Friday Night Fingers

            Another busy Friday night in season, the restaurant was bustling with activity. As servers hurried in and out of the kitchen to scrape and dump dirty plates and collect dishes for delivery, the back of the house staff chugged away at a seemingly endless but manageable series of tickets pumping out of the machine. After collecting the tickets as they printed and calling out the orders, Boof reached through the window to place the tickets up into the queue along the long clip lining the side of the cooking station. Chef Junior was overseeing the searing of various meats in pans spreading the surface of the range at hot side while Martín managed the circulation of pizzas into and out of the ovens. Danny was at the right side of the cold station, building several similar salads on square plates.

            “Ima need some of them maters pretty soon,” Danny said.

            “Just let me know,” Jux said, thinly slicing the delicate outer skins of heirloom tomatoes ranging in color from violet to green. “Some of these are already done.”

            When Max’s voice called corner and he then emerged from the hall, Jux moaned and muttered, “Here he comes. Don’t address him unless we have to.”

            Max set a small stack of plates on the dish counter and pulled a black check folder out of his apron pocket.

            “Scrape your plates,” Jux called out.

            “Dude,” Abuse said. “You just said—”

            “Shh,” Jux told him. He shook his head brusquely and then looked back down at his slicing work. “Scrape your fucking plates, Max.”

            “I will,” Max whined. He gripped the folder for a moment and then suddenly crouched down and moved around the tall trash bin at the side of the central workstation closest to where Jux was working. “Oh, shit,” he cried. “Cockroaches are back.”

            “What?” Jux asked, leaning to look down around the can to where Max was holding down a hand with thumb and forefinger forming a circle and the other fingers splayed out, the notorious finger gesture.

            “Boo-yah!” Max said, standing back up.

            “Jesus,” Jux said. “I thought the roaches really were back.”

“I got you!” Max hollered, pumping a fist clenching the plush black check folder into the air. “I got you. Ha ha.”

            “You do realize that I was cutting something,” Jux said. “I could have cut my finger off, bro.”

            “You cut yourself all the time,” Max said. “You’re just mad because I got you.”

            “You got me, what, three times total now?” Jux asked. “By my count, I’ve got you two-hundred and ninety-seven times, and that’s just since last weekend.”

            “Shut up,” Max said. “I got you.”

            Jux shook his head and focused again on julienning the delicate heirlooms. “What do you want, a certificate?” he snarked.

            Max stood straight, arms lowered. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I would like that very much.”

            “We already know how special you are,” Chef Junior said over the crackling sauté.

            “I don’t think you have any orders up, Max,” Boof noted as he adjusted his glasses.

            “Are you talking to me?” Max asked.

            “Hey,” Danny said, plucking a wide knife from the board and pointing it at Max through the window. “You don’t talk to Willy Wonka like that. Get the fuck out of here.”

            “I got you twice yesterday,” Max said.

            “I’m about to grab you by that curly-ass hair and show you my dee-ick, boi,” Danny threatened, setting the knife down and pointing at the salads. “Maters,” he added.

            Jux scooped a mound of julienne heirlooms over the dull edge of his knife and quickly distributed them over four of the six salads.

            “That one, too,” Danny said, indicating a fifth, which consisted of a mound of mixed greens, roasted fennel, capers, and shaved parm tossed in a light pomegranate chili vinaigrette. “Special request,” he sang.

            Jux nodded and dumped the rest of the tomatoes on the pile as Danny began loading the salads onto the window counter.

            “You’re still there?” Danny asked Max.

            Max shrugged and looked over toward the hot side, where Martín was crouched to remove a wide foil-covered pan to make room for some of the proteins that Chef Junior was delivering from the range. “Can I get a bread plate?” Max asked.

            “No,” Chef Junior said, not bothering to look. “And, speaking of bread plates, tell Packie to get his big forehead in here for 126A.”

            Max rolled his eyes and stormed out of the kitchen. Another ticket began printing.

            “That motherfucker didn’t scrape his plates,” Jux said. He swept the sloppy innards of the tomatoes over the side of the board into the trash with the back of the knife and then wiped the knife with a rag. He set knife and rag down onto the long, white cutting board and crossed to the dish counter to scrape Max’s plates for him.

            “We got a pizza party, guys,” Boof announced as he studied the ticket. “Six flatbreads and a side of roasted acorn squash.” He secured the ticket on the hot-side window.

            “Roasted acorn squash?” Danny asked. “This ain’t the harvest menu, bitch.”

            Boof laughed. “I didn’t put the order in,” he protested.

            “I know, my love,” Danny said as he turned to collect a tub of salmon paté from the cooler.

            Chef Junior pressed a call button several times. “Somebody probably failed to switch out all the menus.”

            “Is it Max’s ticket?” Jux asked.

            “Max was back here when it came through,” Boof said.

            “Oh,” Jux said with a nod. “Right. Still, I’m determined to get him three more times tonight. Three-hundred to three is too good to pass up.”

The Design

            There was no brunch service the next morning, so it wasn’t until around ten that Jux arrived to begin his prep shift. When Crystal, who along with Lyle had already begun assembling the front of the house, let him in through the front, Jux was carrying a thin plastic shopping bag bulging the words “Thank You” over and over again on the side.

            “What’s in the bag?” Crystal asked suspiciously.

            “Surprises,” Jux said, passing between them toward the computer at the corner of the bar. “I need to print something.”

            Lyle swept some scrabble into a dustpan. “Did you go to the dollar store?”

            “I did, indeed,” Jux said, guarding the bag. “No peeking. Max gets here at eleven, right?”

            “His stoner ass will probably show up around then, yeah,” Crystal said.

            “Good,” Jux said, angling the filled shopping bag against the base of the bar and mounting the stool at the computer, “because there will be a ceremony.”

            Jux had arrived with more than just a sack of dollar store surprises; with him as well was a little USB drive on which were the files of two certificates he’d designed the night before after returning home around 2 a.m. and unwinding with a couple of beers and some aged templates in Microsoft Word. One was a “Certificate of Uncoolness,” decorated with stick figures delivering the below-the-waist hand gesture and inscribed with Max’s name under the statement that he had achieved the uniquely pathetic honor of having been tricked into looking at the gesture a full three hundred times more than the authoritative body bestowing the honor. There was also a “Certificate of Coolness,” which was similar in every way except that it described how the recipient had not been naively duped a ridiculous number of times, and the MS paint-designed stick figures on these certificates had fists thrust triumphantly upwards. After a few quick final edits, he began printing them out—one copy of the first and several copies of the second, the latter each customized for one of the staff who would be in attendance at the ceremony.

