Free Ivyland by Miles Klee

proud to be a slob?”
    â€œReal cute. I’ll tell you who won’t think it’s so cute is Sam: you’d better not jerk him around, boyo.” I slam some more plates on the counter and open the next enormous sliding door. The head boss is Donald’s empty threat of choice—the man wouldn’t bother to acknowledge me if I got caught whacking off on a cake.
    â€œAlso, Aidan, Sam was telling me that you need to lose the facial hair, that’s the policy, you know that. You’re scruffy.” The heavy metal door breaks off its hinges and lands on my foot.
    â€œFucking cunt !” I spit.
    â€œHey!” Donald barks, “I’m serious, he’s spoken to me on several occasions about how scruffy you’re looking.” I drop another plate.
    â€œWould you stop!”
    â€œSorry.”
    Donald mops his brow with a pilfered dinner napkin. His head looks waxed. I put another searing hot tower of plates on the counter and bend to retie a shoelace. It snaps off in my hand.
    *
    After work I’m the kind of tired where you can’t make a convincing fist. Exhaustion is a tipping factor in my decision to let Henri pick a 24-hour place to eat. I regret it: he drives us to the closest MexiLickin’SurfHog.
    â€œHere?” I ask. A wide customer is exiting the place with some difficulty.
    â€œWhat?” says Henri. “Should be empty this late.”
    â€œYou never go to these places.”
    â€œNot the ones with kiddie ball pits.”
    I mope up to the counter after him. A pale girl about our age waits patiently for orders, leaning on her register with one hand and examining the sparkly nails of the other.
    â€œMan,” Henri exhales, “decisions.” He makes a satisfied grunt and strides dramatically up to the counter.
    â€œI’ll have the Hogwash breakfast sandwich,” he announces with gusto. “And a Forest Steppe Adderade.”
    â€œNo breakfast served after 11 AM.” The girl doesn’t have to look at the backlit menu to quote it verbatim.
    â€œThe small-mindedness,” Henri says, sincerely. “Why are you serving Hang Ten Donuts, then?” He points at this scary woman hunched over a table, coughing food back into the colorful box she ate it out of.
    â€œBecause they’re already made?”
    â€œDon’t they count as breakfast?”
    â€œCould eat a donut for lunch.”
    â€œAnd yet I can’t have a bagel for dinner? This policy seems to paper over relevant semantic issues.”
    â€œWhat?” She abandons her nails, squinting.
    â€œHere,” I’m compelled to interrupt. “I’ll pay you an extra five to make him that sandwich.” The girl palms the crumpled bill and shuffles into the back.
    â€œI could have handled that,” Henri starts in.
    â€œThat what you were doing?”
    â€œHold up. I know her.” At first I assume he means the cashier. But he’s staring at the woman with the box of donuts. She’s paused, gaze lost in a faraway corner of the fluorescent room. Trying to remember the original restaurants that combined to make this Frankenstein chain, I imagine. Then the pose breaks and she pulls at her nose, apparently irritated by an itch within.
    â€œLet me guess—she’s the next Grady? Gonna turn her life around, too?” I should’ve known why we wound up here. More free-floating guilt to latch on to. More steamrolling tragedy to challenge and be flattened by. He’s sitting at her table before I say, “Wait.”
    â€œMs. Hecuba?” he asks. She goes in for another donut. “Ms. Hec? It’s Henri. Grown up, now.”
    â€œHenri …” she says, spewing powder. Henri nods.
    â€œCome on, man,” I tell him.
    â€œYou used to drive the bus to school. And for camp! Remember Aidan?”
    â€œShe doesn’t. Leave her alone.”
    â€œI drive the city bus,” she says, and wipes a