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Hot Grill ep5. Sally
Main Plot Starts Here
I was in a cafe staring at the sunset in California. That was when I met her. She looked very zen at first sight, but also puzzled like a lost puppy.
From the way she stared at me, I knew she was trying to start a conversation, but was too shy to do so. I decided to help out.
I pushed my cup of coffee in front of her.
Coffee
“Thank you. That is very nice of you.” Sally said, and she pulled a chair in front of me with such nonchalance, as if we were besties for years. That’s how I know she craved company but had an ego that dragged her.
“But I don’t drink coffee. They gave me mad headaches.” Sally said.
“When you drink the coffee?”
“No, afterwards. The withdrawal symptoms.”
“So you are looking out for a problem in the future.”
“Aren’t we always?”
“Not really.”
“I am not from here.” Said Sally. Her voice was floating. She was here in front of me, but her eyes were wandering everywhere. She was not present.
“I can tell.”
“I am a visitor,” Sally said. She was avoiding eye contact and scanning the places without focus in her pupils. She stirred the tea spoon in the cup randomly, and after some hesitation, decided to take a sip. She gave out a short moan and leaned back. Her eyes cleared up a bit with a short glow. I have a sense that something else might cheer her up even more.
“Smoke?” I pulled out a cigarette from my purse and reached into my pocket for a lighter. Again, Sally was giving me the look of hesitation. “Headache again?” I asked her as her lips were half open. She shook her head.
“Fine.” I lit up. Inhaled. Exhaled. Sally was trying to breathe in the smoke like a man in a desert.
The chatter died down.
“What do you do?” Sally asked me aggressively.
What Do You Do?
I drink coffee and occasionally smoke. I skateboard a lot. I like palm trees and dogs.
That’s cute. But what about your occupation?
What is an occupation?
A job.
What is a job?
What do you do for a living?
I just said it. I drink coffee and occasionally smoke. I skateboard.
Is that all you do?
What do you mean? What do you do?
I am a janitor. I make sure that no malicious people enter the neighborhood. I make my community a better place. I get paid minimum wage.
Sounds like a Robocop.
What is a Robocop?
If you mean the specific mechanism behind it, I don’t know. What I know is they are half living machines that make us safe.
Cool — like they catch thieves and robbers and stuff?
What are thieves and robbers?
People who take away your property, like money, without asking you.
What is property? What is money?
Nevermind, what do you mean a Robocop makes you safe?
They make sure we don’t get killed. They guard our lives. Isn’t it super cool? They protect our most important possession.
So in this goddame place, your life is your only property? No tangible units of wealth? God, it’s so fucked up.
Sally rambled in some jargon that I don’t understand and reached for my smoke. From the way she takes care of it, I immediately knew she is a chain smoker. She is so hypocritical. She knows what she wants, yet she keeps delaying her pleasure because of some unknown future possibilities. Sally is not respecting her present, her biggest gift, the single most valuable package that came with her the moment she was born. She is trying so hard to constrain herself, and I know it is going to backfire. Starting from her cup of coffee, and her first inhale of my smoke. But I will let her, because I am only saving her from destroying herself. It is no stranger that one’s most feared eventually comes back to the person himself in the most unacceptable yet most predictable way. I know Sally is fucked up, and I think she knows it too.
Sally is Silly
The silence wasn’t long. Sally’s eye lighted up again as if she was suddenly charged after days of starvation.
I said,
I can’t think of any more things that deserve to be claimed as your own except your presence.
Sally was shocked. So shocked that she chugged the entire cup of coffee. She apologized and told me she would pay for a refill. Before I could say anything, she sprinted to the counter, but, of course, she was shocked again because no one was there. Sally turned her head at me, looking confused again with her doe eyes. Silly girl. I walked to the counter and told her she could simply pour herself another cup.
No payment? No barista? What the hell.
No. I told her. What’s a payment? You always give me strange-ass concepts. It sounds so brutal — as if you need to give up something to get something.
But what if some greedy person decided to fill up all the coffees that he does not need, so everybody else has no coffee to drink anymore?