            When the first sheet pumped out of the inkjet at the bar corner, Kieran turned in brief terror as he shined a wine glass with a towel. He then reached out to take the paper but Jux snatched it up.

            “No peeking,” he said.

            Kieran squinted at him. “Is it porn?”

            Jux frowned. “No, it isn’t porn,” he said. “Who fucking prints out porn? And in inkjet black and white?”

            “I don’t know,” Kieran said. He leaned in conspiratorially. “I knew a guy who used to jerk off to the Sunday comics.”

            “Right,” Jux said. “That is really great information to have at the ready.”

            “You’re welcome,” Kieran said, going back to his polishing with a shrug.

The Presentation of the Two Certificates

            Just before noon, Max emerged from the server work area at the defunct cheese counter and approached the bar, where Crystal, Lyle, and Kieran were gathered in conversation.

            “That’s it,” Max announced. “That’s fucking all of them.”

            Crystal and Lyle exchanged looks.

            “I don’t think you’re done yet, though,” Crystal said.

            “What do you mean?” Max cried. “I checked all three stacks. All three!”

            “Hear that?” asked Lyle.

            “Hear what?” Kieran asked.

            “Someone’s arriving,” Lyle said.

            Max looked at them. “What is going on?” he asked. “Can somebody please tell me what is going on, because I just spent like an hour going through the menu cards and none of them still had the harvest menu. Not one.”

            “At least we know for sure,” Lyle suggested.

            “We already knew that Packie decided to offer it himself,” Max said. “Just like I told you.”

            Lyle held up his hands. “Hey,” he said, “we were just telling you what needed to get done.”

            “Corner!” came Jux’s voice. He emerged from the kitchen hall near the bar. “Junior’s here with his truckbed full of line cooks. Are you ready?”

            Lyle nodded quickly and Kieran just grinned as if pretending to know what was going on.

            Crystal, arms folded before her, said, “I feel like I’ve been waiting for it all day.”

            “Good,” Jux said before disappearing back into the kitchen.

            “What the fuck is this?” Max asked.

            “You just have to wait a minute,” Lyle said.

            “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this,” Crystal said.

            “What?” Kieran asked, smiling. “Was Max late?”

            Max’s eyes widened. “You were the one who let me in.”

            Kieran laughed. “I don’t know when that was.” He scoffed at Max.

            Max looked pleadingly at Crystal.

            “I am no respite for you,” she told him.

            “Efficiency and progress is ours once more—” suddenly blared Jello Biafra’s voice from the kitchen stereo, “now that we have the neutron bomb—” Then it went silent.

            “Max!” Jux called from the kitchen. “Everyone, come. There is a ceremony of coolness!”

            Max glanced about in terror.

            “He went to the dollar store earlier,” Lyle said as he went into the kitchen.

            Kieran shook his head and turned and looked back over at the cheese cooler, which was gaping. “Why is that open?”

            Max looked at Kieran and then went next into the kitchen, followed closely by Crystal.

            Jux was near the labor agenda on the wall past sauté, holding a few sheets of paper in one hand and the handle of his plastic bag of surprises in the other. “Let’s begin, then,” he said, directing a smile about. “First,” he said as he started passing out certificates of coolness, “is this very regular admission manifest in a piece of paper that says that you aren’t fools. In fact, because you’re not fools, you’re cool. So here are your certificates of coolness. You didn’t fall for something three hundred times more than your rival, for example.”

            The kitchen crew, especially Chef Junior, accepted the sheets of paper with smirking gratitude. Lyle eagerly accepted his.

            “And you deserve it,” Jux told him, “having only five times fallen for my ruse of the fingers.”

            “You didn’t make this shit up,” Abuse called from the storage room at the back. “I got him a hundred times, too.”

            “But not three-hundred times,” Jux noted.

            “Taking all the credit,” Abuse muttered.

            “What is this?” Max asked as the others were given certificates of coolness.

            “And for the next tier of honor,” Jux announced, “we have Ser Max here.” Jux offered him the certificate of uncoolness. As Max stared wildly down at the printout, Jux told the kitchen, “I have various novel trinkets here for you all. Please take one and, if you don’t like it, put it back and pick another.” He began transferring card and plastic packages of strange little devices onto the window counter of the island.

            “What the fuck is this?” Max cried.

            “That’s what I’m asking,” Junior said, looking down at a little thing in a package.

            “That’s a chip-clip with a clock on it,” Jux explained.

            Junior turned the package over in his hands. “Huh,” he said.

            “That one, too,” Jux told Martín.

            Martín was already opening his. “This will be good for the ceviche bags.”

            Jux nodded. “I don’t know if they can be stored cold, though.”

            Martín smiled. “We can try.”

            “Or even if they work,” Jux added. “Let’s not get our hopes up.”

            “What is this?” Max cried, gripping the certificate before him.

            “It’s your certificate of specialness,” Jux said.

            “That’s not what it says,” Max said.

            “More or less,” Jux said. “But we also have a surprise for you, like these.”

            “What?” Max asked.

            “It’s right here,” Jux said, turning and crouching toward the corner and then quickly tossing down a hand gesture right where Max was sure to look.

            “Goddamnit!” Max yelled, crunching the certificate in his fist.

            “That’s why you got that certificate!” Jux cried. “And, seriously, you can have any of the dollar store shit nobody else wants. Just pick your pleasure once everyone else has claimed a stake of the bounty.”

The Third Certificate

            Brian Tati looked up from the printout and over his glasses at Kieran, who was using a massive two-handled knife to bisect a round of comet at the bar’s cheese table. “Do you know anything about this?” Brian asked.

            The knife chunked down into the block of cheese.

            “Max was late again,” Kieran said.

            Brian eyed him over the glasses for a moment and then looked back at the printout. “Certificate of Coolness,” he read. “Is this another one of Packie’s team-building ideas?”

            “That print?” Kieran asked, looking up from his examination of the interior surfaces of the cheese. “Jux did it earlier.”

            Brian looked again at the sommelier. “Jux?”

            Kieran nodded.

            “And this is what they gave Max?” Tati asked. “And now he’s not here?”

            “Packie says he can cover the tops,” Kieran said.

            Tati scowled at Kieran. “Do you not know that Max is a grandson of the CEO of Central Hydrogen?” he asked. “They provided the grant that led to this building’s construction.”

            The sommelier scowled at him. “Is there something you haven’t told me about this site’s history?” he asked.

            “This is prime real estate,” Tati said. “Light rail stop is right there, civic center kind of feel. If we can keep the rabble away. Focus on the discerning.”

