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Seven o’clock Thursday evening found Bruno Walton and Melvin O’Neal in the same place it had found them the week before, but for a different reason. It was always a different reason.
“I never would have thought I’d end up devoting my life to community service,” Bruno said, picking at a piece of spaghetti that was stuck to the plate he was washing.
Boots snorted beside him. “This isn’t community service, it’s punishment,” he said, grabbing another dish from the pile. “Subtle difference there.”
“That’s just what I’m talking about. It’s only a punishment if you resent it-- I on the other hand am overjoyed to give back to this institution I love so well. We’re part of the circle of giving, Boots.”
“We broke the rules and now we have dish duty,” Boots replied, dumping a bucket of crusty silverware into the spray-out sink. “I don’t think we’re up for any volunteering commendations.”
“Your viewpoint is so.... un-zen, Boots,” Bruno said. Boots chucked a handful of spoons into Bruno’s section of the sink, splashing him with greasy water. “And don’t forget our contribution to science!”
Boots lost it a little at this, collapsing against the sink, shoulders shaking.
“He- he looked so shocked when you gave the rocket back! He totally didn’t even know you stole it!”
“Hey, hey. Stole is a strong word,” Bruno countered. “Of course Elmer would have wanted to try out his newest project himself-- something as unpredictable as a soy-powered rocket requires rigorous testing-- but those dang rules about pyrotechnics! We can’t have our resident genius risking his Herzberg Award—”
“—What Herzberg Award?” said Boots, scratching his nose.
“—his potential Herzberg Award by getting kicked out of school for the infringement of unfortunate rules! Naturally, the decent thing to do was to borrow the rocket and do the tests ourselves.”
“‘Cause it’s fine if we get kicked out of school for infringing unfortunate rules,” Boots deadpanned. “No, mom! You don’t understand! It was for science.”
“We can handle ourselves,” Bruno said, trying to disentangle a spatula from a whisk. “We didn’t technically get caught.”
“No,” agreed Boots. “We just thought we did, because of that raccoon, and then we had to go and run right into Fudge, who of course thought that since we were running, we must be running away from somebody, which we were, but it was the raccoon, not the Fish, and so of course he had to chase us, and of course our escape route had to lead us right smack into the Fish, who of course decided all this running around should end up with us on dishes.”
“Of course,” said Bruno.
“So yeah, maybe I’d call that getting caught.”
Bruno shrugged noncommittally. “At least they didn’t get the rocket.”
Boots barked out a laugh, remembering. They’d just rounded the corner of dormitory 2, full-out sprinting with Fudge hot on their heels. By an odd chance, Elmer had been leaning out his open window, examining the lichen he’d been cultivating on the underside of the sill. Bruno had tossed the incriminating rocket at him as they’d dashed by, shouting it works great! and leaving Elmer to blink bewilderedly as Fudge followed a moment later, huffing and puffing and bellowing some nonsense about facing consequences like men. The expression on Elmer’s face was worth any number of hours at the sink, in Boots’ opinion.
Boots tossed his sponge into the basin and surveyed the dishroom critically.
“How does anything get clean in here?” he said. He had tied a red bandana around his head and the hair sticking out at the back was curling from the steam. “This is a cave of filth.”
Bruno glanced around. It was true. Any haiku composed in honor of the backroom of MacDonald Hall’s dining facilities would have to include the word 'squalor.' Most of the rectangular, green-tiled room was taken up by the enormous, hulking industrial dishwasher (broken since 1973). Sinks lined the opposite wall, two large washing basins filled with warm, scummy water and who knew what else under the surface. In the corner, a hose with a nozzle attached dangled from the ceiling above the spray-out sink, dripping water into the food trap, which was a horror all its own. The dish return window looked like someone had gone around to various extravagant picnics, rolled up the blankets as they were, carried them back to the dining hall and dumped the contents in a deranged pile on the counter. Bruno poked gingerly among the wreckage.
“Hey, there’s half a pizza left in here. Wilbur would be furious.”
Boots grimaced and resumed scrubbing the inside of a pot. Somebody had obviously been cooking black paint again.
“Is this shrimp cocktail? When have they ever served shrimp cocktail at this school?”
Boots could feel Bruno poking the back of his neck with a cold, clammy finger. He swatted at him and jumped when what he’d thought was a finger suddenly slipped down the back of his t-shirt.
“Oh—!”
Bruno cackled as Boots hopped and shimmied, trying to remove the prawn from his clothing. It fell to the floor with a splat, and Boots kicked it into the corner.
