The (Near) Death of a Fry Cook

“You know what? I quit.”

Lee muttered it at the sink, not loud, just rough enough to rattle the spoons floating in the greasy water. The murk smelled like yesterday’s sausage fat and burnt coffee. He pulled the plug and watched the mess spiral away.

Flora never lifted her head from the stack of invoices on the counter. Cigarette clamped between two yellowed fingers, she said, “Quit what, Brother?”

Nobody in Millhaven called him Lee anymore. Folks said Brother or, when the joke grew legs, Hollywood Brother, because of the crooked tattoo stretched across his knuckles—H O L L Y on one hand, W O O D on the other. Nine letters, eight knuckles: the Y jammed sideways into the soft web near his thumb like a punctuation error. The big laugh was that “Tinsel Town” had washed up in Ohio as one broke dishwasher who couldn’t even spell his dream across the proper number of fingers.

Brother didn’t rent an apartment; he slept out back in an old forty-foot freezer trailer Flora once used to store bulk flour and onions before the compressor died. He’d kicked the rats out one bad winter, swung a broom till the walls thudded, and claimed the metal box as home in exchange for soap-burned hands and a plate of food each shift. The place still smelled of spoiled starch and mouse nests, but a roof was a roof, and the price was right.

“I’m serious,” he said. His voice kept low so the tire-plant crew in the booths wouldn’t hear; men who measured worth in how little they spoke and how much they swallowed.

Flora finally lifted her eyes. They were pale and chipped like cracked teacups, but they could still cut. “Serious don’t change the lunch special,” she said. “Griddle’s cold. Fire it.”

Brother planted both hands on the stainless, knuckles white, Y crooked and angry. “You know what it’s like out there. I sleep beside rust. I piss in a Folgers can when the rain sheets too hard. If that’s a life, I ain’t figured the punch-line.”

Flora flicked ash, slow. “A life’s just hours strung together. Clock in, clock out, don’t die in between. Now gas on.”

Donny Finch swept through the front door with his usual tornado of cold air and cheap enthusiasm. Pen behind one ear, notebook underarm, he looked like a man playing reporter in a town with no news. “Smells like someone’s sermonizing,” he said, sliding onto a stool.

“Brother Hollywood’s quitting again,” Flora muttered.

Donny pulled out his notebook, scribbled something. “Must be Tuesday. That’s two times this month, going for a record?”

Brother opened his mouth, shut it. A low hiss rose from the range as he turned the knob. Blue fire licked iron; bacon slapped down and curled like it wanted to leave too. The iron popped, agreeing or protesting, who could tell.

By ten a.m. the sky had soured to a bruised green. Weather radio crackled about hail the size of cue balls and rain like Old Testament payback. Brother ladled coffee into chipped mugs for the night-shift boys: thick-necked, finger joints black with carbon. No one tipped. Tips were for towns with money.

The bell jangled. The trucker ducked under the frame. Same man, same table three, every trip downstate. Brother filled a mug and slid it over.

“Road’s spooked,” the trucker muttered, staring out the window. “Saw a camper upside down near Bellevue. Hail punched holes clean through the aluminum. Looked like Swiss cheese rolling in a ditch.”

Brother nodded, thinking of the freezer trailer roof: thirty feet of tin that might already be perforated by sky-ice. He flipped three eggs, busted one, cursed under his breath. Flora’s pencil scratched like a cricket trapped in a tin can.

“Storm’s different this time,” the trucker added. “Got a mean to it.”

At noon the meat order failed to arrive. Phone lines out. Cell towers blinking SOS. Flora’s face pinched as she surveyed a cooler that held twelve patties, a tub of lard, and onions soft as old thoughts.

“Vegetarian special,” she announced. “Toast and tears. Comes with a free weather forecast.”

Chuckles rippled through the tired men.

Brother fried onions until the dining room smelled like a county fair left in the sun too long. Donny wrote a line in his notebook, showed it to Brother: “The apocalypse smells like caramelized onions—who knew?” For once, Brother almost smiled.

Outside, daylight dimmed like someone throttled a lamp. The wind leapt, banging the dumpster lid against its chain. Rain followed, first thick drops, then sheets that blurred the parking lot into a gray mirage.

The fluorescents flickered once, twice. Went out. Exhaust fans died. The sudden quiet boomed.

Flora struck a match, lit the kerosene lamp that lived beneath the register. Its glow painted greasy halos on the chrome.

“Breaker box?” Donny offered.

Brother shook his head. “Water’s up past the wheels already. I step in that puddle, I’m catfish bait.”

“Then we work by lantern,” Flora said. “World’s been darker.”

A half hour later Brother pushed through the rain to check his trailer. Water lapped at the axles. The door gaped, hinge rust finally giving up. Inside, the mattress was soaked, blankets preparing to mold soon enough. No sense saving any of it; mold would do what ruin does, slow and thorough.

When he turned to leave, he saw movement on the far side: a skinny kid, drenched shirt glittering NIRVANA in washed-out rhinestones. Barefoot, blue lips, eyes wide as nickels. But something else too; the kid clutched a battered guitar case like it was the last solid thing in the world.

“You lost?” Brother barked over the roar.

The kid hugged himself, guitar case between his knees. “Just need a dry spot…”

“Bad pick,” Brother muttered, but motioned. “Food's inside.”

The boy followed, shivering so hard his teeth clicked. Inside, Flora pegged him with one glance.

“Another mouth,” she said.

“Another pair of hands,” Brother countered. “And looks like he plays.”

The deal was struck without more words. The kid, Jory, took the sink, scrubbing plates with the desperation of someone afraid to lose the job before he earned it. The guitar case sat by the kitchen door, with the water pooling beneath it.

Lightning ripped the sky. Thunder rattled the salt shakers. The trucker at table three lifted his mug, studied the boy.

“Kid’s safe?” he asked Brother.

“Safe enough,” Brother said, sliding a refill across.

The trucker laid two crumpled singles on the laminate and folded his massive hands. “Good. World’s mean enough without us adding to it.”

Rain deepened. Wind howled sharp and cutting. The diner windows flexed. Somewhere beyond the flood a horn blared, sheared off mid-scream.

Brother grabbed his jacket. “Something’s wrong out there.”

“Leave it,” Flora said.

He ignored her, waded into the night. Water climbed his shins. Fifty yards up the county road a sedan sat nose-down in a ditch, trunk pointing at Mars. Headlights illuminated nothing but churned mud. A woman pounded the window until her palms left bloody smears. A small form in the back seat didn’t move.

Through knee-deep water Brother slogged, wrenched the door. The woman screamed about her son. Brother cut the seatbelt with the serrated lid of a busted can, hauled the limp boy free. His own ribs howled from the effort.

They stumbled back toward the diner, child cradled like wet laundry. Flora met them at the threshold, lamp high. Donny swept condiments off booth five, laid down towels. Jory fetched a stack of paper napkins, useless but earnest.

The boy coughed a thin, torn sound. Breath staggered back into his chest. The woman sobbed, clutching him. Brother watched the child’s eyes flutter open, focus on nothing, then close again, alive but somewhere else.

Flora poured whiskey from under the till, splashed it on the woman’s scraped hands. She hissed, then gulped a shot straight from the bottle.

“Road’s gone,” she said in a flat voice.

Brother peeled off his jacket, draped it around the woman. She looked at him like she’d never seen kindness before and didn’t trust it now.

The lamp guttered. The kerosene was nearly gone. Donny’s flashlight died with a small electronic whimper.

Flora’s eyes flashed. “Generator in the shed.”

Brother and Donny slogged through black water. The Briggs & Stratton was a rust monument to bad maintenance. They heaved it onto a milk cart, dragged it through the mud like a dead bull.

Brother muttered a prayer to no god in particular. First pull: cough. Second: backfire. Third: engine roared, coughing smoke that stank of burning tractors.

Inside, lights blinked strobe-bright. The jukebox booted and, by electrical fate, chose Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe.” The acoustic twang seemed to mock them all.

“Turn that damn thing off,” Flora said, but nobody moved.

The diner became ark. Carnies from a jackknifed tilt-a-whirl truck squelched in, faces painted with streaks of neon where oil lamps had exploded. Two deputies sloshed by, radios dead. A crop duster pilot wandered, flight suit soaked, claiming he’d landed in a soybean field he couldn’t find anymore.

Flora set out the last of the bread, canned chili warmed on a Bunsen flame, pickles from an ancient barrel. People ate like penitents tasting sacrament.

Stories spilled: failed marriages, lost harvests, a carny who’d once juggled chainsaws on meth and woke up short a toe. But also: the deputy who’d delivered a baby in a parking lot, the pilot who’d flown medicine to flood victims, Donny reading a poem he’d written about his father’s hands. Even Jory, when pressed, admitted he’d been heading to Nashville when the storm caught him, pulled out his water-logged guitar and played three chords that still rang true.

Brother listened, said nothing. His story stayed locked behind his teeth.

The generator sputtered. Brother tapped the gas cap. Dry.

“Lantern back up,” he called. Jory struck a match, handed it over like a torch in a relay nobody wanted to win. Flame caught. Shadows grew teeth.

Then Jory slipped on fry grease, lantern flying. Glass burst; flames skittered across spilled lard under the range. People screamed. Brother tackled the mop bucket, drowned the fire in gray water and floating eggshells. Steam billowed, stink of burnt fat choking the room.

Silence after felt like the whole world glanced away, embarrassed.

Flora wiped her face with a dish rag, left a black smear. “Anybody else got excitement, speak now.”

Nobody spoke.

Rain tapered toward dawn. Clouds thinned to charcoal streaks. Through the smeared glass, Brother saw the horizon glow, the sick yellow of light after too much water.

Inside, bodies slumped. Carnies leaned on farmers, deputies on the counter, the pilot flat out on booth cushions. The boy slept across two chairs, breathing easy. The woman held his hand in a grip that looked permanent.

Flora counted heads. “Thirty-four souls,” she whispered. “Never had a church, but this’ll do.”

Brother walked to the window. The neon outside flickered—O P E, the N still dead. But dawn behind it made the dark glass shine, and for one breath it read HOPE after all.

Brother barked a laugh, the sound as dry as gravel under tires. He rubbed the sideways Y on his knuckle, turned back to the grill.

Outside, the water had begun to recede, leaving a brown line on everything like a high-water mark on a measuring cup. His trailer sat cockeyed, door still gaping. Everything he owned was ruined. But through the kitchen window, he could see Jory’s guitar case, and beyond that, Flora counting heads again, making sure she hadn’t lost anyone in the night.

One of the deputies had waded to his cruiser, returned with a cooler from his trunk: eggs from his wife's chickens, bacon he'd been taking to his mother. "Figured we'd need breakfast," he'd said, setting it by the kitchen door.

“Yeah, breakfast crowd’ll be here soon,” he said.

Flora nodded, struck another match. “Gas on, Hollywood.”

He fired the iron. Eggs cracked, bacon spit. The smell rose like promise beat half to death but still breathing.

The woman from the car appeared in front of him, her boy awake now, wrapped in someone’s flannel shirt. “Thank you,” she said simply.

Brother nodded, flipped an egg. “Coffee’s fresh.”

She smiled, the first real smile he’d seen all night. “We’ll take two.”