            “It’s because of Amoebius,” Kieran blurted. “That’s what nobody wants to admit but me. The mysteries of this place were already strong, but the blurbs really cemented them. Heed my words.”

            Tati stared. “It almost sounds to me,” he said, “like you’re talking about this building being haunted again.”

            “The site in general,” Kieran specified. “The lot, and what’s beneath, and what used to be here.”

            “We agreed to abandon this topic,” Tati said. “Long ago.”

            “It keeps coming up,” Kieran said. He leaned in. “I’ve been keeping a record.”

            Tati held up his hands. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said. After a long, evaluative observation of the bartender’s operations, he held his hands up again. “Anyway, Max is Central Hydrogen royalty. We can’t have him humiliated like this.”

            Crystal walked by with fistfuls of wine glass stems. “Max was humiliating himself every day long before the kitchen started up this game,” she said as she passed.

            Tati watched her exit to the kitchen and then looked back at the sommelier. “I can’t hear this.”

            “Do you want to try the new Cabernet Franc?” Kieran asked. “The first case arrived this morning.”

            “Gladly,” Tati said with a sigh. “Wait a second. What’s that?” He walked around the bar to the printer and collected a lone, face-down sheet from the printer tray. When he turned it over, he emitted a soft gasp.

            “What is it?” Kieran asked as he popped the cork out of the wine bottle.

            “Why are we printing structural observation certificates?” Tati asked, holding up the printout.

            Kieran shrugged as he folded a silky, rich maroon service linen around the neck of the bottle and then began to pour.

            “We’re not due for an inspection,” Tati said. He gripped the paper with trembling hands as he squinted down through his glasses at it. “I don’t understand. Last one was only eighteen months ago.”

            “Maybe it was an accident,” Kieran suggested, passing the generous glass of red wine across the bar.

            Tati took the wine and immediately drew a massive swig, passing it into his system with a wince. “That’s quite good,” he said with a nod.

            “Truffles grow in a nearby forest,” Kieran informed him.

            “Fascinating,” Tati said, looking again down at the printout. “Did you see this earlier?”

            Kieran shook his head.

            “Because I find it very strange that this somehow magically printed itself for no reason,” Tati said. “Because building inspections, sanitation inspections, these kinds of things, we are very careful to address when required by statute and, unless there has been a major issue that I don’t know about, there is no reason for this to be printed out.”

            Kieran stared at him. “Are you having an anxiety attack?”

            “I might be,” Tati said, gulping a volume of the red as sweat beaded up on his forehead. “This wouldn’t be ours to initiate, since it’s an Amoebius property. Do you think it could have been faxed over?”

            Kieran scrunched his brow. “People still use fax machines?”

            Tati looked down at the printing apparatus. “This is an all-in-one,” he observed. “Did anyone other than Jux use this PC today?”

            Kieran shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, smiling.

            Tati took another sip of wine and then went to the kitchen, where Jux was filling up the dishwasher while Martín stood nearby.

            “I’m not going to let you use my credit card, bro,” Jux was telling him.

            “But how can I book the hotel room without a credit card?” Martín asked.

            “I don’t know, but you’re not using mine,” Jux insisted.

            “It’s just to book,” Martín continued. “I’ll pay cash when I get there.”

            “Excuse me,” Tati said.

            Jux and Martín looked over at him for a moment before immediately going back to their respective tasks.

            “Excuse me,” Tati repeated. He held up the paper.

            “You okay, boss?” Filippo called from the ice machine, where he was looking up from his phone.

            Tati stepped closer to the dish counter, where Jux was now transferring stacks of plates into the tepid oily water of the right sink. “I understand you used the printer this morning.”

            Jux gripped a slimy plate with too much vigor and it shot out from between his fingers and bashed against the inside wall of the sink and splashed down into the muck. After a grunt, he rolled his eyes and called out, “Let’s try to go easy on the drizzles, people.”

            “Chef says chili oil and basil oil on most things,” Martín said, glancing at the fat transparent squeeze bottles of infused olive oil on the island window counter.

            “He does not say that,” Jux contended. “He never said that. The only one that gets both is the salmon pâté.”

            “The drizzles look great,” Tati said, obviously confused.

            “Whatever,” Jux said. “Just be aware that it’s a real pain in the ass trying to get it all off the plates before it goes down into the drain.”

            Tati snapped forward, peering down under the sink at the gaping maw of the drain, its filthy white plastic strainer cap populated by a mound of slushy goo. “Is there a problem with the plumbing?”

            “It’s fine,” Jux said. “Slow, as usual, but it’s working.”

            “Did you print this out this morning?” Tati asked. He held up the printed sheet, but when Jux wiped his hands on his apron and reached out to take it Tati jerked it back. “It’s a structural observation certificate.”

            Jux swallowed and then leaned in to give the paper a closer look. He then shook his head. “I didn’t print that.”

            “So it just printed itself,” Tati suggested.

            Jux scratched his neck and scowled down at the muddy circles in the traction mat. “I mean,” he began vaguely.

            Tati stared at him. “What?” he asked. “You mean what?”

            “I don’t know,” Jux said. “I mean, I had to restart the printer because for some reason I couldn’t get it to work.”

            “You restarted the printer,” Tati said.

            “Yeah,” Jux said. “Now it works.”

            “What would that have anything to do with why this was printed?” Tati asked.

            Jux shrugged. “Maybe it was, like, in the queue or something,” he said. “Like, someone previously started a print job that stalled for some reason and only upon restarting the printer did it actually get printed.”

            Tati’s eyes were piercing. “That’s brilliant,” he said. “Do you ever think about getting into forensics?”

            Jux slid open the dishwasher tray and began plucking at hot clean plates. “I’m an English professor,” he said. “You know that.”

            Tati closed his eyes and nodded curtly. “You still have time to change disciplines.”

            Jux landed a clean sheetpan with a bang on the steel countertop and began collecting sparkling flatware from the washer tray into big bundles.

            “Don’t be cross,” Tati said.

            Jux lifted a mound of flatware and dropped it clattering onto the sheetpan.

            “Only authorized printing from now on,” Tati said. “I’ll interpret the certificates that you passed out this morning as a bit of ill-conceived but genuine effort at team-building, which I respect and approve, but we should be more frugal with our resources.”

            “Got it,” Jux said, now yanking plates out of the right sink and sliding them between the upturned tines of the dishwasher rack.

            Tati nodded and looked around the kitchen without actually really seeing anything.

            “So we having a building inspection?” Filippo asked as he slid his phone up onto the rack above the ice machine and walked over to the rinsing station to sanitize his hands.

            Tati glared at him. “No,” he said. “We are not.”

