The Minotaur: Takes a Cigarette Break

by Steven Sherrill

  “Mmmm,” the Minotaur says, going into his trailer. He closes the door. Through the thin walls he can hear Sweeny still laughing. He hears the clink of the galvanized gate as the old man opens the dog run and calls Buddy. The gate clangs shut.

  It’s payday. The Minotaur remembers that he has to stop by the restaurant before meeting David. Every other Monday, when the rest of the kitchen crew and the wait staff pick up their checks, Grub has an envelope of cash for the Minotaur. Sealed, always. Small bills, so the Minotaur won’t have to go to the bank.

  The Minotaur thinks about what to wear. It’s important to the Minotaur that he has something to do, so unless Sweeny has a repair job for him or he has errands to run he usually goes to work on his day off, and then he just wears his uniform. Hernando bakes the Black Forest cakes for the coming week on Mondays, and the Minotaur comes in, unpaid, to help ice the stacks of dark chocolate layers. If he’s lucky he gets to make the onion soup, twenty gallons at a time—beef stock, half a bottle of cheap sherry and fifty pounds of onions, peeled and chopped. The Minotaur loves onions, always has; he eats them like apples while making the soup, and the pungent juices never even sting his eyes.

  The Minotaur decides to wear his uniform pants—the black-and-white checks—and one of his three altered button-down shirts. He remembers, too, that he needs laces for his shoes and some other things. It takes him awhile, but he finds a nearly dry ballpoint pen that writes only after he waves its tip back and forth over a flame on his stove. On the back of an envelope addressed to Resident, his head cocked to one side, eye close to the paper, the Minotaur painstakingly makes a small list:

  shoe laces, black

  styptic pencil

  WD-40

  mouthwash

  book?

  The Minotaur, while scratching in the mornings, often makes himself bleed. The Minotaur is self-conscious about his breath. The Minotaur lacks confidence in his penmanship. Over time the Minotaur has learned to read, has even been able to make the slow laborious transition from one language to another as cultures die off and fade away and as he moves from place to place. But the Minotaur has never been able to rise above rudimentary skills. Most books seem ridiculously small, and the physical act of finding a comfortable sight line over his massive snout frustrates him. Nevertheless the Minotaur is haunted by the idea that books and reading might make those vast stretches of time that loom before him more bearable.

  As the Vega pulls out of the drive Buddy charges in the pen, barking that wet bark; the Minotaur can hear the dog’s nails scratching at the concrete as he runs. In the front yard Sweeny stands, one hand shoved into his back pocket, the other gesticulating over a rust-colored Ford Maverick. In the driver’s seat a gaunt young man in bad need of a shave sits with his mouth open. Standing beside the car, leaning against it for support, a very pregnant woman—girl—wearing shower sandals balances on her substantial hip a crying child in a filthy white pullover and a diaper. Just last week the Minotaur had the guts of the Maverick’s transmission laid out on a blanket under the mimosa trees. He changed the pressure plate. The Minotaur gives a finger wave to Sweeny and the couple as he drives past.

  Grub is on the phone when the Minotaur gets to the restaurant. The office door is open, and Grub, sitting at the cramped desk arguing loudly about the cost of a case of red wine, winks and smiles at the Minotaur. A radio plays in the kitchen. The Minotaur follows the muted Tex-Mex sounds and the smell of baked cakes back through the restaurant.

  “Qué pasa, M?” Hernando asks as he spoons white icing from the Hobart floor mixer into a pastry bag. “You helping David move today?”

  “Unnnh.”

  Hernando has the cakes lined up on sheet pans, six per. With the star tip of the bag he begins to pipe a decorative rope around the base of each cake. The Minotaur turns the trays for him.

  The big white clock on the wall over the dish machine reads 9:53, and Grub doesn’t give out checks or cash until 10:00. From somewhere in the dining room comes laughter, waiters and waitresses here for their meager paychecks. The Minotaur drags a finger up the inside of the mixing bowl and puts it to his fat tongue.

  “Mmnnh,” he says.

  “See you tomorrow, M.”

