Gut Feeling
‘Gut Feeling’ by V.J. Hamilton
My first job application since the lockdown ended and I am all nerves since the benefits cut off months ago and I am not looking my best because no proper haircut. My side tooth is freshly broken and my face contorts as my tongue keeps exploring the gap. I try not to do this, but it’s practically a reflex.
I show up at three o’clock as directed by the restaurant email. The maître d’hôtel gives me an application and points to a booth, the table bare except for a rack of jam pots. He is completely bald, pink and rubbery, with a wrinkle that goes all the way around his neck. He looks like a walking penis. I read the directions, beginning with ‘Fill out using block letters.’
Why BLOCK LETTERS, I wonder, why not simply Print Neatly, so the form would be filled with a pleasing mix of upper and lower case that has been shown to have higher readability scores. Perhaps it’s a test of how well I follow directions, and how badly I want the job, that I am willing to sit here and print so many BLOCK LETTERS, spewing contact details for the last three places I worked, despite my hand starting to cramp.
This resto looks similar to the others, with dark wood panelling and homey accents, if you lived in a home hung with framed prints of hounds hunting and ducks being senselessly killed for pleasure. Across from my booth there’s a mirror, its smoky glass a dead giveaway that it’s a two-way mirror so an HR person can secretly watch job seekers as they fill out forms, thinking no one sees them as they chew their pencils, scratch their arses and steal cute jam pots.
My tongue keeps rooting around the broken tooth, but my lips remain sealed as I mark the check boxes. ‘Are you bondable?’ and ‘Can you sing Happy Birthday?’ Check, check and YES, IN 4 LANGUAGES. In the two-way, HR would see me grin briefly because my talent is sure to get me an interview-cum-audition. My fourth language is pig Latin. Appy-hay irthday-bay oo-tay ou-yay!
The form asks, ‘What three words describe the ideal server?’ My gut feeling: CLEAN, WELCOMING, ACCURATE. But then I pause. I do not want hair, no matter how CLEAN, in my food, so baldness could be preferable. Also, WELCOMING is weak. A server might welcome ten tables and not serve a single one. And ACCURATE? Could get tiresome. Hungry customers want food fast; so what if the server mixes up the medium-rare with the well-done? I erase my original answer and write BALD, ATTENTIVE, SWIFT.
My tongue tip is getting shredded on the broken tooth and my jaw has that unpleasant tingle just before the dental nerve fires. How soon can I afford a dentist? I reach the question: ‘What is your favourite food?’ Definitely not OLIVES with pits, the source of my tooth mishap. I speed-print APPLESAUCE. It was Mother’s favourite or so I infer. Good enough for her, good enough for me.
Now they’re asking about credentials, everything from a mixologist diploma to St. John’s Ambulance training, important for resuscitating patrons who are choking or suffering cardiac distress. Or maybe suffering allergic anaphylaxis. Stupid of me to forget that. I return to the ideal server question and replace SWIFT with ACCURATE.
The walking penis, let’s call him Dick, strolls up and down the aisle of booths. The HR person behind the two-way might notice that I’m gnawing my lip, rubbing my eyes, and surreptitiously blotting my drippy nose on my sleeve. I can’t help it; I forgot my tissue. Sometimes moisture collects at the tip, I picture myself saying to Dick in a superb double entendre.
I stand up, my hand aching, collect my jacket (with jampot in pocket), and hand Dick the form. He has no eyelashes, and his eyebrows are hairless bony ridges. I’ve heard of this condition of extreme baldness, where the body rejects all hair follicles and I wonder if on hot days the sweat trickles directly into his eyes. I feel sorry for him even though my gut feeling is that Dick would be a pain to work for.
Yes, I pity him. I realise I will never get this job, so I wring some enjoyment from this sensation. Feeling pity for someone more powerful than I will ever be is my tattered consolation prize.
I stub my toe on the way out and the pain zigzags: toe ankle knee hip spinal column jaw broken tooth. The minute the door closes behind me, I curl over and howl, my face a rictus of pain. I drag-limp my sorry carcass toward the muddy beat-up Saturn that has a fresh parking ticket clipped to its cracked windshield. Saturn, wasn’t he famous for eating his children? I recall Goya’s horrific painting. Ha-ha, what if I had answered that favourite-food question with CHILDREN?
The Saturn ferries me home, its Check Engine light blinking arterial red, its worn brake pads shrieking, its gas gauge needle trembling below zero. As I approach my apartment building, I notice a sleek black Lexus parked out front. I keep driving: an instinct, a reflex, a gut feeling that my landlord’s henchman has come to collect back-rent. Lockdowns stop and start. Jobs start and stop. But the pain of existence is continual, the need to shelter oneself, feed oneself, believe in oneself is continual.
Tonight I shall open that tin of APPLESAUCE that I’ve been saving. You can crush the phenobarbital to a powder and mix it in. All her friends at Heaven’s Gate had APPLESAUCE as their final favourite meal. Good enough for Mother, I say, good enough for me.
V.J. Hamilton has written for radio, video and print. She has lived in Japan, Germany, New Zealand and currently calls Toronto home.
