By Alex Arbogast
I’ve only been inside a
building that was struck by lightning one time, and it scared me so much, but
not for the right reasons. That particular building happened to be a McDonald’s
in which I was working that night as a grill closer. I had worked as a McDonald’s
employee for almost two years by this point and had never seen anything quite
like what happened. No great events occurred there that could have possibly
impacted my life. I was scared by the lightning strike but dealing with other
people was even worse.
I had just gotten done
working an eight-hour shift at the McDonald’s I worked for in Farmington. I was
dead tired, but it was Friday, which was my last shift of the week. I got home
and began changing out of my work things so I could be more comfortable. Today
had been stressful, but I’d worked worse shifts. At the very least, I’d be home
and won’t have to work again until Monday.
My phone vibrated,
signaling an incoming notification. I picked it up and noticed it was a
Facebook Messenger notification. I assumed it was probably just a notification
from work in the group chat saying they needed more people for that night. I
was not going to go in, but I read it anyway.
It was my general manager,
Ashten, asking if anyone could close for Canton tonight because they were in
dire need of extra people. I immediately messaged her. “Hey, I am able to work
tonight as long as Wes isn’t working tonight,” I typed out at lightning speed.
I had always wanted to see what it was like working in Canton. Their store was
much larger than the Farmington location.
“Canton’s GM said be there at five,” Ashten typed back almost
immediately.
“That must mean he’s not
there,” I assured myself. Wes was my ex-boyfriend. We’d dated for nearly seven
months before he broke up with me. He claimed he just wasn’t feeling it
anymore. We ended it on good terms so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was
I still had feelings for him. Working with him would cause unnecessary anxiety.
Now that I knew I wouldn’t
be working with him, I started my drive to Canton. I got there at 4:56 and
stood in front of the counter to wait for someone to tell me where to go and
what I would be doing that night.
“Oh! There’s someone,” I
thought to myself. I could only see the feet of the person though. They soon
stepped around the corner which turned my elation to dread. “I can’t do this. I
have to leave. I can’t be here,” I thought with a sense of pure panic and
dread. “It was him. It was Wes. Of course, he was here.” I thought as I started
to breathe faster and began to pick at my metallic watchband on my wrist. He
saw me and recognition dawned on his face. Instead of greeting me, he blushed
and quickly turned around. My heart sunk. I didn’t know what I was expecting.
Did I expect him to be
excited to have to work with me? No, but I was hoping for something a little
less cold from someone that had dated me for more than half a year, I mused.
Another person came around the corner to ask Wes a question, but I could not
hear it. If Wes was going to act petty, I could do the same thing.
“Hi!” I exclaimed to this
new person, a teenage boy dressed in an entry-level crew uniform, in as cheery
and loud of a voice as I could muster without sounding strange. “Hi?” the boy
responded, clearly confused.
“I’m the closer from
Farmington,” I declared, throwing daggers with my eyes at Wes. “Could you show
me where I need to go? I don't think Wesley saw me standing here.”
“Absolutely,” the boy
replied, finally showing signs that he understood who I was. The boy led me
back to the grill area and explained that I was going to be on grill and fried
products that night.
“Normally, we have another
person for fried products, but we’re a little short-staffed tonight,” he told
me, clearly agitated while he pointed out necessary items such as the spatula,
the meat for the grill, and the meat for the fryers.
“In Farmington, the grill
person does fried products and grill all the time. This will be easy,” I told
them while I paid as much attention as I could. I was proud of my store being
able to cope with what looked like an apparent lack of people.
Then the night truly began.
The cowbell sound went off, alerting me that a customer had ordered a Quarter
Pounder which necessitated my cooking the fresh beef on the grill. I lagged a
bit behind the speed I should have been at, not yet used to the different
layout of the Canton store.
I fell into a nice rhythm
though until I ran out of McChicken patties in the freezer. I didn’t know where
they kept their stock of frozen food.
I knew what I had to do,
but I wouldn’t say I was enthused to have to do it.
“Wes?” I asked in a meek
tone, my earlier anger all but dissipated. He turned quickly, as though he was
startled by my voice.
“What is it?” he inquired,
his pitch was a little louder and higher than normal.
“I ran out of McChicken,
and I’m not sure where you guys keep your frozen products. I’m sorry,” I said
quietly while avoiding eye contact.
“It’s fine. I’ll show you
where it is,” he told me in a reassuring manner. Though I didn’t know if it was
him or me that he was trying to reassure.
After he helped me, I would
frequently catch glances of Wes. It was clear he was looking at me because his
gaze would quickly shift whenever I looked up and saw him. I got into a very
good rhythm. Their appliances were much newer than Farmington’s, so it was even
easier than I had assumed it would be. It had started to rain hard, but that
didn’t bother me. I loved the rain. I started to hum the song, “Electric Love”
while I worked. I used to sing along to it in the car while Wes would hum it.
“BOOM!” I heard. The
building shook from the impact which threw me out of my peaceful headspace.
My entire body went stiff.
“What just happened? What
is going on? Did part of the town blow up? This had happened a couple of years
ago, so could it happen again?” I asked myself. Then it hit me, “Was he okay?
Was he hurt?” I had to find out.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked the nearest person. “What just
happened?”
“I don’t know,” they replied loudly, and quickly as though they
were afraid. Then the lights started flickering.
“I need to go check the
food in the fryers. If it starts to burn, it will only add to the panic,” I
said aloud even though no one was listening.
I went to check on the food
in the fryer; I realized the timer should have gone off by now. The fryers were
completely down. I couldn’t get them to respond whatsoever and using the off
and on button had no effect. I pulled the food out to make sure it didn’t burn
and went to tell Wes as he was the manager for that particular night. I had no
other choice.
“I can do this,” I told
myself as I made my way to him. “I will not make a fool of myself by stumbling
over my own words or apologizing like last time.”
“Wes?” I asked with anxiety creeping around the edges of my tone.
“Huh?” he replied, clearly startled by my voice.
He was lost in thought,
clearly shook to the bone by the giant sound that had happened not that long
ago.
“The fryers are all off, and
I can’t get them to turn on or off,” I told him, trying to be as confident as I
could be.
“Do you see that smoke?” he
asked, his face now ghost white, and his voice strained. Something dawned on
his face, and he shouted, “Everyone get to the lobby now!” I turned around and
looked for myself. Sure enough, the building had been slowly filling with
smoke.
“Is it hot in here or is it—”
I started to say to lower the tension and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw
his face. He was scared, and although I wasn’t happy with how he was dealing
with this situation, I needed to protect him and make him think everything was
fine. It wasn’t my responsibility, and I had no obligation to make him feel
okay, but seeing his face and knowing how afraid he was at that moment, I knew
that I had to make him feel better. “It will be okay,” I relayed in as calming
a voice as I could muster.
I went to rub his back. It
had been something he loved that he would fall asleep to sometimes. He smiled
for a short second and then his attention was brought back to the chaos around
him.
“Just get to the lobby,” he
said, clearly exasperated. His voice was calmer, although it still contained
that fright from earlier.
I made my way to the lobby.
I knew that I had to let him deal with this. I had helped as much as I could.
All the other teenage employees were chattering with fear and anxiety. It was a
lot for my nerves. Wes’s best friend, Chase, came up to me. He was a fairly
tall, skinny boy who wore large-framed glasses and had black hair.
“Hey Alex,” Chase said. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“Yup,” I replied. “I heard I could get overtime if I helped out
and I was all in.”
“I feel you there,” he said while laughing, although I could tell
it was fake. We weren’t friends. I was always jealous of his relationship with
Wes. They were really close friends and would frequently stay the night at each
other’s house. I was always so scared Wes would break up with me to date Chase,
but Wes always reassured me of his feelings for me. We spoke for a little while
until the firefighters arrived. They made quick work of surveying for any
possible damage and assured everyone that it was safe, and the smoke wasn’t a
worry. I didn’t get an explanation of why the smoke had occurred, though, or
what exactly had happened. We were going to close much earlier, though, because
the appliances were not okay, which meant we could no longer cook food.
“Can we have a couple
people move their cars to block off the entrance so we don’t have people coming
through the drive-thru?” Wes asked us.
“I can do it,” I volunteered almost immediately.
He nodded his head and
looked away. Another girl and I went outside and positioned our cars, so the
entrance was blocked off. We left an exit so employees could still leave. I
jogged back inside and got to work on my closing duties. I counted all the food
we could no longer serve and threw it away.
Then I was stumped. I
didn’t know where any of the cleaning supplies were located. I asked one of the
other employees, and they pointed me towards them. I got everything ready and
began. There was one problem. Apparently, the fryers weren’t the only thing affected
by the electrical problems. The grills were no longer
hot. This was going to be a very difficult clean because the chemicals used to
clean the grills required heat to get all the residue off the grills. I got the
grills as clean as I possibly could with no heat and went to ask Wes what else
I could do.
“I think we can handle it from here,” he answered.
“Okay, so I’m good to go?” I inquired.
“Yup,” he answered simply
as he turned back, the beginnings of a blush beginning to creep into his
cheeks.
I went to the parking lot,
and I drove back to Farmington to tell my friends about what had just happened.
I was scared by the
lightning strike that day. It was a situation that I had never been in before,
but it wasn’t the scariest part of that day. I realized later that if something
had gone very wrong, Wes, the crew, or I could have been badly hurt or even had
died. I haven’t tried to face the cold truth of mortality and the feebleness of
our bodies to this day. While that possibility is terrifying, realizing that I
still had feelings for my ex-boyfriend but couldn’t act upon them was the real
horror of my day. It was a reality I had no choice but to come to terms with.
Our electric love had gone out. It had fizzled away. Perhaps the sparks would
always remain, but lightning never strikes the same place twice, does it?
About the
Author
Alex Arbogast is a Freshman at ICC who is attending for an associate’s in arts.
He enjoys reading YA novels and writing. He hopes you enjoy the story.