I am Gideon: Chapter #9

Realizations, lies and liberty.

“Gideon,” I said.  “Gideon…Ing.”

“What makes you think I’ve got work?” the man asked.  He was tall, slightly stooped and skinny as a wire.  He looked like his hide had been stripped off, nailed to a shed for a few years and then draped back over him in a casual sort of way. 

“A man at the soup kitchen said he’d just quit,” I said.  “So… I thought I’d ask.”

“You know you stink,” the man said.  “How long you been in those clothes?”

“They’re all I’ve got,” I said.

“You a criminal?” he asked. One of his eyes didn’t track and it made me want to laugh.  I didn’t.

“No Sir,” I said.  I didn’t mention I’d been more or less trespassing for the last week or so. 

“Your parents know you’re running around loose?”

I took a breath.  “I don’t have any parents,” I said.

“How old are you, Boy?”

My heart sank.  Nobody was going to hire a stinky fourteen-year-old.  “I’m sixteen,” I said.

He didn’t turn a hair. “You know anything at all about washing dishes?” he asked.  “I don’t need somebody breakin’ my dishes and my glassware.”

I had learned a trade!  I thought my heart would burst with pride.  I stood up tall and said, “Sir, I was trained by the staff of a hospital how to wash, dry and stack dishes so they don’t break, and glasses and cups, too.  And I know how to get them really clean.”

“How about you work one day for free so I can see for myself,” he said, and I nodded. 

“I will do that,” I said.  “And if I do that, and you like my work, can I have a job? I know how to wash sheets and towels, too, and fold them neat and make beds.” I paused, “This is an inn, isn’t it?”

“First eager man I’ve seen for a while,” he drawled, and another thrill went up my spine.  I was a man!  “I’ll give you a trial run. You got a place to sleep?” he asked.

I shrugged.  “Not really.”  I couldn’t very well tell him I had to be back to my bus before the museum closed.

“There’s a mattress in the back.  If you work out, you can sleep there.  Can you start right now?”

I nodded, and he led me into a kitchen with more dirty dishes than I’d ever seen in my life. 

I rolled up my sleeves and dug in, determined to prove my worth.  If this didn’t work out, I’d be out on the street at midnight with nowhere safe to go.

By the time he came back I was exhausted and famished, but I was also finished.  The dishes were scrubbed and stacked neatly, glasses on the shelf.  His mouth turned down at the corners and his eyebrows went up in the middle.  “Hm,” he said. “Not bad.”

“You like?” I asked.

“I like,” he said, and his face formed a dozen creases I assumed was a smile.  I wondered how anybody that skinny could make creases in his skin.  It seemed too tight for that.  “Mattress in the back, one meal a day plus any scraps you want to take off the plates, and ten credits a day.  Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.  I had a pretty good idea it was slave wages, but there was a meal, maybe two or three, and a bed inside. “I’ll take it.”

 

Image Designer Credit: Sage Hollis