pop the top button, then give my disheveled brown hair a push of encouragement in the right direction before slipping past the swinging doors.
The noise of our rowdy guests reaches me long before I reach them. Despite my little pep talk a second ago, my feet don’t seem to move properly, as if they’re trying to drive me back to the kitchen. When I reach the table, they don’t notice me. I try to speak, but they all suddenly burst out laughing at some joke one of the guys was finishing. I only need to catch the punch line—“And that’s why you call it pussy!”—to know what sort of hell I’ve walked into.
Just get their orders. Quicker served, quicker gone.
“Welcome to Biggie’s Bites,” I state over their laughs. “I’m William. Can I start you guys off with—?”
“This, right here,” announces Kirk, the one across from Tanner, a beastly guy with a buzzed head wearing a sleeveless green jersey that shows off his thick shoulders. He jabs a pudgy finger at the menu. “That big ol’ juicy thing. Put it in my mouth.”
“Fag,” teases Joel, the blue-eyed blond at his side in a grey shirt, stained with grease from working at his pa’s auto shop two blocks over. He’s got an unfortunate pox of acne on his cheeks that’s festered there since his thirteenth birthday. I’ll call him Zits.
Oh, and a word about the word “fag”: Growing up gay in this small country town of Spruce that no one in the world’s heard of, even with as “friendly” as it is, you still hear the three-and-six-letter F-bombs thrown back and forth twenty times a day between boys at school who can’t be bothered to broaden their vocabulary. I guess I’ve either grown a thick skin or become so desensitized that I don’t even associate it with “gay” anymore.
Maybe that’s what inspires me to make light of it. “That would be me,” I interject with a smile, “though my nametag reads ‘William’.”
The four boys shut right up and stare at me. Zits tries to say something twice, sputters and fails both times, then finally manages to get out, “B-But you’re not a fag. You’re just gay. There’s a difference.”
Now it’s my turn to stare. “By all means, enlighten me of this difference.”
Tanner swallows a chuckle of amusement, his face going red. The fact that my words might have had anything to do with his reaction gives me such a rush of private joy, I can’t even begin to describe it.
“A fag’s, like … just a stupid person,” explains Zits.
“Oh. That explains it so much better,” I remark.
“Yeah, see? Totally different,” exclaims Zits, missing my sarcasm completely, and the third one at the table sitting next to Tanner—a thinner guy named Harrison with blunt black eyebrows, russet skin, and wearing a t-shirt with grass stains on the arms—grunts his agreement.
This is how I’ll say I spent my Friday night: getting a lesson in etiquette from a bunch of rowdy jocks who, just seconds ago, shared jokes about pussy and called each other fags. Jeez, who smacked me with the lucky branch?
I know these guys from high school when they used to play football alongside Tanner. Kirk, who still bags groceries down at the market and lives in a trailer by his grandma’s house. Joel/Zits, who gets greasy tinkering under cars at his pa’s shop. Harrison, who works as a farmhand for an aunt or uncle of Tanner’s, far as I know.
“Can I get you guys anything to drink?” I ask politely.
“Gimme a Coke. And this juicy thing,” says Kirk. “Cook it medium-rare. Double cheese. Toast the bun, too. I’m hungry. This come with fries?”
If you read the menu … “Yes, or coleslaw, your choice.”
“Coleslaw’s gross,” Zits interjects, face wrinkled.
“Your face is gross,” returns Kirk.
Zits ignores him and lifts his menu. “I want this one. No pickles. Lather mine up in mayo … extra mayo.”
“He likes lots of white, creamy stuff in his mouth,” Kirk explains.
The others laugh, but Zits punches him so hard in the shoulder that Kirk jerks forward, kicking the leg of the table and causing the salt shaker to fall over.
“Burger of the day?”
The words come from the one person at the table I’ve been trying hard not to look at. The one who might or might not have already stolen enough of my attention in high school. The one I secretly pined over ever since I was thirteen and first discovered how my cock works. The one who’s always