“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Big Forks Family Diner. The only restaurant in the Tri-County area friendly enough to host your entire family for dinner!”

It was a ludicrous statement, of course, that no other restaurant within three counties could be friendly enough for a family dinner. That was the bravado and ego of the owners of Big Forks Family Diner, though. The worst part is, that saying did not appear on their television ads because they had none. It wasn’t a part of their radio campaign because that too was nonexistent. No, you heard that bit of insincere, mindless corporate drivel as you walked in the door. Most places greet you with a loud “Ding!”, but not Big Forks.

Hearing the worst slogans ever each time they came in irritated the few customers who still ate at Big Forks regularly. Those folks were from one of three distinct crowds: the barflies, the early birds and the Craigslist Casanovas.

The barflies made everyone who worked there grateful for their job. Hell, the barflies made everyone thankful that they weren’t a barfly. You see, Big Forks did not have “bar” which one usually thinks of when they hear the word “bar”. The “bar” at Big Forks was a row of small single top tables along the big window facing the world. The barflies would sit in a row, all with their heads down, all with their backs to the window. Ten separate tables were usually filled most of the day with old men hunched over a cup of coffee that constantly needed warming, young men who enrolled in college to get their parents off their back but had no intention of getting an education and the writer who could nurse a glass of water and a plate of fries from open to close.

The early birds were your classic old person crowd, only at Big Forks they came in at 3 o’clock. The owners of Big Forks original plan was instead of a happy hour, they wanted early bird hour. One of the suits from corporate was overheard saying one day, “It will be like we have two dinner rushes!” It would be an understatement to say that bit of brilliance was taken by the employees and ran with as a way to mock all things corporate for years and years to come.

The last group of people to frequent Big Forks were the Craigslist Casanovas, also knows as “Listers”. These were the guys who met women on Craigslist and brought them to Big Forks for their first date. When asked by a host why this distinctive group of guys brought their dates there, a Lister once replied, “Compared to this place, I don’t seem nearly as depressing.”

Hearing “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Big Forks Family Diner. The only restaurant in the Tri-County area friendly enough to host your entire family for dinner!” every time the front door opened irritated the barflies, early birds and Listers. It had a much deeper effect on the employees, though. Most employees did not work at Big Forks for very long and the prevailing thought was that the door greeting drove away the weak. Those who stayed, though, were not known as being “strong”. No, once an employee because acclimated to the worst sales pitch ever, they were known as being “committed”, yet another corporate phrase turned into a joke by the long suffering crew of Big Forks Family Diner.

    The most committed of them all was David Dreet, general manager of Big Forks Family Diner. David had started out as a server but quickly moved into the managerial ranks. He had a unique ability to talk anybody into doing anything he wanted them to do. After a particularly tough table one evening, David decided he was done bringing lemons and extra napkins to people. He wanted to be the one in charge so he told the then-current general manager, Angela about an idea he had. “If you like it, you can have it”, her told her that evening.

It basically suggested that she take the role of district manager to oversee the operation “from the outside in”. David’s plan gave Angela the authority to “strategize” ways to generate business without having to deal with the “hassle of day-to-day operations” while doing so. Angela liked the idea so much, she took it to the corporate offices the very next day where she was fired on the spot for asking to be promoted to a role that required her not to be in the store. Of course, being a corporate company with an eye on family, Big Forks used the phrase “disowned” rather that “fired”, but that was of little consolation for Angela.

From the day he was hired to the day Angela was let go and replaced by David as the head manager, David’s ascension to the top of the pecking order took less than six months. That surprised nobody who knew him at all. He was a charismatic former salesman and bouncer who had a razor sharp wit and a work ethic that could dehydrate a pack mule. Never one for standing still for too long, David always had a project he was working on. He made verbal lists and constantly recited them to himself and anyone else within earshot as he made his way through the restaurant.

One of his big projects was to retrain the staff. David had always hated the attitude of the long time employees. “You’re not committed,” he would tell them. “You’re simply involved.” He frequently used the metaphor of ham and eggs breakfast to illustrate his point. “The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.” After a while, that whole speech got boiled down to its core point and all anyone had to say to pick up drooping work ethic was, “Be the pig”.

One of the writer barflies, Cam Elian, really took to this message. He would walk in, greet David, order his water and fries, then sit down in his quiet corner. He would take out his laptop and his notes, crack his knuckles then yell to himself (but loud enough for all the hear) “Be the pig!” Cam worked diligently on his writing, breaking only to make a trip to his car every hour.

David began to get very curious about this guy. When checking up on his guests, David would try to catch a glimpse of what Cam was writing, but to no avail. On one particularly slow day, David’s curiosity got the best of him and he sat down across from Cam and began what would turn out to be a beautiful friendship.

“I have to know what you are writing about,” David said matter of factly.

“No you don’t,” replied Cam.