  Going back through the dining rooms toward the office the Minotaur feels the hairs on his neck bristle. He meets Shane and Mike, who have come together—in shorts, each wearing a T-shirt advertising a different beer—to collect their pay.

  “Hey, wild man,” Mike says, unusually friendly. “What’s up?”

  “Unnh,” the Minotaur answers.

  “Boss is on the phone. He says to wait a few minutes.”

  The two waiters go to the bar for Cokes; the Minotaur hesitates, then follows them. They’re little more than boys, the Minotaur knows. But boys, more than anything else, boys with their enviable swagger and bravado, their stupidity that is both sweet and malicious, their undeniable allure, make him uneasy. He understands but cannot articulate that these boys embody the qualities of manhood that he can never possess, nor pretend to. Boys remind him of what he was and what he can never be again, remind him of how even the animal in him has diminished.

  Shane sits in a booth, his back against the wall beneath an opaque amber-colored false window. He puts his sandaled feet on the padded seat and begins to chew the end of a swizzle stick. Mike grabs a jar of olives from the bar and sits opposite. They talk mindlessly and easily. The Minotaur stands, as he stood the night before, awkwardly against the bar. He thinks it would be best for him just to go back into the kitchen and talk to Hernando until Grub is ready to give out his pay, then to leave here and go help David—probably the kindest person the Minotaur knows right now—move out of his apartment. Instead he steps a little closer and hopes for the opportunity to join the conversation.

  “I wonder how Kelly is,” Shane says.

  “Probably fine,” Mike answers. “She’s had seizures before. If it happens again, though, I hope it happens in your section.”

  Shane digs a piece of ice from his glass and flicks it at Mike’s head. Mike dodges and retaliates with an olive, which Shane catches in his mouth. Boisterous boys, the Minotaur thinks, and wishes for something to say. In the upper dining room someone is talking; it sounds like one of the waitresses.

  “She dropped a whole tray of desserts when she fell,” Mike says. “Spilled coffee all over the pants leg of this old fucker at one of my four-tops. He was pissed.”

  “I didn’t see that. What I did notice was that black skirt of hers riding almost up to her crotch.”

  “You’re a sick bastard, Shane.”

  The Minotaur wants to say something. He wants to defend Kelly in some way—although he can’t say how or even why—almost as much as he wants to join in Mike and Shane’s repartee.

  “Unnnh,” he says, and both Mike and Shane look at him.

  “You say something, wild man?”

  Just like last night the Minotaur can’t think of anything to say. Embarrassed, he acts hastily.

  “Kelly,” he finally slurs, and, unable to stop himself, cups both hands in front of his chest, indicating heavy full breasts.

  Shane chokes on a piece of ice trying to stifle his laughter.

  “What about Kelly?” Mike asks in mock earnestness, and mimics the Minotaur’s gesture.

  The Minotaur paws the carpet with one foot. He swings his heavy head slowly from side to side, looking at the floor all around the room. What about Kelly? What is it that he can say now to salvage the situation?

  “I’m a tit man,” he says, and it’s all he can do to get it out clearly.

  Shane lies down on the seat of the booth, laughing.

  Mike feigns seriousness. “What’s that mean, M?That you’re a tit man?”

  Of course the Minotaur can’t answer. He doesn’t really know what it means to be a tit man. In truth, when the Minotaur dreams of love, and he does as much as any man, he imagines full and giving hips, a soft belly, fleshy thighs rising to an ampl
y haired pubis more often than he imagines breasts, big or small.

  “I’m a tit man,” the Minotaur says, hoping they will know what it means.

  “You are pathetic,” Adrienne says from the steps behind him. She snorts, piglike, in disgust and walks away.

  The Minotaur moans softly to himself.

  A waitress named Margaret, who walked up with Adrienne, glares at the Minotaur and the two waiters. “Grub says the checks are ready. And …” She stops, no doubt searching for a valid response to what she has just witnessed. “And you guys are totally inappropriate.”

  Shane sits up in the booth. He makes his hand into the shape of a gun, thumb back and two fingers extended. He puts the fingertips, the barrel, to the roof of his mouth, cocks the thumb and fires. His head jerks back, eyes wide open.

