And here we are. The White Pipe story. I have been dreading this one. I didn’t really have a plan for this chapter, except that I needed to drop on a sword for a manager that didn’t respect me. I need to stab Mary’s eyes out. Needed to be scared to death by a blood-curdling scream. I need Calm to drowned a baby. I need to get written up a few times. And I need to fuck a girl in the bathroom.
So much to do here. How do I even get started? I guess the best way to start telling the story of my time at Business’s Pizza Hut, is to begin with her introduction of me. Let’s begin with Priest and go from there.
I started applying for jobs the day school was canceled because of a winter storm. The snow was over a foot tall, I think closer to a foot and a half, and I threw on a coat, my brown scuffed up boots, and a hat, and I walked. Half a mile to McDonalds, asked for an application, and they kind of freaked out. Then Wendy’s. No one expected to be getting applications that day.
Gas stations, Arby’s. One Mexican restaurant. And Pizza Hut. No one called me back. I talked to all the managers on duty, and none of them wanted me. I am not sure if I was a laughing stock, or if they were intimidated by a kid walking in a foot and a half of snow in negative ten degree weather. But no one was willing to give me a chance. That was when I was sixteen.
My mother would not let me get a car. Two had been offered to me, and she had pitched a fit, screaming and yelling that I was not going to be given a car. I had no way to get a job, unless it was within walking distance, and I had covered all of those. So, I was unemployable.
Let’s go over it one more time.
First, you get the job. Then, you save for the car. Then, you save for insurance. Then, you can get a learner’s permit. Then, you can get your license. Then, you have a mode of transportation. No one within three miles’ walk in a blizzard wanted to hire me, so that was that.
Then Mumble called in a favor. He called his friend Business, and suddenly I had a job. It was about a mile and a half away from my house, so it was manageable, and I was set.
Business knew Mumble, and she knew Rose, so she called a meeting of all the employees and stood me in front of them.
“This is Jesse Teller. He is a good Christian boy,” Business said. I looked at my feet, knowing this was going to be as bad as it could get but unable to stop it. “No one cusses in front of him. No one tells dirty jokes, or talks about sex in front of him. He is a good boy and we are not going to tarnish him. Is that understood?”
Nods and mumbling. “I will write you up if you cuss or in any way spoil this good Christian boy.”
Silence.
I lowered my head and said, “Fuck.”
So, they called me Priest. I was Southern Baptist and we didn’t have priests, we had pastors, but when I tried to explain that to them it was so much worse. Everyone hated working with me and no one wanted to train me. No one wanted to teach me anything, and when I was around, no one would say a word. If I walked in and people were talking, they would get up and leave. It was dismal and not at all how I lived. Shadow was drying up. And no matter how he tried to prove himself to be wild and not be the Priest of the store, they all walked away. I was marked, and they hated working with me.
They didn’t train me because they wanted me to quit. They let me drown in busy days and terrible shifts. No one taught me the secrets of making the night go by faster, or getting out of the store on time when I was closing. I was a leper.
Yay!
So one day, I fucked a girl in the bathroom during a Friday night rush.
That sounds so much worse than it actually was, so let me explain.
I am dating Mary and I hate life. She has a car and her and her friends (she only had two) show up at Pizza Hut, and I am sweeping the floor. She laughs at me and makes fun of me in my “cute little uniform and hat,” and I hate life.
I drop the broom handle to the floor and walk up on her. She pulls back a little and I turn to her friend. “Take her and get her the fuck out of here. If she doesn’t have a job, she can’t ridicule me at mine.”
Mary starts apologizing, and I walk away.
So it is about this time when Friday night is being a nightmare and I need five minutes. There is only one way to get a guaranteed break in a job like this, and that is the bathroom, so I am headed there, and I get grabbed before I get to the door. I turn around and it is Draconic.
She is everything that is Draconic. Perfect hair that is not trying to be. Clothes that love her and talk about her secrets at the same time. A smile that won’t stop making my heart skip, and she just looks at me. She has nothing to say. I have nothing to say. She just wants to look at me. And I grab her. I slap open the men’s bathroom door and slap it closed behind us. I grab her and kiss her as we stand behind the door, and it opens up.
I didn’t lock it.
