FOOD COURT

Gulab. Shes small shes got big floppy tits shes got a nice face and nice eyes, straight black hair a thin frame yet narrow hips yet a wide waist in contradiction to the hour glass shape of the most attractive females. But she is the most attractive young lady Ive ever seen. She wears tight jeans she wears an oversize shirt in an attempt to both accomodate and mostly to conceal her massive full oversize breasts that exquisitely dangle in her bra under her shirt behind her apron shes short shes under 5 feet 2 inches shes thin framed with narrow shoulders and narrow waist shes not overweight, shes a small lady yet she has these truly big tits. As we observed her walk back to the shop from the downstairs toilets, up the stairs she came and across the food court, Brendan comments "Oi there goes your girlfriend" and seeing me contemplate her bouncing voluptuous petiteness in motion, he adds "Big tits". Theres a kind of descriptive tone to his comment as though hes assigning her - giving her a nickname. Id like to give her something.

Its me and the four other staff members - They're all girls. Two are nice the other two bitches. Marie-louise the day manager 25ish ex student undergrad in politics a fast brain and some hormonal beard whispy fur carpeting her jowels. Red hair dyed black - a red head in denial. But strangely oblivious to her own fairly serious beard situation goin on. Jenny the greek girl, Pia the Chinese girl, and last but not least Gulab. She knows I like her, I know she dont give a damn, feelings of ambivilence in my heart. I love her but I hate her, Im obsessed with her. Shes married. Married to Doctor. Shes beautiful. Unobtainable. A Small girl, big floppy tits nice face nice eyes. A Sikh Punjabi beauty. Surely a decendant of the Macedonian Greeks who owned Northern India through Afghanistan and that area during the time of Alexander the Great. Its a cold day, Im on icecreams. I observe the scene. SHes pottering around in a slow period looking busy with some napkin folding or something. Im across the shop on the outside and I get the intuition that shes been been keeping a discrete eye on me. I decide to test the theory out: I stop looking down at the sink as I always do and look up and strait at her. She looks this way and that and then sneeks a glance up at me! Her big eyes - feminine, lifting, pausing, observing mine, communicating meanings of some depth, and then averting her gaze from mine. Shes like a deer caught in headlights, shes been caught shes startled. I cant help but smile to myself as I walk off. I caught her out! At the very least I won a staring contest of sorts. Since im doing a 12 hour shift I resolve to make myself go to the bathroom at least once during that time. I hate public toilets as they are so unhygenic, but its probably bad for health reasons to hold in a minute long piss. So I trundle down the escelator and get on to basement level and walk past the cash machines and use my foot to nudge the bathroom door open without using my hands. I do this slowly thesedays as the otehr day I just about smashed a guy in the head when unbenknownst to me he was about to open the door from the inside as I made to kick it open. So I go in and I cant go - even a piss at thr trough - infront of others, its just not possible, so I enter one of the 3 cubicles - its the only open door, the otehrs being engaged. I recal seeing the pony tailed bald chef from hi5 loitering out the front of the bathroom and recal Brendan;s story he related a few days ago that this chef is a poofter and a dope smoker and speed head. That dont bode well. I better get the hell out of here. But some noise breaks into my concsiousness and diverts my attention to the sound of someone in the cubicle next to mine absolutely unleash a torrent of shit. Like most people attempting to do a number 2 in a public cubicle are really embarrassed and self conscious and try to conceal noise smell sound etc. They try to be discrete and they often end up not being able to do the business due to nerves or anxiety. But this dude next door, man he was shameless. He just unleashed. The works. Fuckin loud. And accompanied by his own commentary here and there. "Oh yeh" "Ahh yeh" Clearly projecting his shameless satisfaction at the releif nirvana he had achieved. I thought it quite rude, but just then I heard laughter, snickering - an asian voice was uncontrollably laughing in the cubicle beyond the offender's and this asian guy was trying his darndest to cover up his laughter and ended up snickering and sounding like a car that wont start or something. It reminded me of this Youtube video I saw recently where a Dutch TV talk show presenter was interviwing a man whos testicles had been inadvertantly removed in an operation on the wrong body part and this man had a really high voice like a squeeky voice and the Tv presenter basically asked a serious question but cracked up in fits of uncontrollable laughter the mmoment he heard the unich utter its first high pitched words. and everytime the eunach interjected through the ineffectivelly supressed laughter, the presenter only found his funny bone ticked all the more and ended up totally unable to control his own laughing. And so it was in the cubicle that this asian voice was unable to control his laughter and the more intermittant spurts and trickles that were heard; the more the asian guy was driven to higher and higher planes of uncontrollable laughter. And the offender bastard was proud of himself. In a slack jawed country boy accent he casually remarks "Ahh, must have been the Yum Chaaa I had last night," Hearing this the Asian totally loses control and can not stop laughing to save his life. I confess at this point I began to snicker under my breath too and had to flush the toilet (by kicking the button) to make some noise thus concealing my laughter and relieving my embarrasment at being amused by the previous minutes proceedings.

