Summer Carnival
He handed me the air-brushed t-shirt
and I thanked him, said I loved it.
He asked, Do you mean that?
I said, What would have possessed me
to utter it otherwise?
Then he kissed me with his sweaty upper lip,
through seven half-good teeth,
and I felt guilty.
How do I explain
that wasn't what I'd meant?
He said, I didn't think this would ever happen,
especially with someone as pretty as you,
thank the lord, I love you too.
It was clearly a misunderstanding.
See, I worked at Kenny's Cakes & Steaks—
which, I get, sounds old fashioned—
and it was definitely a throwback in time
to when bland white men thought things were simpler.
Maybe they were, on the surface.
But I didn’t think Kenny’s was like that—
and while I may sound more seasoned
than the hash browned potatoes we were serving,
I’d like to call out right now
that I was fourteen when this happened.
His name was Felix
and he’d come in during the overnight shift
I’d picked up from Tammy
who was ten toes deep in a custody battle
for her three kids I was sure she didn’t want,
but was certain she wanted the best for.
And though she needed the tips,
she’d gotten lucky on some scratchers
and could afford to take a few days away from Kenny’s.
She needed it,
and I was glad to do it.
My dad was always drunk and pissed off,
and my mom worked out of town.
The reality was: having two absentee landlords
meant someone had to buy me shampoo
if I wanted clean hair,
and food to satisfy my hunger—
and all that brings me to this story.
There was a jukebox involved—
because of course there was—
Lee Greenwood singing for fifty cents
about the working-class citizen,
and it did make me proud
as I wiped ketchup off the counters.
It’s so weird how easy it is
to get swept up in the melody of a moment,
in harmony with circumstance.
I think singer-songwriters are magicians
who’ve well-past earned their powers,
and I’m grateful for their haven—
having taken me to hot air balloon heights of passion
even in my teens.
But that can also land you
in the hot water
of an ocean you’ve never seen nor heard of—
and that’s when Felix walked in the door.
It was customer service,
with flirting encouraged by Kenny himself,
and me, thrilled that I got the chance
to make some real money.
I took the orders,
fed my coin tips into the jukebox,
and replayed the misheard lyrics
of God Bless America—
there’s a line in there about a waitress—
and I was ripe to identify as something.
The promises and compliments
you can plate as side dishes
to the ritual of servitude
are very powerful—
I just hadn’t learned that yet.
I was a fire hydrant of empathy,
compassion, and performance,
with barely a public water fountain’s dribble
of experience,
quenching the thirst of genuine loneliness.
Longing.
All this understanding—
and I still can’t see how Felix mistook
my fourteen-year-old person
as a viable partner,
which just means I was prey—
and I’m not sure he meant that either—
but what else is there to say
when a man two and a half times your age
pressures you into behaviors
by leveraging decorum he claims not to understand
and then the force of personality
and catching one off guard
and the possibility
he might tell Kenny I was unkind
and I’d lose my job?
I wanted to throw up,
or have diarrhea in the porta-john—
any reason to escape
the choke of responsibility
of this tawny-skinned man
hawking stuffed animals and adrenaline
for three paper tickets.
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