When I Was 16 I Was a Sad Teen Who Worked at Subway
By Heiko Julien
When I was 16 I was a sad teen who worked at Subway. One day after working at Subway for three months the manager made me clean out the refrigerator so I quit and went home and watched the super bowl. During my Subway tenure, I worked with a dwarf named Steve who had some sort of congenital defect that made him hold one of his hands against his body like a t-rex. I also worked with an overweight middle-aged ex-con who couldn’t grow sideburns named Doug. He was very charming and nice to me. Doug was hired at Subway through a work release program and would often brag about gambling on riverboat casinos and buying whores with his winnings.
It wasn’t long before Doug got Steve into whores. After work he would ask Steve if he wanted to go get some whores with him and Steve would look around sheepishly and say yes and then they’d go get some whores, I guess.
Steve, Doug, and I used to gamble with the quarters from the register during the night shift. We would play Texas Hold ’Em.
“Do you know Texas Hold ’Em?” Doug asked the first time we snuck a game.
“No,” I said.
“Hottest game in poker right now,” Doug said, dealing with authority.
Doug would get very angry when he lost. Sometimes he would punch the table really hard and say, “fuck” and glare at me while I took his quarters. It was frightening but I took the money anyway. I wanted those quarters.
I drove him home once because he asked me to. He looked like he lived where whores live. He said it was his mom’s apartment. One time when I was working at Subway a girl who also worked at Subway named Stephanie brought a guy in back while the manager wasn’t there. The guy got really angry with me for looking sad. He walked up to me and told me that this job obviously “sucked” but I needed to “cheer the fuck up.” I remember feeling like it was unfair that me being upset should bother him. This made me feel sad.
That night I stole a bread knife from the store and practiced making tiny cuts on my wrist in my bedroom. I remembered wondering why people did this.
Everyone called Stephanie “Subway Slut” because she worked at Subway and supposedly liked to have sex with different boys. I don’t know how the guy she brought in back that one time felt about this. I think they had sex in the bathroom.
Stephanie was surprised when my friend Brad told her that I smoked a lot of weed because she thought that was something only cool people did and she did not think I was very cool. I still have scars on my left wrist from when I used to cut myself when I worked at Subway. I think they are not going to go away. I think they are permanent and you will probably see them one of these afternoons when we are lying in bed together for a while looking at each other’s bodies. I feel embarrassed to mention Subway, but maybe I should. When I am lying in bed with you, with these fast food scars, I am feeling something I didn’t feel then.
Yes, it is ok if we just watch shows on your laptop for a while.