            “Oh,” Filippo said with a little shrug as he scrubbed his hands. “You were just talking about that certificate, so I thought maybe we’re having a building inspection.”

            Tati listened as the water stopped and Filippo yanked a meter of paper towels from the roll spewing out of the opened front of the dispenser to bypass the malfunctioning sensor.

            “We’re not having a building inspection,” Tati explained. “I don’t even know why this was printed out.” He looked back at Jux. “Was this already in the printer this mornin—” He suddenly lost his footing in a small pool of water around the edges of the rubber mat and scrambled in place for a moment before slamming his palm down for support on the surface of the prep table as if delivering the certificate like a zealous attorney.

            The sink drain was flooding. Jux was already crouched down there picking gloved hands at the rim of the flooded strainer. “It’s clear,” he said as he removed the tray and leaned over the dump the slop into the tall can by the cold side of the line.

            “What is happening?” Tati asked, gaping with horror.

            “This dishwasher,” Jux said, replacing the tray.

            Tati looked down at the floor. “This will need to be mopped.”

            “Aye, aye, captain,” Abuse said, emerging from the back room with a mop.

            “Oh, shit,” Filippo said, grinning.

            Abuse winked at him.

            “So this isn’t a plumbing issue?” Tati asked.

            “This happens all the time,” Jux said. “We talk about it, like, all the time. I told you about this myself more than once.”

            “I don’t understand why it’s still a problem if it isn’t an issue,” Tati said.

            “Yeah,” Jux said. “Look, I know you got your understanding of words and everything, but can you tell me what exactly you think is the difference between a problem and an issue?”

            Tati frowned at him. “I’ll not be lectured.”

            “It’s just a question,” Jux said. “It’s more of a Socratic approach than a lecture-based one.”

            Tati looked briefly down at the floor where Abuse was sopping up the flood. Then the owner glanced at the hall corner to the bar and looked back at Jux. “Can you tell when someone printed something?”

            Jux eyed him. “Maybe there’s a way to see a history of the print jobs.”

            There was a sudden violent buzzing from beneath the dishpit and, as Jux turned, a vibrating insect like some fat cicada came lumbering out from under the sink and banged twice into the shiny pole of the island station before launching itself up toward the ceiling in a trajectory that sent it crashing into the ice machine before skittering across the floor and crawling back into the darkness.

            “What was that?” Tati asked.

            “Drain elves,” Abuse said, taking the dripping mop back to the floor sink in the back room.

            “What?” Tati asked.

            “Can I just ask whether or not you want me to look at the computer about that print job?” Jux asked. “Things are going to run much more smoothly back here if we’re, you know, not, uh, well, uh, if you’re out front and not back here.”

            Tati’s eyes were wide. “You know as well I do that I don’t like to have to come back here.”

            “By all means, then,” Jux said, offering the owner passage out.

            “You’ll come, too?” Tati asked.

            “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Jux asked.

            They got to the PC station at the corner of the bar next to the tray of rotting desserts on display and Tati immediately tried to turn the monitor on by pressing the power button.

            “That’s not how it works,” Jux said.

            Tati looked down at him over his glasses. “You seem to know a lot about this computer.”

            Jux turned the monitor back on and agitated the mouse. The screen popped on. “It was just asleep.”

            “Hmmm,” Tati said, squinting at the screen. “Is that a new setting?”

            “No,” Jux said as he navigated to the print job interface and began searching the menus. “Here it is,” he added, opening up a small text-heavy window that looked vaguely like a 90’s era spreadsheet document.

            “What does it say?” Tati asked.

            “Here’s what I printed this morning,” Jux explained, running a forefinger near the screen along the lines containing the job protocols for the figure gesture game certificates. “Nothing newer than that, and this next piece here was printed, what, last Tuesday.”

            “The inspection form,” Tati surmised.

            Jux shook his head. “I mean, it’s possible,” he said, “but whatever this was, the document was called ‘TP_size-range-chart_CRISTCO.’”

            Tati frowned. “What is that?”

            Jux laughed. “No fucking idea, man,” he said. “Look at all these going back to last month. ‘PT_size-range-chart_CRISTCO.’ ‘SANI_jug-selector_CRISTCO.’ ‘KSharp_CRISTCO.’ Oh, and here’s an interesting one: ‘TP_size-range-chart_CRISCO.’ Like the first time whoever named these files figured they didn’t need the T, but then they learned.”

            Tati was wincing at the screen and gripping his forehead. “So is it the form or not?”

            “I already told you,” Jux said. “I don’t know. Anything about that form make you think these file names describe it? Sometimes when an official document is created to be shared online there’s file information in the footer. Where’s the printout? Did you even bring it from the kitchen?”

            Tati huffed and turned off the monitor. Glancing about the dining area, which was now approaching peak happy hour push, he added, “Nobody needs to see this.”

            Jux held up his hands. “So my work here is done?”

            “We’ll come back later,” Tati said.

            Jux motioned at the monitor. “What else do you want me to tell you?” he asked. “Is it, like, a city form? An official municipal document? I could look into what the file name is as it’s commonly shared online.”

            Tati stared at him. “I want to get the printout.”

            “Fine,” Jux said.

            “Good,” Tati said.

            Jux stared at him. He held a palm out toward the entrance to the kitchen. “Lead the way, then,” he said. “I have bread plates to clean.”

            Tati sighed irritably and they went back into the kitchen, which was now vacant except for Filippo, who was going to town on a fat wad of pungent cilantro with an eight-inch chef’s knife. Near his shifting left elbow was an empty spot of the prep table. Some Oingo Boingo was booming from the stereo above the fryer.

            “Where is it?” Tati asked.

            Jux moaned and began scanning the floor, looking between stacks of empty containers under the dish table and even crouching just enough to glance under the lower shelf. “Here we go,” he said, leaning forward, securing the balls of his feet first, gripping the post of the table, so that he could reach under and gingerly remove the printout now speckled with dry, stringy threads and beads of greasy upsplash. “This is it,” he said, rising after he’d taken a glance. He gave it to Tati after a glance at Filippo, who was pretty much dancing right there as he cut the cilantro to “Weird Science.”

            Tati took the printout with a disgusted permutation of face and examined the state of its edges as he determined a best way to hold it without touching anything uncouth. “Why was this on the floor?”

            “My creation,” Filippo sang along. “We’re silence.”

            “Is this Paul Simon?” Tati suddenly asked.

            “Not everything’s Paul Simon,” Jux said. “We’ve already had this conversation, too.”

            “Can we turn it down, then?” Tati asked.

            Jux nodded and passed Filippo to reach up at the stereo housed on a rack above the fryer at the prep table extension and turn down the music.

