“Order up! hash browns: smothered, covered, chunk, diced, pepper, capped, topped, and county! Holler back!” The waitress said to me over the counter. I swear this customer only wanted this just to hear me call the order back.
“Aam nae repeatin' aw ay 'at ye bludy witch!” I yelled back and started the order on the grill.
The people at the counter laughed, enjoying how the waitresses and I would argue though many admitted they couldn't understand me half the time.
Here's where my stories go a bridge too far and you start saying that I'm making all of this up.
This day was bound to come.
Back in the mid 1990's I was a third shift line cook at a Waffle House on the far North side of my city. For those of you who don't have enough information to do the math, I was 15 years old at the time.
Winter was coming on fast and I had been forced to go to ground. Things had gotten out of hand during a stash house rip and I needed to vanish until things blew over. We were expecting retribution or the police or both. Whichever the case, it was ghost:30 for me.
Unfortunately, that meant no contact with anyone who'd house me. If I had been identified and was being hunted, I'd get caught using any of my usual haunts. It only took one person knowing where I was for anyone to potentially know where I was. This meant that I had to be the normal kind of homeless for a while. Not my first rodeo however it still made things a lot harder.
During the daylight hours, I'd hustle stores and "spange" in those unfamiliar neighborhoods.
Spanging = panhandling
"Excuse me sir, could you spare some change?"
"Excuse me ma'am, spare change?"
"'scuse me, spare change?"
"Spare change?"
"Spange?"
When you do it long enough, the words just run together.
Many of the nights, I'd spend the bulk of the coldest hours in a Waffle House that sat in the shadow of a highway overpass. It was open 24 hours, coffee was unlimited and the staff just didn't care at all. I'd sit in the booth, doodle on scrap paper and even nap. I'd mind my own business, cause no trouble for anyone and they were cool with that.
What's that approaching sound you ask? Oh, that's my story about to get weird. Buckle up.
The movie 'Braveheart' had been released to theaters not long before and being a teen boy I thought it was the most badass thing ever. So much so I had been walking around using a Scottish accent for no other reason than it felt cool. This included any time I interacted with the staff at this Waffle House.
I'd order coffee or food with the money I had spanged, utilizing the accent, and over time this made some of the staff curious. Things would be slow and the waitresses would just sit at my table and ask questions. Small talk. Out of sheer boredom and being one to never waste a potential angle, I began to invent a character.
My parents were from Aberdeen and migrated a few years ago. I said I didn't know why, which was believable given I was literally a teenage kid. Greater details means more to remember. They got caught up in drugs and I didn't know where they were but if the authorities found out I could be deported. It was poorly constructed on the fly but I was trying to convince regular people, not a jury. Thankfully, these were the pre-google days. Bad lies were easy to get away with.
My goal with this con was to give them an excuse to allow me to continue doing what I was doing. It wasn't any more complicated than that. Therefore I needed them to like me and want to "keep my secret". It worked, they had sympathy by the bucket fulls for me. The irony was that the facts about my real life were far and away worse than this fiction though they'd never know.
Winter took an especially harsh turn forcing me to shelter during the days rather than spange and hustle. This made even the tiny bit of money I'd use to scrape by nonexistent. Something they noticed one night when I just ordered water. I tried to play it off, made excuses, but I couldn't hide how I looked. Being outdoors was taking a toll on my appearance which I was normally very good at covering up.
A waitress named Robin said she'd give me $10 if I'd clear the tables for her through the bar-rush. That was a complete no-brainer for me. I kept up easily and even jumped in to do other odds and ends along the way. When it was over I got a free meal too. I remember them actually watching me eat it and pretending like it didn't bother me.
Someone suggested that I could actually work there. To which I pointed out as being impossible because I didn't even have an ID and authorities might start asking questions. While it was true that those could be bad for me, it wasn't for the reasons I gave. People like me didn't keep ID’s. I was always worried that my real name was attached to some open warrant I didn't know about. Beyond that, let's not forget this all started because I'm hiding.
Apparently the manager, god bless his tiny head and mustache, whose name I can't remember, got on the phone the next day and spoke with the franchise owner of that particular Waffle House. At least, so I was told. When I shuffled in the following night I was given an offer to work the grill under the table for $3.50 an hour.
“Sae yoo're offerin' me an actual job?” I asked. When he said yes but unofficially, cash paid at the end of each shift, I responded, “I've ne’er hud wen ay those afair. I'll dea it”
So I started cooking third shift at this Waffle House. The tricky part was I now had to maintain that fake accent constantly throughout each night beyond the tiny bursts where I had mostly just sat quietly in a booth drinking coffee. It got so bad I'd have extreme difficulty turning it off whenever I'd leave. Something that began as just a kid being silly had grown into a very serious matter.
I was made for the bar rush though. I learned that much almost immediately. I'd lay the largest metal spatula from the drawer onto the grill first thing each night with a press weighing it down and leave it there red hot the entire shift. That was my "talking stick" whenever someone got fresh with one of the girls. I'd come charging out waiving it in their faces while yelling with my fake accent.
"If Ah see ye pit yer hans oan 'er a body mair time aam gonnae beat ye tae death wi' thes!" All while waving that red hot spatula in their faces. “Noo say yer feckin' sorry!”
It was a spectacle everyone seemed to love and I'm sure who told plenty of stories after.
I even went so far as to invent quirks such as being deeply offended every time someone would ask if I were Irish. "Dae Ah soond loch some bludy high paich pixie tae ye?!" And asked if they still wore pantaloons whenever someone asked me about wearing kilts. It was an entire identity.
I maintained this charade through the cold of the winter freeze. Then one day the weather broke enough for me to feel bold, sneaking back to my stomping grounds. The guys I spoke to believed things were safe now but had to make sure. I told just one man how to find me and left.
Several days passed and one morning while cleaning my grill, I spotted him walking in. He simply gestured towards his car with a tilt of his head. I nodded and he walked back out. As amusing as it all was, as appreciative as I was, my time there had come to an end. I had to get back to doing what I do.
Walking up to the manager and one of the girls counting the drawer I said "Ah pure appreciate everythin' ye aw hae dain fur me..." I dropped the accent, "but I gotta bounce dawg. Shit to do, feel? Seriously doh, y'all stand up as fuck.", and I simply left.
I never returned there nor did I ever see any of them again, but I'll never forget their expressions as I announced the truth. I wonder if the natural way I spoke was harder to understand than the fake accent. I hadn't planned on deceiving anyone beyond being silly in a booth, and I don't think I left any of them worse off for having met me, but I do wonder how they'd tell this very same story.
Ah wonder whit they'd say abit me noo.
Whatever else you were, you’ve always been a storyteller. The fake Scottish kid was a story that you made up and then acted it out in real life. I was a short order cook at a lunch and breakfast place in Estes Park, Colorado when I was 19. I lied and told them I could cook, and I sort of got away with it. Before that I was a bus boy and dishwasher at a 24 hour pancake house in Brockton, Massachusetts. Restaurant work is shitty work, but the people are often incredibly decent, especially since they generally are pretty poor themselves, and often funny or interesting. The quality of the people is what makes life bearable in those jobs. And there is a feeling of satisfaction when you get through a major rush and get everybody fed and get them all out the door and get the place cleaned up, it’s like you fought a battle together. I don’t miss any of that, but the stress and psychological misery of much of the other parts of my working life is actually worse in many ways. Also, restaurant work, you get home, you clean up, and it’s done. You don’t carry the weight and worry of it with you all the time.
Another great story. You are on a roll!
This did not disappoint! Awesome people.