“You can’t smoke back here.” It was my boss.
“No one ever comes back here, man, except you, and you only come back here to see if I’m smoking.” I took a load of dishes out of the machine, set it on the rack, and loaded up another one. “If you just stop coming back here to check on me and assume everything’s fine then we can both be happy.” See, the bus boys slid their tubs of dirty dishes through a hole in the wall with a rack running through it, feeding the tubs to me. I slid empty tubs back through another slot and trays of clean dishes out through a third. No one but me ever had to come back here, and I tended to think of the space as mine.
“It’s a health code violation. You have to go out back on your break.” He just stood there with his hands on his hips waiting for me to put it out. I took another drag before throwing it to the ground. No need to step on it, the floor was soaking wet.
“All right,” he said, triumphantly, “if I catch you smoking again you’re fired.”
“Whatever.” I said, but the water drowned the sound out as I began to rinse off more dirty dishes.
As soon as he’d walked out, I lit another cigarette.

Of course I was fired before my shift was over that very night. I didn’t mind so much. It’d been three weeks, the longest I’d kept a job in at least a year. Anyway, I didn’t mind so much except for the food. I’d always managed to eat two big meals during my shifts, taking care of me for the day. As you can imagine, I didn’t make a lot of money at a job like that, and what little I did have left over after bills I mostly saved for when I was looking for another job or I spent it on booze, so free meals were quite a bonus. Of course I was stealing them, and if I’d have been caught they’d have fired me, but I guess I didn’t care too much about that.
Actually, I stole a lot from that place. Plates, silverware, glasses, napkins, pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down. I didn’t care too much; they had shitty, low paying jobs in jail, too. The food wasn’t as good and I couldn’t smoke or drink, so I tried to avoid it if I could. Really, I think, if they’d let me smoke and drink in jail, I wouldn’t mind so much. You know, go for a score and if I get it I’m set, and if I don’t I get a year or two’s vacation. No big deal. When I get out my parole officer sets me up with another shitty job and I can start it all over again. Just look out for my sweet virgin ass for a while.

Anyway, I was out on the street later that night, walking around with some money in my pocket since the boss had paid me what he still owed me in cash because he was afraid I’d come back and steal everything. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.
It was too late at night for the bus. I didn’t really mind walking usually, but my left boot had a cracked sole and my sock was soaking wet from washing all those dishes. The wet foot wasn’t so bad either, really, but I hated the squishing and squeaking sound that it made when I walked. Oh well, the old soppy sock.
People could hear me coming, too. I felt like a cow with a bell. Maybe I could get that pretty girl across the street to milk me.
I laughed out loud at this as I walked along. They probably all thought I was crazy. I probably looked homeless too, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch.