Full Circle

It was a simple moment that changed my entire perception of Rob.

He spoke.

And looked happy.

Sounds stupid, right?

Someone saying hello with a positive attitude is what instantly gives you the conviction you didn’t know you needed to truly see what Rob, what nice, quiet, Rob the Cook truly is:

A brutal murderer.

Jessica, a Nordic beauty with eyes of a frozen lake reflecting a twilight sky, was the first to report that he would stare at them from across the line separating cooks and servers.

“What do you mean, he stares?” Would be the response.

The response varies.

Kristy, a veteran of the hospitality industry and has worked in dive bars, sports bars, hotels and fine dining and now this weird hybrid of A and D, put it simply:

“Like he wants to fuck and kill me, Tom;

That guys fucked.”

What was Tom’s, Shane’s and Hugo’s response?

“Well, I’ve never seen it so I can’t do much about it.”

You see, Rob was good at his job;

Really good.

He would stay late, show up early.

His work was consistent, his food was good and he was the first to do the dirty jobs.

He made their lives easy.

So what that he is a creep?

They were too, the fucking frat boys.

I’ve seen it too but, well, I’m just the 17 year-old cook working with this usually quiet, stoic beast of a man (dude’s like 6’7 and stocky; like if took Lebron James, covered him in white paint, gave him some hair and instead of defined muscles you guys have mass. Dude was just a brick)

It was only until Angelique, a very petite cook who worked the fryers back there with him, was found eviscerated, disemboweled and beheaded in an alley off of where she heads home from work where we all finally started listening to her.

How does that The Band Perry song go?

Funny when you’re dead,

How people start listenin’.

The cops poked their heads around, asked a few questions, ate some chicken wings made in the same fryer Angelique was standing at not 13 hours before and left with a shrug.

Nobody saw Angelique leave since she was the kind of person who preferred cats to people and the post-shift drink period was usually a messy affair where anything goes.

Seriously, used condoms and blow in the bathrooms were regular presents for someones Latvian grandparents who cleaned the bar between 2 and 4am.

Anyways.

Angelique died two days before Rob tried to start a conversation.

I was having a smoke after throwing out the condom garbages of the bathroom (the Kumoski’s refuse to change them, can’t blame them) when Rob came bounding around the corner, red faced and a smile on his face.

A beeping begins in my mind. Annoying and incessant.

Where was the shuffling oaf with a slight slouch.

How did the image of low self esteem all of a sudden develop stride like he just got laid not once, twice, three but four times with as many different partners as there were instances of rabbit humping?

He clapped me on the shoulder as he opened the back door into the kitchen with a;

“What’s up, buddy!”

And he disappeared, leaving me with a full blown alarm ringing throughout my entire body.

The burning of my skin against the smouldering filter of the cigarette I let burn itself down as I tried to be a detective brought me back to reality.

I tossed it and quickly lit another one.

I’m not going back in there.

I wanted to go home.

It’s weird when you know something but can’t say it, even in your mind.

It’s like holding in a shit you don’t want to shit while you’re on your own toilet;

It just doesn’t make sense.

My re-entry into the twilight zone was interrupted by our hero himself coming barreling out the door with the same smile on his face.

He turned those gleaming teeth underneath animated brown eyes almost eclipsed by those dilated pupils onto me and I felt my adrenaline beginning to break down the doors holding it back.

“Can I bum one, buddy?”

Buddy?

Buddy?!

What the absolute fuck?

“Yeah, sure Rob.” I mumbled and handed him a smoke.

“You get drunk last night?”

“What?” I’m 17, an honour roll student and on scholarship to McMaster University.

It’s also a Wednesday in November.

“No, man, why?” I asked, still mumbling because I was afraid if I spoke up my voice would shake. I went to hand him my lighter but he pulled one out that I had seen before.

Angie and I used to have post shift smokes before she walked home.

“You got the shakes, my man, the shakes!”

Rob began to laugh from the belly.

The chortle of the exhilarated, the fulfilled;

The sated.

I would have responded but Jessica, the aforementioned Nordic princess, came around the corner.

Normally I like looking at her.

Now I was terrified.

Rob followed my gaze and removed the cigarette he was barely smoking to smile widely and wave like a maniac.

Jessica restrained the shiver I could see on her skin and waved back meekly.

“How’s it going, gorgeous!”

She shrunk and looked down.

“Good.”

“Awesome! You look so good today!”

Then Rob said the word that made me want to puke:

“Delicioussss.”

Motherfucker.

Jessica’s eyes widened, looked to me and we both realized we drew the same conclusion as to who Rob is and are both concluding the drawing of another point that made them both cold to their cores:

Jessica was next.

If I followed her in like Rob almost did before I caught his attention with a knocked over garbage can I would have seen her walk right through the kitchen, through the dining area, past a hungover Tom trying to get her attention and out into to parking lot where she got into her car and drove a long route around said parking lot to the other end of the plaza so she could exit without being seen from where Rob and I were sharing a smoke.

“Huh, guess people are weirded out by the change.” Rob shrugged and looked to me.

“What do you think, buddy?”

With a courage that should not have been there in the puddle of urine I was creating in my pants I looked dead into Rob’s face and signed my death warrant;

“You dropped Angelique’s lighter.”

Robs face dropped and he looked to the floor where the lighter with assorted cats on it laid by his feet.

He had to look past the bundle of brunette hair with a braid within its midst hanging halfway out of his pocket to find it.

Angelique’s hair, Angelique’s lighter.

He looked at the symbols, his trophies of a truly disgusting moment, looked at me and smiled.

“Nice working with ya, kid.”

Then Rob turned and sprinted for the street.

He should have looked both ways.

There are moments where you truly see how small someone really is;

Freddy Mercury reduced to nothing by a disease brought on by one of Gods greatest gifts,

Countless celebrities brought to their end by a pill smaller than a dime and the right amount of a liquid to mix it with,

Rob, built like a brick shit house, murdering Rob utterly crumpled by the 21 bus going a little over the speed limit to catch the next light and get back on schedule.

Judging by the squeals of the tires and the screams up the block it seems like it took the driver a few seconds to comprehend the fact that he just hit a massive human being.

I flicked the smoke and went inside;

I had work to do.

Tom walked past, sunglasses on.

“Hey, Tom?” I called out.

“Yeah, dude?”

“Where’s Jessica?”

“Just fucking left, dude. Ghosted us. Won’t pick up the phone but she’s probably still driving but fuck! We need her.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked out the window.

I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal that one of our better servers just walked out before we opened.

“Call her and tell her she’s safe to come back.”

Tom looked confused.

“Safe?” He asked.

“Yeah, safe.”

“Why is she safe now as opposed to yesterday?” Tom asked, getting a little frustrated by my flippant, borderline dramatic teasing of a reveal.

“Rob’s dead.”

I turned around and went back to the service line as the commotion up the street reached our restaurant and Tom was called out front by hysterical hostesses who were on the bus that is going to need a deep clean.

I walked past the fryer, stopped and turned to it.

I looked at it for a few moments.

I turned it on, shed a tear and went to work.