Later Marie-Louise - who hates my guts, approaches like a pocket battle ship and fires off a rapid salvo at me: "I need you to go over to the other shop at 2pm so that Brendan can go watch the football." She loves Brendan, she hates me. She wants me out of her shop asap. She has forged a cunning solution which involves removing me and rewarding the apple of her eye at the same time. So I go over and Iddy is there and hes the day manager today and Brendan is just about to depart for the football, and Im replacing him and initially Iddy's attitude is jovial but steadily gets more and more critical of first the new boy and then me and then more on me and pretty soon Idy is becomming a control freak and critisicing every thing I do and finding fault with everything - the justified and the unjustified alike. "Why you do it like that, Look I show you once properly." "Better you do it this way actually John complain you do it this way and I prefer as well" Bla bla bla. Totally unjustified critisism. The shit stank toilet smelt better than this tripe Iddy is dishing up. What has made him change for the worse? He used to be fairly mellow. Now hes a bit harsh and power drunk. and just last night at the shift changeover he got into a fuck you argument in public with a deputy manager of the night staff and all over an inconsequential issue. What is goin on with that boy? Hes a good muslim Id thought but now hes starting to swear and bully. Its this place, its warping his morallity. So Im in the new shop some 10 meters across the food court from the ice cream shop and Im serving some customers at the register and I turn my head and look across at the action over there. And I see Gulab and she turns turns to look at a customer and she sees me and just for a fraction she looks right into my eyes. Right into my eyes.

Im in a great mood cos of this but its quickly overwridden by Idy's harsh critisicms and this makes me go quiet and withdrawn, and im feeling down. Whats more I see the new shift come into the ice cream shop and the boys come in and shes - Gulab is all smiles and jokes and friendliness and so are they. In short she ignores me - wont talk to me - stone walls me and is overtly friendly to every other guy. Josef Goebells once said in relation to his persuit of hot women: "What I can get I dont want and WHat I want I cant get."

Night Shift. Monday night. Quite quiet recession days are setting in. Arab students bark demands at Franky the Bangladeshi manager, they think him a underling but hes educated and the son of a airline pilot. After a difficult ordering session where minds are changed and consideration is not shown, its green tea for all 3 cakes and 3 soft drinks a coke a sprite and a fanta. "Slice" says the arab to Franky. What?? Hes talking crap, hes wearing latest fashion designer turtle neck sweater and reaks of overly crop dusted expensive cologne. All oil money and no common sense says I. We can tell he assumes Im the manager because Im tall and white. WHat he doesnt know is that Im the dum dum. It emmerges that at 9pm Porscha will come down and work in the ice cream shop. I threaten to quit my job if she does. Franky phones big boss, big boss reveals the need to retain quality staff by conceeding to my threat and preventing her from working in the shop that night. She can stay at kissy the shop 5 minutes walk down the mall. I thank the gods of fate for this deliverance from loss of face and increase in tortuous indian house-wife moral values. "My greatest dream is to live in the same one house with my parents my husband and my parents in law." She proudly asserts. Thats fine, but she stone wall ignored me for 7 weeks even though I was polite and she spread rumours that I was racist and this went through the majority Indian cleaning staff like wildfire. I had to be in damage control for 2 weeks after that little insiddious rumour hit the food court. After all Did I call her a Fucking Idiot or a Fucking Indian? Who knows they wernt there to witness the argument. She knows, she lied, she took the truth and added spice and dished up a big lie based on the truth for compelling fictionalising of reality. She went to the doctor and got him to say she was depressed because of me. But it didnt prevent big boss seeing through her politics, he kicked her out of the ice cream shop and decided in my favour, but after 3 months he assumed it had blown over and sent her back. Boy was he mistaken. And so it was that I narrowly avoided quiting on my sword that evening. You must threaten to fall on your sword from time to time in order to keep yourself secure in your community.

