The Grim Room

CHAPTER 6 (PAID)

Photo by Joonyeop Baek on Unsplash

And baby: I’m done with drugs. Forget that racket. I don’t need it. The only thing I need is you. I love you more than all the things in my life that came before you. When I get out, I’ll find you. We’ll start a new life. A real life. I know I haven’t treated you the way you deserve to be treated. But I know you love me. I can change.

I can change. These words from Chris’s letter rang through Rebecca’s ears. She kept looking out the window, past the pier, to the bay beyond, Alcatraz dead center. She worked on Pier 39, the tourist trap right on the Embarcadero. She wore blue jeans, white low-cut blouse with “Joe’s Crab Shack” written in gold, the happy-looking lobster with waving red claws, and the corny blue visor that also spelled out the restaurant’s name.

They served award-winning baby back ribs, shrimp, crab skewers, pear/berry salad, and some of the best strawberry short cake on the west coast. She’d rather be a fulltime writer, but until that day arrived she’d be shackled to the drudgery of The Shack. Sometimes she’d think about that short story she got published while she served the whiney tourists from Florida, New York, Chicago, just to make it through the day.

Joe’s was leaning over the Bay. You could see the ferry boats carrying customers back and forth between Alameda, Oakland and Berkeley and to Angel Island, Alcatraz, Vallejo and Marin. And every time Rebecca glanced up, carrying a full tray of one-and-a-third pound Shrimper’s Net Catch in a bucket, she’d see the bay and Alcatraz, the old prison, and think about his words.

I love you more than all the things in my life that came before you.

“Rebecca, get table six two more lobster soups and a to-go box plus extra forks and two pint glasses!” her boss yelled.