Free All-Day Breakfast by Adam Lewis Schroeder Page A

we’ve got to do is get him hard!”
    â€œOr we could ask his dick about it when Harv’s not in the room,” suggested Eric.
    â€œI would totally fuck him either way,” said Amber, applying chapstick then slipping the lid back on with just the one hand. “Front of my car. Gravel pit.”
    â€œMan, I would so pay to see that!” said Grace, hunting for something in Cam’s jar of pencils. “You guys would look so hot together!”
    This was the sad-eyed war protester? We’d lost our inhibitions, that’s all it was. And for years I’d wanted to throw a tv out a window?
    â€œShit yes! So can we all at least agree on that ?” Amber asked.
    Down on the floor, Franny, Shawn, Megan, Clint and Eric and his mullet all nodded grudgingly. This was enough of a lull for Franny to notice I’d come in.
    â€œOh, hey, Gillbrick! They tell you we made the caff too popular?”
    â€œThey haven’t told me a thing. So the hospital couldn’t get it back on?”
    Flexing her skinny right arm, Amber grimaced up at me. Whitest possible teeth.
    â€œWe didn’t go,” said Grace.
    â€œHey-hey, G,” said Franny, “you can totally take us to Walgreens! Independence, man, buy up some bacon, get us a load of frying pans—”
    â€œShawn, am I freaking out right now?” asked Clint. “Is that what I think it is on your shirt?”
    Shawn pulled his bangs back to look at the shoulder of his plaid shirt.
    â€œIt is !” hollered Clint, and though cross-legged he somehow launched himself across the office, tackling Shawn around the middle to press his face to his lapel.
    â€œAw, damn!” Megan shuffled over to avoid getting squashed. “I was next to him all the time and never even smelled it!”
    â€œDude,” Shawn grunted. “Off.”
    â€œAll right, listen!” I said, and my hands produced an almighty clap. “Who else in here has bacon on their shirt?”
    They inspected each other, sniffed their own cuffs.
    â€œShawn, sorry, man.” Clint sat up in the middle of the circle and retied his scarf. “That was a sweet little nugget.”
    â€œCan’t we go now?” asked Amber.
    â€œNo, I’ve got to figure this out.” I sat down, squeezing between the mullet and Megan’s turquoise cardigan. “What the hell did you do to get shut in here?”
    â€œOh, honky!” Franny snorted. “It was classic!”
    To synthesize the seven simultaneous stories: at 12:05, as I was sprinting across the parking lot to my car, these gentle, well-meaning kids approached the cafeteria and read the daily special scrawled in yellow chalk, bacon dogs . But they found a dozen kids already in line and, God forbid, a couple of ninth-grade freaks actually in the act of finishing their bacon dogs right there on the spot! Mrs. Abel had gone out for a smoke, leaving the Culinary Skills 12 students to man the chafing dishes. My seven grabbed slotted spoons and chased everybody out, barricading the doors by locking the wheels on the ketchup cart. Ninety seconds later the chafing dishes had been licked clean and my seven walked out as though nothing had happened. One of the freaks had already called the cops on his cell phone, unfortunately, but Mr. Vincent met the officers at the front doors and no one, it turned out, had wanted to press charges.
    â€œSo where in all that,” I asked, glancing at Eric, “did you get the black eye?”
    â€œI was in the wrong,” he shrugged. “Took more than my share.”
    â€œOkay.” I draped my elbows across my knees. “I need to figure this out.”
    The kids looked at me. All sarcasm had evaporated from the air.
    â€œTell you what,” I said. “Yesterday morning I was a vegetarian. Last night my mother-in-law cooked bacon for the family and I ate it before I realized what I was doing, I ate more this morning, then another