“This way sir,” says owl, as they walk me off down the hall to the left, “What’d you do in there anyway? I’ve been here a good while, and I’ve never seen anybody kicked out of class this soon, or give the test this early. You start a riot or somethin’?”
“I taught the class.”
“O… Ok,” and the two exchange a glance that says ‘What the fuck is up with this guy?’
“Here we are sir, right in here,” says hawk, as we come to an institutional looking push handle double door on the right hand side of the hallway. He cams open one side of the door and I walk through and hear it latch and lock behind me. I test the handle just to be sure and, yep, apparently they don’t want me wandering around Moon Valley High unsupervised. Boring bastards.
“Oh yeah, it’s locked, and so are all the others. I checked,” says a familiar voice from some distance behind me. I turn around and find myself in an odd room. It’s a cross between a high school cafeteria and a fifties style diner. Cavernous would be a good word, dark wood paneling and institutional carpeting instead of chrome and tile, but otherwise, rows of booths with the little half walls in-between, a bar with tall stools, and tall, curved glass windows along one side, looking out onto the panoramic vistas of the quonset hut parking lot we landed in. Fuck, I got locked in the moon diner and can’t even enjoy the scenery. There better be beer. Then my thoughts are interrupted by – –
“So, fuckstick, your little plan gone south on ya or what?”
“Fuck you, Shari. If my plan was to get you locked in a room with me on the moon, I’d say it’s working out pretty good. Wouldn’t you?”
There is an honest giggle and a reluctant snort from the booth where Shari and B.J. are sitting about halfway down the middle row, “Alright asshole, you’ve got a point. Come on and sitcher’ ass down.”
What can I say, I know my bartenders.
I walk over and slide into the booth next to B.J., facing Shari on the other side who is holding an unlit cigarette and looking very annoyed, “You got a light?” she challenges.
“Gee, you don’t think smoking in a potentially oxygen rich atmosphere might pose some problems? Like, some big, loud, boomy ones?”
“If I can blow this place up with a cigarette then there’s whole bunch less assholes in the world and I no longer have to deal with them. I fail to see the problem.” she says.
“Ok, that’s some logic I can get behind. Even though we’re not on the world, we’re on the moon, and — but whatever, I’m forced to concede that I agree with your point. But, first things first. Where’s the booze in this joint?”
“We couldn’t find any,” says B.J., “You can look for yourself.”
“Think I’ll do that,” I say as I get up and make my way to the counter and around behind it. Everything is very ‘commercial cafeteria’ back here. Big Bunn coffeemaker, stacks of unremarkable dishes, tubs of generic silverware, condiments organized by color. Fuck man, I came to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and it turned out to be a Denny’s; then again, what the fuck did I expect? There’s an under counter cooler down at the end that looks promising, but I know they’ve already checked it. I have to see for myself anyway. I slide back the lid.
“Water, sodas, a root beer is about as close as you’re gonna get to booze outta there,” calls Shari, “There’s a big walk in around the corner, too. But it’s locked up.”
I walk around the corner into the kitchen to see what I can see, singing, “The drunkard went into the kitchen, the drunkard went into the kitchen, the drunkard went into the k-itch-en… to see what there was to drink!”
“Not a goddamned drop!” comes the reply from out front.
I check around and find fuck all, just like they did. The walk in is locked up tight, and there’s nothing but cooking equipment in the accessible cabinets and shelves, except for the spice cabinet, but there does not appear to be anything mind altering in there unless maybe something has been infested with some type of psychedelic moon mold. Then I see it… a dark, dusty crevasse between the sink cabinet and the dishwasher, easily overlooked because the top counter is seamless, but there it is, filthy and forgotten, and big enough to get my arm into. So I lie down on the floor and stuff my arm in up to the shoulder and can just barely brush the wall at the back with my fingertips. I flash back to an old space movie that had a ‘space herpe’ running around the ship, and think that if anything like that actually exists, now is when I’m likely to encounter it. I stretch my fingers as far as I possibly can into the space behind the dishwasher, and just faintly brush something that hints of dusty glass. It’s a long shot, but it’s also just the kinda’ thing I would do, so I think around the side of the box. I pull myself out and up, and go through the drawers and cabinets until I find a long handled ladle. I then insert my hand back into the black crack, holding the ladle by the bowl, so that when I’m all the way in I can swivel the handle over to the side and fish around. I feel a satisfying ‘clink’. As I try to reel in my prize, it, of course, falls over, with a pronounced ‘CLA’DANK’ which, even from around the corner and out in the large, silent room, an experienced bartender’s ears might recognize as…
“What the fuck was that!” comes from afar.
“Just sit tight, don’t scare it off!” I yell back.
I pull the ladle out and cram my arm back in and can just grab the flared top of the bottle, after what seems like an eternity of fingertip fidgeting I manage to get it turned upright and around the corner and finally exhume it from its dusty tomb. As I draw it out into the light I can see it is an extremely dusty, almost full, bottle of Crown Royal. The bag it came in is tied around its neck. There is something inside. I remove the drawstrings from the neck of the bottle and examine the contents. There is a pack of Lucky Strikes, a box of strike anywhere matches, and a slip of paper. I pull out the paper, unfold it, and read:
“To whomever finds this, you poor, poor bastard. I quit my job as a dishwasher at Denny’s for a better life on the moon. I’ll never have any contact again with anyone I used to know. Family, friends, all left behind forever, it’s part of the contract, under pain of death. Which doesn’t seem so bad at this point, because here I fuckin’ am! A dishwasher at Denny’s on the moon! Only without any family or friends to speak of. It pays better, but they don’t sell cigarettes or booze up here so what’s the fuckin’ point? No hookers or blow either… which was never really my thing but at this point I wish I’d given it more of a chance. Anyway, if you found this, you’re likely as fucked as I am, so catch a buzz on me, and don’t bother with a glass or I’ll haunt your ass until the end of time. Dishwasher #1.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Fucking fucksocks!,” I mutter to myself as I gather up my newfound bounty and head back to our booth, stopping along the way to pick up a small bowl from under the counter. As I get back I am greeted with…
“Woah!” from B.J. and —
“Where the FUCK did you get that from!” from Shari, as I pull the cap off the bottle and throw it as hard and as far as I possibly can, to hear it bounce and ricochet around the far end of the room until it is utterly unfindable. I turn the bottle up and take three big gulps.
“Didn’t think to bring some glasses?” accuses Shari.
“Read the note,” I say as I deposit the bottle, bag, and note on the table.
“Ok, that’s fucked up,” she says, setting down the note and taking the dust covered bottle in her hands, “How’d you find this shit anyway?”
“I’ve got a built in dowsing rod, leads me to buried treasure.”
“Yeah? Where?”
I stand up and go to unzip my pants.
“Nope! Save it! Don’t wanna know!”
“Hey, you asked!”
She takes a big pull off the bottle, “Try again in an hour, maybe I’ll feel different then.” She cracks her first smile of the day, it looks like it’s a little unfamiliar with her face.
“Ah, fuck you.”
“Well, maybe if you can find me a magnifying glass and some tweezers… I might be able to work something out.” the smile is looking a lot more comfortable now.
“Alright you two,” breaks in B.J., grabbing the bottle from Shari, “Quit hate flirting and drink!”
“Aw, c’mon B.J., I bet I can find you a set of tweezers too. I mean, two girls, with two sets of tweezers at the same time, that would be so much more than I’ve ever experienced before…”
At this they both break up, and B.J. even shoots a tiny bit of whisky out her nose.
“Shut the fuck up,” says Shari.
“Oh, you wanna shut me up? Why don’t you just come sit on my face?”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know, do you ever wash down there?”
At this point B.J. sticks the bottle into my mouth, turns it up, and says, “Stop it!” into my ear. I give her a thumbs up as I guzzle.
The bottle moves around and I pull the box of matches out of the magic bag and say, “Got another smoke?”
Shari puts half a pack of American Spirits on the table and says, “What about the oxygen rich environment?”
“Fuck it! It’s about to be oxygen poor if I have anything to say about it!” as I pull a cigarette out of her pack and start striking matches. They’re so old that the tips just crumble off without any hint of a spark, so I finally just pull my torch lighter out of my pocket and light my cigarette. Unfortunately, the atmosphere does not enflame around us and explode us out into space. Oh well, not for lack of trying anyway.
“You asshole!” says Shari, “You had that the whole time!”
“Hey, you want to bitch about what might have been or appreciate what you got now?” I gesture at the booze and the ashtray-bowl and the general grandeur of my accomplishments.
“Ok,” she says as she puts her cigarette between her lips and I light it for her, and then do the same for B.J., “So what the hell happened in there anyway?” she asks, blowing out a plume of smoke and finally seeming to unclench a bit.
“I taught the class.”
“Yeah? How’d that go for ya’? And what’s up with the smiley face on your hand?”
“I, uh,” pausing to take a hit off the bottle as it comes back around, “I’m not really sure. I think I got the point across, maybe, and the teacher was pretty pissed I think, so… probably pretty well? I’ll find out when I hear the test scores, I guess. On the other hand,” I raise my right hand, displaying the green smiley face emblazoned on the back, “The class loved it! I awarded them all a gold star for the day and they unanimously voted me a smiley face stamp. The highest honor of the realm!”
“Oh, fuck off!”
“Wait,” says B.J. “So you didn’t have to take the test?”
“Nooo.”
