I Will Rise Read Online Free PDF Page B

and I’m positive they all talk mad shit about me. To my face. Behind my back. The waves of laughter from the peanut (or should I say bean) gallery clue me in. It used to bug me. I still go flush from time to time, but really, when I think about it, I couldn’t care less, so screw it, let them have their fun.
    Every so often Mr. Shithead or one of the fool servers is on the receiving end of their Spanish humiliation. In these instances I’m suddenly one of the guys, laughing along, trying to fill in the unintelligible Spanish floating inside my head with clever English barbs.
    Right now, however, Jose isn’t laughing or firing up his amigos. He just raises his eyebrows higher and looks past me. I keep expecting a Spanish comment, ready for the abuse, but nothing. Nothing and Jose turns and fumbles and tries to look busy.
    “Charles?”
    Shit!
    Mr. Shithead.
    I wonder how long he has been standing there.
    “Look, Charles, I think you better go home. Take it easy. Get some rest.”
    So, without a word I’m off and this time it might be it. A few days ago I dropped an armload of plates. Last week I spilled a vat of barbecue sauce. A few days before that, while trying to smuggle some Parmesan cheese into my backpack, I knocked over a tray of chicken breasts. Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. What can I do? The hand manifest. My body a nervous jumble of tics and spasms.
    Very soon my phone will ring and the night manager, Buck (no lie, that’s his honest-to-goodness name), will give me the ax. Maybe. Probably. I think Mr. Shithead has had it with me. Before he leaves for the day he’ll hand over the orders to headsman Buck and that’s it, I’m toast. Maybe. Probably. I don’t think my boss hates me. But, then again, I could be wrong.
    I might as well start looking for job number forty-eight. Forty-eight. I began working at the age of fifteen, I’m thirty-three now, that’s like two and a half jobs per year on average. Of forty-seven jobs, I’ve been fired thirty-eight times. Tonight’s possible canning will bring the grand total up to thirty-nine. Ninety percent of the time it’s the hand’s fault. An involuntary spasm here, a mini freak-out there, the shit adds up.
    Sudden slips.
    Always sudden, unplanned, unprepared.
    Suddenly the trash can falls over.
    Suddenly there’s bleach all over the linoleum.
    Suddenly things break.
    Suddenly I’m unemployed.
    It’s far too easy for my employers. I’m an iffy hire in the first place. Once they realize I’m prone to accidents, it’s all over. Every once in a while I’ll get a manager who feels bad and lets me slide until I make a mistake too big to ignore. In those cases I all but fire myself.
    Name a job, any minimum-wage-paying job and chances are I’ve held it.
    Movie theater: I knocked the usher’s podium over and spilled bucket upon bucket of hot buttered popcorn onto a small child. My boss fired me midshift.
    Business office: I broke a copy machine and spilled hot coffee on one person too many.
    Gas station: you don’t even want to know.
    And the list goes on and on and on, world without end, amen.
    When I think about how many times I have failed, how many times I have let someone down, I get depressed. Most tell me not to worry about it. They tell me the job just wasn’t right for me and that sometimes it happens; sometimes personality and vocation just don’t mesh. But honestly, how are you going to tell me I’m not cut out for cleaning grease traps? Sweeping floors? Making tacos? I know, I know, I know, those telling me not to sweat it and offering words of comfort are just trying to be nice. I should appreciate their civility. And I do, but it’s hard to take someone seriously when their mouths are saying one thing and their eyes are saying another.
    I can see the disgust.
    I can see the anger and frustration my ugly incompetence brings.
    And I feel ashamed.
    I feel low.
    Less than low, beneath the dregs, fired from the very bottom, but fuck me, I’m