Short Timers by Sean Murphy

They come and go like whatever’s sold as the fresh catch that week, and occasionally don’t even last that long. The ones who have barely clocked in and begin asking about first cut, meaning another server will cover their tables; one who needs the money or knows enough not to arrive at the bar too early. A server who understands drinking all your tips away is stupid, drinking more than you make unforgivable. These are the short timers, who work because there’s nothing better to do, or whoever actually pays their bills makes them, telling them they have to at least try, to make some contribution to a bottom line that never needs calculating because the only money that matters is what’s being earned in interest. These often-uninteresting people who inherit consciences clean as the chef’s station after last call, who only sweat when they’re asleep, who understand the slow animals born without teeth are made to become meals, if ever asked what they worry about will smile as if reality was a dinner tab that arrives at the end of one’s life, as if that entire meal wasn’t on the house.