By Ron Frater

During the summer before he started his high school senior year, Brad worked serving tables at Calderson Valley Restaurant. At least, he did for three days. On day four, he was called into Mr. Greyson’s office.

Greyson didn’t invite Brad to take a seat, but got straight to the point as soon as the seventeen-year-old entered the room. “We’re going to have to let you go, Brad.”

Brad stared blankly at the grossly overweight man with the bald head, who was seated behind a ridiculously large desk. “What do you mean? Let me go where?”

Greyson sighed and rolled his eyes. “It means you’re fired. You don’t work here anymore.”

“Fired?!” The word came out in far too high a pitch. “Why? What have I done?”

“Look, Brad, you seem like a nice young chap, but you’re just not cut out for this type of work. There’s been too many complaints, from both customers and other staff, and you keep breaking things.”

“But…” Brad rubbed his head, as if to assist the generation of some words in response. “Well… I’m just learning. I know there’s been a couple of whoopsies, but I’ll get better.”

“Serving the wealthiest man in town his meal with your thumb in his food is not a ‘whoopsie.’ Brad. Nor is spraying the mayor’s wife with cola.”

“The cola thing was an accident.”

“Opening a can of cola after you’ve just dropped it is not an accident, Brad. It’s stupidity. As is sticking your thumb in someone’s meal.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t realize, because I’d just cut it on a knife, so I guess I couldn’t feel that it was in the food because of the plaster.”

“The plaster stayed in Mr. Walford’s meal when you put the plate on the table.”

“I didn’t mean to. And I removed it after he’d pointed it out.”

“You thought it was acceptable to leave him with a plate of food that you had contaminated?”

“It was a clean plaster. I’d only just put it on. It’s not my fault your first aid kit has cheap plasters that don’t stick properly.”

“Look, Brad, this isn’t up for debate. Please just leave.”

“What about if I work in the kitchen? Washing dishes, even?”

“You’ve broken four plates and six glasses in three days. Do you really think I want you handling multiple pieces of crockery and glassware as a dishwasher? No. There’s no work here for you. Please leave. Now.”

“What about my pay? I’ve done three day’s work.”

“Yes, except that when I deduct the cost of the items you’ve broken, including the espresso machine which you shouldn’t have been anywhere near, we don’t owe you anything. In fact, I should actually be giving you a bill for the shortfall.”

Brad folded his arms. “You’re telling me I worked three days for nothing?”

Greyson leaned back in his chair; the cotton threads that attached his shirt buttons straining at the pressure his obese gut asserted on them. “Put it down to experience, boy. Learn from it and do better next time. Now, I’m busy, so just go, before I lose my temper.”

Brad eyed the man behind the desk. — the fat, ugly, bald, 60-something-year-old, with his piggy eyes, pudgy hands and his stupid, too-tight Hawaiian shirt. A fine specimen of a man – not, Brad thought. He should tell him so. And he should tell Mister Fat Gut not to call him ‘boy’ – he was a young man, not a boy. But, before the words came, Greyson had lost his patience. 

“Look, boy! I said this isn’t up for debate! Just piss off, and piss off now!”

As Greyson banged his fist on the desk, Brad saw the piggy little eyes flare. He looked like the hippopotamus Brad had seen on the National Geographic program the week before. The thought made him laugh out loud.

“What are you laughing at, boy?!!!”

Spittle flew from Greyson’s mouth as he shouted. His pudgy hands pushed down on the arms of his chair as he heaved himself upright.

“Get out!” he bellowed, his face reddening as he thrust a finger towards the door.

Brad stayed where he was, with a surprisingly calm look on his face.

“No, I think I’ll stay here, Mr. Greyson. And I think you’ll be changing your mind about firing me without pay. You see, I saw what you were doing to Emily yesterday. And I happen to know that she’s only 16. So that makes you a child molester, Mr. Greyson. And before you say that it’s just her word against yours, and that a supposed witness who’s a disgruntled ex-employee has no credibility, I’ll remind you that everyone walks around with a video camera in their pocket these days. So, if you don’t want the footage to fall into the hands of the police, you’re going to pay me two thousand dollars cash and you’re going to pay me to work in the kitchen for the rest of the summer. And, you’re going apologize to Emily, increase her pay by ten dollars an hour, and you won’t touch her with your fat little hands ever again. How does that sound, Mr. Greyson?”

Greyson’s pudgy hands balled into fists. He leaned forward and placed them on the desktop, pressing his weight down onto the wooden surface. Brad saw the piggy eyes narrow as the hippopotamus screwed up its ugly little face, which had darkened to an even deeper shade of red. He looked like an overripe tomato that had been left in the hothouse too long and was about to split its skin.

Brad suddenly wondered if he’d pushed it too far. He’d thought he was in a position of power, but now realized he could be in a position of danger. Greyson was clearly about to explode, and for all Brad knew, there was a gun in one of the desk drawers. Even if he took flight immediately, Greyson knew where he lived. Would he pay the price for the cockiness and greed of youth, without the wisdom of age and experience tempering his actions?

Before Brad could make the decision to flee or not, he saw the piggy little eyes widen slightly. The intensity of color in Greyson’s face seemed to diminish, and his lips parted as he let out a long slow hiss of air. It was as if a blacksmith had pulled a red-hot horseshoe from the forge and then slowly began pouring water on it.

Greyson pushed himself upright from the desk, then collapsed back into his chair. The cotton threads holding two of his shirt buttons had reached their limits; pinging the buttons off as they snapped, exposing a lint-filled navel and an expanse of stretched, white flesh, punctuated with grey hairs. Greyson stared down at the unattractive sight, and after several seconds, tried to cover it with his pudgy hands. He let out a long sigh, and, without looking back at Brad, used his feet to push his chair backwards and then swivel it so he was facing away from the desk.

Greyson lent forward and twiddled the combination dial on the floor safe, then opened it and removed a stack of bills held together with rubber bands. He closed the safe door, swiveled the chair around and tossed the stack across the desk to Brad. Despite the young man’s shock, his natural reaction was to reach out and catch it. 

Greyson didn’t make eye contact as he spoke. “Tell Johnny I’ve repositioned you to the kitchen, starting immediately. Dishes and whatever else he wants you to do. Same shifts as when you were serving.”

“And Emily?”

“You’ll delete the video?”

“Once you’ve done as I asked.”

“Tell Emily to come and see me now. You can wait outside and confirm with her once we’re done, then come back in so I can see you delete the video. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Brad removed his waiter’s apron and wrapped it around the wad of cash. He turned to leave, but as he placed his hand on the door handle, he looked back over his shoulder.

“There’s been other girls, hasn’t there?”

Greyson shrugged. “Been here a long time, boy.”

Brad suddenly regretted not taking the video straight to the police. He may have saved Emily, but what of those who had come before, or would come after? He shouldn’t have let the pig off so easily, but he still had the chance to keep an ace up his sleeve. Even if Greyson was smart enough to make Brad show him deleting the video from both his phone and the cloud backup, he had time to email it to himself first. 

Brad stared at Greyson. The fight had gone out of the angry, dangerous hippopotamus. He was now just a fat, old pig. 

With his voice full of contempt, Brad replied.

“It’s not ‘boy’, you disgusting excuse for a man. It’s Brad. And don’t you forget it.”

                                                              *   *   *

Ron Frater resides in a small town in the picturesque beauty that is New Zealand’s South Island, where he lives with his partner, an excess of dogs, and a self-opinionated parrot. He writes across a range of genres.