Mark Alton

I got into work early this morning, ten minutes to be exact. After I clock in, I walk through the winding back hallway that is littered with aprons and random cases of chips and soymilk. Finally, I make it to our bakery. At best, it is about four hundred square feet of brown linoleum floors and cracked-tile walls. Today, it is nowhere near it’s best so I throw my batter crusted, brown apron on and pop in this Discharge tape I got when I was seventeen. Turning the volume up as high as it can reach, I notice that flour covers every inch of the three by seven foot stainless steel counters and the thrash is flowing from its plastic container like a fountain soda filled too high. The smell of that cleaner combined with day old muffins is going to be the death of me.  For right now, it is worth the seven dollars an hour that I get paid. I work at the local, as in corporate, health food store and this is about the only time I will get to relax. They typically leave us understaffed and over worked but they don’t really care about our ethic and they leave us alone about the music, so it works. Just as the tape starts getting good, I see our morning manager, Fleischer, strutting over to our counter. Fleischer is a six-five-buck-ninety prick of a boss and he loves every minute of it.
“Hey Jeff, where the fuck is Sean at? Tell that son of a bitch to come see me as soon as he gets here.” He said, not even stopping.
I just look down per usual, keeping my eyes on my work.
Just then, Sean pokes his head in from the back hallway, “Hey buddy, sorry about the close last night. These bastards left me by myself. They would work me to death if I let them.”
“It’s cool man, I know how it is. Just sucks.” I said keeping my eye on the prize, “Did you hear Fleischer?”
“Yeah, fuck that prick.”
Sean grabs his apron and starts to help me clean up the mess he left us with.  We finish that up pretty quick and shoot the shit for about half an hour. Sean is a fairly young guy with acne scars that are starting to heal up. He has had to work a full time job since he dropped out of high school. His parents never gave him any support, monetarily or emotionally. He was a new generation of working class and that was his appeal. Needless to say, he is about the only person I can get along with at this place.
As the first side of the Discharge tape wraps up, I walk over and flip it to the other side. Sean grabbed more bread than I could have imagined and we start to discuss how we are going to approach this hardship. No sooner than we can get our act together we see Fleischer walking up with a huge, fake grin on his face, showing his perfect teeth. Must be nice to have a dental plan.
“Oh Sean, nice to see you made it, flat tire again?” He smirks, letting the creases around his eyes give the truth of his age.
“Same shit, different day.” Sean says, mocking the typical clichés.
“We need to chat.”
As Fleischer walks towards the back hallway, Sean follows giving me a knowing glance as he passes. I immediately grab a broom and plant my self as close to the back hallway as I can get.
“How long did you think you were going to get away with this shit?”
“What shit?”
“ Don’t fuck with me. I have the tapes.”
“What tapes?”
“You have been eating a bagel from that case every single night and now I have the proof.”
Sean laughs, “Your kidding me right? Those things were going into the trash. I just figured it wasn’t a big deal.”
“You know our companies policy on theft, right?”
“You have to be shitting me! I work my ass off. You can’t do this to me.”
“We are going to have to let you go.”
“This is how it’s going to be? I’m going to lose my job over a fucking bagel?”
“Sean, I need you to fill out some paper work before you leave.”
“Fuck your paper work.”
I hear Sean storming back from the hallway. I throw the broom down and run to the other side of the bakery, near the pastry case. He throws his apron behind him. I can only assume that it is at that prick Fleischer
“Well, I am out of here. These people are douche bags.” Sean says as he looks in my direction.
Fleischer appears right behind him with the biggest grin I have ever seen a washed up grocery manager with a drinking problem have. Sean did not seem amused.
“You think that I really wanted that bagel? Do you think I like to eat out of the trash? This isn’t what I want. This is what I can afford.”
“A thief is a thief. Now get your shit, if you have any, and get the fuck out of my store.”
This is not what I want this is what I can afford. Sean was right and I imagine myself grabbing that giant baking rack full of bagels and slamming it on the ground then, picking up the electronic scale and throwing it through the glass of the pastry case, sending shrapnel flying across the department floor. That prick Fleischer would come at me and I would slap him across the face as if he were a child. Laughing in his old face as he weeps at my feet, begging me to not hit him again. Then, I would stuff my apron in his giant mouth, before he can whine out the end of his sentence and walk straight out the front door kicking over every thrash can that crossed my path.
“Hey Jeff, stop fucking around or you will end up like your buddy.”
“Yes sir Mr. Fleischer. We would not want that to happen.”

There aren’t any bosses around here,
Just cool breeze pushing
The sweat off the tip of my nose
While birds sing their songs of freedom
Over the roar of six-cylinder engines.

I light another cigarette and
Look up at the trees casting their
Shadows over men.
I wash these dirty, callused hands
In the silver-brown lake that is
Rippling towards a better place.
I dig my feet into the coarse-grey
Dirt that will someday open
Up and embrace me.

Then, I think about Big Chuck
Running his big mouth,
“ We are always trying to
Balance the aesthetics of youth
With the reality of paying bills.”
I hate that asshole.

With the blue fluorescent lights,
Reflecting off the ghost-white porcelain,
Flickering and illuminating
Her flush features;
She wipes the vomit from her mouth
And smiles.
She didn’t need me to hold her hair back
This time.

Break our backs boss man?
We will make you scream
Like a pig
Fresh off the chopping block,
Waiting to be stuffed
Full of red peppers and chicken shit.
Fifteen-minute breaks?
We are always five minutes late.
Clocking into a time
Where white privilege and black pride
Shake hands,
Cutting off the arms of
Slave drivers that have been in power
For far too long,
Singing,
“We’re desperate, get used to it”.