“Not bad, not bad,” Antoine said, nodding his head. “If I was the company president, I’d hire ya to promote.”
“Well, if you ever do, remember, I get ten percent,” Ryan interjected. “I introduced you all.”
“Good business mind, Mister Ryan,” Lee remarked, setting the can down and going over to the refrigerator to get some ingredients out of storage.
“And if we get rich, you can take a vacation,” Ryan said.
“Wouldn’t that be nice, just to get away?” Lee responded, with wistful sigh. “Haven’t been able to get away for years. Have to work so hard just to keep everything together.”
“Maybe we will get away someday. But just don’t forget to take me with you if you go somewhere exciting. I’ve never been out of this town, ever. I would like to see the world someday,” Ryan said.
“By the time we can see the world, they’ll probably be able to take us to other whole worlds,” Lee jested.
The facade of humor did not mask the shimmer of a distant regret in his eyes, as he looked down at the egg roll ingredients in his hands. Before too much emotion welled up, his stoic demeanor returned to take command of his features.
“But they say that the show must go on, right?” Lee asked, looking over at the other two.
Lee turned his attention towards working on the preparations for the next batch of egg rolls, the passing fancy of talking about personal dreams now pushed to the side by obligation.
“Need some help with that?” Ryan inquired.
Lee shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, if you don’t have anything better to do.”
“Well, if Pamela was around, I sure would,” he wisecracked, walking over.
Antoine crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, drinking his beverage. “I’ll hang around, but I’m outta this.”
Lee chuckled. “I’m not sure I would eat an egg roll that you made.”
Antoine just shook his head. “Okay, Lee, I’ll cut you some slack. Let’s just say I like to supervise.”
“Remind me to talk to you when I hire a manager for the restaurant,” Lee said with evident sarcasm, evoking some laughter from the other two.
For the next couple of hours, Ryan helped cut Lee’s work load by almost a full third. As he put the freshly made egg rolls back for the next day, Lee thumbed through some bills in his pocket and gave a few over to Ryan.
Ryan never would have asked, knowing how many times Lee had fed him for free or given him a bonus on his work pay. He also knew not to refuse, as Lee tended to be offended by refusals of a gift or bonus.
Lee and Ryan worked together on the last few tasks involved with closing up the restaurant. When they left the building, Lee ended up giving them a ride in his car.
As he dropped Ryan off, Lee reminded him about the hours that he wanted him to work at the restaurant the next day, and then drove onward.
The rest of the evening was largely uneventful, involving little more than the intake of substances and the playing of some video games.
When dawn was finally coming around, and his eyelids had grown very heavy, he sprawled out on a couch to get a couple hours of sleep.
Fatigue ensured that he would not stay awake for much longer, but before he finally succumbed to sleep his thoughts lingered on the past evening and the feelings within him.
The night had left him with an empty void inside.
In his heart he found that he did not feel any pride at the fight that he had been in earlier in the night. The only warmth of the evening had come from being around Lee, one of the few lights in a very dark world.
He felt a pang of guilt about Lee finding out about the scuffle, and knew then that he wanted to make Lee proud of him. His own father had nothing to do with him, and Ryan rarely saw the man since his parents had split up. His mother had always been far more interested in her boyfriends than what was happening to him.
Only Lee expected something grander out of Ryan.
Lee was the only one that had expressed a better world being possible for Ryan.
The owner of that little restaurant had given him something to grasp onto, and for that he was growing ever more grateful. He felt extremely lucky just to realize what Lee’s ongoing gift to him was.
Even though Lee would likely choose some bad movies to watch, Ryan found himself really looking forward to seeing his truest friend later that afternoon for work, and for some movies on Sunday.
The thought put a smile on his face that lingered as he drifted off to sleep.
LOGAN
Deep into the night, Logan wearily leaned back in his fabric-upholstered office chair, finally surrendering as he rested his hands upon the arm rests. He rubbed his strained eyes slowly.
As if his momentary detachment were some kind of cue, there came a gentle rap upon the wood of his front door.
Rising up with a groan, he stretched his stiffened limbs and made his way out of his home studio to the front of the house.
The identity of the figure standing on the front porch awaiting him was not a surprise, even at the very late hour. Shorter than Logan, stocky, with a face that was normally cherubic, Antonio Guerrero now displayed a quite dour expression.
Logan wordlessly opened the screen door, and Antonio nudged past him as he entered the apartment.
“I know, you are probably busy right now, but I need to vent,” Antonio muttered in an obvious state of great frustration. “I am not going to take much more of this.”
Behind Antonio, Logan battened down the hint of a rueful grin that had come to his own face, having been treated to comments and visits like this rather frequently as of late. It was not that he was callous, but rather that he was simply amazed that life always appeared to be so entirely predictable.
Late night, Logan could afford to give his friend a little more slack in terms of his time, and he had told him so. Antonio had certainly been making use of that invitation.
Logan did have some genuine sympathy for Antonio, who worked as a delivery person for a local pizza place, a horrific environment to Logan, who would have rather gone homeless than have subjected himself to such a place.
Antonio put in a lot of hours on the job, with frequent double shifts, and had incurred much wear and tear on his car that his pay could not keep up with. He got very little in the way of respect, from managers and customers alike, with a low hourly wage and sporadic tips that were more often than not miniscule.
It was not an environment overabundant in personal satisfactions, and as of late Antonio had begun to question the mere sanity of all of it. He had come to the conclusion that Logan had already made, and warned Antonio of, long before.
“No girlfriend, no real goals, and no money. That’s what I realized today. I just exist to pay bills, and can barely do that, so that a select few can live in a paradise of wealth in some gated community,” Antonio hissed with anger, clearly holding back a tide of frustration that had been long packed down deep inside of him. “And here I am, on another uneventful Friday night, making you listen to me tell you all my problems.”
“We’re friends, believe me, I wouldn’t let just anyone vent in my living room. And it’s not time to panic; you are just twenty-seven years old. Believe it or not, that is still young, Antonio,” Logan encouraged, shutting the front door.
Logan gestured for Antonio to have a seat on a couch in the small living room at the front of the house. Antonio strode over and sank down heavily into the cushion.
He put his elbows on his knees, folding his hands in between, staring down at the rug underneath the low coffee table in front of him. He let his breath out slowly, as his shoulders sagged.
“You may be right, Logan,” Antonio said in a tired voice, “but I’m starting to find myself thinking about all of this, and where I’m really going, more and more.”
Logan understood his friend very well, and was glad that at least Antonio felt that he had an outlet with Logan. Antonio leaned toward being an introvert, and carried a tendency towards shyness around most others.