A New Story Most Thursdays

Another Edition of Thursday Stories for a New Year!

Happy New Year, Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.

You can find all of my stories and more at the Marco Etheridge Fiction Website:

Marco Etheridge Fiction

This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features The Dishwasher, a coming-of-age story about a busboy and the strange dishwasher who appears in town. This story first appeared in the journal Red Coyote, published in 2023. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.

The Dishwasher

by Marco Etheridge

He came from somewhere in the East, Cleveland maybe, and he disappeared into the West, Des Moines some folks say. I don’t know why he stopped here, this worthless town between East and West. If I could ask Simon, he’d just laugh at the question. That was the dishwasher’s name. Simon.

Back then, everyone called me The Kid. That’s not my real name, but inside Pederson’s Ice Cream Parlour, I didn’t have a name. I was invisible. Hey, Kid, clear that table. Hey, Kid, we need clean soda spoons. You get the idea. I was the busboy. A ghost. But not to Simon.

“Hey, Dude, I’m Simon, the new dishwasher. Judging by the tub under your arm, I’d say you bus the tables.”

There he was, hand stuck out into the air between us, waiting for me to reach for it. Crooked smile under a black snap-brim, sharp, quick eyes, the rest of him whip-thin and cloaked in black denim. I guessed he was at least twenty.

I reached for his hand. His grip was firm and sure.

“Most everyone calls me Kid.”

Simon gave my hand a shake, but he didn’t let go.

“Kid ain’t a name.”

Those quick eyes were locked on mine, not mean-looking, but not ready to let me off the hook.

“Ben, my name is Ben.”

He let go of my hand and gripped my shoulder.

“Well, Ben, it looks like we’re partners, table roper and dish wrangler. So, clue me in. What’s the setup here at Pederson’s Ice Cream Parlour?”

I told Simon what I knew, that Pederson’s was rotten at the core. Not that you could tell by looking at the place. It wasn’t built to look old-fashioned like so many other joints you see these days. Pederson’s was the real deal: old brick façade, lace-bordered picture windows, big booths, a time capsule from the years of the Great Depression. It was the kind of place where the few who had money could eat dainties while watching the have-nots shuffle by on the mean streets.

The damn joint was probably rotten from the start. 

Elm Park had something wrong with it. Still does, if you ask me. It’s an old suburb balanced on the fulcrum between rich and poor. Go East, you get into the city proper, and the streets turn hard real fast. Go West, you hit River Glen, and the streets get posh. Try walking around River Glen in torn jeans and flannels. Cops will be there in ten minutes, max.

Elm Park-River Glen High School was every bit as schizophrenic as the two towns it was named for. The parents of Elm Park kids worked the factory floor at Borg-Warner, drove buses and delivery trucks. The River Glen kids, their parents owned the factories. These days, folks call it entitlement. Back then, we just called it being rich.

Elm Park used to be posh back in the day. By the time I was bussing tables at Pederson’s, the shadow of the city had oozed over the line and sucked the poshness right out of it. Pederson’s teetered on the edge between the shadow and River Glen proper, as far over on the west side of Elm Park. Step inside Pederson’s and you’d find yourself in a microcosm of the east-west, rich-poor thing.

Simon laughed when I said that.

“Microcosm, huh? That’s a hell of a fine word. Okay, I get the gist here. It’s a crappy town full of working stiffs and a few rich bastards. No different than lots of towns I’ve seen. But what’s the setup here, on the inside? Who’s who and what’s what? That’s what I want to know.”

“Okay, bottom of the heap is us, the dishwasher and the busboy. The kitchen crew makes fancy sandwiches and plates. I guess you could say they’re neutral. They might party with us once in a while, but not if the ice cream crew is around. The ice cream kids rule the roost, the boss lady’s pets. They’re the ones with orthodontist smiles and clear skin. The kids from River Glen.” 

“So that’s how it is. Just so I know, what’s the dividing line between these two burgs?”

“Uh, Harlem Avenue, I guess.”

“Right, there’s always something. Railroad tracks, or a street, some kind of boundary. These kids from the other side, they’ve got the rest of you buffaloed.”

“No, Simon, you don’t understand. They’re the rich kids.”

He smiled at me and gave me a wink.

“Riddle me this, Ben. If these jerks are so rich, why are they dipping ice cream?”

Simon was different. You could tell just by looking at him. Most of the kids working at Pederson’s crew tried real hard to look like glam rockers. Feathered hair on the boys as well as the girls. Bell-bottoms, baggies, and platform shoes.

