‘Time to count it out,” said Tommy the gay black manager. I always liked Tommy, he was not stupid, he was good to us and not needy or demanding. The black girls started counting out the chicken pieces and talking shit as usual, I listened in because they were blunt and funny. Some of them didn’t mind pocketing money from customers. I walked across the greasy floor and started counting out the leftover pieces of chicken and bucketing them, planned to take home some original recipe and red beans and rice. One last group of customers appeared at the register, a black dude ordered a two piece chicken and biscuit, by accident he got two boxes but paid for one, a white dude in the crowd called him out, they went out to the parking lot and squared off, the black due took off his belt and started swinging it at the white, this went on for a couple minutes then Tommy told us to stop watching and get back to work.
by Joel Rook
