Boss-Issues (Cumberland Saga)

It was a novel sensation to be riding in a personal vehicle with somebody who was a peer. Sally, as nice of a guy as he was was more than thirty years older than Blain and they were typically short, little hops.

Just the fact that Gregor was a peer was a huge relief.

Gregor was only a few years younger than he was and was a guy. Blain deduced that Gregor had three separate vocabularies. Inside of houses, or near women, children and elders Gregor was very polite and never used a word coarser than “outhouse”.

Near the compound where he might be overheard by a child or elder, Gregor’s language was much closer to the vernacular with “shit”, “crap” and “hell” being sprinkled in as they were needed. For instance, in polite society fecal matter was “...a trip to the out-house…” or “...a soiled diaper…”. In the field, it was cow-shit.

And yet, Blain never hear him say “damn” or “God” or “fuck”, so Gregor was still pretty straight-laced by the standards of most male, college graduates who might be conversing among their peers. And while he didn’t know any people in construction, he thought that might be true of Gregor’s standing among them, too.

Another treat was when they swung into one of the fast-food restaurants in Dayton where Blain used to work. Standing in line to order their food, Blain spotted a five gallon bucket filled with grease from when Tommie had cleaned the fryer.

Seeing a manager, Blain said, “Hey, Deb...why don’t I take that bucket over the the grease-wagon as long as I am waiting?”

Recognizing Blain she asked “Where ya been? Yah, sure. Appreciate the help.”

Blain knew the restaurant had extra buckets and would never miss this one. He grabbed the bucket and carried it outside. But instead of carrying it to the vat next to the trash dumpster, he put it into the back of the truck. He had seen the amount of effort that went into making five gallons of lard and he didn’t think the restaunt would miss five gallons of waste-grease.

He got back in as Gregor was placing his order. Knowing that Gregor was paying, Blain splurged and ordered his favorites.

Blain wasn’t surprised when the order came with a couple of extra cinnamon rolls. That was Deb’s way of saying thank-you for the help with the grease. She was running short-handed (as always) and would get dinged in the franchise had a snap audit and found the grease-bucket full, and out-of-place.

They were eating the cinnamon rolls in the truck as Gregor drove one-handed down the highway toward Athens.

“Ya know” Blain said “I have a few extra bucks I saved up and I was thinking that if we saw a deal on cinnamon and maybe few other spices...maybe nutmeg and ginger...I was thinking I like to buy them for Miss Sarah. That woman sure can cook.”

That was the opening Gregor was hoping for.

“So, what is the deal between you and Aunt Sarah?” Gregor asked.

Both his mother and his father, Sig, were baffled by how the relationship seemed to have stalled out.

Blain and Sarah were both healthy and young. They knew Sarah was ready but Blain seemed to be stuck at top-dead-center. He was like a colt who would run right up to the hurdle and shy away at the last second. Every darned time.

“She is my boss. End-of-story” Blain said. Blain thought that would satisfy Gregor.

He was wrong.

“I ain’t being judgemental or anything...but you ain’t gay are you?” Gregor asked. That would answer a lot of questions but would raise a lot more.

“No. Far from it” Blain said.

“You’ve had girl-friends. Right? Liked ‘em too, I bet” Gregor speculated.

“Yes, I’ve had girl-friends and liked them fine” Blain agreed with a smile.

“Soooo?” Gregor asked. “What’s wrong with her?”

"Nothin' really wrong with her" Blain said.

Gregor prodded. "Then why aren't you chasin' after her, even a little bit?"

"Because she is my boss" Blain said.

"Sure, she's tellin' ya what to do. Women do that. Why aren't you interested?" Gregor wasn't backing off.

“She is my Fuckin' BOSS!” Blain shouted. “Don’t you GET IT?”

Gregor’s eyebrows were furrowed in deep concern. He slowed the truck and then turned into a small business that was closed for the season. He turned the truck off. Then he looked over at Blain with a quizzical, sideways glance.

His mind was slowly putting the clues together but he really wanted more information.

“Tell me about the last job you worked” Gregor commanded.

“I was a barista. That is a fancy name for somebody who makes and serves coffee” Blain said.

Greg knew what a barista was but he wasn’t going to stop the flow of information by telling Blain that.

“Tell me about it” Gregor said.

“I made coffee-flavored drinks for rich people. The specialty of the house was to melt ice-cream in the microwave and then mix it with espresso” Blain said.

Gregor winced. “Sounds like a lot of calories.”

“Most of the customers were pretty chubby” Blain admitted. “For that matter, so were most of the workers which was a hoot because most of them were unemployed actresses” Blain said.

“Why did you quit?” Gregor asked.

“The boss fired me” Blain said.

Gregor cocked one eyebrow, a move that reminded Blain of Sarah.

“I didn’t clean out the blender between drinks. We were totally slammed and I made a shortcut. The boss found out and fired me” Blain said.

It was not the first time he had ever been fired. It was, however, the first time he had a customer go into anaphylactic shock due to a nut allergy. It could have been worse. The woman had an epi-pen.

“How about the job before that?” Gregor asked.

“Big-box store that sold building supplies. Stocking on third shift” Blain said.

“Why did you leave?” Gregor asked.

“Got fired. Boss caught me using the man-lift with the safety chain not clipped across the opening.”

"And the one before that?” Gregor asked.

“Fired from that one, too” Blain admitted. It felt good getting it off of his chest but he knew it was probably going to torpedo his chances of staying at Copperhead Cove.

“Problems with the boss?” Gregor asked.

“Yeah” Blain admitted. At least Gregor seemed to understand.

“So you have boss-issues and that’s why you are locked-up around Sarah?” Gregor asked.

“Yeah, pretty much. Everybody’s my boss. Sarah’s my boss. Roger is my boss. Hell, Lliam is my boss. And don’t take this wrong, but your dad Sig is one scary son-of-a-bitch and he’s my boss too” Blain said.

“I am afraid to fart. I really need to stay here. It is starting to feel like home” Blain said.

Gregor started picking out his beard. It helped him think.

“Suppose you ran Copperhead Cove and they worked for you. What would you do differently?” Gregor asked.

“Hell, that’s easy. I would fertilize the hell out of the fields. Certainly all of the potato patches and I would put a little bit of fertilizer on all of the corn fields, too” Blain said.

“You know what happened the last time we fertilized the corn-fields, don’t you?” Gregor asked.

“Yeah, I heard about that. But this is why it would be different this time” Blain said.

And then Blain told him in great detail what he had learned from Miss Shannon when he had been repairing roofs in the rain and how he would incorporate pole-beans and squash into all of the corn plantings.

Gregor shook his head. “Dude. You gotta grow a set. You gotta set Aunt Sarah down and tell her EXACTLY what you just told me.”

“If you don’t, then the thing that scares you most...being told to leave…will chase you down and it will happen.”

"Now, let's go find some cinnamon!" Gregor said.