“That was so unnecessary,” Boots growled, turning to face his roommate, who was leaning against the return counter and smiling sunnily. He took a step forward; Bruno raised his eyebrows.
“Prepare yourself,” Boots stated flatly.
Bruno blinked at him. “Huh?”
Boots whipped the spray-hose out from behind his back and rushed at Bruno, pinning him against the counter.
“Fear my spray-nozzle!” he roared, holding it over his head. ”She’ll melt mozzarella off a fork from thirty paces!”
Bruno was laughing too hard to breathe.
“Boots-- stop it, you lunatic!” he gasped out, grinning crazily. Boots had one leg shoved between Bruno’s and was leaning on him heavily, fending off Bruno’s flailing arms with a devilish look on his face. He shot a jet of water at the ceiling and it rained down on them, making Bruno yelp.
“That’s really hot!”
Boots’ grin was bloodthirsty as he leveled the nozzle at Bruno’s face and leaned closer, angling their bodies back over the edge of the counter. Bruno groped blindly behind him for something to defend himself with. His fingers landed in a bowl of something smooth and cold.
“Do you give?” Boots asked, eyes glittering. Bruno reached up wordlessly and painted a stripe down the center of Boots’ face with his finger. Boots looked horrified. He dropped the spray-hose, which swung back over to the sink with a zwang!, and backed up a step.
“What the hell?!” He dabbed tentatively at the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been slimed!”
“You’ve been puddinged,” Bruno corrected, trying to edge surreptitiously out of his roommate’s grabbing range. “Moussed, maybe.”
Boots lunged at him but he dodged and dove for the spray-nozzle, holding it up between them like a pistol.
“Oh how the tables have turned,” Bruno intoned. The boys locked eyes. Boots feinted left and Bruno followed, regretting it a moment later when he found himself in a headlock, wrestling for control of the hose. Boots had wrapped himself around his shorter opponent and was laughing in his ear as they grappled, sporadic jets of scalding water hissing forth from the hose and drenching the walls, ceiling and floor. Bruno’s sneakers lost their hold on the slick tile and he slid against Boots’ legs, knocking both of them into the side of the dishwasher. The nozzle was once again yanked back toward the spray-out sink, where it hit the wall with a resounding crack and swung back and forth like a drunken snake. Further examination revealed a small chip in the corner of one of the wall tiles.
“I give up,” panted Boots. “It’s fine. I’ve been moussed. I’ll live with it.” He shrugged and slumped against the washer.
Bruno swiped a finger across Boots’ forehead and licked the chocolate off of it.
“It’s actually pretty good,” he said. Boots snorted again. Bruno swiped at his forehead a second time and offered his finger to Boots. “Here.”
Boots glanced at him sideways and leaned forward to suck the pudding off Bruno’s extended finger, chewing on it a little for good measure. Bruno smacked him. He giggled.
“Is there any left?”
The pudding bowl had miraculously survived the battle of the spray-nozzle and its accompanying typhoon. They stood side by side, leaning up against the return counter, dipping into the bowl between them and slurping the chocolate off their fingers contentedly.
“There are spoons here,” Boots said after a while.
“Ehh…” Bruno shrugged, sliding his pinky against the side of the bowl. “That seems unnecessarily civilized.”
“You know what would be really civilized,” Boots began casually, then dipped a finger in the pudding and painted a handlebar mustache on Bruno’s aghast face. “HA!”
Bruno’s eyes were wide with indignation.
“Boots!”
His roommate was howling with laughter. Bruno went for the pudding, but Boots caught his wrists with both hands and held them up, away from the bowl.
“All you need is a monocle!” he said brightly, eyes squinched up with hilarity.
“Boots, this is not a good use of Canada’s limited pudding resources,” Bruno said, struggling against Boots’ iron grip.
“Oh, I think it is,” Boots retorted. Bruno ducked his head, trying to wipe the mustache off onto Boots’ arm, an action that degraded somehow into another wrestling match that left him yet again in a headlock. He tried to twist away, but ended up closer, with Boots’ laughter hot and chocolatey on his face.
“Fine,” Boots was saying, breathlessly, “Fine. You don’t like it? I’ll get rid of it.” And then suddenly there was his mouth, and his nose nudging against Bruno’s cheek, and it wasn’t a kiss, but it was almost a kiss, and that was Boots’ tongue on his lips, on his skin... and just as suddenly it was a kiss.
Bruno stood stock still as Boots pulled back slowly, licking his lips and looking at Bruno with searching eyes. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms.
