8:29 pm. Store closes at 9.Â
This was our half-hour, weâd decided. If weâre gonna work a shitty job for shit pay we get the last half hour.Â
Mikayla is the shift lead and is ringing up a customer in the front while I do my side work in the back, folding pizza boxes. I can smell the menthol cigarette smoke wafting in from the receiving door, where Dean is already in the lot. The customer up front leaves.
âBitchâ, Mikayla offers as she walks back to the office. I still have more boxes to fold but I get up to follow her.Â
âWhatâs up?â âLady calls, orders three pizzas half-hour before close. Ok fine. Then she calls back ten minutes later with a separate order. People are fucking stupid. Itâs just annoying.â âYeah. Come on.â
We walk out the back to join Dean under the fluorescent parking lot lights. Heâs smoking a cigarette and fiddling with a baggie. He hands the pipe to me and I step into the shadows and take a hit, the euphoria flooding me instantly. I hand the pipe to Mikayla and she does the same. Dean is the first to speak: âSo what are you doing after summer?â âGot into school.â I murmur. âOh yeah?â he says. âWhich one?â âItâs a trade schoolâ, I say. âIâm gonna be a welder, you know, like the chick in Flashdance?â âOh yeah, baby, you gonna be like that, huh?â he leers. I ignore him. âGot into a program up on the mountain, up on some logging outpost, fixing equipment. Out in the woods. Nature and shit. Itâll be good for me, leave this place and this shit behind,â I gesture to the pipe as Mikayla hands it back to Dean. âYeah well you do you, â he says. âMe, Iâm doing just fine here.â He pockets the pipe then flicks his cigarette out and blows smoke out of his nose in a huff. âGotta go finish in the front.â
The pizza shop was a shitty job, and Mikayla and Dean werenât good people, but we got along during the last half hour. The last half hour was crystal time, and when youâre smoking meth, meth is the only thing that matters. So it didnât matter then, that we all werenât good people, who made poor decisions.
Mikayla and I linger in the lot after Dean leaves. âIâm happy for youâ she says, clenching the chill in her body from the drugs. âI know itâs just a summer job and all, this is just a shitty spot in our lives and weâll move past it, I mean weâre seniors. But to not have an escape plan is just so, deflating. I mean itâs shit work for shit pay, shitty customers, you know? I mean to do this endlessly, is that a life worth living? Just to do it because you have t-âYou donât have to,â I butt in.âYou donât have to make excuses for yourself, Mikayla. You want to change, then change. But if you donât, then own what youâve got. Look at Dean. Dean is apathetic as fuck. He probably hates his life, but heâs consistent. Constantly miserable. But it works for him. Maybe there is something to be said for that. Cmon, we gotta go finish upâ. We walk back in and I struggle with the pizza boxes, my hands shaking. I think about what I said,the coolness of the air conditioner and the lights and Iâm racing. Mikayla turns off the open sign up front, does the bank and the drop. Dean checks the carsâ locks in the front and we leave out the back door. I say my goodbyes and we each take another hit. Iâm the first to leave and I donât look back at them to see if theyâve stayed longer, kept smoking. Iâm going to miss this shitty job and these bad people, I realize. This is the last last half hour.Â
Credit goes to George Schramm