            “That’s a good song,” Filippo complained.

            “This is only temporary, bro,” Jux assured him.

            “Okay,” Tati suddenly called out with the printout gripped in the air like a talisman. “Who started filling this in?”

            Jux looked across Filippo’s quick and precise crosscuts of the bounty of cilantro at Tati and the printout. “It’s filled in?” he asked. Then he passed Filippo again, ducking unnecessarily, and leaned in to see as Tati held it out. “My my,” Jux said, scanning the paper. “Neglect? Why is neglect checked down here? Oh, this is a nice comment. And it doesn’t have a date.”

            Tati’s eyes were watering. “Who did this,” he muttered.

            “Just keep it close for now,” Jux suggested. He suppressed a grin when Tati turned to go out into the dock through the storage room.

            Abuse, Martín, and Chef Junior were chatting near the dumpsters at the loading dock.

            “Who filled out this inspection form?” Tati asked.

            They all paused their interactions and looked over at the owner.

            “Someone decided it would be funny to start filling this thing out on me,” Tati said, “but this is talking about the Amoebius PhLoft itself and it isn’t funny.”

            They all just stared at him.

            “We’re nothing without Amoebius PhLoft,” Tati articulated. “Nothing. If something like this were to be found, we’d be hard-pressed to explain to a judge that it was all the result of a joke.”

            “Brian,” Chef Junior said with sincerity, “you don’t have to worry about it. Not every little weird thing that happens around here is the beginning of a catastrophe.”

            Abuse sniggered.

            Tati ignored the impertinence and continued looking at the chef. “Then where did this come from?” he suddenly asked again, holding up the printout, which now consisted of two pages, stapled together at the corner. “Why was someone fill—” He stopped talking and picked the pages apart, dangling them like a short pennant streamer and glaring at the pages. “What is this? Why are there two pages now?”

            “Whoa,” Abuse said.

            Jux emerged from the kitchen. “What is it?”

            “That printout just multiplied,” Abuse said.

            “What?” Jux cried, glaring over at the owner.

            “Do you know something about this?” Tati called across the dock to him. “Is this some kind of prank?”

            Jux’s eyes widened. “Me?” he asked. “You think me’s behind this?”

            “But you printed things out just this morning in order to play a prank on Max,” Tati said, “who, by the way, did not return to finish his shift after he walked out. Taking these games too far is not acceptable. Bad for morale.”

            Jux was staring at the stapled pages. “Let me see if I understand,” he said. “You’re suggesting that I printed a third certificate this morning, and then a fourth page, too, that I somehow knew I’d be able to somehow manage to staple to the first page right when you were freaking out about it so that you wouldn’t notice and end up freaking out even more. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

            Tati’s hand gripping the stapled pages dropped to his side. “I suppose I am suggesting that,” he admitted.

            Jux scowled at the ground and then smirked. “We’ll,” he said, “I’m flattered. That would be an excellent prank, and the fact that you think I’m capable of it only certifies to me that you respect my skills. So there’s that. But I’m not responsible.” He paused, breathing heavily and staring at the pages. “It’s really just… suddenly two pages?”

            Tati gripped the staple binding the pages and gave the printout a little shake.

            “It is pretty fucking weird, man,” Abuse admitted. “It was pretty obviously just one page when I saw it in the kitchen earlier.”

            “It was one page when he came out here,” Martín said, nodding. “Looked like it.”

            “I saw when it changed,” Junior suddenly said as he stared across at the mysterious, vented heavy door along the side of the building.

            “What?” Abuse asked, walking to him. “What did you see? When?”

            “When I said that not everything was a catastrophe and then you made some noise,” Junior recalled. “It wasn’t like Transformers or anything, but I’m sure that it was just one page one second and then, the next, two.”

            Everyone was quiet. Somewhere far in the distance past the fences around the parking lot came a series of shouts followed by a buzzing car horn. A little gecko scampered up a shaded corner of cinderblock wall, looked out over the dumpster, and then scampered back down.

            “What’s on the second page?” Jux asked.

            Tati shook the pages in his hand. “I haven’t been able to make myself look at it.”

            Abuse went to him and offered to take the printout, but Tati was reluctant.

            “It’s probably something horrible,” the owner snapped. “If it doesn’t matter anyway, we should just be done with it.” He promptly crumpled the pages violently together into a ball that was compact enough that when he tossed it at the yawning dumpster it had enough weight to make a smooth arc right inside. “Well then,” he added, brushing his hands together. “Back to the evening service.”

            Junior tossed him a salute and went with him back into the kitchen. Before the others followed, Abuse clicked in the back of his throat to get the attention of Martín and Jux and then eyeballed the dumpster with brows bouncing.

Appendix to the Third Certificate

Property: PhLoft (Amoebius)

Owner: Tati Holdings, LLC

Inspection Date: 9 May 1999

Pursuant to a.2 (evidence of critical structure issues)

1. Lower Level (LL) Heavy corrosion to critical support beams at the SE and SW (at foundation); cause unknown… discoloration on exposed sections of concrete: mold or other slow creep possible.
2. LL @ foundation breached in several places by upgrowths of tree roots… not too many large trees near premises, source undetermined
3. Severe stress and water damage along NW wall and corner of LL ceiling—COLLAPSE IMMINENT (hotline reported 5:13am 9 May 1999)
4. LL fire retardant coat along critical support beams, walls, and ceiling only present in few places (see b.5)
5. LL sections of walls are moveable without touch… possible air pressure issue HVAC?
6. Uneven measure yielded on floors 1-3 at NE above restaurant (immanent collapse previously reported)

Pursuant to b.5 (evidence of neglect)

1. LL facilities in complete disrepair—some small rooms will require hazmat gear for proper exploration… strange gases and murk
2. Partitioning between used and unused sections of the building not constructed to code or properly ventilated
3. Statutory fire-retardant coating for lower-level floors not respected; shorn away in some of the higher corners of the space… forensic analysis requested to determine intent to remove (hotline reported 5:32am 9 May 1999)
4. Deflated air mattress, filthy clothing near SE corner… SQUATTER? (hotline reported 5:23am 9 May 1999)
5. Ant clusters along some wall bases—cockroach droppings everywhere in the dust—silverfish scales—webby, spiders—no termite threads

Signatures

Inspector: [illegible]

Property Owner: Brain Tati

Notary: [illegibile]

Discussion of the Appendix to the Third Certificate

            “What the fuck is all this shit about?” Jux asked, frowning at the crinkled printout in the afternoon sunlight.

            “I don’t know,” Abuse said, “but it looks like they were on the verge of condemning the building. May 1999 is right after Brian bought this place to start up the restaurant. Only a few months away from ten years ago.”

