Dane and Zion

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

~Zion~

       "Wow, you're up early on Saturday," Mom said as she walked into the kitchen where I was sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal.

       After finishing the bite I had in my mouth, I looked at her. "Gee, I wonder why that is. Could it be because I was scheduled to work at that cursed place on Saturday morning?"

       Mom chuckled. "You'll live, Zion. Anyway, I did tell you that if you flood the concession stand with anything, I will schedule you in for the next few Saturday mornings."

       "Can't you just fire me?" I asked. "I'm a horrible employee. Really, your business is suffering while I'm still working there."

       "It's not, and I'm not firing you," Mom said.

       Translation: I had to up my game to try to get fired from the movie theatre. Maybe I should flood the concession stand with both popcorn and nacho cheese at the same time...

       "Oh, by the way, you and Dane will be on theatre cleaning crew today," Mom said.

       "What?" I asked. "No, don't do that."

       Cleaning crew was the worst. Some people had no decency as to how the acted in the theatre. If they made a mess, they didn't care. They just figured that someone would clean it for them. I mean, yeah, that was my job, but I could never imagine making a mess somewhere and just leaving it for the workers to clean.

       And to make things worse, the theatre was normally packed on the weekends, meaning there was going to be a lot of mess. Not to mention that we had a time limit to clean it thoroughly. I would much rather be on cleaning duty during the night when no other movies would be showing in the theatre.

       At least Dane was always my partner for whatever job I had to do. If I was on concession stand duty, so was he. If I was on cleaning duty, so was he. That made it much more bearable. 

       "Sorry, but we already have concession stand duty covered today," Mom said. "You'll have to settle with cleaning duty."

       "Ugh..."

       Dad walked into the kitchen and once he saw me at the kitchen table, he said, "Oh, good. You're here. There's something important I need to talk to you about. And it may come as a shock."

       I sighed, knowing what was coming as soon as he said 'something important'. He did it every so often. "Dad, I swear--"

       "Son," Dad interrupted, sitting across from me at the table. "You're adopted."

       "Wait, really?" I asked. "Wow, I had no idea. And here I was, thinking that even though you and Mom are black, you gave birth to me, a white boy. I am shocked."

       "Would you stop telling him he's adopted?" Mom told Dad. "He doesn't have to hear it constantly."

       "It's fine," I said, getting up from the table to put the bowl into the sink. "Dad's just being Dad. He even tells Alika that she's adopted when she isn't." I really didn't care every time Dad said it. It only got annoying sometimes because he said he had something serious to tell me, and at times I thought I was in trouble or something.

       It happened once after I skipped school, and I thought Dad found out but no, he just wanted to tell me I was adopted.

       Since I was finished eating and had to be at work soon, I got ready to leave. When my shoes were on, I said, "Well, I guess I'm off to work. On cleaning duty. A place where I might not survive. A place that sucks the joy out of life."