 Not Simon. He wore his hair cropped short. No baggy jeans or flannel shirts, no platform shoes. Button-fly black jeans, working guy shoes, and plain black tees.

And it wasn’t just the way he looked. Simon had been to strange places. Cleveland, for one. This was not his first dishwashing gig, that was for sure. Even old Miss Pederson didn’t scare him, and she scared the crap out of everyone.

She appeared in the back room, stepped right out of a cloud of steam like she’d conjured herself there. I’m stacking dirty tubs on the conveyor, and Simon is busy spraying and sorting. He stops, just like that, like he knew she was there. Turns around with a smile on his face.

“I see you’re settling in, Mister Blake. I trust our busboy has acquainted you with our routine.”

Miss Pederson was a bona fide witch. She sported a dowager’s hump covered by a black dress, a wandering eye, and a crooked finger that scared the bejesus out of anyone she pointed that thing at.

She almost never came into the back room, but there she stood, all five feet of her looking bigger than an ogre. I looked for an escape route, but Simon just nodded and smiled.

“Sure thing, Miss Pederson. Ben’s quick as a fox. Everything’s fine back here, don’t you worry.”

The old harpy looked at me. I tried not to stare at that damn wandering eye.

“Ben.”

That was all she said, as if the word was a new one. Then she vanished back into the steam as if she’d never been there. It was Simon’s laugh that broke the spell. He cocked his head at me, gave me a look and a nod.

“She’s gone, Ben. Nothing to be scared of. Give me the lowdown on the boss lady.”

I told him about Miss Pederson running the place forty years at least. Told him how the old harpy didn’t care about anyone that worked for her, didn’t give a single damn whether they lived, died, or cooked and ate someone on the crew. We were all peasants in her crooked eye. Only thing that mattered to her was that the sundaes were pretty, the sandwiches fussy and perfect, and that her old biddy customers, the ones who paid the bills, left the place happy.

“Yeah, she’s an icy old bitch, ain’t she?”

Then Simon laughed and went back to sorting slimy ice cream dishes. As the days passed, I learned that Simon’s laugh was his answer to most everything.

I learned other things from Simon as well. A few days into our second week, we had a slow night. The big Hobart dishwasher barfed out the last steaming tray of clean dishes, and all the bus tubs were empty. Simon grabbed his smokes off a shelf and me by the elbow.

“Break time, partner.”

We slipped out the fire door and stepped into the dark alley. The alley was a dead-end, blocked off on the West by the back of a Greek pizza joint. A cigarette flared out of nowhere, illuminating the craggiest face I’d ever seen. I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Relax, Ben, it’s just Nico.”

Then Simon turned to the shadowy figure.

“Ya su, Nico. Ti leei?”

The old man gave off a deep chuckle, then coughed into his fist.

“Ya su, Simon.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

“You speak Greek, Simon?”

“A little. I worked in a Greek joint back in Ohio. The cook taught me to swear like a Greek sailor, but along the way, I picked up some of the polite stuff. Time’s a-wasting. Grab that rack of whip cans, will ya?”

Pederson’s ran through a whole lot of whipped cream. The stuff got delivered in wire crates, the big steel cylinders cradled inside like artillery shells. Empty whip cans were racked and stacked in the alley.

I grabbed a rack off the stack and held it out to Simon.

“Drop that rack and have a seat.”

He sat down on an empty packing crate and pointed to another. I plopped the steel rack down on the concrete and sat.

“You got your nozzle, Ben?”

“My what?”

“Rookie. I figured, so I grabbed you and an extra. Keep it handy from now on.”

He held out his hand, and I saw two plastic whip nozzles. You can’t use the whip cans without a nozzle, and the ice cream crew keeps them locked up at their station. I picked one of the plastic caps from Simon’s palm.

Before I could say a word, Simon grabbed an empty can from the rack and snapped the nozzle onto it. Then he lowered his head and stuck the nozzle in his mouth. I heard a low hiss. Simon leaned back and looked up into the night sky. Then he blew out a long breath, dropped the can back into the rack, and grabbed another.

“Can up, Dude. We don’t have all night.”

He hit the next one while I stared. He dropped the second can into the rack, blinked a few times, and shook his head.

“Oh, yeah. Look, that half is yours. Start from the outside, so you don’t huff the same can twice.”

Then the shadow leaning against the wall moved.

“Hey, Nico, you want a can or two?”

The cigarette flared, and the old Greek shook his head.

“No thank you, Simon. Yamas.”

I looked at Simon.

“It means cheers. Nico’s cool. Okay, your go.”