A customer looks in, immediately sees the mirror. Me and Draconic are visible. He sees her back, but with my arms wrapped around her, he is looking at my elbows. They look suspiciously like breasts, and he sees my Pizza Hut hat.
I slap the door closed and lock it. We freeze. She is freaking out as we hear this guy at the counter. See, the counter is close, very close.
“I want to talk to the manager!”
I look at Draconic. She is staring at me as if she wants me to have answers. There is no way out except the toilet, and I look at it frantic and try to figure out what I will have to do to flush myself.
Now the hallway outside of the bathroom goes farther to get to the girl’s bathroom. Draconic could have slipped out. Gone farther into the hall, swung herself into the girl’s, and when all of it blew up, I would have been alone in that bathroom. But the two of us can’t think. Between us, me and Draconic have half a brain, and it is in a frenzy of fear and panic.
“There is a couple in the men’s restroom (Dude called it a restroom, who does that?), and they are in there having relations (Dude called it relations, who does that?). And it is one of your employees.”
“Sir, are you sure it is a Pizza Hut employee?” Business said.
“I am sure as the Bible is pure that you have an employee having sex in your bathroom.”
Pause.
“Well sir, I can tell you that that sort of behavior will not be tolerated. We do not play those kind of games at this establishment, and the employee will be dealt with harshly.” She is talking to someone and I am looking at Draconic.
“Oh. I’m going to kill you!” Draconic hisses. “I’m going to stab you in the heart. I can’t believe you did this.” She shakes her head. “Why did you do this?”
“I just wanted to get my arms around you.”
Her face softens. “Well, fuck.”
“Can you stab me now?” I ask as the door starts to thunder. The pounding on the other side is vicious and nonstop. “Please?”
We looked at each other and giggled.
“Open this door right now!” Business shouts. “You are fired and I will have you thrown out of my store. You have embarrassed me and—”
Draconic grabbed me by the sides of the face and kissed me. She smiled a devilish grin and opened the door. She stepped out of the door and closed it behind her.
“Ma’am, what you thought was happening in there wasn’t happening,” Draconic says. Then she is gone. Straight to the table with her family.
But that bitch didn’t lock the door behind her, so I have nowhere to go. Business shoves the door open and she freezes, stunned. She stares at me and she has all of the guys with her.
See, Business hired a rough crowd. They were into all manner of shady shit and dirty dealings, and she was sure that when she opened the door, she was going to be dealing with a dark member of her crew who was probably hopped up on some drug.
But she only found me. Priest. The good Christian boy. All of the guys stared at me and I just dropped my head and stormed out. I moved to the dish room as fast as I could, and on the other side of the massive steel table were a line of sinks. I paced in front of it and tried to get my story together.
The guys showed up first.
“Damn, Priest. That chick was fine as Hell!”
“Damn boy, you got laid, in the Pizza Hut bathroom. During a Friday night rush!”
“Shit Priest, I know the punny was good.”
“You guys, shut your mouth!” Business said as she caught up with me. She had to give that guy a free meal. And by now, every waitress and waiter knew exactly which girl was in that bathroom with me, and every one of them wanted to get a look at her.
“Business, I just, well it kinda, well you gotta, see it just—”
“You shut your mouth, too,” Business said. “Still a Friday night rush. You guys still have to make pizzas. All of you get back to work.”
No one listened. If she had a flame thrower, none of them would have left. Now the waitresses and waiters are crowding around.
“Jesse, she is gorgeous. How did you—”
“Business, I did not make lo—”
“Fuck,” one of the guys said.
I pointed at him. “You’re not fucking helping.”
“Holyshit. Look at him.” A waitress. “No really, look at him. He is not bad looking.”
“Not a kid anymore, either.”
“Hey Jesse, when did you get fine?” a waitress said.
“Please,” I said. “I’m begging you, please get back to work. Business, I did not—”
“—fuck.”
“I didn’t fuck her.”
“Why were you in the men’s bathroom with that girl?” Business said.
“I love her. I can’t be with her and I just needed to get my arms around her.”
Oohh, and that’s so sweet, and the guys are saying all sorts of other things.
“If it was anybody else!” Business said. “Anyone else I would—”
“Wait,” the dish guy said. “You’re not going to fire him?”
“He’s a good Christian boy and—”
“No the fuck he is not!”
“Business, you have to fire him.”
“Please don’t fire him. He is in love, that’s all.” That was a waitress.