David liked this answer. Being as charismatic as he was, David was used to getting answers from people. “This might just prove to be a challenge,” David thought as he stared at the upside down writing of the barfly.

“Come on, man. What are you writing about?”

“Don’t you have something else you could be doing,” Cam asked with his head still down. “No, I guess you don’t,” he said, answering his own question after looking up and scanning the nearly empty restaurant.

“I have time,” said David with a salesman’s smile.

“Sorry, bro, but I don’t,” Cam quipped back .

“Working on a deadline?”

Annoyed, Cam closed his laptop and stared at David. “No, I’m not actually. I don’t write for other people, I write for me. Today, however, I have a job interview at some lame ass call center and I have to get through this before I can go otherwise I will have an unfinished match playing in my head as I try to focus on answering the questions correctly so I can get the job. So if you will excuse me…”

Upon opening his laptop again, Cam began to pound on the keyboard, deliberately trying to make David go away. He was failing miserably, though and he knew it. Instead of scaring David away, Cam had inadvertently piqued his curiosity.

“Match?” David asked as the word danced in his head.

Having given up on trying to shake the persistent manager, Cam looked from his work to David and gave him his full attention. “You see, I write…” Cam’s voice got soft, as if he was trying to protect his idea from the other vulture like writers sitting at the “bar”. “I write stories about professional wrestling.”

“That’s pretty cool. I loved The Macho Man when I was growing up.”

“Me too. I don’t write about WWE, though. They don’t do it right anymore. The product is so generic and stagnant. There are no personalities these days, just “types” of people talking at one another on a microphone. I came up with my own wrestling promotion with my own wrestlers. I write all the matches, all the promos and all the angles. I am like all the McMahons rolled into one, only more talented with slightly less money in the bank.”

“Then what do you do with them?” David asked, genuinely interested.

Cam chuckled. “That’s it. I write them, then I move on to the next storyline or pay-per-read.”

“Pay-per-read?”

“Well nobody views them. What would you call them?”

“Never thought about it. In fact, you’re probably the only person in the history of the world who has thought about that.” David was legitimately impressed by this human being, so he continued his line of questioning. “So you don’t sell them?”

Cam looked at David like he caught him trying to lick his own elbow. “Who the hell would buy this stuff?”

“I don’t know, man. There has got to be somebody interested in it.”

“Nope. It’s just me, buddy.”

“David.”

Cam stared at David blankly.

“My name is David, not Buddy.”

David stuck out his hand in anticipation of a handshake, but instead of having his hand shook by the barfly, it was slapped five then punched by a loose fist.

“My name is Cam.”

“Nice to meet you, Cam.”

“It usually is,” Cam said with a smile and a wink.

Satisfied, David nodded his head and got up from his seat. “If there is anything I can do for you, Cam, you just let me know.”

“Thanks, Dave,” replied Cam as he again attempted to focus on his laptop. It was no use, though. The interaction he had just had was running through his mind and Cam knew it would not be going away anytime soon. The last thing Cam wanted to do in this world was work at another call center. He was irked by the fluorescent lighting and the cheap computer chairs purchased in bulk. He hated the seemingly random splotches of color on the wall which were designed to give the employees positive energy after they have been stuck inside for the last 39.5 hours. More than anything, though, Cam absolutely loathed the tie clad supervisors who walked around micromanaging every detail of his day. “Cam, you were on that call for 8 minutes. Remember, ‘Seven is Heaven,’” they would tell him.

“Hey, Dave!” Cam called out.

Dave spun around and said, “Yeah?”

“You need any help around here, by chance?”

    "So, what do you think?", asked Cam confidently. The fact that, even though he asked your opinion, it truly didn't matter to him was probably Cam's best, and worst, personality trait.

"Well, it sure is...uh...bright," said Cam's co­worker, Enrique, a dark skinned, red

headed, Canadian of Cuban descent. When Cam first started at the restaurant as a

dishwasher four years prior, Enrique was the one who showed him around. Cam being

who he is, though, hadn't been paying much attention to the training he had received and

realized at the end his first day that what this place really needed was some flair.

"Yeah, I paid for the extra brightness. I need people to know when I am here," Cam explained.

"Money well spent," offered Enrique dryly, looking at the giant neon sign hanging

above the three compartment sink. The sign was so bright, the orange and blue glow

spilled across the open kitchen and into the pass bar area. The buzz emanating from the

giant sign was enough to prompt the prep cook Leo to stuff rolled up pieces of paper

towel deep into his ears.

"What does it say exactly?"

"It says 'Dish pit'," returned Cam proudly. Enrique shook his head and walked

away from Cam, but that didn't deter the cocky dishwasher. "It's the type of calling card I

can take anywhere I go. It's like my signature, but in neon."

Tora, a veteran waitress with roughly three lifetimes experience walked through

the door and nearly dropped the small stack of plates she had precariously balanced in

her hands. "What the hell is that?" she asked after regaining her suddenly depleted sense

of balance.