  “They’re both prick teasers, M. Don’t let them get to you,” Mike assures him.

  The Minotaur lingers at the bar long enough for Adrienne and Margaret to leave before going to the office for his money. Mike and Shane seem to be in no hurry. Grub, still behind the desk, thumbs through the checks and hands one each to Mike and Shane.

  “Thanks, boss. See you tonight.”

  Grub just nods. Tips are good at his establishment, and he has a stack of applications from people eager to wait tables for him. Grub has little tolerance for a cocky attitude and does not hesitate, even on a busy night, to hand a misbehaving waiter a fifty-dollar bill and tell him not to come back. Rolling his chair back the few available inches in the tight office, his belly expanding into the newly available space, Grub pulls the Minotaur’s envelope from the center drawer.

  “Here you go, M.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Listen,” Grub says, and there is a hesitation. “I heard about the accident with the butter the other night.”

  “Unnh,” the Minotaur says.

  “You just need to be careful, okay? For your sake and everybody else’s.”

  The Minotaur recognizes something in the moment. It is the vaguely familiar beginning of closure, the slow and unavoidable decline into change. He nods his head in agreement.

  “Have a good day off, and don’t spend all that in one place.”

  In the parking lot Mike and Shane are sitting in Shane’s car, parked beside the Vega. The sounds of an electric guitar erupt from speakers in the wide-open doors.

  “So, M,” Shane shouts over the music. “You got a hard-on for the epileptic’s tits? Is that it?”

  “Shut up, asshole,” Mike says, punching Shane in the thigh. They’re smoking marijuana. The Minotaur sees the open plastic baggie on the dashboard, and beside it a slim neat package of rolling papers. Smoke rises out of the car and dissipates. The Minotaur recognizes the smell. He wishes they had parked elsewhere.

  “Hey, M, want to join our little bacchanalia?” Mike asks, then draws deeply on the hand-rolled cigarette. A seed sizzles and pops at the burning tip, sending a shower of sparks over Mike’s bare legs. He curses, jerks upright in his seat and brushes at the tiny embers, all the while struggling to hold his breath and pinching the joint between his fingertips. When he settles down he offers it to the Minotaur.

  “Unnh.”

  “Come on, wild man. It’ll give you a new outlook on life.”

  “Unnh,” the Minotaur says, and unlocks the Vega’s door.

  “Suit yourself.”

  The waiters pass the joint between them. Shane says something to Mike that the Minotaur can’t hear. Mike turns the stereo off, pivots in the car seat to face the Minotaur, both feet on the asphalt. The Minotaur notices the wiry black hairs sprouting from Mike’s toes.

  “Somebody told me you’re pretty good with engines. That true?”

  “Mmmn,” the Minotaur answers, looking at his toolbox through the Vega’s rear window. He is good with engines, and, like everyone else in the world, praise, or sometimes merely recognition, seduces him. He releases the door handle and waits.

  “You know Robert who works here, right?” Mike asks. “He’s that computer geek. Looks a little bit like a buzzard.”

  “Unnnh.” The Minotaur knows the waiter by his description.

  “He’s got this motorcycle for sale. A really sweet old BMW.”

  Top-heavy as the Minotaur is, motorcycles scare him. But he understands the need for unencumbered movement, and to a lesser degree he understands the male need for risk.

  “The problem is the bike won’t start. And Robert is such an idiot when it comes to anything not plugged into the wall. I’ll bet you could get it running in no time,” Mike says to the Minotaur.

  Shane plays drums on the steering wheel and the dashboard, rocking his head as if he can hear into the silent radio. The Minotaur looks at his watch. He has to meet David in an hour.

  “Unnh.”

  “Come on, M. You’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Mmmn.”

  “Tell you what. Shane’ll drive and I’ll buy you lunch. Just come look at the bike and tell me what you think. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Hey, M,” Shane stops drumming long enough to say. “There’s a pool at Rob’s apartment complex. Hot day like this, there’s bound to be tits all over the place.”

  “Mammaries for everyone,” Mike joins in.

  “An udder plethora.”

  “Bring your toolbox.”

  The Minotaur sits in the center of the backseat so his horns won’t tap against the window glass. The windows are electric. Shane claims he doesn’t know why the back ones stopped working; he and Mike have their windows rolled down and the radio cranked up. Hot wind and loud music buffet the cramped backseat. The Minotaur struggles to keep his head still. The Minotaur isn’t along for the promise of breasts. Nor does he particularly care about the motorcycle. The Minotaur struggles to keep his head still and to come to terms with why he is there. Out of necessity there is a resigned quality to the Minotaur’s life, but the resignation is not without a degree of hope, maybe even faith. For as long as the Minotaur can remember—no, for much longer than he can remember—he has risen every day aware of the possibility of change. Some would call him gullible. The truth is, there are days on end when he would gladly barter some of his hope for the arrogant cynicism of people like Shane and Mike. In the backseat the Minotaur’s wristwatch pounds incessantly at the thin bones of his arm, resonates up through the joints, rides roughshod over his ribs and battles with the rhythms of his heart.

  The motorcycle sits covered with a blue plastic tarp in the parking lot of Robert’s apartment complex. Taut bungee cords, hooked in the grommets, weave through the spokes and stretch under the chassis to hold the tarp in place. The Minotaur notices a small pool of oil—tarlike, gritty and iridescent—beneath the crankcase. Rather than going to the door Shane plays a long note on the car’s horn.

  Robert must have expected it. He comes out right away and is a little surprised to see the Minotaur.

  “Hi, M.”

  “Unnh.”

  They banter back and forth, Robert, Shane and Mike. As he uncovers the motorcycle Robert makes a weak attempt at a sales pitch. Mike and Shane talk around him. Undraped, the motorcycle, leaning on its kickstand, is impressive. The BMW is almost twenty years old, low to the ground, the color of cinnamon. It conveys a sense of power. It is an animal at rest. Not a svelte or speedy animal, but with its two fat cylinders protruding at right angles on either side of the frame, with its wide gas tank, its solid drive shaft and its drum brake, with the simplicity of its design, it is a willing beast of burden.

  Mike gives a low whistle.

  “This thing is nearly as old as you are, bud,” Shane says disparagingly.

  “Shane, my friend,” Mike says. “You are the consummate buffoon. Absolutely no sense of style.”

  “It’s kind of a classic,” Robert says.

  “Style, huh?” Shane says. “Classic.”

  The Minotaur steps closer to the bike, kneels and cocks his head to get a look at one of the carburetors. “Unnh,” he says
.

  “Where’s the key, Rob?” Mike asks.

  Shane dislikes the heat. “You got AC in that apartment?”

  “Yes,” Robert says.

  Then Shane asks Robert for a beer. Robert, wanting to keep Mike happy, reluctantly agrees, and Shane follows him inside.

  The Minotaur kneels on the opposite side of the bike and runs his finger along the underside of the crankcase, searching for the oil leak. He lays his head nearly on the hot pavement to see along the bottoms of the chrome exhaust pipes. He straddles the motorcycle, checks the play in the clutch and both brakes. When he holds the bike upright the Minotaur is filled suddenly with the potential for movement. It frightens him.

  “What do you think, M?” Mike asks.

  “Mmmn.”

  “Listen, there’s no sense in both of us roasting out here in the heat. Being a … I mean, you’re more cut out for it than we are. Besides, you know what you’re doing with the bike, and I’m just in the way. Here’s the key; you look the bike over good and then come get us. That okay?”

  “Unnh.” The Minotaur looks at his watch. It’s quarter till twelve. David expects him in fifteen minutes.

  Mike puts his hand on the Minotaur’s shoulder and gives him a wink. “Come on, M. Be a buddy. Help me out just this once and I’ll never forget it.”

  Touch comes so infrequently to the Minotaur that when it happens, sincere or not, it nearly takes his breath away, blinds him momentarily to rational thought and allegiance. Mike wants his help.

  There are a few basic principles that the Minotaur learned early. Combustion engines need very little to function smoothly: fuel to burn, a constant spark, oxygen to stoke the fire and a coolant to keep these others in check. Four things. But there is a precise alchemy necessary to translate these four elements into movement. To alter one is to jeopardize the whole.