“I am not going to fire you, and I am not going to tell your family.”
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“No, don’t thank me. You are in for hell. I am not going to let one single thing fly with you. I am going to ride you until you’re bloody.”
“Get in line,” a cook said. And all of the staff laughed.
So suddenly I am not Priest anymore. And suddenly I have the respect of every guy and girl in the place.
As far as I know, Draconic never came back to that restaurant.
Things get moving pretty fast at St. Robert’s Pizza Hut in the nineties. We have Post right up the block. Every person within a twenty-mile radius who wants a pizza has to order from Mumble, buy from a gas station, or come to us.
There is one more pizza restaurant in town, but it is pretty infamous.
And really, the real deal is this: If you want a sit down restaurant experience, you pretty much have to come to us. There are a few other places, but they are really expensive. Business’s store is where you come on dates, after church, and after ball games. We are pretty much it, and things get a little dodgy when we get moving.
Now this is just a pittance of a story. There is really no point to it at all, except that I thinking it needs to be told. Out there somewhere is a woman named Calm. Out there somewhere is a woman named Bubbly and out there somewhere is a twenty-something survivor who needs to know that she never got away with it. That her smooth talking way can get past any fury and why the scent of Dr. Pepper still gives them nightmares.
The night is going how all big weekend nights go.
Everything is on fire.
No matter what you do to prepare for Friday and Saturday night rush, it is impossible. There is a line of people standing at the door waiting for a table, and often there is a line of people out the door. Everyone always needs a refill. Every table is always dirty and needs to be cleaned. Every pizza is late. And there is always a line at the counter just trying to pay.
No matter how you plan, how many people you have working, and no matter how much prep you have done. Everything is on fire.
There is a sign, dammit. There is a goddamn sign that says: “Wait here to be seated.” What does it mean? It means wait fucking here to be seated. That is what it means. Right there. Not five feet behind the sign. And never, ever, three feet in front of the sign.
Calm is strong. She is fast and good at her job, and she has a tray filled with soda. Somewhere in that restaurant that night were my people. Dr. Pepper drinking people, and she has eight refills sitting on her tray. Her tray is sitting on her palm. Just like it has been for over half a year.
Again, I reiterate. Not three feet in front of the sign.
As she passes that sign, what I assume to be a mother, steps forward and pushes her kid’s stroller three feet in front of the sign.
Calm stops on a dime.
But liquid is treacherous. It doesn’t recognize dimes. It will often miss the memo that it is time to stop. And right off of her tray come eight, not seven, not six, but eight Dr. Peppers. Every one of them not only fall on this child, but the red plastic glasses that these types of restaurants had back then bounce off of that kid’s head.
Calm lets loose a blood-curdling scream. So does the baby. So does the mother. So does Business.
Business has to pull it together.
My only concern is Calm, so I rush out of the dish room, see what has happened, and grab her. I pull her away as the mother is rearing back to claw Calm’s eyes out, and I pull her into the dish room. She presses into the wall, and I start running through in my head what I saw when I was up there, as Calm starts to hyperventilate.
That was not a modern stroller. It was not big and beautiful with plenty of room to roll around. It didn’t have a nice seat that comes with a car seat.
No, this was an old school umbrella stroller, two handles almost big enough to reach the parent without hurting the parent’s back. One tight sling where the tot sits.
And this one was full. The legs of the child were gone. All that remained was a lake of Dr. Pepper.
Business tried to talk them down, but they would not settle. The parents were furious. Business had to check on Calm. So there she was.
And Bubbly had to make the promises. Had to do the talking. She just kept grabbing paper towels, as Business held Calm as she wept, and I stared at the three feet in front of the sign where the stroller sat. It was two below freezing. And that kid had to ride home dripping with Dr. Pepper.
Then Calm had to go do her job.
But only after Bubbly shoved the parents and the dripping baby out the door.
Three write-ups in a year, and you’re fired. One write-up and, when your yearly review comes up, you are not eligible for a raise.
In the four years that I worked at Business’s Pizza Hut, I was written up three times.
Well, two and a half.
The club was life. Everyone except me and Business spent every minute they could on the weekend nights at a nightclub. Well, if you prepped, you could get out at nine. Dishwasher got out at ten. Cut guy could make it out by eleven, if he was good. The waitresses trickled out as quickly as they could, and by the end of a weekend night, when the doors were locked after one, it needed to be the make cook and the manager walking out the door.
