Quits

by H.K. Agustin

There I was—yelling expletives at Sam Walton inside a walk-in freezer, crouched beside three ginormous yellow tubs filled to the brim with corn dogs and ranch wings and mildewed deli meat floating in brown chicken oil, grieving over all that is wasted, grieving over Dante who bandaged my bleeding finger after I cut it at the cheese slicer, who taught me all that I know about bread and boxed salads and 12-inch subs, who handed in his badge last night after closing for the fourth time in four days and left without saying goodbye, grieving the life I left in Manila, far from provolone, muenster, pepper jack, and frenzied Karens with their bob cuts and cheap foundation who want their garlic butter rotisserie chicken ASAP, yelling expletives at Karl Marx and his critique of capitalism, blaming him for the proletarian revolution taking way too long, blaming Mom for dragging me to this “first world” country, first world my ass, we will die in this sterile wasteland just to send dollars to the Philippines and I will wipe my tears when my co-worker comes to the walk-in freezer to tell me that I need to clean the fryer because the customer complained about his cheese curds tasting like old oil and I will think THIS IS WALMART FOR GOD’S SAKE and if I had the luxury of leaving this minimum wage job and leaving imperial America, I would, but I don’t and I have no choice but to squat and kneel and crawl and bend and push and pull for the next eight hours for the fifth time this week, all for the already dead Sam Walton, whose wealth corrodes and consumes his flesh like fire.

 H.K. Agustin is from Manila, Philippines. Her work is found and forthcoming in Guernica, Prairie Schooner, The Margins, The Minnesota Review, The Maine Review, and elsewhere.