            “You think it’s real?” Martín asked. “Last kitchen I worked got shut down because the foundation had too much water damage. They had to bulldoze the whole place.”

            “Tati definitely didn’t start anything from scratch,” Abuse said. “Kieran’s the only one who’s been along for the ride this whole time, so he might know for sure.”

            “Whether or not this is real?” Jux asked.

            “That,” Abuse clarified, “or else just whether or not Tati had to pay for deep structural repairs, which I seriously doubt he ever would.”

            “So you think he ignored this?” Jux asked. “It’s freaking notarized. I doubt the inspector, or the city, would just let him ignore serious problems like this.”

            Abuse was shaking his head. “He’s too cheap to pay bribes, too,” he surmised. “At least, that’s my gut instinct.”

            Jux walked over to the back gate and glanced out at the parking lot. “Tati’s car is still out there in the handicapped spot,” he said. “Maybe after he leaves we can show this to Kieran and see what he knows.”

            “Bad idea,” Abuse said. “Terrible idea. Kieran would tell Brian about it as soon as he saw him, and then Brian would blow a gasket. We’ll have to exercise caution. He can’t know we actually looked at this. Not Kieran and not Brian.”

            Jux and Martín both nodded.

            Abuse quarter-folded the printout and slipped it into a back pocket. “Enough for now,” he said, heading toward the entrance to the storage room. “Not a word about this until I say so. And when I do say so, let me do the talking.” He shot them each a grave look and then went into the kitchen.

            Jux was about to follow, but Martín stopped him.

            “Come on, man,” Martín said, “I promise I won’t use the minibar.”

            Jux rolled his eyes. “I’m not letting you use my card to book a hotel room for your date, man. Get over it.”

            “But then I can’t get the hotel room,” Martín complained.

            “No,” Jux said.

What the Sommelier Said

            When the dinner rush died down and the kitchen had already got an edge on the evening’s requisite cleanup, the owner was long gone and Abuse determined that it was time to approach Kieran.

            “Let me tell you a secret about getting information out of the front of the house,” Abuse said as he hard-seared a filet of beef tenderloin. “If you make them wait until after service to eat, you’re basically breaking the wild animal. Buzz them back and get them thinking their meal’s ready, then delay it as much as possible to drive them near to insanity, and then let them eat. Don’t ask them anything until they’re done, because they’ll be too busy stuffing their gullets. It’s right when they come back here with an empty plate that you set into them, and then they’ll tell all.”

            “Fascinating,” Jux said. “This really is a brutal industry.”

            “Unlike any other,” Abuse said. He tonged the crusty filet from the pan and set it on a small mound of arugula on a long rectangular plate. “I think this is still close enough to raw for him to enjoy.” He pressed a button on the panel between the lines.

            “You’re not firing it?” Jux asked.

            “Kieran likes his meat to be injured, not cooked,” Abuse explained.

            “Why do you want information from Kieran?” Chef Junior asked as he organized the hot side cooler.

            Abuse looked up at the ceiling. “Shit,” he muttered.

            Junior chuckled. “Uh oh,” he said with a smile. “Sounds like shenanigans up in here. Come on, let’s hear it.”

            “You have to promise not to say anything about this to either Kieran or Brian,” Abuse warned.

            “Scout’s honor,” Junior said.

            Before Abuse had a chance to say anything, though, Kieran rushed into the kitchen, googly-eyed and beaming like a child anxious to tear open his birthday presents. “Is it ready?” he asked with a little too much enthusiasm.

            “Almost,” Abuse said, moving toward the fryer. “Aw, it looks like these fries still need a minute or two. Sorry about that.”

            Kieran was panting and staring hungrily at the black and blue filet on the plate.

            As he waited by the fryer, Abuse clicked his tongue casually and wobbled his head from side to side, you know, just letting some time pass.

            Junior started laughing.

            Kieran, grinning toothily, looked at him. “What?” he asked. “What’s funny?”

            Chef Junior pressed the back of a hand against his mouth and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.

            “Come on,” Kieran pressed, his smile now bordering on aggressive. “You can tell me.”

            “It’s probably just the joke I told him a few minutes ago,” Jux offered.

            Abuse stared at Jux, who just shrugged.

            “I want to hear it,” Kieran said.

            Jux’s eyes widened. “Eh,” he began. “How’d it go again?”

            Kieran screwed a look at him. “Are you asking me?”

            Jux looked at Abuse. “Those frites ready yet?”

            “No such luck, I’m afraid,” Abuse said through his teeth.

            “I think Kieran has enough time to hear your joke,” Junior suggested.

            Jux sighed. “Yeah, okay,” he said. He swallowed thickly and looked over at the corkboard for a moment. “So, all right. Here goes.”

            The fries sizzled in the oil and Abuse once again clicked his tongue a few times. Martín had taken a break from breaking down the pizza station and Filippo was swabbing the same section of the dish station counter with a green pad. Junior was smiling. They were all staring with anticipation at Jux.

            “So, what is it?” Kieran asked, obviously confused and, indeed, bordering on madness.

            “Sorry,” Jux said. “I’m just going over it again so I don’t screw it up.”

            “Is it complicated?” Kieran asked.

            “No, it was simple and elegant,” Junior said.

            “Then let’s hear it,” Kieran said. He snorted like an agitated horse.

            “Fine,” Jux said. He spoke slowly, each word almost not quite connected to that before it. “When is the best time to tell a staff member a joke?” He smiled awkwardly and bared his teeth to the room.

            Kieran cocked an eyebrow. “Like restaurant staff?”

            “Yeah, yes,” Jux stammered. “Forgot that part. Restaurant staff member. Front of the house.”

            Kieran looked at the floor for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, back at Jux. “When?”

            “When they’re waiting for their staff meal,” Jux said. He forced a chuckle.

            Kieran scrunched up his nose. “What?” he asked. “That’s it? That’s your joke?”

            “I mean,” Jux began, “because they’re, like, a captive audience while they’re waiting.”

            “That’s a terrible joke,” Kieran said.

            Jux held up a hand.

            “It was way funnier when he told it earlier,” Junior said through a laugh. “You having performance anxiety issues, Jux?”

            Abuse lifted the mesh tray out of the fryer and reached over to dump the golden frites into an abundant pile on the plate. Perhaps twelve frites overflowed onto the cutting board. “Bon appetito,” he told Kieran.

            The sommelier sniffed the contents of the plate as soon as it touched the steel of the window. “Yum,” he said, gripping it with two hands and whisking it away to some probably dark corner where he could tear into the bloody flesh with abandon.

