Styrofoam Throne Read Online Free Page A

the dumpster for five minutes, trying to psych myself up. Finally, I climbed in and started picking through the rotten debris. All the food that I had scraped off was coming back to haunt me. I plunged my fists through bags of varying consistencies and tried to hold my stomach contents down. What seemed like hours was only fifteen minutes, but I found the dentures with a blind fist. I pulled myself out of the dumpster and slipped on my trash bag legs when they hit the ground—taking the fall on my elbow. I limped inside as a thin layer of blood started to rise to the top of the scrapes.
    “Here you go,” I said handing the dentures to Gibby. “Some guys tried to steal your teeth but I wouldn’t let ‘em, so they kicked my ass.”
    “That’s so sweet of you. Thank you so much, Janice.” Gibby took her teeth and left.
    Janice looked sideways at me.
    “Bullshit.”
    “No, seriously. I should go home, though, don’t you think? I mean, if I’m not supposed to get a hair on the dishes, blood probably isn’t good either, right?”
    “Get in the back before you make people puke.” Janice yelled into the service window, “Viktor! Fix him up with the first-aid kit.”
    “Ya.”
    I went to the back while Viktor unfolded paper napkins next to a spool of tape.
    “Where’s the first-aid kit?”
    “This,” Viktor said, pointing to the napkins and tape. He then reached out from under his apron and revealed a flask. “And this.”
    “I don’t drink.”
    “No. Come.”
    Viktor pulled my elbow across the sink.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Vodka cleans.”
    “Is it gonna sting?”
    “Good vodka won’t sting.”
    He splashed his flask on my elbow.
    “Fuck, that stings!”
    “I didn’t say this was good vodka,” he said, taking a swig.
    I grabbed a napkin and clutched my arm.
    “That would have been me in dumpster if you weren’t working. You’re okay.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Keep this up and you’ve got real future here,” Viktor said, laughing.

    The next day, Viktor had diarrhea and kept running from the grill to the toilet. All the food burned on the grill in his absence. Janice pretended to serve the dishes like they were perfect and when the customers voiced their disgust, she acted shocked and appalled. Eventually, she told Viktor if he burned another dish, she’d start throwing them back in his face. So Viktor enlisted me to back him up on his runs.
    “Donovan, I need you to cook when I go,” he said.
    “I don’t know how to cook, man.”
    “It’s easy. You put whatever is they order on grill. When starts burning, you flip over. When other side starts burning, you put on a plate with some of this,” he said, pointing at a pile of parsley that looked like fake foliage on a model train track.
    “Fair enough. But don’t leave me hanging.”
    Viktor clutched his stomach and ran off.
    I started doing it just as he said when I quickly got backed up. Janice looked through the service window, saw me managing different piles of burning food, and exploded.
    “What in God’s name are you doing? Where’s Viktor? I’m getting killed out here!”
    “He’s squirtin’ dirt in the toilet,” I said, chopping up hash browns and trying to pretend like I had it under control. I didn’t have it under control.
    “You’re ruining everything!”
    It wasn’t the first time Janice had told me that.
    “How long has he been gone?”
    “I dunno,” I said. I was too busy juggling blackened chicken sandwiches, pretending to know what went inside a Denver omelet, and staying the fuck away from the deep fryer. It was a cauldron of hell that would bubble up and take a bite out of you if you got anywhere near it.
    “Well, go get him!” she said, like it was all my fault.
    I abandoned the grill and knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. I knocked again. No answer. I yelled his name a few times. No answer. Finally, Janice came and opened the door with her keys. She was still looking at me like this was my