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.