“Eh... sorry.”
Bruno’s eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously.
“No! No no.... that was, you know…” he groped for a word. “Um—”
He set a hand down on the edge of the counter to steady himself, but miscalculated and knocked over a tower of beverage containers. A coffee urn dropped like a stone into the sink, sending a wave of gungy dishwater straight at Boots, utterly soaking his front. For a moment there was silence. Boots was frozen, with his arms held away from himself at odd angles and a cartoonish expression on his face. Then he threw his head back and started laughing. Bruno felt something loosen in his chest and before he could stop himself he was laughing too, the two of them cackling and hooting as rivulets of dirty water ran down Boots’ arms and legs.
Eventually Boots caught his breath.
“This is disgusting!” he said, still laughing. He pulled his sopping t-shirt away from his skin. “Oh god…”
“Here, lemme—” Bruno’s attempt to push Boots’ shirt up from from the bottom and Boots’ simultaneous effort to pull his arms in through the sleeves erupted into the third wrestling match of the evening. This time the shirt was the clear victor.
“Wait, wait, stop moving,” Bruno exclaimed. They managed to work the sodden shirt up over Boots’ shoulders but there it stayed, pinning his arms up in a ridiculous position and effectively acting as a blindfold.
“….help,” came the muffled plea from inside the shirt.
“If you could just stop bending your elbows,” Bruno griped, trying not to stare too much at Boots’ exposed torso as he tugged at his clothes.
“Ahem,” came a voice from the doorway.
Bruno whirled around with a start. Boots took two ill-advised steps and crashed into the dishwasher. Phil, the assistant kitchen chief, was leaning against the door frame and staring at them, deeply amused.
“….so, guys,” he continued.
“His shirt got wet,” Bruno blurted out.
“Hi, Phil,” Boots said, still facing the dishwasher.
Five minutes later, Boots had been rescued from his shirt and they’d been summoned to the kitchen chief’s office for a lecture on health and safety standards.
“So we all understand why it’s important to wear clothes in the dishroom?” Phil was saying, manfully trying to hide the fact that he found this all very, very funny. Sheila, the chief, was doing no better; she had already left the room twice to go laugh in the hallway.
“Yes,” the boys intoned in unison. Boots had been given an old kitchen uniform shirt to wear. It was about eight sizes too big and had 'Floyd' embroidered on the breast pocket. Bruno couldn’t stop smiling.
“OK,” said Phil, checking his watch. “You’ve got about fifteen minutes left. Is it safe to leave you alone?”
“I think they’ll be all right,” Sheila said, clapping a hand on top of each of their heads and herding them gently toward the door. She nodded solemnly at their sheepish apologies and watched them trudge back to the dishroom before shutting her office door and turning to face Phil. Their eyes met and they exploded into helpless laughter.
“It’s no good,” wailed Sheila. “How am I supposed to be a disciplinarian when I want to pat them on the head?”
“I wish I could say it was the first time I found one of them in there sans an article of clothing,” Phil said ruefully, wiping a tear from his eye.
“Do you really?” Sheila asked, grinning.
“No,” said Phil, flatly, and Sheila laughed again. “They’re the most entertaining part of this job. I mourn the day they start behaving themselves. I hope they never fix that dishwasher!”
Back in the steamy funk of the dishroom, Bruno and Boots surveyed the mess that was left. Sighing, Boots approached the sink and picked up a sponge.
“Here, I’ll wash, you rinse and stack,” he said. “It’ll go faster.”
Bruno took his place beside him and they worked into a rhythm, water sloshing, plates clacking, and Boots humming Zeppelin under his breath. As the minutes went by, Bruno caught himself leaning closer to Boots with each dish he passed. Soon their elbows were grazing each other, then came the warm press of Boots’ shoulder on his. When their hips were flush against each other, Bruno knocked his roommate’s knee with his own.
“Hey, Floyd,” he said. Boots snickered. Bruno steered a plate around the bottom of the sink. “You could maybe do that again sometime.”
Boots nodded, eyes focused on the bowl he was washing.
“Give you a pudding-stache, you mean,” he said.
“No, that other thing,” Bruno said lightly, stacking another plate. “Sometime. If you want.”
Boots nodded, still not looking, and made a small noise of agreement. Bruno snuck a glance at him. His cheeks were red, but there was a small, pleased smile on his lips. Bruno nudged his knee again and Boots nudged back, the small smile cracking into a grin. He leaned in slightly, letting Bruno support his weight, and handed him another gleaming dish.