Page 16 of A Fool's Game

“He’s sitting right here, you know.” I shouldn't let the guy get to me, but I’m too tired right now to keep it together.

Taylor doesn’t even glance in my direction. “Glad to hear you’re not just dead weight. I thought you’d be a complete waste of my time, but it sounds like you’re helping Seth out.”

It almost sounds like a thank you, so I take it as such. “I’ve never worked in a dish pit like this, but I spent some time volunteering to build schools and dig sustainable water infrastructure in Central America and Asia. I’ve done some hard work in my time.”

Taylor just shakes his head. “If you think you’re going to impress anyone around here with that shit, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I didn’t mean…I just meant…” I’m annoyed and tired and hot and want nothing more than to be in my bed. “Whatever.”

“Yeah. Whatever. I’m sure that’s what the Central Americans said when you climbed out of your air-conditioned transport with a shiny new shovel and took their jobs.”

I nearly choke on my sandwich in surprise. “Excuse me? No one paid me to do the work. That’s what volunteering means.”

“They didn’t pay you, no. You paid to go. And if you’d taken that ten grand or whatever and just donated it to the town where you were volunteering, they could have hired locals to do the job and bolstered their own economy. Instead, the only thing getting bolstered was your ego.”

“And his college applications,” a woman to Taylor’s left chimes in.

Taylor nods. “And his college applications.”

My sense of self-preservation kicks in, and I take a bite of my lunch without answering. This guy’s a dick, and maybe everyone else here is a dick as well, except my new buddy Seth. But I need these hours to make my own problems go away, so I have to put up with it.

And you know what? They’re right. Sure, I could have strolled into any college in the world with just my family name on the application, but my volunteering did look great. It’ll look great again when I’m applying for internships and jobs at the end of this school year.

I’m playing a different game of life than these people, and that’s okay. I just need to get through these hours, and I’ll never have to see any of them again.I’ll sure never look at my dirty dishes at a restaurant the same again, though.

“I’m going to grab coffee. See you in there?” I say across the table, speaking to Seth directly.

He nods, but the camaraderie of earlier is gone from his expression. I get it. This is his team, and I’m the outsider.

I make it through the rest of my eight-hour shift in the steamy, smelly dish room and toss my soaked jacket in the hamper next to the locker bay. My T-shirt is also pretty wellsoaked, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I make a mental note to buy myself a rubber apron.

I’m not leaving without some kind of note of my hours, so I stop by the kitchen office on my way out. Taylor’s sitting at the desk, working on schedules by hand with a pencil.

“Hey,” I say. He looks up and then right back down again.

“Is there some kind of form I need to track my hours?”

“I’ll find you something tomorrow.”

“I’d feel more comfortable if I got to record my hours for today before I leave.”

That gets his full attention. He sets the pencil down on the desk and looks up at me, leaning back in his swivel chair, arms crossed. “Oh, that would make you more comfortable, would it?”

The ire in his voice leaves me annoyed and confused. “Listen, man. Did I do something to piss you off? I mean, I get that you don’t like me, but I just don’t understand why.”

He just shakes his head and stares at me, stone faced.

Like an idiot, I ramble on. “I’m free labor. Isn’t that at least a little helpful to your budget?”

“You’re not free anything, rich boy. You’re more work for me. I don’t need free labor.” He spits the words as if he can’t stand the taste of them. “Does it look like we’re hurting for money around here? We’ve got three thousand hungry students lined up out there three times a day, shelling out good money for a meal. I need real labor. I need all of my full-time positions filled with people who need these jobs to support their families and get health insurance. Not delinquent, entitled college students who are going to show up when they feel like it until they’ve completed their hours and then fuck off back to their real lives.”

If I’ve learned one lesson from my lawyer father, it’s not to argue with an angry person. “Yeah. I guess I can see that.”

My surrender has the opposite of my intended effect. Taylor stands and places both hands on his desk, leaning over and glaring at me. “You’re going to be a pain in my ass for the next three months, and I don’t have time to babysit you.”

I know I should keep playing nice, but I’m just so tired.

Sorry, Dad.

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