“Well that must mean you demonstrated sufficient knowledge of the material you were talking about, right? Otherwise they would have tested you, too.”
“You know, I hadn’t thought about it like that, but you might have a point there. On the other hand, I have no idea how shit works on the moon.”
“Probably the same way shit works at a Denny’s on earth, if you believe this note,” says Shari.
“Motherfucker, that’s a point. And I have no reason not to, do you?” and the bottle makes another round in silence.
“So tell us what you told the class,” says B.J.
“Ok, why not?” so I do.
I am about halfway through the lecture, mark two, and halfway through the bottle, and suddenly we are all the way out of cigarettes, and that is an issue with three booze guzzling smokers at one table. And just when frustration is really setting in I remember and reach into the magic bag and pull out the ancient pack of Lucky Strikes.
I get a, “What the fuck, you been holdin’ out on us?” from Shari and a, “Are you really gonna smoke those?” from B.J.
I say, “No, I just figured we’d go through the open pack first,” and, “Yes, after reading that note, I think it’d be disrespectful not to, and I don’t want to be haunted forever by a disgruntled dishwasher.”
As I unzip the pack and tear off the flap the smell of forty year old tobacco fills the room. I knock one out, pack it against the table, and spark it up. The experience is one of… not fresh. But after three drags I am on the moon, which is not maybe a great analogy here because I am already, in reality, on the moon, but you know what I’m sayin’.
“Ooh.” I say, and pass it over to B.J. Who takes it and says
“Ungh,” after the first drag, and then, “Woah!” after a couple more.
“I know, right?”
“Yeah,” she says, and passes it over to Shari.
She takes it, looks at it, sniffs it, and says, “What the fuck is up with you guys?”
“You’ll see,” we answer in unison. And she does.
After we’ve passed the cigarette around like a joint and smoked it down to a roach, I get on with teaching them the class I already taught earlier, although I gotta admit, it was a lot more fun with Hector to help me out. I wish he could be here to share this thick, warm buzz. I know he’d enjoy it.
Hours pass, I’ve finished the main lecture and am now fielding a lot of very specific, what about this, what about that, questions from these two, which is pretty enjoyable because we all know each other anyway and are now tightly wrapped in the blanket of booze and nicotine within which we generally confabulate. There is only about two fingers left in the bottle and we’ve gone through five or six of the Lucky Strikes. The general consensus is that they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Then the door opens. A new brown shit (I mean brown shirt, must be the booze talking) comes halfway in and says, “Whats going on in here? There’s no smoking in this facility, how did you…”
At which point I stand up, take a slug off the bottle and say, “You wanna fight me for it buddy? I’ll whup your ass!”
“And just who are you, sir?”
“Hell, I’m just waitin’ to see how the class I taught down the way did, otherwise I don’t give a fuck!”
“OH! That’s you? You’re him? Sorry, Sir, no, I don’t mean to make any trouble for YOU, Sir, you make yourself at home, Sir. I just came to say, I mean, if you ladies there would like a ride back, ma’ams, there will be a shuttle leaving in an hour, and we’ll need to get you to the memory station to make sure you’re clean when you return. Would you care to accompany me?”
Shari stands up and says, “A ride home? Fuck yeah, I’m outta this shithole! Come on Beej!” they stand up and head towards the door, and Shari turns back, “You comin’?” she asks.
“Nah, I gotta stay here and see how my class did. Sure you guys don’t wanna stay and see how it plays out?”
“Nah, you can tell me later.”
“Yeah, except that I can’t. Didn’t you hear the words ‘memory station’?”
She gives me a strange, eye crunching glance and shakes her head, “Whatever,” as the brown shit motions and says, “If you ladies would follow me, we’ll get you on your way,” and on his way out the door I would swear he gives me a conspiratorial nod and a wink that I totally do not understand, but the basket of things that I don’t understand today is already so heavy that it doesn’t even make a difference at this point. I sit back down in my now lonely booth, spark another Lucky, and finish the bottle of Crown. Then I light the note that came with it and gently lower it into the ash bowl, “Godspeed, Dishwasher #1!”
I’ve pounded four waters, two more cigarettes, and pissed in the kitchen sink because the bathroom doors are locked, by the time the door opens again.
“The test results have been tabulated, and there are some people who would like to speak with you, sir. If you would care to come with me?” says the brown shirt.
“So, did anybody pass?” I ask, finding my feet and walking over.
“That’s an… I… um… It’s not my place to say, sir. Let’s just say, people are… taking notice.”
“Ooohkaayy, that’s not ominous or anything. Lead on, MacDuff!”
He turns back to me with a confused and slightly apprehensive look.
“It’s an ancient Earth saying that I just made up, don’t worry about it.”
“Yes sir. I won’t sir. Come with me, sir,” he visibly relaxes and heads for the door.