If everything was done. But everything had to be done.
If the assistant manager could walk out the door at one, and at 12:55 they changed into their party clothes, then they had a fast drive to the nearest club, and they had about an hour to party before they had to go to Waffle House and the after party.
But if everything was not done, then they had to work until it was finished.
That night, my prep guy went home at seven-thirty. The closing manager was very cool and let him go early.
I would finish his work.
The dish guy went home at eight. He was showered and at the club at 8:30. And he owed my assistant manager for being so fucking cool.
By nine, my cut guy is gone.
Man, he loved her that night. She was so cool.
Now just so we are clear, this was an impossible night and there was still prep, dishes, and sweeping, mopping, and the cut table was a disaster. I’m the make cook and I have to walk out the door at one.
“We are out that door at one, so don’t fuck around. Get this place closed up and don’t make me late!” my assistant manager growled.
See.
Well, I have to start at prep. And I am pretty sure that when the business dies to nothing, my manager will help me out, but she is too busy closing waitress, because she was so cool that she let her closer for wait staff go early.
I gotta clean and stock the make table. Got to clean the cut table. Got to do every job that was supposed to be done for me by a staff that she sent home.
At 12:40, I am still working on dishes. I have to sweep and mop and clean the bathrooms.
“Work!” she snaps. “Get your ass moving. I’m not going to be late because you are a lazy ass.”
But dishwashers can only run so fast. They will not be rushed.
She is furious that the garbage hasn’t been taken out.
Cut guy was supposed to help me do that. I tell her I will help, but she is frantic now. She takes both of the massive bags out to the dumpster and she tries to throw them away.
One rips. The other, she can’t get out of the can.
She screams at me to work faster.
Dishes are done. Trash is out, and I am cleaning it out of the parking lot, when she grabs the broom and sweeps it behind the dumpster.
Sweeping the restaurant hasn’t even been started. That is at least a twenty minute job.
She changes in the cooler. Her hair is a mess, and she is covered in pizza grease, but none of that matters. She shoves me out of the way and grabs the mop. She makes a quick water, and I try to stop her.
“I haven’t swept yet.”
“Why are you so worthless?”
She does the mopping. Cheese, and every other piece of making a pizza, being smeared around the floor. She shoves me out the door and she is gone.
I walk home. I have to sleep. I have church the next morning, then I have a lunch shift.
When I get to work, all of the morning crew is disgusted with me. Business walks right up to me and points at the assistant manager from the night before.
“She has to talk to you,” Business says. She shakes her head and walks away.
“Come on, Jesse,” she murmurs. She takes me outside the back door and she has a piece of paper in her hands. “I was the closing manager last night, so I have to write you up,” she says. She can’t look at me.
“Why?” I am furious.
“Well, the floor was not swept properly before it was mopped. There was trash thrown behind the dumpster. A few dirty dishes were hid in the back sinks.”
“Are you kidding me? I am getting written up for this?”
“Look man, I know that some of that—”
“Some?” I wanted to yell, but I kept my tone to a growl. “You sent my crew home and left me to fight my way through a fucked up night. You hid the dishes. You threw the trash behind the dumpster, you snatched the broom out of my hand and mopped the floor. You did all of this stuff.”
She nodded. “Look man, if Business has to write me up, I’m fucked. You’re just a cook, she won’t be that mad at you, but if you tell her that I was the one that fucked you over, Jesse, I could lose my job or get demoted.” She let her hair fall in her face.
“Just please sign the write up. And I’ll owe you,” she said.
“I don’t want you to owe me. Just tell Business you don’t want too close with me anymore.”
“Jesse man, it’s cool. Don’t make me have to say that—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the write up,” I said. “Do you see how everyone is looking at me? Do you see how pissed off they all are at me? They had to do my job this morning. I’m not working with you on a close again. Period. Make it happen.”
And I didn’t.
One more write-up.
Now this was serious business. This was no joking matter. This was The White Pipe. And Business was a monster about The White Pipe.
The dishwasher had a big sink beside it, and under that sink, against the wall was a white PVC pipe. It took a sharp turn when it hit the dishwasher, and its end stopped at a drain. It sat on the floor and it was never, ever to be filthy.