I shrugged and reached for a can.

The gas hissed and I sucked it into my lungs. I held the stuff, exhaled, and two heartbeats later, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I dropped the can back into the crate and reached for another. Simon laughed and lit a cigarette.

“There you go, Ben.”

While we were huffing the rest of the crate, Nico flicked his cigarette to the pavement. The glowing arc seemed like the funniest thing ever. Simon and I were both giggling when we bounced back through the fire door and into the dish room.

It wasn’t long before the trouble started, and it started with the ice cream crew. Not much of a surprise, looking back on it. They couldn’t figure Simon out and that bugged them. I overheard them bitching about the new dishwasher. Nobody minded their words when I was around, me being a ghost and all. I tried to warn Simon, but he just laughed.

Simon was older, but the ice cream dippers were bigger. Way bigger. Two of the dippers were linemen on the high school football team, the kind of lunkheads who enjoy hitting people. Digging ice cream from the frozen bins just made their arms bigger.

The stuck-up River Glen girls dressed the sundaes, dribbling the chocolate sauce and sprinkles, swooshing on the whipped cream. The rich girls belonged to the dippers, or that’s how they saw it. So, when a couple of those chicks started giggling over the new dishwasher, the jock boys were none too happy about it.

The River Glen girls weren’t the only ones who took notice of Simon. I overheard two of the waitresses talking about the sexy new guy washing dishes. One of them was Susan, the beautiful junior college girl I was madly in love with. Hearing her whispering about Simon broke my heart into a million pieces. I almost dropped my bus tub.

It was all my fault, of course. I’d never breathed a word to anyone about my one true love, least of all Susan. Maybe if she’d known how I felt about her, things would have turned out different. But she didn’t know, so I don’t blame her or Simon for what happened.

It was another slow night. Simon and I were catching a break in the alley, huffing cans while Simon smoked. Nico’s cigarette flared in the dark, over by the back door of the pizza joint. Just three working guys getting through another shift.

Then the fire door banged open, and Brad was framed in the doorway. Of course it was Brad, the biggest, dumbest guy on the ice cream crew. He looked around the alley, spied Simon, and marched over.

Simon sat on his crate, smoking and watching. He waited until Brad was towering over him with his big, meaty hands on his hips, feet set wide in some football stance. Then Simon stood up and flicked his cigarette away. Simon stood a full head shorter than the big jock.

“Yo, Simon.”

Brad said it with a sneer, stretching Simon’s name into two long syllables. Simon didn’t seem to care, except maybe he smiled a little bit.

“It’s Brad, right?”

“You got it, and that’s not all you’re going to get if you don’t stop messing with our girls, weirdo.”

“Which girls are we talking about, Brad?”

Brad raised his palms from his hips and rolled his head like he was beseeching the football gods to grant him patience. Then he ticked names off on his sausage fingers.

“Cheri, Shelly, and Cindy. The girls on the ice cream line. You stay away from them, especially Cheri.”

“I’m guessing this Cheri chick is your special girl. I got that right, Brad?”

Brad stuck a big finger in Simon’s face.

“Fuck you, freak! Stay away from her!”

I was scared shitless. I figured I was next after Brad beat the shit out of Simon. But Simon didn’t seem scared at all. Didn’t even raise his voice.

“Brad, you’re gonna want to move that finger out of my face.”

“No, I want to shove my whole fist into your ugly face.”

That’s when I saw the arc of a cigarette butt and Nico’s shadow sliding along the wall. Brad must have seen it too, ‘cause he turned his head for just a second.

A bunch of stuff happened at once and so quick that I barely remembered it afterward. Brad glanced at Nico. Simon’s hand shot out fast as a snake, so fast all I saw was a blur. He did some kung fu thing to Brad’s hand, twisted the asshole’s fingers back onto his wrist, some way they were never meant to bend. Brad let out a shriek, like a scared little kid.

Then time switched from real fast to real slow. Brad tried to get his hand back, but Simon did some more twisting, and Brad sunk onto one knee. Nico’s shadow stopped coming nearer and slid back towards the pizza joint. Simon stood over Brad. I saw a tiny smile on his face.

“You know, Brad. I think maybe you should go back inside and leave us alone. What do you think?”

“Shit, man, let go of my hand.”

“Sure, when we have an understanding. You go back inside, and we quit this shit, or I break your wrist.”

Brad nodded, hard and fast.

“Yeah, whatever you say.”

“Okay, I’m going to let you go now.”

And Simon did. I figured Brad would smash Simon to a pulp with his good hand, but he didn’t. The big ape scuttled to the fire door. Just before he stepped inside, he gave me a murderous look over his shoulder.

