Fish Ties

Peroxide hair and a double-knotted seascape

There are two kinds of people in the workforce. The first are Doers. These are people who lead by action, who possess an internal force that drives inspiration and propels productivity, which in turn fuels further action. We all benefit from this cyclical continuum of innovation and output. Doers. Fuck yeah.

The second are Larries. Larry (singular) was some dude I worked with for way too long. We were both waiters at a chain restaurant. Larry's middle name was Doldrums. He possessed the double butt chin and distended midsection of Peter Griffin and the phenotype of a sloth. He also had pockets of deep craters carved into his face. He would sweat profusely when he ate his lunch (pie) in the break room while concurrently trying to roll silverware into linen napkins.

Larry was an alright guy. He was an honest man. He didn't spend all his tips on blow like the other waiters. No, Larry would go home every night from work, lift up the thin mattress in the basement of his mom's house, and toss another $75 under the bed that he never had sex in.

Larry cared about his job, because it was a job, and he didn't want to lose it. He didn't ask questions. He waddled through the day, following mindless instructions and occasionally giving them. He punched in tables' orders into the workstation monitors with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his spectacles at the end of his nose. When Management gave him the section of the floor with the large booths, Larry puffed out his male boobs proudly. And when Larry was tasked with supervising us rookies' post-shift scut work, he'd look for wayward crumbs and residue like he was on a mission to find an old Nazi in Argentina.

All this to say that there were many sad things about Larry. But the saddest by far is that Larry was intelligent. Larry had potential. And yet somehow, somewhere along the line, Larry got lost and settled. He settled in a big way twenty years earlier for this shitty job looking for crumbs that others missed. I know Larry was reasonably smart because he went to a 4 year college (back when that meant something), had a keen interest in worldly affairs, and spoke eloquently (on the rare occasion that he spoke of things other than clam chowder).

A friend of mine and I had grown intolerably bored during one slow lunch shift. The restaurant was adorned with New England-y paintings of individual sea creatures, and the corresponding genus written in Latin beneath it. We drew tiny bow ties, top hats, and cigars on separate sheets of paper, cut them out, and pasted these debonair accessories on every fish picture in the place. The fish looked way handsome. I thought to myself- I'd totally fuck them. My friend and I cackled when we walked by all of the defaced paintings. This went on for a week or so. Best week of my life. (Kidding).

When Larry caught wind of this, he couldn't understand why we desecrated his workplace. He was extremely sad. I can still picture him staying late one evening as he scratched the stubborn Scotch tape residue off of a Thunnus albacares with his fingernail. Voluntarily.

Reader, I must confess that I was a Larry for most of my 20's. I was a cog in the wheel at my previous gigs, mindlessly accepting responsibilities that I cared little about, all so that I could proudly say that I beat the Great Recession by holding down a job. I felt ashamed to think that if I were to quit one day (which I did) my net contribution would be so minimal that nobody would care. I felt extraneous and unproductive. I felt meaningless.

No longer, honey child. I abandoned that life decade. I'm going to do now, in my 30's, what I should have done before- channel my creative energy through mediums such as this blog, a novel, and a screenplay (and that's just the beginning). This is what I was meant to do, and I find myself in the fortunate position of being able to really do it, finally. Goodbye Larries- hello, Doers.

One day, Larry was sitting in a corner in the break room and he gestured for me to come over. He offered to share his sweaty pie with me. I declined. No thanks Larry, you faithful old dog. No thanks.