Chaotic Not Random

When I lived in San Francisco in 1999, I worked the graveyard shift at a 24-hour diner called Sparky's. I would work from three in the afternoon till nine at night at The Cheese Steak Shop, hurry to close the store, and then jump on my bike and race to Sparky's, where I would toil until six in the morning. I worked both jobs five days a week, seventy hours total. I had Tuesday and Wednesday off. When I got home Tuesday morning, I would flop into bed and sleep like a corpse for at least fourteen hours.

I worked these insane hours to keep pace with San Francisco's insane cost of living. I paid $525 monthly rent for a room (not an apartment) with a sink in the corner. I shared a bathroom with the floor's other residents, and for a kitchen I had a microwave in my room and a refrigerator in the hallway. And everything in San Francisco costs more: gas, car insurance, books, movie tickets, food. The one benefit to working at two restaurants was that I mostly ate for free. Even working seventy hours a week, I couldn't make ends meet -- when I gave up after a year and moved to Denver, I took $14,000 in credit card debts with me. I can remember almost nothing of what I spent that money on.

The other employees at Sparky's were mostly young, predominantly gay, and thoroughly hipper-than-thou. They sported tattoos and piercings in odd places and wore ironic T-shirts or Boy Scout uniforms. I had a tattoo and wore four earrings, but I couldn't pull it off -- the others patted me on the head and called me "Wilbur." I wanted to have sex with most of the women who worked at Sparky's, although of course I never did. My ego was not much assuaged when two of the more effeminate waiters made it clear that their rectal channels were available for fucking any time I desired.

They all listened to Bob Dylan and Siouxsie & the Banshees and obscure punk bands with names like "Monkey Cunt." Most of them played bass or wrote songs or spun vinyl in their spare time. Sparky's encouraged us to bring our own CDs to be played randomly over the diner's sound system, and I took great pleasure in sabotaging the ultra-scenester music mix with my Christian rock albums and my pop-pop-poppiest Matchbox Twenty and Amy Grant discs.

I worked as a line cook at the toast and fries station. After the other cooks finished slapping together omelettes and burgers, I supplied toast (rye, white, wheat, or sourdough) or french fries as specified. I was terrible at it. It's not that I couldn't make toast and fries; it's that I think slow and act slower and am easily confused by chaotic, high-pressure situations, like a Saturday night bar rush with tickets flying like confetti and harried servers shouting orders and behaving peevishly. The other cooks -- who had actual cooking responsibilities such as grilling meat and frying eggs to order -- thought I was pathetic. I suppose they were right, but I still believe toast and fries to be a position of underappreciated difficulty in the gastronomic hierarchy. I mean, there were four different kinds of toast to think about, man!

When I finished my first shift at Sparky's, one of the other line cooks approached me. "You wanna stick around? After work, a bunch of us usually stay and have some beers."

So I stuck around. I didn't want to look like a limpdick in front of my new friends, so I drank a great number of beers. If you've ever wondered whether or not it's a good idea to drink a large quantity of alcohol when you're exhausted from fifteen hours of work, I will now assure you that it is not a good idea at all. It is an even worse idea to try to calm your stomach by eating a bagel topped with cream cheese and onions.

I puked in the restroom. When I came out, the other employees -- clearly alarmed and wondering what kind of alcoholic limpdick they had on their hands -- persuaded me to take the bus home instead of riding my bike. So I left Sparky's and stumbled toward the Market Street train station. This was at seven o'clock on a Thursday morning. Bankers and stockbrokers on their way to the Financial District filled the station, dressed in smart suits and carrying briefcases. I looked like hell. My clothes, spattered with bits of food, reeked of grease and sweat. The stink of alcohol hung around me like a fog. I weaved as I walked and my hair stuck out in oily clumps. When I got to the station, I leaned against a pole and closed my eyes. Big mistake. The world pitched and spun, and I opened my eyes and lurched toward the handicapped ramp, where I vomited loudly and copiously. None of the pinstriped princes so much as glanced at the drunk homeless man retching his guts out.

I boarded the train, where the other passengers allowed me my own seat. I transferred to the Van Ness Avenue bus, where I promptly fell asleep. I woke up twenty minutes later to the driver hollering "Last stop!" I shuffled off the bus and realized I had gone at least a mile too far. I shambled home, fell on my bed and went to sleep. The phone rang seven hours later and I awoke with a start, then freaked when I realized I couldn't open my eyelids. (That will happen when you forget to remove your contacts.) Somehow I found the phone.

"Hello?"

"It's Dayle at The Cheese Steak Shop. You're late, man."

There's a moral in all that somewhere.