HOT DAWGY DAWGS

Josh picked up the phone at Hot Dawgy Dawgs and said, “City morgue, how can I help you?”

Big Jim slammed his IPA onto the mustard-clouded counter. “Josh, I told you ten goddamn times—you can’t say that to people.”

Josh sandwiched the phone between his shoulder and ear, his black ringlets serving as a cushion. He couldn’t hear her well over the wop-wop-wops of the Pac Man machine, but he had a sixty-percent success rate at guessing what people wanted. “What’d ya say?—Oh, yeah, the Hot Dawggy Dawgs’ Big Dawg comes with ketchup and mustard on it. No sauerkraut, though,” he said. “Don’t worry, baby. I would never do that to you.”

Josh hated sauerkraut, and he wanted everyone to know it. He hung up the phone, tossed it onto the beer fridge, and lunged into his sketch pad that was binded together with duct tape. He erased the coconut bra on the sexy lobster that he had a wet dream about the night before and began to sketch one that was at least a triple-D.  

Big Jim peered over Josh’s shoulder, his big eyebrows raised, and his big neck muscles strained. He scratched at the flaking, rosy-olive skin on his arm, and then yanked the beer stained order pad from under Josh’s arm. Josh did not move it to make this process any easier because he had an important sexy lobster to draw. As he watched Josh contour the lobster’s cleavage, Big Jim sighed a confused sigh. A confused sigh with a hint of arousal. A confused sigh with a hint of arousal with a hint of shame.

“Big tits on that lobster,” he muttered.

“Thanks, I know.”

Big Jim slapped the scribbled order onto the warm metal counter scattered with stray sweet potato fries. He around and crossed his hairy arms across his broad chest. “Josh, you have to hand the order to the kitchen. Remember?” 

“My bad.”

Josh noticed a mustard stain on the floor between two Pac Man machine makeshift tables, and hoped that Big Jim wouldn’t notice and tell him to clean it up. He loved that Hot Dawgy Dawgs was the size of a subway car, but hated that it made messes more noticeable.

The bell above the door dinged and Big Jim threw back his hunched shoulders. All employees were trained to stay behind the counter, so the bell only served a purpose when someone was in the bathroom taking a piss, in the bathroom snorting cocaine, or in the bathroom fucking. Whenever the bell rang, most every counter server stopped what they were doing to assume their position, prepared to recite the hot dog counter server script that Frank Buoygett-Conway fed to them. Josh, three months on the payroll, decided to instead sketch the sexy lobster’s antennas.

The early-April chill crept behind Pierce Buoygett-Conway as he strolled through the door so slow that one would think that he took pleasure in watching everyone’s fingers fall off. A piece of black, frozen hair stuck to the bony hump on his aquiline nose. Its redness stuck out from his otherwise chalky complexion.

Josh’s charcoal pencil slipped from the paper and onto the Violent Femmes sticker taped to the counter. He groaned and rustled his curls with his jagged fingernails. “Goddamnit, I loved that sticker!”

“Oh yeah? Name three Violent Femmes songs then,” said Pierce. He crossed his arms, both inked with misspelled pop-punk lyrics.

Josh snickered. “Ah, go back to carving anarchy symbols into toilet seats or some shit.”

Everyone who worked at Hot Dawgy Dawgs hated Pierce Buoygett-Conway, but he was Frank Buoygett-Conway’s son, and Frank Buoygett-Conway owned Hot Dawgy Dawgs, so no one could say that they hated Pierce Buoygett-Conway. But they did. 

Josh was the only counter server who didn’t know that Pierce Buoygett-Conway was Frank Buoygett-Conway’s son. And it wasn’t any classic new guy mistake. Every other new counter server was made aware of the relation on day one, and how that relation could fuck them if they didn’t play their cards right. But when Big Jim saw how Josh handled the lunch rush on their first Saturday together, he had an idea. An idea fueled by boredom, frustration, and Pierce’s frequent lectures on why non-vegans are some of the few people who deserved death. 

On his first day, Big Jim learned that Josh wasn’t like everyone else in Williamsburg. Josh didn’t whip out Infinite Jest when a blue haired girl approached the counter, nor did he explain the entire plot to her instead of taking her order. Josh didn’t waterboard someone with craft beer when they walked in wearing a Coldplay t-shirt. Josh didn’t ask if he could wear a faded orange sweatshirt and basketball shorts to work everyday—he just did. Josh didn’t believe that the customer was always right, and he made that abundantly clear. Josh gave him the nickname “Big Jim” five minutes after the interview, and clarified that it was because of his ‘6”7 stature, not because he was heavy-set, even though he was about ten pounds overweight. Big Jim knew that Josh was the only person at Hot Dawgy Dogs who would put Pierce in his place. So Big Jim didn’t tell Josh that Pierce Buoygett-Conway was the sole heir to the Hot Dawgy Dawgs throne. He figured that it’d be a harmless source of entertainment, for Pierce always complained about having to juggle new employee paperwork with his other responsibilities. Pierce told him that he never wanted to go through hiring another counter server again, unless he absolutely had to.

Josh looked up. “Or better yet, Pierce,” he said as he wagged his pencil like a school teacher, “go organize another ‘live forever rally’ or whatever bullshit you do in your free time.”

    “It’s an immortality awareness rally, ass hole,” said Pierce. “I would think that a twenty-four year old would have a better memory.”

Pierce founded the Immortality Awareness Society of Williamsburg and couldn’t be more proud of himself. He once protested outside of the White House when the government prohibited the sale of CBD. Pierce was the only one there with a sign about CBD’s age-reversing properties. He once organized a rally in front of the aquarium to try and score an octopus sperm donation for immortality research. Pierce ran when the guards pulled out their tasers. Pierce once rolled into a suicide support group wearing a SUICIDE IS FOR SUCKERS t-shirt. Pierce kicked and screamed about the value of eternal life as security hauled him to the sidewalk.  At the next Immortality Awareness Society of Williamsburg meeting, he argued that everyone can raise immortality awareness—no matter the situation.

    “Yeah, whatever,” said Josh.

Big Jim chuckled as he topped off his apricot-brewed beer. 

“You think something’s funny, Jim? Bet you don’t even know that beer leads to early death, Jim. Especially for a guy your size, Jim.” 

Big Jim cocked his head back and placed his hand on his chest. “Who, me? Oh, uh, no, Pierce. I was… laughing at something I’d heard earlier, something that my cute little daughter did.” He shuffled his feet. 

    A serpentine smirk slithered across Pierce’s thin lips. “Oh yeah? What’d your cute little daughter do?”

    “Well, see, she had a tutu on and… she was dancing, all cute, to a… song on the TV, such a stupid song, too, man. Ah, what song was it again? You know the song,” he said as he snapped his sausage fingers. “The one with all of the talking fruits—you know, the one on Toonland. Real cute, though.”

         Pierce scoffed. “Talking fruits. Hilarious.”

    Josh sketched the shadows below the lobster’s tits and let out a sneeze, a kind of sneeze where all of the snot goes everywhere, including on one’s own face and sexy lobster drawing. A kind of sneeze that made all of the beanie-wearing customers look up from their vegan hotdogs to inspect him with scrunched septum-pierced noses. He shook his head like a wet mutt and resumed sketching the shadows under the lobster’s tits.

    “Nice shadows,” said Big Jim.

    “Where’d you learn to draw?” Pierce asked. “I presume not at an institution.”

    Josh furrowed his unruly brown eyebrows. “You know what, Pierce?” 

    Pierce let out a shrill sigh. “What?”

    Josh rested his cherub chubby cheeks on his fists. “You’re just—really, really fucking weird. ‘I presume not an institution.’ Like, who the fuck talks like that?”

    Pierce leaned in to Josh, sharp-nose on bulgy-nose-close. He searched his eyes as if he had a warrant. He found redness, owl heavy eyelids, and the beginning of what might have been stye. Whether he had a stye or not, Pierce found Josh to be stoned. Very stoned.

“You’re stoned. Very stoned,” said Pierce, as he threw his rail thin arms to the ceiling. “And at work, too? Ridiculous!”

Big Jim dropped his big hand onto Josh’s shoulder. “Look, Pierce. No disrespect but, it’s Williamsburg. Pot’s legal here now, isn’t it? And Josh has been doing a great job. Just, I mean—just please don’t be too hard on him. It’s just… weed.”

Pierce hauled his scrawny leg onto the counter. He pulled his skinny jeans up to his knee. He looked at Josh and Big Jim with small turquoise, maniac eyes. “See these socks? See the green leaves on these socks? Proof enough that I smoke weed everyday. I have nothing against weed. Studies show that weed makes you live five percent longer. But unlike Josh, I don’t smoke it at my fucking job. This is a business, Josh. What the fuck do you think you’re doing, smoking weed at a business?”

“Weed socks,” said Josh with a chin nod, “Nice, bro.” 

Pierce pursed his lips as his face assumed a ruddy hue. The customers in the back stared and held back their laughter.

“Sorry,” Josh muttered. “Anyway, did you want a veggie dog or something?”

Pierce buried his head in his hands as he pretended to hide his rapid hyperventilating. His nails were bitten down to the bed, aside from his painted black thumb that granted him access to local punk shows.

Josh and Big Jim tried to keep their composure as they listened to Pierce breathe in and out. They looked at each other and both knew that if one of them broke into laughter, the other would, too. Big Jim hoped that Josh didn’t cave and laugh, as Josh had told him that day that he only had three-hundred and fifty dollars in his bank account, and owed his landlord eight-hundred-and-fifty on the first of the month.

“My father will be hearing about this,” Pierce growled, “and he will not be happy.”

Pierce flipped up the collar of his denim vest as he spun around and squeezed between the condiment table and bar on his way to the exit. The bell chimed against the door as it slammed shut. 

Josh snickered. “Aw, how sweet,” he said, “He’s gonna tell his dad that I bullied him and then I’ll get called down to the Pwincipal’s office.”

Big Jim picked at the dead skin on his big thumb. “Listen, uh, Josh, his dad is—” Josh looked up at the television screen and smiled at the ass shaking on MTV. Big Jim punched his arm. “Josh, stop being horny and listen to me.”

Josh looked up, his round brown eyes glimmering like a child at a carnival. “‘Sup?”

Big Jim ran his fingers through his thick, dishwater blonde hair, and then back down his giraffe neck. “Pierce is Frank’s son.”

“Frank?”

“Yeah, Frank Buoygett-Conway.”

Josh rubbed his chin and looked up, something he did when he was pretending to think. “Frank Buoygett-Conway?”

“Yes, the Frank Buoygett-Conway.”

“Oh, the Frank Buoygett-Conway! He’s uh… that guy.” Josh grinned. Big Jim did not.

“Frank Buoygett-Conway owns Hot Dawgy Dog’s. Frank Buoygett-Conway hates weed more than anything. Frank Buoygett-Conway is going to fire you.”

(An excpert from the forthcoming novel)
by Erin McLaughlin