Washing The White Pipe was serious business. And I could understand why right away. Dish rooms in restaurants are dirty places. Wet food and trash collect in every crack and nook. It is impossible to keep it clean until the end of the night. Then everything gets washed down and mopped. But then, The White Pipe.
Imagine the scum and black gunk that accumulates and is wiped away by a hasty mop. All the mess is up, but the scum that has gotten on The White Pipe is bad. It is a dirt and muck magnet. There is no being careful. There is no planning and caution that can avoid a dirty White Pipe by the end of the night.
And Business is obsessed with The White Pipe.
It is the first thing she checks when she gets to work every day. It better be clean. It had better fuckin be clean, or she will skin you alive.
When she introduced me to the dish room and The White Pipe, she said very proudly that she had fired two of her best employees because they did not clean The White Pipe. “I don’t care what else you do (she proved that when I was caught in the bathroom with Draconic), but if that pipe is dirty, the entire room looks like trash. Get used to it. The White Pipe is part of your life now. Deal with it. And don’t make me say this to you again.”
But she did. She said it almost every day I knew her.
She wrote me up once for The White Pipe. A few weeks later, I find myself standing in the dish room and she is pointing at The White Pipe again.
“This right here, Jesse! This right here! How long have you been working for me?”
“Four years.”
“Four years and here we stand talking about this White Pipe again. When was the last time I wrote you up because of this fucking pipe?”
I saw it then.
“Business?”
“I asked you a question and you are not going to distract me.”
“Business?”
“What do we do with The White Pipe?” She asked someone as they passed by. They threw me a look of pity.
“We wash The White Pipe,” they said, as they walked away as fast as they could.
“Don’t start smooth talking. Don’t try any tricky shit. I don’t want to hear it. Just answer the question,” Business said. Her face was red and she was staring at me, her finger stabbed in the direction of, you guessed it, The White Pipe.
“Business?”
“I don’t want to hear it, Jesse. Those stories you write and those stories you tell, you think you can talk yourself out of anything. I want you to answer the question. It is a very simple question. Answer it correctly or get fired. What do we do with The White Pipe? I have fired two employees before you, and I love you, but I will fire you, too. What do we do with The White Pipe?”
“Business,” I said gently.
“What?”
“Why don’t we throw The White Pipe away?”
“That is not the answer I am looking for!” she shouted. She looked at the pipe. And she glared.
“Might not be the answer you are looking for, but Business, that is the answer.”
“Mutherfucker!” she shouted.
“Language, Business.” I was smiling, but I knew better than to laugh.
“It’s, it’s, not attached, it’s not attached to—” she stuttered.
“It’s not attached to anything,” I said.
“How long?” She rounded on me. “How long have you known?”
“Just figured it out, but it is kinda funny.”
Her hands curled to fists and she took a step toward me.
I took two back. Not much scared me, but Business always had. “What I meant to say is, it’s not funny at all. It’s shocking, but—”
“You shut the fuck up right now, mutherfucker!”
“Business?”
“What?”
“The head manager of the store does not like that kind of language to be shouted in her store.”
She did throw away The White Pipe.
It was PVC pipe, so it was pretty bendy. She ripped it out from where it had been sitting with a savage jerk and I dropped to a knee as the end of it whipped past my head.
I followed her out the back door because no one was supposed to be out there alone. She stood swinging that pipe like a baseball bat at the dumpster as she screamed curses for a good five minutes.
She jammed it into the dumpster and, of course, it couldn’t fit. She banged it over and over again, stabbing the bottom of the dumpster.
She turned around, her hair a mess, her face covered in sweat. She was growling and she stomped in circles.
“Hey, Business?”
She snapped her wild eyes on me.
“Looks kinda like Excalibur,” I said, pointing at the dumpster.
“What?” she snapped.
“It looks like the sword and the stone. If I pull it out of there, can I be king?”
“I don’t want you in my store right now, Jesse.” She stumbled back into the building, dropped into her chair at her desk, and lit a cigarette.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Please leave. Take tomorrow off, too. Just please, I’m begging you, just walk away from me now.”
I obeyed.
Wasn’t sure at that moment what she was capable of. She had been the store manager for twelve years at that point.
For more about the series Reality of the Unreal Mind, visit Amazon.
Jesse Teller 
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