Bonus Land

Until Steve grabbed the half-eaten burrito out of the garbage can, deftly peeled back the wrapper, and took it down in two consecutive bites, I wasn’t sure the story about the raw steak was true.

When I first started working there, another manager Jeff—a twenty-three-year-old guy with a forty-year old’s bald spot—told me Steve was known to unpackage steaks from the foam, plastic wrap, and bloody wax paper sheets, and eat them with his hands.

In the retelling, he first finishes off a cold can of Campbell’s Chunky soup. When asked why he doesn’t heat it up, he tells people, “It comes cooked.”

“The guy’s a machine. Been cranking calls since 1983,” Jeff told me. He says it with an air of admiration. Steve waits until break to go to the bathroom. He makes more calls than anyone. He shows up a half-an-hour before his shift starts so he can be fully prepared when the clock strikes eight a.m.

When asked about the garbage burrito, Steve tells people, “Waste not, want not. Shame to let a perfectly good burrito sit in the trash.” He means it.

In another life, deep in the misty borders of a frontier land, Steve would whittle knives out of tree bark. Instead, Steve haunts a cubicle with the rest of us and hunts monthly bonus checks. “That’s what it’s all about, man. What’s the point if you don’t get the bonus?”

He means it. They all do. An extra five-hundred, six hundred, a thousand. Magic beans and plans to climb the stalks.

One morning, I get to the office early. My third-shift job at the distribution center closed suddenly due to a rat infestation. They knew about it when the shift started, but word didn’t come down from corporate that everyone should leave until six hours and forty-five minutes later. Steve is already there.

“Big hoss, look at you finally putting in the extra effort.”

Steve doesn’t work a second or third job. I smile and nod on my way to my seat and think about the eviction notice still taped to my apartment door. A few minutes later when I go to put my bagged lunch in the employee refrigerator, he isn’t at his. He’s in the break room standing over the garbage.

Shredded foam packages litter the counter. Bloody white wax paper squares plaster the floor and the cabinet doors.

Steve shovels handfuls of raw steak into his mouth. He chews at a rate I can’t quite understand, sometimes at a slow pace with sudden large chomps, then light and quick. Efficient.  

He has a slab in each hand, and he tears new chunks from them with his teeth, hovering over the trash can. The meat stretches and pulls before each new piece releases itself from its former whole. Blood and juice run down his chin and drips against the bag lining.

He notices I’m there. He looks up. “Breakfast of champions.” He means it. “You want some?” He sticks a hand out with one of the leaking steaks, half torn by his own mouth.

I want to step back, but I don’t. Instead, I watch my hand reach out for the mauled remains of the raw steak. It’s cold and wet in my fingers.

“That’s good. That’s how you get to bonus land. You gotta be willing to do whatever it takes, man. Raw steaks. No breaks. That’s what I say.”

I want him to be wrong, but he isn’t. I bite into the steak and blood and juice run down my chin.