Enrique the italian guy 27 years old tall and thin, deep voice charming Italian. All the girls love him, I see him talking to Gulab all the time and she loves it, pitty Im not as charming as him. As Franky said this evening: "All Enrique did was do nothing and last week he got 3 chicks numbers and he didnt do anything and one of them even called him and they will go out." I said yes he is very charming I wish I was like that. Brendan the other day, observed Enrique start his 4pm shift and remarked to me (As I was working on kebabs at Morocco that day) "That wog bastard is a real sleaze, just look at him touch up the girls" Enrique already had his arm around Jilly the huge brested Canadian Blonde at the ice cream shop. She had come down from Kissy. Brendan continued: "WHats his name that guy?" "Enrique." I replied, "What, Enratio? Well from now on his name is Felatio" Shot back Brendan. We both chuckled at this joke.

The Beginning

So it went that I was new enough that I was still at that stage when you havent seen individual faces enough in the maelstrom of work to be able to identify them very well. Your brain has not had sufficient exposure to their features to be able to store away all the features and characteristics of the faces of the 30 or so colleuges around you. After some weeks this facial recognition becomes second nature and other layers of profile information assimilates itself into your consciousness. Theres Jenny, shes the Bangladeshi wife of Iddy. Shes about 23 years old. Shes quite attractive but Im not attracted to her. Shes always friendly to me because Iddy likes me and he must describe me well to her in their bed-time chats. The boss often puts them on alternate shifts so when Jenny is there at the cake shop, Iddy is at home - presumably at home anyway. Brendan continually commented on Iddy's absence "Theres Jenny over at the cake shop and Iddy is at home watching Swedish porno videos." After this statement he'd mimik Iddy's Bangladeshi accent and say something like "Oh yes give it to her thats it!"

"Oi mate we need some stuff from downstairs."

"Cool no probs ill pop down"

"No I dont want you to go down on me, I told you I'm not into that stuff...Oh you mean you'll go to the store room downstairs? Oh thats alright, I thought you were getting randy on me." Replies Brendan in his latest episode of perpetual immaturity.

"So jokes aside, what do we need?" I exclaim.

Brendan switches to work mode and replies: "Ok so 20 red onions 10 white onion, and a box of lettuce. Actually nah just the onions at the minute."

"Ok." I say I grab the store room key off the wall hook as I walk out the door.

I circumnavigate the wall and bench set up of the kebab shop, and glancing up I see the glinting food court sign "Morroco" on the menue wall above Brendan who was standing at the counter. I have the keys around my neck so as not to accidentally lock them in the store room - that would be the height of embarrasment. As I am taking my first steps into the food court and heading towards the lift, I glance over at the cake shop to see whats going on there, and I'm new in the job and unfamiliar with everything, so im concentrating hard on what I have to do so I dont screw it up, and this is playing it safe, but as I glance over at the cake shop I see a beautiful girl behind the counter she looks nice her face her eyes shes small, shes Indian - its Gulab, this is the first time I notice her and shes serving customers but I see that she sees me. I go down past Sushi attack and Il Duce and Spice of Asia - all the other shops on this side of the food court leading to the lifts, and I get the the mirror shiny steel doors of the lift press the button and wait. Stepping into the lift theres an illuminated poster in the lift thats got "Burberry" advertised on it with a teenage looking English empire era looking get up they are wearing scarves and hats they are Burberry the neuvo-Chav white trash have taken to this like a homeless man to a pair of Nike shoes, but thats life. I stare at my image in the reflective steel walls of the lift. The lighting is direct, harsh verticle. My face a mass of greasy acne scared redness, my hair slicked back, my frame lean from the hard physical 14 hour days standing on my feet, my man boobs detectable on my thin frame.

