Claus began his 9:00 shift at 7-11 wearing
the giant hot dog suit and standing on the corner of West Sixth Street and South
Alexandria Avenue in Korea Town. He was
hot and miserable, able to smell Kendall’s foul body odor and unable to scratch
places that itched.
He hated wearing the
costume, not only because of its shameful appearance, but also because it was a
haven for germs and parasites. While
most hot dog suits were embarrassing enough: the bun wrapped around the wiener
with a mustard squiggle down the middle; this one was even worse. The hot dog portion had a hood with an
opening for his face to stick out- it clung to his cheeks. A twisted beanie top crowned the whole outfit,
meant to mimic the end of a sausage casing.
Claus stood on the corner with a handful of fliers that advertised
specials of Pepsi 12-packs with a coupon for dollar hot dogs. At 10:00 he could take it off and go inside- one more hour and he was free.
Since Claus was naturally stocky, the
costume fit him snugly. He was forced to
share the dreadful thing with five other employees who the owner called “young
and adventurous” trying to encourage them in the midst of humiliation. Claus
was indeed young; he was even adventurous in most ways, but not with hygienic cleanliness. The other 7-11 employees who shared the costume
didn’t seem to be as fastidious, Claus noticed.
Kendall was the worst: a tall, thick-waisted girl with three moles above
her left eyebrow and a terrible stench that stayed behind when she left.
Although Claus and Kendall had never really
spoken, he considered her an unpleasant person that he did not want to know. When he was forced to work alongside of her
he did all of the physical jobs. She sat
behind the counter on her fat ass, chewing her gum noisily and staring out the
window.
Instead of mopping or cleaning
up around the coffee area, which were the easy jobs, she would organize the
hanging . He hated working the shift
after her, mainly because the bathroom cleanup was a terrible job after eight
hours of neglect. She didn’t even bother
to read when it was slow; just chewed gum and looked out the window. Claus had never seen her use a cell phone.
A car filled with teenagers stopped at the
red light. Claus smiled and waved at
them, even though they were laughing and taking pictures of him with their cell phones.
“Man, I would NEVER do that job!” one of
them yelled at him. The other passengers
roared with laughter.
Claus laughed and shouted
back, “Never say NEVER!”
The people in
the car were silent for a moment, then laughed.
As they pulled away they honked and waved. Claus sighed.
“Yeah, everyone thinks the hot dog is a
dork,” he whispered to himself.
Traffic was steady, but very few people
were on foot. Now and then the tin sound
of a shopping cart could be heard in the distance; Claus looked around to see
where it was coming from.
He remembered when his father lost his job
three years ago. He was fifteen years
old; Shelley was thirteen. Mom left two
months later, with no explanation. Claus’
father was devastated and drank a lot; it wasn’t until Claus was forced to buy his
dad’s whiskey that he realized how much he consumed. Before long, Dad had drunk nearly all of the severance
check and Claus didn’t know what to do.
He considered running away, but it would have meant abandoning his
sister. Desperate, he called his Chemistry
teacher, Miss Gill, at home. She came to
their apartment right away, assessed the situation, and explained to Claus that
he and his sister would have to go to “somewhere safe”. It didn’t take long to realize that this meant
foster care; this was how Claus learned that his father was in the throes of
pretty advanced alcoholism. Dad was taken to a hospital; Claus and Shelley were
placed in emergency housing with a foster family. If it weren’t for Miss Gill, they would have been
separated.
Now Claus was determined to make a living
that could sustain both of them; Shelley worked part time at Burger King as
well, but she needed to graduate. He was
in community college, worked two jobs and was able to rent a small studio
apartment for both of them. All of it
would get easier, he told himself, once he finished college.
“Hey, wiener!” He heard the voice of a bum,
yelling at him from the sake house on the opposite corner. Straining to see, Claus could make out the
figure of a large-bellied man, leaning against his stolen cart. The man looked familiar, was it Old Henry,
the man that tried to steal the throw away dogs from the garbage? It was hard to see in the half-light.
“Hello!” Claus waved a gloved hand. The motion released the awful body odor
smell. He was repulsed, but quickly
recovered – long enough to see the man shaking his head.
“I said,” the man yelled louder. “HEY WIENER!”
“Yeah, I heard you!” Claus knew the job was
awful, but it paid well and it coordinated with his other job at the deli and
school. This way, he could rent the
studio apartment for him and his sister. Pretty soon, he’d have to think about
a scholarship application to UCLA.
“You
know why I called you that?” The drunken man continued bellowing from across the
street. Where was a cop when you needed
one? More cars past, the whir of a city
bus passed before him. In one hour he
could take off the costume and go inside to clean up the coffee stations. That man was still yelling. Why did his voice sound so familiar?
In a moment that stood still, Claus
realized why the man looked and sounded familiar: it was his father.
There Claus stood, on the corner, in a hot
dog suit – having this realization. His
father was pushing a shopping cart around Korea Town. He was on the streets. He was back to drinking, or he never got
clean. Shame filled him; it was worse
than Kendall’s stench.
He started to yell something at him, but his
father suddenly stopped. It was as if he
recognized his son at the same time the son recognized the father. Silence filled the tension between them. West Sixth was quiet. It wasn’t until the ground beneath his feet
crested in a wave, that Claus snapped out of it.
His father was a bum. Was that an earthquake?
