In college, I earned my spending money working as a cook at an Italian “restaurant” (It was really just a place where you can get Spaghetti to go). Despite the restaurant being right across from my college, I was the only college student working there. The employer, in his infinite wisdom, preferred to hire people on work-release. Work-release is a program whereby people who would otherwise be finishing a prison sentence are released into a halfway house and work 12 hours a day at crummy jobs like mine. If they screw up at work then it’s back to prison. So, when the employer asks the almost-prisoner to take out the garbage, stay late, or sleep with him, they usually happily comply.
Needless to say, this made for a motley crew of coworkers. I would dread having to train the new hires. It would either be a white supremacist who thought we were best friends until he saw me hanging out with the Black employees or it would be a recovering heroine addict shaking like a leaf and starring into a horizon that wasn’t there. I was never scared, though. These guys were always happy to be working because, as I was told, “The best day on the inside is still worse than the worst day on the outside.”
Then one day, I was assigned to train Dana. Dana, despite having a girl’s name, was a 6’7” 320 lbs man who had spent the previous night in a prison cell. I gingerly showed him how to do his job only to have him bark at me, “I know what I’m doing, man.” I didn’t care what my coworkers thought of me but, for obvious reasons, I wanted to stay on Dana’s good side.
Later that day, my girlfriend-at-the-time (who looked like the girl on the Swiss Miss cocoa packets) drove up to the restaurant in every 19 year old girl’s favorite car, a Pontiac Sunfire. Dana saw me talk with her and then came up to me and said, “Hey man, I like your taste in cars and I like your taste in women, too. You're cool.” After being recognized as a man of good, if pedestrian, taste, I was Dana’s best friend.
Being Dana’s coworker was great! It was like being Mike Tyson’s little brother. I could do or say anything I wanted and Dana would always have my back. For example, the waitresses were always clucking and complaining to us about their orders, ignoring my pleas for patience. Dana, being a man of eloquence, explained it to them by leaning forward, flexing his powerful arms, sticking out his muscled neck, and roaring! Those waitresses were suddenly filled with a new spirit of understanding thanks to Dana’s visible passion for his job.
Dana wasn't always gruff with the ladies. Usually he was a ladies man, always happy to let a new female employee know that “that must be jelly 'cuz jam don’t shake like that.”
Then one day Dana disappeared. I asked what happened to him and the supervisor said, “He’s in the hospital. His old lady took a bat to him when she caught him fooling around.” I felt awful. I had lost my coworker and my friend but most of all I was terrified knowing that there was a woman on the loose out there who could put Dana in the hospital.
Dana, underneath that giant physique and vicious snarl you were a great friend. If you ever need legal advice (and I’m sure you do) I will always be happy to help.
