garbage disposal on (with my hand in it) and me just screaming that i've lost my right hand now what the fuck am i supposed to do, so i made sure three times that the garbage disposal switch was off, that the safety mechanism was on, and i stuck my hand in a garbage disposal big enough to gobble up my forearm in a few seconds and felt for the spoon, which i did find. as i pulled my arm out of the unit, my hand did, in fact, get caught on something in the garbage disposal and the flesh on the side of my (left) hand tore, but i didn't really think of it so much because plates in my plastic bucket were piling up, so i let my hand bleed while i scrubbed and scrubbed. i wasn't really sure to what extent i had damaged my hand because the blood was constantly being washed away by the sink faucet, and my hands were purple and waterlogged anyhow, making it impossible to assess the damage. It didn't hurt so much, as i was under enough stress and thinking more about the damned plates and the drinking glasses and the assholes going outside to smoke cigarettes when it could've been their hands in the garbage disposal that were bleeding. i couldn't feel too badly about the dishes being blood-stained as they were prescrubbed and then thrown into a washing machine where they would be pummeled by steaming water jets and detergent, but i wonder how clean they really got. if i knew someone had bled all over my dinner plate, i might feel somewhat uneasy about eating off it. whatever.

so i have a massive gash on my left hand about four inches long. it looks like someone was peeling a carrot and was only allowed one or two passes with the peeler to scrape off as much as they could. the cut stings like hell and i can only imagine it is infected, after touching all that foodstuff. a few days ago, i was contemplating that sometimes maggots will fester in your skin if given the opportunity.

dishwashers often earn minimum wage and come from mexico to america to scrub dishes. old dads and grandpas will complain that pedro is taking their child's summer jobs from them, and get mad at mexicans and maybe even swear that it is unfair. the mexicans, they will say. pedro, they will say. wetbacks.

I WAS GOING TO WRITE WHAT I MEAN BUT I GOT A LITTLE BIT TIRED OR STRESSED SO I MASTURBATED THEN I THOUGHT OF ALL THE NEAT THINGS I WAS GOING TO DO AND ALL THE NEW THINGS I WILL DO INSTEAD AND I IMMEDIATELY FELT TIRED I STARTED TO SQUEEZE MY HEAD WITH MY FINGERTIPS AS HARD AS I COULD HOPING MY HEAD MIGHT BURST INTO RED GLOP BUT IT DIDNT, OF COURSE.

THEN I TENDED TO SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS AND FELT DISTRACTED FROM MY PRIMARY OBJECTIVE - WHICH IS WASTING TIME SO I MADE AN ABRUPT EXIT AND EMBARRASSED MYSELF IN FRONT OF OTHERS THEN I DROVE HOME AND THOUGHT ABOUT MY CHILDHOOD BECAUSE I WAS PASSING THROUGH AN OLD FAMILIAR NEIGHBORHOOD AND I DECIDED I HATED IT NOW AND I SPED READILY PAST ALL SCHOOL ZONES IGNORING CHILDREN AND OLD LADIES THINKING MAYBE I'D FINALLY HIT A PEDESTRIAN DEAD AND THEN MY LIFE'D HAVE SOME SORT OF DIRECTION BUT I DIDNT HIT ANYONE AND I DROVE SAFELY TO MY HOUSE WHERE I SAID HELLO TO MY RELATIVES BUT DIDN'T VENTURE INTO A MEANINGFUL CONVERSATION BECAUSE THERE'S NO FUCKING CONNECTION AND I PROBABLY DON'T WANT THERE TO BE A FUCKING CONNECTION BECAUSE I DON'T THINK SOMEONE DRIFTING AIMLESSLY TOWARD SELF DESTRUCTION SHOULD REALLY HAVE A SOLID CONNECTION WITH SOMEONE BECAUSE THEY ARE BENT WE ARE ALL BENT WE HAVE ALL BEEN

THEN I LOG INTO THE INTERNET AND CHECK MY EMAIL 20 FUCKING TIMES TO MAKE SURE I DON'T HAVE ANY NEW EMAIL I MIGHT HAVE MISSED THE PREVIOUS 20 TIMES I CHECKED MY EMAIL LAST FOUR HOURS AGO AND BECAUSE MY INBOX IS STILL NOT GETTING ANY NEW MAIL, I IMMEDIATELY FEEL ANGRY AT EVERYBODY THAT DOESNT RECOGNIZE MY GREATNESS LIKE I HAVE BEEN DOING SOMETHING GREAT MY WHOLE LIFE I'M SURE I HAVENT REALLY BUT SOME PEOPLE TELL ME I HAVE AND SOMETIMES I FEEL GOOD BUT MOST OF THE TIME I JUST DOODLE AND WALK AROUND AND THINK ABOUT MYSELF AS A KID AND HOW I'M PROBABLY STILL A KID NOW BECAUSE IF I WERE A KID NOW, THAT WOULD EXPLAIN ALL MY IRRESPONSIBILITY.

THEN I DECIDED I SHOULD DO SOME WRITING AND I THOUGHT WELL WHAT HAVE I GOT TO SAY TO ANYBODY THAT WOULD AMOUNT TO ANY GREAT LUMP SUM OF IMPORTANCE. I PULLED OUT A NOTEBOOK I HAD WRITTEN IN A FEW DAYS AGO AND READ WHAT I WROTE. SOMETHING ABOUT A FAT MAN PUSHING BUTTONS ON A TINY GADGET, LOOKING ENTRANCED. SOMETHING ABOUT A MAN WITH AN OPENED BOX OF DOG TREATS IN FRONT OF HIM AND NO DOG IN SIGHT: PRESUMABLY HE ATE THE TREATS WITH HIS COFFEE. AT LEAST SOME OF US AREN'T EMBARRASSEDTO EAT THE SAME FOOD DOGS EAT, I REMEMBERED THINKING. I MOSTLY REMEMBER FEELING ANGRY OR GUILTY OR DISAPPOINTED OR DESPERATE.

i.
the suburbs are still at night. in the distance, you can hear a slow rumbling from the lives of men and women as industry turns, even though most of us are sleeping and barely alive. one time i was at a house on a lake and i couldn't hear any cars or motors or anything, just the soggy sound of my feet squishing through mud as i made my way closer toward the water. the noise of birds and insects drowned out any sense of this man.