            “And now we wait,” Abuse said, munching.

            “What?” Jux cried.

            “You almost blew it,” Abuse said. “What kind of fucking joke was that supposed to be? If you’re ever in a crunch for a gag, do your Mr. Bean impression. That’s quality. Respect.”

            Jux glanced at the fryer and the knives on the magnetic rack nearby and the smoldering ranges and the grease pooled up in the pocks of the traction mat. “I don’t think the Mr. Bean thing would be a good idea in here.”

            Junior set a tub of pulled pork empanadas on the line. “Who the hell is Mr. Bean?”

            “He’s fucking funny,” Filippo said as he scrubbed a pot.

            “You remember that British show Black Adder?” Abuse asked the chef.

            Junior shrugged. “The only British show I watch is the one with the magic telephone booth,” he said. “That, and BBC NFL or whatever it is.”

            Abuse was clutching his head. “You watch Doctor Who and you don’t know that it’s called Doctor Who?”

            Junior shrugged. “It’s pretty stupid.”

            “I agree,” Jux said.

            “Wait,” Abuse said. “Do you hate watch it?”

            Junior considered the question. “I pretty much just laugh at how stupid it is.”

            “Hate-watching,” Abuse concluded. “That’s healthy, but only to an extent.”

            “So,” Junior said, swaddling the empanada container in plastic wrap, “are you going to tell me what all this with Kieran is about?”

            Abuse inhaled deeply. Then he exhaled. “No,” he said.

            “Aww,” Junior cried. “You’re leaving me in suspense?”

            “That’s right,” Abuse said. “Besides, he’s probably almost done choking down that raw steak, so he’ll be back here soon and you can listen for yourself.”

            Junior grunted and slid the wrapped container back into the cooler.

            Sure enough, Kieran did emerge from his feeding place within moments, scraping the blood-stained mound of untouched arugula into the trash and sliding the red-dripping plate onto the dish station counter.

            “You know,” Abuse told him, “we can probably look into getting you some cattle.”

            Kieran flared his nostrils. “Eww,” he said. “Then I’d have to smell their shit all day.”

            “I mean human cattle,” Abuse specified. “Like for vampires who want a consistent source of fresh blood.”

            Kieran glared at him. “I’m not a vampire.”

            Abuse held up his hands. “I know, I know.”

            “I don’t think it’s funny to talk about vampires,” Kieran added.

            “Oh, no,” Junior muttered as he wiped down the hot side window with a wet yellow cloth. “Here we go.”

            “Sorry, bad joke,” Abuse said. “How was the steak?”

            Kieran shook his head, grinning. “Didn’t you just see me scrape my plate?”

            “I did not,” Abuse said.

            “There was no steak left,” Kieran said.

            “Excellent,” Abuse said. “Hey, since you’re back here, would you say that the quality of the steak has improved since the restaurant started up?”

            Kieran looked at the wall for a moment. “Not really,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s always been pretty excellent.”

            Jux nodded. “What about—”

            “Ap ap ap,” Abuse interrupted with a reprimanding finger pointed up at the ceiling. “I wasn’t done speaking with the sommelier.”

            Jux flicked a bit of grimy buildup from a joint of the cold side’s cover.

            “I was just going to say that it is pretty impressive that we’ve managed to keep up the quality all these years when the kitchen is in such a state of disrepair,” Abuse continued. “I can’t imagine how nice it was back when everything, even the building itself, was brand new.”

            Kieran chuckled. “What?” he asked. “Brand new? Nothing around here is brand new. Never has been. You know that. Brian’s too cheap to buy new things for this place.”

            Abuse frowned. “Huh,” he said.

            “And this building wasn’t ever new, either,” Kieran continued, “at least, not when we started up the restaurant. The foundations go back to the 1970’s and it’s only because Amoebius turned it into the PhLofts that there’s a varnish to it at all. That’s why there’s so many ghosts. You know, back in the early twentieth century, this was an orphana—”

            “Sorry to interrupt,” Abuse interrupted, “but I still don’t know what you mean about the restaurant. The kitchen was already here?”

            Kieran eyed him. “There was a kitchen, yes,” he said, “but it had been designed for the kind of restaurant that scoops iceberg lettuce and chicken salad sandwiches into the mouths of office workers on their lunch breaks. Tati completely reimagined this space.”

            “He had it renovated?” Abuse pressed.

            Kieran laughed. “More like he poached some equipment from a friend whose bar had to shut down. Like I said, nothing in this restaurant has ever been new. Especially not the wine, of course, since we all know that properly-aged wine is superior.”

            “Goes for cheese, too,” Jux chimed.

            Kieran looked at him with disgust. Back at Abuse: “If you want my honest opinion, I think we’re all lucky this place is still standing.”

            Abuse shook his head. “Goddamn,” he said. He glanced at Jux and then at Martín.

            “I mean,” Kieran continued, “everyone knows that when you have a serious problem with hauntings you have to tear the building all the way down, root out the foundations, remove layers and layers of dirt, and then burn like at least—at least—fifteen bushels of lavender on the site before trying to start up the process of building something new or else you know what’s going to happen.”

            They were all listening.

            Kieran shrugged, like, obviously. “Still going to be hauntings,” he finally said.

            “Lavender?” Filippo asked.

            “Cilantro works, too,” Kieran intimated, “but you just have to use a lot more of it.”

            Filippo grinned. “Nice,” he said.

            Kieran frowned. “Cilantro tastes like soap.”

            “To you,” Chef Junior said. “It’s actually a genetic thing that some people have where their olfactory senses are primed to pick up just that component of the cilantro’s flavor palette.”

            Kieran was staring hatefully at him.

            “Don’t get mad,” Junior continued. “A lot of people think cilantro tastes like soap, too, because, actually, it kind of does. It’s just that most people don’t find that particular taste as overwhelming as others.”

            Kieran was shaking his head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

            Junior glovelessly fingered into his mouth a wad of pink ahi tuna from a plate in the hot side cooler. “Just chef stuff,” he said, chewing.

            “I’m talking about ghosts,” Kieran said, rolling his eyes at Abuse to indicate that he’d successfully corrected the trajectory of the conversation.

            “Don’t pretend you don’t do exactly the same kind of shit when you talk to customers about fermented grape juice,” Junior barbed.

            Kieran sighed and looked plaintively at the ceiling. “It’s been proven that genetics is bunk,” he said, punctuating with yet another sigh.

            “What?” Junior cried.

            “It’s disproven by experts,” Kieran went on with flippant condescension as if he were explaining the difference between white wine and red wine to some idiot. “A bunch of so-called ‘scientists’ came up with the idea just because they were paid to come up with something to get the sheep all excited about family tree software back in the late eighties. It’s been proven false, just like the idea that the world isn’t flat.”

