2007-Eleven Read Online Free Page B

preciseness of the date and said, “Cool!”
    “What do you know of the food-service industry?” the frenchfryer asked in a contemplative way, as if not expecting an answer. “Have you any idea of the vastness of our secret community? We inhabit a world of eternal youth and temporary employment, the curse of leaving our parents’ homes at three P.M. and not returning until midnight, after the floors have been mopped and the Dumpsters fed, then to repeat in our troubled sleep that unholy incantation: ‘Hello, may I serve you, please? … Have a nice day.’ ”
    The frenchfryer sighed and stared at the drive-up window, as if it were the gateway to another world.
    “Once, I was one of you,” he said. “I was young, thin, goateed—alive. I had a degree in communications from Syracuse University. I rollerbladed. I sent e-mail. It was, as you would say, ‘excellent.’ Then I came upon the Frenchfryer, Lester.”
    “Like, who’s Lester?” the boy asked.
    The frenchfryer stifled a smile. “When we met, Lester wore the visor cap of Assistant Manager. His impenetrable eyes were the color of Shamrock Shakes, and his radiant complexion—uh, let’s not talk about Lester’s complexion; it’s not like either of us is God’s gift to women, OK? Anyway, Lester hired me, trained me, transformed me.
    “I shall never forget my first cooking cycle. As I stood beside the machine, knees trembling, my heart pounding like a drum, I felt Lester behind me, his minty breath on my bare neck, squeezing the fry-basket gripper in my hand and shaking it, delicately, deliberately, to break up the potato clumps, then lowering it smoothly into the fryer bay. Suddenly, the sputtering hot oil speckled my chin, burning me with an unearthly, delirious pain. Lester’s arms enfolded me, and, together, wecooked—to and fro, back and forth, until the timer beeped, and we spilled our sizzling food product into the bagging station, where I collapsed from exhaustion. ‘Why, Lester?’ I asked later. ‘Why did you make me into a frenchfryer? To follow you? To worship you? To amuse you?’ ”
    “ ‘I had an opening, Lewis,’ he said, picking his teeth. ‘OK, guys, clean up! It’s time for the feast.’ ”
    “And feast we did: on Chicken McNuggets, Egg McMuffins, Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Combo Meals, Value Meals, Happy Meals—until we could feed no more. Riding home, I felt the blood coursing sluggishly through my veins. I could barely hold up my eyelids.
    “Others would come, last a month, then revert to their previous existences. But I shall never forgive Lester for the one who stayed: Claudia, a child of the streets whom he lured with Flintstones action figures. Soon, Claudia was emptying grease traps and punching the register, a trainee’s cap upon her golden curls. I’ll never forget the night of her transition. She cried for her mother, but Lester merely poured a large Coke from the dispenser and commanded, ‘DRINK, CLAUDIA! DRINK!’ Eventually, she obeyed her newly acquired thirst and, after draining all thirty-six ounces, shouted in a voice asbrittle as a nonspill lid: ‘MORE.’ From that moment on, Claudia was one of us.”
    “Dear God,” the boy said. “A child frenchfryer?”
    “Four-fifty-five an hour. Limited bennies.”
    “That, like, sucks,” the boy said, the blood having left his face. “But really, I mean, that’s OK. Like, I really do need this job, you know? So please, make me a frenchfryer, please.”
    The frenchfryer stared at the boy for a long time.
    “Fill out an application,” he said. “Leave a daytime phone number. And one question: Can you work nights?”

Oldfinger

    Y es sir, what’ll it be?
    Diet Sprite with a slice of lemon. Shaken, not stirred.
    Coming up, Mr.…
    Bond. James Bond.
    And what brings you to Days Inn, Mr. Bond?
    Wish I could say a holiday. Actually, I’m in town to see my lawyer. I’m being sued. Sexual harassment, of all things! Eight cases.
    Good God, eight? Why,