Free One Good Dog by Susan Wilson Page B

what appear to be shitake mushrooms folded in. The whipped potatoes are stiff and creamy, real potatoes, really whipped. But they weigh a ton, and Adam fears that his back will go out, and then where will he be? What if he gets hurt on this community-service job? What happens then? Can he sue someone? After fetching the canned corn from the massive stockroom, Adam is put to opening the number-ten cans one after another. What is served to the men is mixed with half as many lima beans and sautéed into a mixture that he might have seen on his plate at any benefit dinner Sterling dragged him to. The lovely odor of cookingfood is obscured by the rank scent of the men who line up in front of the steam tables. Even though he isn’t—yet—assigned to serving, their smell fills the high-ceilinged room like a miasma, and he gets a whiff every time he comes up behind the man who is ladling out portions onto divided plates. With each customer he greets by name, the server, another middle-aged black man, asks the same question: “One piece or two? You wanna a roll wi’ that?”
    Adam is reminded of high school, St. Joseph’s, where the last two sets of foster parents coincidentally sent him. The ancient cafeteria with its warped floorboards was also the gymnasium. The students passed through an alley, where the food was kept behind glass, pointing to their choices—mac and cheese or hot dog, ziti or a thin slice of overcooked ham steak with a floppy ring of pineapple. Because the cafeteria was also the gym, the odor of unwashed bodies pervaded the air, and the food never tasted good. Most of it was tossed in the massive gray barrels on wheels next to the exits as the kids rushed to get outside to sneak cigarettes or make out in the corners.
    When he wheels the big blue plastic barrels to the back dock from the dining room after the meal is over, Adam can’t help but notice that there is almost no food in them.
    Adam is supposed to put in four hours. It’s been four and a half. He’s exhausted, wrung out by the unaccustomed physical exercise. He is hungry but has lost his appetite. No one has suggested that he eat. No one has dismissed him. He stands in the doorway of the massive industrial kitchen. Rafe is humming, jigging up and down to some tune on his iPod. He’s fixing four plates, heaping up leftover beef, potatoes, and the succotash. He sees Adam in the doorway and beckons him in. “Take one.”
    Adam can’t make himself touch the plate until he washes. He feels extraordinarily filthy, as if he’s been handling garbage, as if he hasn’t been wearing plastic gloves. “Where do I wash?”
    Rafe pulls one ear bud out of his ear. “Men’s room out to your left.”
    Adam sees himself in the speckled mirror over the sink, the ridiculous paper hat tipped over his forehead. He looks like he works at McDonald’s. He grabs it off and tosses it in the bin. Gall quickly dissipates into despair.
    He has no intention of eating here.
    The four plates are now on a freshly wiped table. Someone has folded up the other tables up and rolled them all to one side of the room. The floor, no doubt to protect the original hardwood, is covered by a cheap linoleum with a fake wood pattern, and it is filthy with dirt and sand, along with dropped paper napkins and food. It is the single most disgusting place Adam has ever been expected to eat. He is about to say that he’s out of there, when Rafe, standing up, waves him over not like a gracious host, but like a commander.
You will sit and eat. This is part of your penance.
“Sit down, man, ’fore this stuff gets colder.” The man who has been standing for the last few hours serving up food to the continual flow of men pats the space next to him. Another flashback to high school, the flush of pleasure at being included in a group. But this is no group in which Adam would ever want to be included. “We never got properly introduced. You can call me Ishmael.” The black man grins at his