“Shit! Where can you get some meat in this town? Fuckin’ vegetarians have taken over! ” Glenn was on a rampage. “I am a hippie, but I eat meat for Christ’s sake!”
He was going on and on about it. Some promotion didn’t come through for him. He was in line to become the manager of Bobby’s Roast Beef, a fast food franchise that specialized in roast beef sandwiches. He had been working in the city and was getting really tired of the drive, an hour and a half each way.
Corporate had promised him a position in the new restaurant they were supposed to be building in Hippieville, but when headquarters realized that the meat eating population of the town was dwindling, they cancelled their plans. Glenn was pissed.
He wanted revenge and he wanted meat, so he planned a late night caper to get both. Kristie felt ill at ease about all of it. She didn’t care about the meat; she was on her way to becoming a vegetarian like the rest of the counter culture. When he asked her to go with him, she almost said, “No,” but he had paid her rent that month, and he was usually fun to hang out with.
He liked to use her as his beard. He was bi and she helped him improve his game with both men and women. He was a geek with glasses and some high water chinos in a plaid shirt with white socks and black dress shoes. But once he put on his orange and yellow Bobby’s uniform, his geekiness intensified to astronomical proportions.
She sat nervously in the car at the back of the parking lot while he went inside to procure his meat. She hadn’t realized that he would take it all. She wasn’t expecting to be the look-out in a caper that involved transporting a shit load of briskets in the trunk of his car in an actual robbery. She was at the very least, a passive accomplice to this evil mission.
Glenn packed up all the meat and drove the hour and a half back to town. It was still quiet in the early morning hours. Their house mates were still asleep when they loaded up the three refrigerators with as many briskets as they could fit in. They spent the next day passing out meat to everyone they knew.
They drove around town stopping at every hippie house they knew of giving the beef away. “Hey, do you guys want some meat?” Glenn asked at each residence. “I’ve got all these free roasts.”
“Sure, we’ll take a couple.”
“Yeah, man. Thanks.”
“That’s cool. Where did you get it? WIC coupons?”
“Consider it a donation for poor students,” he answered.
“We’ll roast two and give you one back ready to eat,” someone said.
Roast beef was cooking all over town by the time Glenn and Kristie got back from the big meat give away.
Glenn put on his orange and yellow uniform. He hadn’t had any sleep, but he was the assistant manager, and he had to make the drive again over the hill to report for work. He used his key to open the back door and turn off the alarm. Low and behold, someone had broken in and taken all the meat out of the walk in!
He phoned the manager and also corporate headquarters. To keep his cover going and deny his culpability he continued working there hoping to obtain the position of manager at some point.
He suggested they install cameras and a monitoring system that would prevent this from happening again. He also went to a local meat company and picked up the roasts they would need for the day until headquarters could deliver another load of the stuff.
Tired of the commute, he moved to the city. Bobby’s did give him the promotion he had wanted. They honored him with a certificate of appreciation for his suggestions on how to improve security.
Kristie, on the other hand, never revealed her part in the fiasco and became a confirmed vegetarian.
(First published 7/24/12)
