The Torture Never Stops
by Jeb Taylor
illustrations by Greg Moutafis
Every morning in the shower Henry washes his face, body, and feet, in that order. He has performed this ritual so many times that by now he doesn’t even have to think about it. But this morning, Henry paused, bar of yellow anti-bacterial soap in hand. Alarm and anxiety sliced through the groggy morning fog of his mind. He didn’t know what he had just washed, or what he was supposed to wash next. Water beat Henry’s head and body as he stood alone and naked, wondering about the daily routine so rudely disrupted by conscious thought.
“Fuck it,” he muttered.
As he walked from the bathroom to his bedroom in a blue plaid flannel bathrobe, his wet bare feet picked up dirt and granules from the hardwood floor. In his room he looked at the answering machine to see if anyone had called while he was in the shower. No one had. Of course.
“Fuck it,” he muttered.
He looked at the floor of his room for a shirt without any obvious stains. There weren’t any. The problem with clothes is that you always have to wash them. Well, you don’t really have to, but Friendly’s Family Restaurant requires their busboys to appear as antiseptic as possible. Henry found this difficult at times. Most times. He looked in the mirror, tying his tie and tightening it around his throat. The face in the reflection grimaced. Henry looked at that face and had to look away.
On the subway to work, the bleary-eyed crowd smelled freshly cleansed with odd-smelling chemicals. Apple shampoo, musky aftershave, hyper-flowery perfume, shit cologne. Henry almost barfed. Fortunately, there was nothing in his stomach. Except for a few bacterium. He caught a reflection of himself in the shiny chrome of the handrail and thought “Cattle. Packed like lemmings in their shiny metal boxes.” The subway groaned around a corner and an anonymous businessman clone nudged an elbow into Henry’s ribs. Mmm… ribs. The businessman looked at Henry with slightly widened eyes.
“Excuse me,” the businessman muttered and turned away into his own thoughts. Henry stared at the back of his moussed sterile head. Through it.
“Moo,” said Henry, “Holy fuck, I’m a cow. Moo. Fuckin’ fuck.”
Now several people turned to look at Henry with blank, slightly concerned stares. Henry belched. They turned away in mild disgust. They did not fear a belching busboy on the subway on a Tuesday morning. But, ooog. They would. Oh, yes. Neeeep.
At work everything sucked. Of course. Rick, the manager with the nametag to prove it, pointed his finger at Henry’s face and said, “Henry, you’re five minutes late, you idiot. I have no real life of my own and must therefore degrade any person I have power over in order to make myself feel better.” Well, that’s not exactly what he said, but you know how it goes. And so once more, again, Henry cleared tables of dirty dishes and soiled napkins. Some of the crumpled napkins featured smudges of lipstick. Others revealed the greasy remnants of even greasier meals. He wiped the plastic tables with a moist cloth, releasing the faint smell of ammonia. He took the dishes and such to the kitchen and put them in the sink for the Columbian dishwasher to wash for money to buy things like food and a place to stay and a shiny car and leather shoes. One day. Ooog.
“Hey buddy,” said the dishwasher.
“Yes,” asked Henry with a question mark hovering somewhere in this sentence but I’m not too good with the finer points of punctuation.
“Hey buddy,” said the dishwasher, “can you get me a Coke?”
Henry thought a bit and said, “I really don’t think so. You see, I have no real life of my own and must therefore degrade any person I have power over in order to make myself feel better.”
“Hey buddy,” said the dishwasher, “can you get me a Coke?”
“Okay,” said Henry. He left the kitchen through the swinging door and wiped his hands on his grungy apron. He filled a plastic cup with ice and began filling the rest of the cup with soda. It’s not a real carbonated beverage unless there are bubbles. Rick, the manager with a nametag to prove it, sauntered over to the soda fountain and said, “Henry, you idiot. What the fuck are you fucking doing, fuckface?”
Henry turned to his Manager and said icily, “Filling a cup with soda.”
“What the fuck? Table number thirty-six needs clearing. They’re waiting.” said Rick the manager.
“Table number thirty-six?”
Rick the manager’s face turned mean and he said, “The corner table by the window, the yuppie couple with the fat kids, you idiot.”
Henry pretended to scamper over to table number thirty-six, his face set with feigned determination. After all, he’s getting $4.00 an hour, plus tips. Shit. He got to the table with the yuppie couple and their fat children, and, almost bowing, said,
“Excuse me, are you done with that?”
The female fat child stuck her tongue out at Henry. The father made a waving, dismissive motion with his hand. Henry stacked the plates in his arms and carried them twenty feet away to the kitchen, where the whole process would be repeated all over again, all over again. The kitchen buzzed with people in motion. Cooks, servers, busboys, managers, Henry, dishwashers, you know. Shit on the grill. Top 40 on the radio.
“Fuck,” said Henry.
Joe the cook overheard him and said, “Hey Henry, let’s grab a smoke outside.”
In the parking lot they smoked cigarettes, the bustling noise of people eating and chanting nonsense beyond the wall behind them. It was a little cool, but nice. Yup.
“Hey Henry,” said Joe, “You know what your problem is?”
“Yes.”
“Your problem is that you take it all too personally, man.” Joe inhaled deeply and breathed out a cloud. “You know. It sucks, but when you’re not there, you forget about it for a while.”
Henry said nothing for a little bit and smoked. He said nothing for a little bit longer and smoked a little bit more. “Hey Joe,” said Henry, “Bob Marley was way on. He was all there.”
Joe said nothing for a bit, and then, “See? That’s your problem, man. You just can’t ignore reality.”
Back inside, Henry moved more dishes around and scrubbed some tables and filled ketchup bottles and all that. He went back into the kitchen, down the steep concrete stairs to the basement. In the employee bathroom, Henry peed. He experimented with the different sounds flowing urine makes on different parts of a toilet bowl until he ran out of supplies. He flushed the toilet and watched everything go away.
Upstairs, Susan stopped Henry with her hand on his shoulder and said, “Table number fifteen needs more ice water.”
“Hey Susan,” said Henry. Susan came over and stood next to him and looked at him with vast brown eyes. “Hey Susan,” said Henry, “I ain’t good-lookin’, baby, but I’m somewhat sweet and kind.”
Susan looked at him for a little bit without saying anything. And then, “Look. You’re a busboy. You never wash your clothes, you’re not nearly as funny as you think you are, I saw you drunk once and you babbled about the spiritual implications of Star Wars, and you’re generally weird and icky. … Table number fifteen needs more ice water.”
So that was that.
