Tessie D

I worked again last night on the floor from five until closing. I am not training any more so I have my own tables and can keep all my tips, which, I’m not going to lie, are pretty great. I don’t have to take customers’ orders because they go through the line before being seated. All I have to do is bring out fresh bread and their food when they come up in the window, refill drinks, bus dirty dishes when they’re done, and then clean the table. Since half of the work is already done by the time the customers sit down, the restaurant doesn’t have as many waitstaff on the floor, so they end up with a lot of tables at once. Mr. Despare said that Mondays are slow so during the rush I had at most five or six tables at one time. But on the weekends, it can be as many as ten or twelve tables at a time. 

If every table leaves $2 and I turn over my section three or four times a shift, I might have twenty-something tables a night. That’s usually about $50, just on a slow night. In cash. Last night, it was $56 because an older gentleman sitting by himself left me a $5. If I close, then I make $4.25/hour on top of that, and it’s not bad — just sweeping, wiping down all the tables, refilling the salt, pepper, and ketchup. We close at 9:00, and since I took me an hour last night to clean up, I was out at 10:00. 

It doesn’t seem real: $60.25 for 5 hours of work. I’ve never had that much money in my entire life. 

I came home and went straight to my room and hid the money in the bottom dresser drawer. I know that I should probably give some of it to Momma and Daddy, but I just couldn’t yet. I wanted to hold on to it for a little while. It’s the first money I’ve ever earned. I’m proud of myself.

If I have to admit it, I’m also mad. 

The entire drive home, all I could think, was, “That was it? That’s all it takes?”

You find a job, go to work, and make money.

We’ve struggled so much over the years with bills and never having enough money. Seriously, that’s all it took?

Find a job and go to work.

I know that $56 isn’t a lot of money, but it’s something. More than Daddy made yesterday, that’s for sure. Yeah, he probably could make more if he got a real job, but he hasn’t gotten one. He hasn’t even tried in years. He just lets us struggle because he can’t find a job that pays enough to make it worth his time. Meanwhile, even working a few hours in the evening waiting tables pays something. Why hasn’t he even done something in all these years? Years of frustration and anxiety, living without any money and knowing that there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Thinking that this was just the way it would always be. Never having enough, always needing more. It never had to be this way.

He spent all those years sitting at the dining room table, watching us go in and out the door to school, never getting up from his chair when even a little effort would have made our lives just a little better. I felt so much guilt all the years for needing school supplies and school clothes and lunch money.

I remember the time he yelled at me for throwing away my left over pizza because I was wasting money.

Or, the time when the basketball coach required all the players to buy the same shoes in 7th grade, but they were $50. I never even asked for the money. Instead, I practiced in cheap, dollar-store shoes that didn’t have any grip and sat in the stands during the games. Which didn’t really matter because I wasn’t any good at basketball because I only picked up a basketball for the first time in 7th grade and everyone else had four years of playing on rec leagues that we’d never could afford.

Or, the time I asked to go out to eat for Annie’s 9th birthday even though it was the summer and we never had money in the summer. I pouted and finally Daddy give him. But, he drove fast and reckless the whole way to town. We were terrified by the time we got there. Daddy glared at me from across the table, never saying a word but I couldn’t look up from my plate or swallow my food because I was trying to choke down the sobs. I shouldn’t have made such a big deal about Annie’s birthday, looking back. But, I was just a kid and I didn’t understand. Daddy was the grown up, even if he’d never acted like it.

It didn’t have to be that way. Maybe Daddy would not have made a lot of money but he’d have made some. Something at a job is better than nothing at home.

It was never that hard or complicated. I can see that now. That I can take care of myself and make my own money, and a weight has been lifted that I didn’t know was there.

I am never going to be powerless and weak like that again. I can do something about it. I can make my own money.