Page 72 - WTP Vol. X #7

GasCo (continued from preceding page)
“I don’t do shit like that,” he said. “People wanna give
me money, I’ll just ask ‘em. No shame in it!”
“If you ask people for money, GasCo won’t let you stand here. So just go up to the cars and ask how they want to pay. If they say credit card, show ‘em how
to use the machine. If they’re paying cash, bring the money and their license to me, and I’ll turn on the pump. Then if there’s change, you bring it out to them along with the license. You can handle that, right?”
“Can I handle that? That’s the dumbest job I ever heard of.”
“Well it’s your job now. Just do it.”
Finally, I told him he’d have to leave if he didn’t take the gig, because I wasn’t about to risk my job for him. So he relented, and by the time Paul showed up, he got to watch Tony running up to each car to ask how they’d be paying.
“Why is that guy still here?” “I offered him a job.”
He was pissed, but he wouldn’t show it. A corporate guy like that will avoid a confrontation forever.
“We don’t pay people to pump gas,” he said, adjusting his glasses nervously.
“He’s not pumping gas. I told you—this is an older town; a lot of people don’t want to have to walk in- side. Tony takes care of that. It’s good for business— we won’t lose out to someplace that doesn’t make people go inside twice.”
“Glenn,” he said, with pure passive-aggression, “I know before you could hire whomever you wanted, but—”
“Paul,” I cut him off, throwing it back at him. “As manager of the station, I have a discretionary budget to hire outside workers for the cleaning staff, right?”
“Yes...”
“Well, I checked, and company policy doesn’t say that I have to use that money on cleaning, just on outside staff. So, I’ll clean the bathroom myself. I was already doing it anyway. I’ll use that money on Tony.”
Paul looked at me, then at Tony. He could see how much trouble fighting me on this was going to be, and how it’d look if he lost control of the workplace over
something this dumb.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll see how it works.”
I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as Paul told me he was going to step out for lunch even though it was only 11 and he’d been there ten whole minutes.
“Oh, Paul?” I said before he left. “Yeah?”
“We’re gonna need to order a shirt for Tony. One with his name on it.”
~
Paul kept looking for a reason to kick Tony off the property, but couldn’t find one. For the time being, Tony was flawless—and why wouldn’t he be? Every- body knew him; they’d all been pulling for Tony to get it together, and now he had his chance. They’d try tipping him, and he’d tell them he couldn’t accept it because he was already getting minimum wage.
Paul spent most of his time at the Extended Stay, making phone calls and sending faxes and whatever else, but he would stop by, and each time he’d spend a long few minutes watching Tony to see if he’d screw up.
“He better not be asking them for change,” he said. “He’s not.”
Then he started in on having Tony sleep there. “If cars can’t be there, neither can a homeless guy.”
“He’s got a name,” I said.
“Well, he can’t sleep under the awning at night.”
So Tony started sleeping under the overpass, but he kept on working. I was happy with my little act of rebellion. They weren’t going to force me and Tony and everybody else to do things their way without a fight.
~
The first payday, things got tougher. Tony cashed his check at the liquor store, and by Monday he was a mess. I let him wash up in the bathroom and sent him out there, but then Tuesday he didn’t show up, and Wednesday he was there at 4 P.M. and drunk.
I told Paul he was sick, but even Paul’s not that stupid. When Tony missed again on Thursday, Paul
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