Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday:

A beam of sunlight split through the blinds and illuminated Alister’s sleeping face. The air in the shadowed room smelled stale and unpleasant. Layers of nicotine coated the once white walls, staining them a sickly yellowish color. Dirty, wrinkled clothes matted into each other on the floor, unintentionally serving as a carpet.
Aside from the futon Alister slept on, the only furniture in the room was an old wardrobe , and a large office desk awkwardly tucked into a corner. The wardrobe was shabby, with drawers opened and collapsing at the seams from the growing piles of clothing he loaded on top of them. A thick layer of white dust, like powdered sugar, coated every unused surface in the room. The desk’s surface looked the most used. A large glass ashtray sat on top and looked like a chia-pet of cigarette butts, sprouting out in all directions. Whiskey bottles lined the edges of the desk forming a little glass fence. Worn notebooks were sprawled here and there, with bizarre scribbles of strange sayings in strange languages. Stacks of thick books with broken binds were plopped around on the desk’s surface. One was opened, and in it showed an old creepy ink drawing of demons on horseback dragging screaming souls into a fiery cave. A rather stock picture from an old book dealing with the occult.
He stirred a little. The terrible taste in his mouth jarred him back to consciousness. His head throbbed, and his stomach felt like it’d been tied into a boy scout knot. He struggled raising from bed, and steadied himself against the wall nearby when he stood. He stumbled into his small, unkept bathroom, and seated himself appropriately in front of the toilet. This was his daily routine, vomiting for the first ten minutes or so of his day.
In the shower, he could feel his liver groan and turn green from it’s constant poisoning. His lungs shivered and forced out loose pieces of themselves. He rubbed his aching neck and coughed. His head pounded as it released a gradual eruption of snot from his nose. He thought of going to work and nearly fell through the shower curtain. Not today, I’d rather die in an alley then go to work today, he thought. But it was the thirty-first, and he knew he needed the hours. He screamed, angry at his responsibilities.

He waited at the bus stop in the freezing morning. His hands were pink and stung from the fierce winter breeze as he smoked. His long black overcoat brushed the littered cement while he sat on the bench. A teenaged fat girl sat next to him, yelling into her cell phone, and sucking down a huge plastic cup of soda pop. She tried swapping the two items in her hands, but fumbled and dropped her soda in front of them. Small, brown streams of cola, raced down the sidewalk and soaked the ends of Alister’s coat. The fat girl watched unconcerned. “My bad,” she said with little feeling. He continued his cigarette, looking at her annoyed, but not saying anything.
“What you gotta problem about it? I said I was sorry.” Her eyes bugged out when she said it, and she moved her head left to right, like some exotic yard bird.
“No you didn’t. You said ‘my bad’. That’s not an apology at all.”
“Whatever, freak. Your jacket’s all stained and shit anyway, freak”
He closed his eyes and concentrated on the curse he had memorized the night before. He mumbled something under his breath and did little hand movements toward the girl. He opened his eyes and waited for the curse to take hold of her. She rolled her eyes at him, and returned to yelling into her cell phone.
The crowded bus arrived, and Alister was forced to ride standing. On the way to his job, he wondered why his curses and spells never worked. He had read over his books carefully, again and again, worried he was missing some vital information. He practiced the sayings aloud at his apartment, and silently at work in his dish tank. Once at work, he cursed his boss Jacqueline, and seconds later she fell into some stock shelves. He knew it was mostly due to the fact she drank heavily at lunch and not because of the curse, but he still found it encouraging.
He tiptoed his way off the bus and trudged through the doors of “Pete’s Pizza”. Jacqueline was the first to greet him.
“You know, a lot of people have jobs in this world. A lot of people.” She sneered at him condescendingly. “But nobody gets paid for being late, and neither do you. Chump.” She hurled his greasy rolled up apron at him, which smacked his glasses off.
“Hah! You guys see that? Right between the eyes.” The few line cooks who saw it, bellowed their laughter throughout the kitchen. Jacqueline howled above them all with her raspy smoker’s laugh. Alister walked away and cursed under his breath, in English not Aramaic.
Alister kept his dish tank immaculate. At the end of every night, he would polish the stainless steel tubs and counters until they looked like new. He would go on and on to the owner of Pete’s Pizza about how much pride he takes in his job during the six-month evaluations. The truth is, Alister had somehow been there ten years and had received a thirty-five cents raise every six months. He was up to fourteen dollars an hour and often needed to use the sympathy card to keep his job, “Sir, letting me go for thirty-five cents would be an injustice to that dish tank and you know it.” Money wasn’t the issue. He didn’t spend his money on much. Whiskey, smokes, an occasional lap dance, books, toilet paper, peanut butter, rent. Alister loved the invisibility a dishwasher accomplishes the moment the hairnet goes on. Give me the plate and look away, he would think to himself when a server wanted to get chatty.
Pink soap bubbles splashed over the rim of the gigantic sink, as Alister situated his bus tubs, and silverware containers for the upcoming battle with the dishes. He could hear the radio again, sounding in the next door at the cell phone store on the other side of the wall. Everyday for the last few weeks they left a radio blaring horse races. All through the shift, horse racing.
“...Chocolate Thunder has the lead by a length, but here comes Sugar Cane. Sugar Cane coming up hard on Chocolate Thunder. On the Rocks is third followed by Santa Maria, and Jericho...”
Two days ago, he had enough and stormed next door. The sales rep must have turned it down the moment Alister arrived, then acted like he knew nothing about a radio in the back room. And as soon as he returned to the dish tank, the racing was back on.
He felt determined to block out the noise and tackle the task at hand. The tubs started filling up with dirty dishes and Alister furiously cleaned each one. He was always a good dishwasher, but the motivation to block the radio from his mind inspired him to dishwashing levels previously unknown to human kind. The dinner rush came on like a tidal wave of half eaten pizza crusts and brown, ranched-out lettuce fragments. Normally, Alister would have fallen behind at some point, but not then. It was if he was operating with a couple more arms, with more fingers on each hand. As spectacular of a performance it was, he was too distracted by the annoyance of the radio next door to appreciate it himself.
“...by two lengths now. Lung Butter running out of gas, falls to third, as Wolverine moves ahead...”
He stared off wildly as he gobbled up sections of the ever growing dish pile. Servers and line cooks began to marvel at what was taking place. Even Jacqueline felt vaguely impressed. Good thing the owner wasn’t here to see that, she thought. He’d never let her fire him then.
“Damn boy! You really got it working’ tonight, Al,” one of the servers yelled.
A bowl placed haphazardly on the edge of the bus tub gave way and crashed upon the floor. Alister stopped sharply and stared not quite at it, but around it. The noise was getting louder, and it was driving him crazy.
“Is anybody else gonna do something about that fucking radio?” he pleaded loudly.
The busy kitchen paused to listen to the strange dishwasher speak. It was a rare occurrence.
“Was’up Al? You don’t like Snoop or something?” a husky cook asked, referring to the cd player the line cooks listened to.
“Not that. Next door. The horse racing. You hear it don’t you? It’s so loud.” He was answered by blank faces.
“Well I can’t handle it anymore,” he tore off his apron and stormed towards the back exit.
“If you leave during your shift, don’t come back. You hear that punk?” Jacqueline called after him, as he slipped out the door.

When Alister was a kid, he was regularly visited by a spirit named Toki. Toki would appear while Alister was in the bath, and tell him stories about the mountain animals of the Himalayas surviving in the higher altitudes. He remembered how the hair on the back of his neck stood up whenever Toki emerged out of thin air. He would shiver from the goose bumps, and Toki would laugh and say he looked like a duck. Once Alister’s mother was institutionalized for drugs, he was moved into a foster home and never saw Toki, or any other spirit again. He had dedicated much of his adult life to summoning another spirit, but with no success. On this day, however, his hair once again stood up, and he shivered all over.
Alister intended on storming into the cell phone store, head straight for the back room, and smash the hell out of the radio blasting the incessant horse racing. But once he stepped out of the back door of “Pete’s Pizza”, he wasn’t standing in the employee parking lot like he expected. Instead he was standing on grass. Finely trimmed grass. And directly in front of him was a white wooden railing running horizontally in both directions. Beyond the railing was a wide loose-dirt path, followed by a long row of hedges. A low rumble sounded off in the distance, and Alister immediately detected the odor of animal manure.
(It seems where Alister had failed at his summoning attempts and curses aimed at individuals, he had unknowingly succeeded in projecting his own spirit back in time. Because he couldn’t really pronounce the ancient Aramaic dialect, he produced the opposite effect intended. It really isn’t that unusual of an occurrence when dabbling in the spirit world. I mean, how many people speak fluid ancient Aramaic these days?)
A familiar voice crackled through a loud speaker behind him.
“....Roman Holiday out to a big early lead, followed by Pound Cake, Better Make it Two, and Phlopper in fourth...”
He turned around to see behind him, but was distracted by a group of large horses, with small colorful riders barreling around the track toward his direction. His eyes followed them approaching, and the first horse, Roman Holiday, went by him just a few feet away. He could have reached out and touched it. In the moment of passing Alister, the horse caught a quick glimpse of him, and thought about what it had just seen. It ran thirty more yards before it deduced it indeed had just seen something that didn’t belong there, and decided it had to go back and look again just to make sure. As it slammed on it’s brakes, the other horses chasing it slammed into one another trying to brake as well. Riders went flying off the backs, and the horses writhed around in a mangled horse heap. Ole’ Roman escaped unscathed though, and darted the opposite way down the track.
Alister turned all the way around and saw a large wooden grandstand packed with horrified spectators. Everyone was standing and looking on in an astonished hush at the pile of broken horses and riders. Above the grandstand, was a press box with a large window covering the front, and two big loudspeakers mounted on top. Two men stood inside and one broadcasted what he was seeing.
“....utter chaos. Horse and rider alike are lying in pain all over the track. It’s a bad scene folks. Never before...What? I know they can see that for themselves, but I’m the announcer. That’s what I’m paid to do, Jim. Don’t talk to me about being insensitive...wait, what’s this? Roman Holiday is up and running the opposite direction....”
Alister turned back around to face the track and could feel Roman Holiday’s hooves pound the earth as it ran back toward him. It stopped about ten feet from Alister and stared at him through it’s large black eye on the side of it’s head. It kicked it’s back legs and snorted loudly. Alister attempted to make sense of the situation, but failed to find anything rational to calm down about. To make matters worse, a woman in the crowd suddenly noticed Alister standing next to the track, and like Roman Holiday, she felt he didn’t belong there.
“A ghost!” she shrieked, and pointed to Alister before fainting all over the gentleman next to her.
“Ghost?” he asked himself aloud. He looked at himself and noticed there did appear to be some thing strange going on with his clothes and skin. He was a bit translucent, and had a strange mist which surrounded him. “Wait. How did I...?”
The crowd erupted in panic, bumping into each other as they all scrambled for the exits. Roman Holiday stood motionless staring intently at Alister. He suddenly felt he was in danger, and he was right. The horse instantly leaped the railing and exploded after him. Alister scrambled away faster than he ever thought he could move, climbed the grandstand and worked his way up the rows of bleachers. Roman Holiday jumped into the grandstand and galloped up the bleachers after him.
Alister ran along the concourse above the bleachers past the refreshment set-ups and the bathrooms. He could hear the thunderous clatter of Roman Holiday closing in behind him. The exit was in sight, but it seemed too far to escape, thought Alister. Closer than the exit was the ticket booth where folks would place their bets. He spotted the door to the booth and ducked inside just before the hooves of the giant animal ran him down

He closed the door quickly behind him, and sighed with relief. His heart raced and his face was pale and sweaty. He listened for the horse on the other side but heard nothing. He looked up and saw his greasy dishwashing apron being hurled at him. It again smacked off his glasses.
“Two in one day! How you like that. You see that one boys. Damn I’m good,” Jacqueline tried to laugh at her success but could only manage a smoker’s cough instead. “Get back to your doghouse, dish-dog. That’s strike two for leaving during your shift. One more fuck-up today,...” she finished her sentence with the throat-slashing motion.
The rest of the kitchen carried on with business as usual. No one indicated they knew of what just happened to Alister. Befuddled, he resumed his position at his dish-tank. He moved slowly, as if in a trance. What just happened, he wondered? Was that a nervous breakdown, an acid flashback, a product of alcoholism, what? He decided to try and relax a moment. He appeared physically intact again, and everything seemed normal. A few deep breaths later, he felt okay about washing some dishes. He emptied his dirty water, and started to fill up the sink again with pink soap and hot water. He tried blocking out of his consciousness whatever had just occurred. “That wasn’t real,” he giggled to himself.
“Dammit Alister. How many times have I told you, close the goddamn door all the way behind you,” Jacqueline opened it a crack to throw out her finished cigarette. As she did, a long brown snout poked through the door.
“What the fu..?” is all she got out before the door barreled open and two giant hooves slammed her to the ground. One of the back ones crushed her head, as Roman Holiday thrashed about the kitchen. Stock shelves toppled, bus trays spewed dishes everywhere, and a few servers were trampled by the giant, furious beast sprinting wildly around.
The horse stopped abruptly when it arrived at Alister’s dish tank. The remaining personnel fled in horror out of the front the restaurant. Alister was trapped. There was one way out of the surrounding chrome counters of the dish tank, and Roman Holiday was staring down at him in that direction. He closed his eyes and prepared for a hoof to crush him.
While he waited for such a gruesome death, something clicked in his mind and it became clear to him what was happening. The picture in the old book he’d been practicing with had tricked him. The screaming faces being dragged away on horseback were not the ones who the curse had been intended to harm. No, sir. Those faces belonged to the administers themselves. It was now Alister’s turn to join that picture.
He opened his eyes and their was Roman Holiday kneeling in front of the dish tank. Alister dropped his apron in the pink soapy water, and climbed up into the saddle. Since this was it, thought Alister, he slapped the horse’s hide and yelled, “Hyah!” Roman Holiday added a fitting neigh, and for effect, actually rose up a bit on it’s hind legs before it barreled out of the back door.