... and in that moment I was happy

We all worked together at the Dairy Queen on the strip, slinging ice cream and fast food as fast as our 18 year old bodies could manage, which was never fast enough for the hungry masses on a hot Summer's night. The store front dining area was small, most of the space occupied by four booths and a refrigerated display case, making it impossible for the hordes of sweaty citizens to all fit inside our air conditioned heaven, so the lines extended outside both entry doors and around the building at times. No, under those conditions, with melted custard coating our standard issue uniform t-shirts and slip-sliding over mashed banana peels on the floor, we were never fast enough to silence the rabble's roar.

Closing shop at 11:00 PM meant locking out the late comers, who tried to circumvent the system by pulling into the drive-thru and honking loudly for attention, to which we would turn up the transistor radio in the back to something loud and laugh at their belligerence. There was Dave, a bit of a nerd whose face lit up in laughter with a hairpin trigger, and Chuck, the laconic ladies man with a flair for fabrication. Cyndi, who lived a semi-emancipated life, meaning her mother spent all of her time at her boyfriend's house, was the catalyst for the foursome that included me and the spark that made our adventures come to life. As for me, well, I was game for anything so long as it didn't kill me or get me arrested, which meant there wasn't much that we did together that I was willing to be caught at. Life was an adventure, to be taken by the balls or taken for granted, as is the prerogative of youth, and we could do both simultaneously the moment we shut off the lights and locked the back door of the store on our way out to the parking lot. We always had a plan, of sorts, and whatever it involved, it also involved not letting Chuck's girlfriend in on it. Oh, and it also usually involved copious amounts of weed and liquor.

The memories are hazy, tendrils of curling smoke enclosed in the car whose make I can't recall anymore. It was big, a four door sedan, and Chuck always drove too fast, hit the brakes too late, too hard, smoked the tires too often, and would have given my mother nightmares if she knew what we were up to. Night after night blurs together into a dream of a simpler life, a flirtation with danger and a careless lack of shame for being so high, so drunk, on the wind as we flew down 94 at breakneck speeds, Journey playing full blast, Any Way You Want It and City Of The Angels, with my head tilted back against the headrest, and the song I couldn't hear myself sing, the smile that spread through my whole body ...

Reviews

[dw817]

I have to laugh. You were using a word here I was unfamiliar with which surprised me, "laconic" the definition of which means "few words," - it's not too surprising I didn't know that ! LOL !

While it seems you hadda great time working fast-food (and wrote down your memories well), I was not so fortunate, certainly not when I wasn't living in Dallas. I worked for a Whataburger and - well - ultimately the restaurant was CONDEMNED for basically being in a bad neighborhood, with bad customers, a bad staff, and a really run-down building where the manager got shot at with real guns. That's the short story.

The long story is, and I'll let you fill in the blanks - always know what you are getting into when you sign up for working at a place ! :)