Why would they do that? How would they take anything out of it? They would have too much to carry in their hands, and they can always come back for another cup if they need more. People would come back here if they need a fresh cup as well, rather than getting expired, stinky drinks from those so-called greedy people. Why would they want to have more?
Sally was again so confused. I felt like she was about to cry. She asked if I was serious. She could not believe that in this random town, one does not need to work their ass off for a surplus of supplies. She simply could not believe that security was guaranteed for everyone. No property, no job, no chain of command based on total compensation and last names. No nothing. Individuality was priased on a non-religious, non-biased, perfectly healthy way. Sally was tearing up. Now I am the person who was panicking. I remember my psychiatrist told me that venting is a good way to cure mental diseases, a term I only hear from out-of-date textbooks with broken covers and missing pages.
Sally asked for another smoke, but I only had one joint left, so we shared.
Sally’s eyes immediately started bulging with veins. She said she was a disgrace in her community because she could not afford the so-called luxuries, and she was not contributing to her family and society. I asked her, isn’t keeping your neighborhood safe a significant task?
But it is such easy work. Everyone can do it. Machines and Robocops can easily do it with such efficiency.
So it is important and easy, and you choose to do it. Why does it make it a disgrace?
No one wants to do it.
No one wants to do it, yet you choose to do it. Doesn’t that make you a great, selfless person? You could rather stay at home and do nothing, but you choose to contribute to public safety. In fact, Sally, I think you are great.
Sally’s eyes started drifting away again.
But this work does not pay as much.
Say it is easy work and it does not make you feel valuable, so what kind of work is valuable?
Finance, technologies, marketing…
Do those works make the world a better place?
Maybe?
Tell me.
Your phones, products, malls…
Sounds like charity work.
No! In our world, you would need to pay for those things. Every single penny goes to buying those services. If you have more, you get to enjoy more. Vice versa.
So those highly important works provide your community with ways to make people pay rather than enjoy things.
No, they enjoy things as they pay…
That does not sound very valuable to me. Those work invent products that people need, but come with prices that I assume are not easy to compensate for.
I wouldn’t say people “need” those things. Some of them are just fluff.
So those important work invent products and services that people don’t need and make them trade for those with their own work, and that’s what make those work important. Is it right, Sally?
…Sort of.
In the meantime, you do a relatively simple work that is not challenging but secures a nice, safe community, where people enjoy without trading anything off for it, right?
People think low of me.
Do they scold you? Hit you?
…No.
What do they do?
They don’t do or say anything, because I don’t belong with them. They talk about terms that I don’t understand and think low of me for not understanding them.
Did they tell you that?
No, I just figured.
You don’t know that you don’t need anything to trade for coffee here, and I told you this new piece of information. Do you think I am thinking low of you? Sally, the truth is, I don’t understand your people. I don’t understand the value system there. People are proud of the level of sophistication of their skills. It is like a super fancy vase that cannot hold much water. A vase that is so fancy that you need multiple levels of encode and decode just to take little sips, and you need to act all high and mighty because you believe that it is those convoluted complicated steps that make the resource scarce, and scarce == value. But you, holding a paper cup with ample water that can feed many thirsty mouths, are considered valueless because you decide to do something that is very accessible and understandable by your people. It is so unfair. No one should judge you based on how you provide service to people.
Sally put down the joint and took a very serious look at me.
You should tell them.
She was silent for a couple of minutes, and I was silent too.
Sally stood up. I noticed there was grease on her hair, and her shoes were full of dirt. I never asked where she came from, but I guess she was leaving.
Sally Left
The joint was burned till it was only the length of a nail. There was a stinging pain in my fingertips. I crushed the remaining sparks and dropped them inside the coffee cup.
The pager inside my pocket rang abruptly. Time for my shift. I reached for a couple of wrinkled dollars from my pocket and stuck them under the coffee mug. I couldn’t fight my addiction after all. The headaches were killing me.
I walked towards the exit and pushed open the front gate. The auto bell chirped.
“Bye Sally!” Said the barista behind me.
I nodded at her and continued going.
Next up:
Hot Grill ep7. I Had a Conversation with Sally - Chinese Version - 我跟翠花聊了会儿天
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