The next thing I saw was Simon’s hand reaching down. I grabbed it, and he hoisted me off the packing crate I was sitting on.

“Shit, Simon. This isn’t over, you know. Brad was really pissed. I’ve never seen him that angry.”

Simon gave me a funny look.

“You think that guy is angry? You got it wrong, Ben. He’s scared shitless.”

“Scared. What’s Brad got to be scared of? He’s the biggest guy at Pederson’s. He’s one of the biggest guys at school.”

“That may be, but the truth is he’s scared, him and the rest of his crew. They’re scared of their parents, scared they won’t get into the right school, or the right fraternity once they get into a school, scared they’ll get left behind. They’re full of fear. That’s why they act the way they do.”

“Well, scared or angry, you better watch your step.”

“You’re probably right about that. Scared is way more dangerous than angry. Fear makes them desperate, and a desperate guy will do stupid shit.”

Then he punched me on the shoulder.

“C’mon, break’s over. We should get after it.”

It was three days later they caught me. I just stepped into the mouth of the alley, getting ready to switch from high school loser to busboy. Not much of a change when you think about it.

So, swung the corner on Marion Street, darted into the alley, and ran into a wall of ice cream dudes. A second later, I was their medicine ball, the three of them pushing me back and forth between them. I tried grabbing at their hands, but they just laughed at me. Then the one they call Chad, Brad’s right-hand man, cuffs me with a backhand. It wasn’t much of a hit from him, but I saw stars.

Brad gave me a pop to the side of the head that rang my bell pretty hard. Those three dicks kept shoving me, with Brad and Chad smacking my head until the last one got sick of it. The smaller one, Jason.

“Shit, Brad, why are we beating this little bitch. He’s not worth it.”

“We’re not beating him. This is just a little warm-up. Isn’t that right, kid?”

“Let me go, Brad. I gotta clock in for my shift.”

“Fuck you and fuck your shift. You better watch your step, kid. You’re hanging with the wrong sort of friends. Someone might get hurt. You hear me?”

I nodded my head. Those bozos stopped pushing me back and forth, but my feet kept trying to spin. I was heading for the ground when the one named Jason caught me.

“Easy, little dude. You got it. Get your ass inside and get to work.”

I staggered up the alley and through the fire door. I tied on an apron, punched the clock, and grabbed a bus tub. The place was dead, but I had to go find something to do out front. I didn’t want to be in the dish room when Simon showed up. I didn’t want him to know. 

A few days passed, and nothing happened. There was no more trouble from the ice cream goons. Simon and I still took our breaks in the alley. While we got high, he told funny stories about other joints he’d worked. I laughed along with him, but in my head, I was wondering if the storm had passed. It hadn’t.

Friday night rolled around, and it was busy as hell. I bussed tables like a quick monkey, but every table filled with new customers as fast as I cleared them off.

I grabbed an empty dish tub and hit the ice cream salon. Scooped up sticky sundae bowls, rolled up the goo-dribbled paper placemats, wiped that table down hard and fast, then on to the next one. My tub was almost full when Susan slid past me and flashed me a beautiful smile. My heart melted into that gooey bus tub.

Susan carried a tray of drinks, six tall cokes, ice rattling in the glasses. She swayed up to the ice cream counter and slid the tray on top. Behind the counter, the dippers were busting their asses. Big stupid Brad raised himself out of the frozen tubs.

“What’s this?”

“Drinks for the line. You guys are busting ass.”

“We got drinks already.”

Susan leaned in close and lowered her voice. I barely caught what she said.

“These are special cokes, courtesy of Simon. A peace offering. He figured you guys could use something to take the edge off.”

Brad grabbed one of the cokes and gave it a sniff. A stupid smile spread over his face.

“Hey, maybe that weirdo isn’t so bad. Thanks, Susan.”

Susan smiled and slipped away, all beautiful and smooth, while the sundae girls yelled at Brad.

“Three splits, two classics, and we need them now, Brad.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a wad. Here, everybody grab a drink.”

I snatched up my heaped dish tub and headed for the back. Simon threw me a wave from inside a cloud of steam. The big Hobart was barfing out racks of clean dishes. He pointed to the racks.

“They need water glasses and coffee cups in the dining room. I can get the rest of this.”

I threw him a thumbs-up and snatched up the trays.

The dining room was slammed. I dodged behind the waitress station half-blocking the narrow aisle. The steaming water glasses burned my fingertips. Then Susan squeezed past me, her smile bright as a comet, and my heart went up in flames. I held onto that glow for maybe twenty minutes, right up until all hell broke loose.

