Joel F

Joel Project: Day 1

I’m on lunch break at work. After I made the promise a few weeks ago that I would write something, I’ve come to peace with the idea that this place is as good as any to open up and take it all in. If you remember, I used to be all about getting in touch with the writing muse, drowning myself in all of that poetic stuff. But for the last 16 months or so I’ve been stubborn. I got pissed off and tuned myself out. I wrote things, but I wasn’t expressing anything about what I saw or felt or thought about. This assignment was intended to allow me to throw myself into a situation that might break something loose. Chip away at this wooden Indian. The effort would put me back into the practice of seeing things like a writer. I might need this, not only for spiritual survival, but for money. It’d be good to know I can go to places confidently and do my job, like if I had to do a report on a secret gang meeting or spend a week behind bars, or maybe infiltrate a filthy rich person’s New Years Eve party. I have to know I can still DVR these scenes in my head and regurgitate all the nitty gritty wrinkles into writing

For now, I’m in the dining area of the cafeteria on the first floor of my building. This should be familiar to me by now, as I’ve eaten here around sixty-five percent of the time over the last three and a half months worth of work days. But, truthfully, it’s not that familiar. I never know what to expect. It’s Tuesday and I’m eating Chicken Cesar Salad. Chicken Cesar Salad is normally served on Thursdays. This will be the last plate of Chicken Cesar Salad – the near-pound of lettuce, quarter-gallon of dressing, crouton and chicken chunks, greasy breadstick, tomatoes absent – I will eat this year.

I sit alone. So far I have sat at the same table with another person only once. While I was nursing a respectable ham-turkey-bacon deli sandwich, an obese man, probably in his late twenties, with love handles bursting around the top-half of his back, which made it look like his arms started at his elbows, sat down with me. The outer tables in the room were pretty crowded, so I had taken a seat at one of the longer tables in the middle. My lunch friend couldn’t fit at one of the unattended standard square tables, so he sat at the head of my table, the opposite end from me, which was wide enough for him. A few slick bits of hair dripped from the front his scalp like salamander tails. He had a cone-y chin beard, kind of like a character out of Guitar Hero. I can’t recall what he smelled like, but, if I had to guess it, it would be the wet scent of deep fried BK hash browns, slightly burnt, accompanied by the humid odor of swamp ass. I threw back the rest of my Garden Salsa Baked Lays chips, picked up my backpack and fled the scene.