Down at the carpark level subteranian the odd security guard loitering around, I find the right key on the bunch of keys and open the store room door. Cardboard boxes full of rubber gloves, aluminium foil, plastic plates, chip cups, plastic take away containers. The two doors the freezer and the walk in fridge. I go to the large onion sacks and fill up some plastic bags with the pungent aromatic orbs. There smell reminds me of the country side, I miss the rolling hills and forests so much, but zooming back to wake from that daydream Im still in the buzz of the fluorescent lights, Im in a shopping mall store room. If only I were a millionaire. Whay am I wasting my life in this work-a-day life.

The lift dings and the door slides and I step out into the food court and I walk around and head towards my shops. As I walk towards Morocco Im heading strait at the cake shop and I see Gulab - I dont know her name at this stage, and shes there around the counter area agian busy and manoeuvering around doing things and she sees me and I see here seeing me and she stays busy, and Im walking and then she whips round looks at me and gives me a big friendly wave! I smile and I role my head from side to side mimicking her wave - to be kinda spontaniously funny and because my hands are full of bags of onions. In my heart this dreary day has suddenly lifted and you cant keep me down Im so excited Im so pumped I cant not be happy - im full of life energy Im over the moon.

"How did you go downstairs?" Says Says Suger. Thats right thats her name. She - a university educated former employee of Goldman Sachs JB were, an Indian girl 24 years old, a thin build supporting a perfectly round dinner plate diameter head, Shes not ugly but I dont feel the instinct to bang her. "I got onions" I say, in the absence of any better comment.

Later that same day Im cutting lettuce from the box we brought up subsequent to the onions and Im fairly new to chopping lettuce, but Im getting faster and I feel the pressure to not be slow because I dont want to get critisised by Brendan for going to slow on the lettuce and I get faster and I know just enough to be cocky and Im chopping away slicing that lettuce just like in a Burger King commercial this lettuce is looking great stringy long strings of lettuce. Beautiful mate! And as Im chopping away at a fast rate, I start to go over various things in my mind such as what to do next, how to stay out of trouble etc. and my mental exercise drifting as it is goes over how the little Indian girl had waved at me and I started to imagine her and Id seen her close up once before and had noted her massive tits - she dressed conservatively but she couldnt hide those big flopsy bunnies shes got attached to her chest. Im having a day dream and Im sexually fantasising about miss flopsy bunny over at the cake shop there, my irish complexion against her brown Indian warmth. Then pain. Ive chopped my fucking middle finger. Fuck! Oh shit this is right before Christmas its going to get really busy in the coming days and I go and half chop off my rude finger. I inspect the damage, theres a massive flap on the knuckle the cut deep down to the tendon probably. "Brendo...Err Brendo" I call out in a sheepish voice. Brendan and Suger discover me holding my finger nursing it and hiding it away under pressure. Then they see the extent of my wound and Brendan nearly faints and Suger is shocked and intrigued at the same time. The long and the short of it is that I - so concerned that I may have fucked my tendon permanently if I dont get treatment medically - decide to go on the bus to the doctor and then come back after getting stitches. Suger tells where the nearest doctor is and I head there and Im back in an hour and a half. The boss comes in later and congratulates me for having the dedication to come back to the shop "Most cunts would have just gone home and taken the day off." He mused. "You wont be losing wages because thats my time your on." he commented. I thought wow this is a good boss here. I was scared to death of the boss but the boss seemed fair. At the end of the day I confided to Brendan that the reason Id cut my finger is because that Indian girl waved at me and I was so excited by it that I lost focus while chopping the lettuce. He replied with a similar story about how one of his apprentices in a previous kitchen had been perving on the hottest waitress in that restaurant and had cut his finger half off as a result. Brendan finished his story by concluding: "She shouldnt have bent over in front of the poor boy."