            A ninth pan of tomato slices slipped out of Martín’s grip and toppled to the floor, casting sloppy red discs all the way to the dishpit.

            “Watch it,” Kieran warned.

            Jux, quick to help Martín clear up the mess, glanced up briefly at Kieran. “Are you saying that the world isn’t round?”

            “No,” Kieran scoffed, emitting another horselike snort. “It’s not a sphere, but it is round. Like a Ritz cracker. Everybody who knows anything knows that. Steve Jobs knows that.”

            “Steve Jobs?” Jux asked.

            “He’s the Apple Macintosh guy,” Kieran said. “Apple IIe? Hello?”

            “I know who Steve Jobs is,” Jux said, on his knees and straining to collect a disc of tomato from underneath the island.

            “All right,” Junior announced. “I have to hear this. Why do you think that Steve Jobs thinks the world is shaped like a Ritz cracker?”

            Kieran leaned back. “Because he said it.”

            “When did he say that?” Junior asked.

            “I don’t know,” Kieran said. “Jeez.”

            “So what you’re telling us,” Junior continued, “is that we have no reason to believe that Steve Jobs actually thinks the world is shaped like a cracker.”

            “Steve Jobs is a cracker,” Filippo inserted, grinning.

            “Ohhhh!” Jux hollered. He stood up quickly and, in the process, somehow banged his head against the cold side trash bin, which tipped precariously and then settled back at its proper gait.

            Filippo was bawling.

            “No need to toss the cans around, Jux,” Abuse said, eying Kieran.

            “Can I go now?” Kieran asked the kitchen. “I don’t have time to explain the significance of the iPod dial to you skeptics.” He walked out of the kitchen.

            “Go forth and multiply!” Junior hollered after him.

            “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Abuse said.

Not a Certificate

            A few days later, Max returned to work, and he wouldn’t talk to Jux even when, early in the afternoon, they were sitting on shipping crates at the dock, smoking cigarettes in the slatted shadows of the shelter.

            “Come on, dude,” Jux said. “I already apologized like fifteen times. I can’t promise you I’ll never try to get you with the fingers again, but I promise I won’t ever, ever, give you another certificate.”

            Max sucked at his cigarette and just shook his head.

            “All right,” Jux said. “How about this? You get a free one. A free chance to get me. It could be the finger thing, or it could be something else. Be creative. I promise that you get this one with no revenge on my part. How about that?”

            Max tapped the cigarette, dumping a short log of ash onto the concrete.

            “All right,” Jux said. “Two chances, retribution-free.”

            Max shook his head.

            “Goddamn, dude,” Jux sighed. “I’m taking those offers off the table, then. Just to be clear. We’ve got to come up with something, though. I mean, here we are having a cigarette back here. There’s nobody else out here. That’s got to mean something. And, besides, this whole business with the certificates actually got kind of interesting when we found out about Tati’s shady construction stuff. You got to admit that part was worth it. Right?”

            Max shrugged and took another drag.

            Jux took a drag, too. Exhaling, he said, “Look, I didn’t want to offer this, but it looks like I have no other choice. This is, as they say, my final offer. You want to hear it?”

            Max shrugged again.

            “Fine, I’ll say it,” Jux said. “I know what I did with those certificates was not only really fucking funny and pretty amazing, kind of bordering on one of the greatest prank-slash-burns ever executed, but it was also hurtful to you. You were completely humiliated in front of your peers, not to mention the chef, and, let’s not forget, Tati himself, who, while he wasn’t actually there, heard about it. I get it. I totally miscalculated, thinking that, based on our rapport, you’d take it as a bit of well-meaning play. That’s all. I didn’t think you’d be so injured. I was a total asshole, and, again, I apologize. That’s why I want to offer you this.”

            Max shook his head.

            “Wait, wait,” Jux said. “I’m not actually giving you a physical thing, so you have no reason to look anywhere. I’m offering you an opportunity. You create—this is the opportunity—are you listening—good—You create a certificate for me. Anything you like. You make it, and I will make sure that you have the opportunity to give it to me at the next all-house meeting, which, I think, is next Monday. You will have at least three minutes, and maybe five, to humiliate me in return for what I did, but, this time, it will be before literally everyone who works here. You can win like that. Then we can go back to being good work friends and forget about all this finger game nonsense.”

            A moment passed during which a fat pigeon waddled past the gap between the gates of the dock and then flew off loudly.

            “Goddamn that was one rotund bitch of a bird,” Jux said. He flicked his cigarette across the dock and it crashed into the gate and fell still smoking to the ground. He turned back to Max. “So, what do you think?”

            Max was staring at his cigarette, which was nearly burned down to the filter. “Ten minutes.”

            Jux nodded. “I can probably make that happen,” he said, “but no promises.”

            “I also don’t know how to make a certificate template,” Max said.

            Jux shrugged. “Neither do I,” he said. “I just used a template that came with Microsoft Word.”

            Max stared at him. “There’s a template in Microsoft Word that has stick figures doing the finger thing?”

            Jux inhaled and looked back out through the gap between the dock gates to the bright parking lot. “No,” he said. “A template is…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

            Max threw his cigarette toward the can in the corner by the gate, but it barely made it halfway and landed pathetically into a roll, cherry unscathed and smoking fully. “Fuck,” he said.

            Jux got up and collected the cigarette and walked over and dropped it into the can, where it kept smoking. Then Jux went back and took his seat again next to Max. “You want me to share the template with you so that you can customize it?”

            Max chuckled. “What,” he asked, “so that everyone can see that I just copied what you did?”

            “No,” Jux said, “so that you have the building blocks in place for whatever interesting creative thing you come up with. And, seriously, spare me no quarter.” He looked strangely at the wall. “Is that even an expression?” he added aside.

            “Fine,” Max said.

            Jux smiled and, after a quick glance back at Max, shook his head and looked up at the bright sky through the thin beams of the dock’s roof. “I’m glad this is working out,” he said. “Here, I have the template on a USB drive right here.” Jux stood and stuck his hand into his pants pocket for a moment before making a strange face. “Huh.”

            “What?” Max asked, looking up.

            “It’s just,” Jux said, searching the concrete surrounding them, “I had it in here. It must have fallen out.”

            Max glanced at the grimy concrete. “Think it will still work if it fell in this shit?”

            Jux shrugged. “Probably?” he asked. “It has a cap, so maybe.” He continued looking around. Then he knelt down. “Aha!”

            Max looked down to where Jux was holding his fingers in the form of the gesture about an inch above the ground.

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