I was bussing tables in the dining room, paying special attention to Susan’s section. Loud noises poured from the ice cream side, loud enough that folks were turning their heads to look. The ice cream section was always noisy, but this was something different. Someone’s crazy laugh rose above everything else, followed by angry shouts. I grabbed up my tub and hurried out of the dining room.

By the time I sneaked my way through the throng, the ice cream riot was in full swing. I’ve been around when a crew got rowdy, but the mayhem swallowing up the ice cream station was like nothing I’d ever seen.

Cheri, or maybe it was Shelly, danced a drunken hula behind the counter. Her hands flew around out of control, knocking Sundae dishes off the glass shelves. While glass exploded on the floor, Cindy was slumped face down over the prep counter. Jason stood behind her, grabbing at her ass.

That’s when a glob of pistachio shot past my ear. Brad and Chad were engaged in a pitched battle, flinging balls of ice cream at each other as fast as they could scoop. A few of the customers complained, and the lunkheads turned on them, firing sweet icy globs into the crowd.

One angry dad reached over the counter and got Chad by the front of his shirt. Brad tried to come to his rescue with a barrage of rocky road, but he slipped on some of the spilled ice and went down hard.

That’s when the witch showed up.

I don’t know how Miss Pederson did it. She wasn’t five feet in heels, but the crowd parted like she was ten feet tall.

She swept through that crowd, marched right into the middle of the riot, and stopped dead with her bony knuckles on her hips. The witch opened her mouth, and her bullhorn voice filled the room.

“THAT is enough of THAT!”

Then she raised that crooked finger of hers and let fly her venom.

“You bunch. Out! NOW! And cover that girl’s behind. This is a family establishment. What are you waiting for? Out, out, OUT!”

The three dudes and three chicks who used to be the ice cream crew dragged and staggered through the back door. Once they were gone, Miss Pederson turned to the angry customers. She was smiling, which was scarier than the accusing finger.

“My apologies, folks. We’ll have this cleared up in a jiffy.”

Then her eye fell on me, the good one and then the wandering one.

“Ben, isn’t it?”

All I could do was nod. The witch turned back to the customers.

“Ben here will be serving ice cream. I’m afraid sundaes are off the menu for the moment, but cones are on the house, with my compliments.”

That’s how I ended up running the ice cream line. The witch brought in a few of the backup kitchen guys, and we hired a few new girls for the sundae station. It took a few shifts to get the kinks smoothed out, but by then we were a crew.

 Not everything turned out rosy.

Cindy’s parents were smarter than the others. They didn’t like the notion of their precious girl face-down in the chocolate syrup while some goon played with her bum, not even a good young man like Jason.

Her parents took Cindy to the hospital the night of the ice cream riot. The docs did blood tests. They found Rohypnol in her system. Someone had slipped little Cindy a mickey. Spiked drinks were suspected. Which led to a lot of questions.

It wasn’t long before the story came out. Brad remembered it was my beautiful Susan who brought them drinks. Then Chad remembered something about a peace offering from Simon. After that, two and two added up to four. The cops managed to get that simple sum figured out, but not before a few heads disappeared for good.

I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. He left me a note. Nico gave it to me out in the alley, a few nights after Simon disappeared.

Hey Ben. It was Nico who told me about those assholes roughing you up. No way I could let that go. I might have overdone it on the roofies, but nobody died, so fuck ‘em. Dude, sorry about stealing Susan from you, but what could I do? See you down the road, I guess. Your pal, Simon.

My friend Simon is gone. My girl Susan is gone as well. They ran off together, or at least they both vanished at the same time. I miss Simon something awful, and I still love Susan. She broke my heart, or maybe they both did, her and Simon. Still, broken heart or no, I hope those two are together somewhere. I can sort of picture them taking care of each other, finding another crew to work with.

These days, I ride herd on the ice cream crew. It’s a step up from bussing tables, that’s for sure. And yet there’s something about it that doesn’t sit right. Sort of feels like I’m doing the old witch’s dirty work.

Simon rode off. Maybe I’ll do the same thing one of these days. There’s a lot to see in this world and nothing to fear in moving on. I learned that much from Simon, that and how to find joy in ordinary things. Like a giggly high hidden inside an empty can of whipping cream.

Fini

You can find Red Coyote here:

https://sites.google.com/a/usd.edu/projlit/red-coyote

That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog

And… if you desire more literary fiction, look no further than my collection U6 Stories: