by Paul Arenson
1st Place Winner – Flash 405, April 2025: “Quitting”
Fiction
I scour the filthiest pans spick-and-span. It comes in handy. Plus my hands never get chapped. The other dishwashers have hands nicked up like ground hamburger, but mine are smooth as a baby’s buttcheeks. The sous chefs drop off roasting pans thick with congealed grease, saucepans scorched black on the bottom, masses of sautéed onions left on high heat too long. The cooks get distracted with so much going on, now there’s a carbonized clump that sticks to the pan like Teflon, a charcoal mess. I take another drag on my joint, set it on the air vent, and get to work. A little detergent, a dash of bicarbonate, a sprinkle of Bar Keepers Friend, a touch of ammonia, and a drop of Dawn dish soap. Now the pan’s shining like new, like it’s never been used, like they just brought it from Sur La Table with the label still on it. Other dishwashers noticed, they started leaving me their impossible pots to clean, and I did it. What do I care. Then Jefferson started asking me to cover for him. He had to get to his job as a night watchman—if he was late again they’d fire him, and how would he make rent? Sure, I said. Management noticed too, and before you could say Fuck You Charlie they fired all the dishwashers, and yours truly was left alone standing at the sink counter in a puddle of soapy water, loading and unloading the QuadWash, scraping scalloped potatoes into the trash, stacks of bussed plates piled in front of me. I didn’t get a raise either. It wasn’t fair, that Jefferson had to hustle from job to job or he’d be on the street. And the same with the other dishwashers—now they were scrambling for their next gig, waiting for unemployment checks that would never come, and it was all my fault. Of course they hate my guts now, and who can blame them? The next week, corporate booked out all four banquet rooms. I waited for the moment of craziest rush, with the parties calling for martinis and steaks, and I walked out the kitchen and down the alleyway and didn’t say word one about it. I took the long walk down to the river park. My cell phone rang and rang in my pocket. The full moon rose in the night sky like a big china plate.
Judge’s Comments:
This is the quintessential “Quitting” story. Join a dishwasher in the back of a kitchen. Gulp at the charred-onion challenges they’re thrown. Behold their scrubbing skills. Hear the sob stories they’re asked to listen to, the cheap excuses. Peek into their skull and inner monologue, as colored by circumstance. Among a pile (no pun intended) of stuff they didn’t choose, that isn’t up to them, one sliver of freedom is quitting—and knowing the power of when. With this narrator, it feels so good to do something bad. Forget “leaving well,” this is a dispatch straight from the poetic chaos demons.
Paul Arenson’s words have found a home at North American Review, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Past Ten, and other venues, and have been picked up online in Utne Reader and Artdaily. He works in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and translates from French and Italian. Arenson’s an MFA graduate from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Find him on Instagram, Spoutible, and Bluesky: @refaelpaulo
Photo by laura novara