"It's his neon signature," answered Enrique as Cam folded his arms confidently

and posed in front of the giant sign.

"It's so big," said Tora to which Cam replied with Enrique mocking him in unison,

"That's what she said." This response elicited a huge sigh from Tora before she poetically offered, "A prouder dip shit there never was," before heading back onto the dining room.

"I take that as a huge compliment," shouted Cam. Tora waved at him without

turning around even a little bit, but that was enough for the slacker dishwasher.

"Dude, when does Davey get in?"

Dave's ears must have been burning because at that very moment he was

pulling into the Big Forks Family Diner parking lot. He was the general manager and a

damn good one, too. A hard worker who was very fair to the other hard workers and didn't

have much time for the layabouts and slackadoos of the industry. Maybe Dave saw

potential in him or maybe it was his ability to roll a perfect joint with one hand, but for

some reason, Dave really liked Cam.

The noise and the glow from the sign attacked Dave's senses as soon as he

stepped foot through the front door and he made a beeline for the kitchen and especially

for the dish pit.

"Cam, what the hell is that thing?" he asked with very strained patience.

"It's not a thing, man. It's my flair; It's my mark on the world; It's my..."

"Your mark on the world is a big ugly neon sign hanging in the kitchen of a shitty

restaurant on a side of town that nobody comes to in a city that is half empty 6 months out

of the year? And it's misspelled."

"It's not misspelled. Read it again. D­I­S­H­P­I­T."

"Maybe you should read it again, man."

Cam looked up at his sign and mouthed the same letters over and over again as

Dave tried talking some sense into him.

"You are a very smart guy, you know that? You're creative as all get out and you

can work harder than anyone I know with an attention to detail that is second to none."

said Dave through the years old frustration. "But you can be such a dumb ass..."

"Oh, shit."

"What," Dave asked through a heavy sigh.

"It is misspelled. Look. D­I­P­S­H­I­T. Dude, my sign says 'Dip shit'!"

Dave put his hand on Cam's shoulder and, looking him straight in the eye,

offered this piece of advice: "Figure out something to do with your life. Stop wasting

money on useless bullshit, pull yourself out of this God forsaken pit you have made your

home and do something with your life."

Cam watched Dave talk, even heard the words that he said, but all he could think

about was his sign. "I hear you, man. I really do. But I still can't believe it's misspelled."

Dave shook his head and patted Cam on the shoulder and replied, "Maybe it isn't

misspelled." He turned back towards the doors to the dining room floor, but before

opening them turned to his buddy and said, "Have a good shift, dip shit.”

    “Thanks, boss,” replied Cam as he looked back at his sign. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that.”

    “I can,” said Enrique. “You get lost in your own little world, man. I don’t know how many times I have asked you a question or asked you to wash a pan for me on the fly and you don’t hear me. It’s like you’re not even here half the time.”

    At that very moment, in fact, Cam could not hear Enrique’s comments. Cam had began to stare out of the tiny porthole to the dining room at something that caught his eye. Not a thing at all, actually. It was a someone who got his attention. More specifically, it was a girl that took the attention from his sign. A very pretty girl at that. She would have to be pretty. He loved his sign very much, misspelling and all.

    “Dude, who is that?” Cam asked an irritated Enrique who was in the middle of chastising Cam’s inability to focus on what anybody in the kitchen said to him.

    Enrique just shook his head and began to clean his knives. “Good luck in life,”

he offered to the dishwasher.

Cam flashed a charismatic smile at the cook and said, “Thanks, buddy. But who’s the girl?”

As Cam stared out the tiny window, he tried to place the girl. “She looks familiar,” he said out loud to nobody in particular. Cam ran through the Rolodex of faces he had cataloged in his brain. Since he worked less than a mile from his old high school, he frequently ran into people he knew from there while working at Big Forks. He didn’t go to high school with her, though. “She’s not from around here,” he offered to himself as he moved closer to the tiny window. “I don’t know her from church,” he mumbled under his breath, then chuckled at his own statement, for he had never been to church except the time he took the Mormon girl to the church carnival as a favor to a friend of his.

Cam’s face was so close to the tiny window, he was fogging it up with his breath when David suddenly popped his head in the other side of the window. It scared Cam and he jumped backward, eliciting a loud guffaw from Enrique and David.

“What are you doing?” asked David from the other side of the glass.

“Being a dipshit,” offered Enrique from the kitchen.

“I was just...uh…,” Cam was almost never at a loss for words. “Come here, dude,” Cam said to David and motioned him to the kitchen.

“Where did you hire that girl?” asked Cam.

“Um, at the end of the bar.”

“What?”

“What are you asking me?” asked David.

“Where is she from?”

“I don’t know. She said it doesn’t take her long to drive here,” replied David. This answer just served to frustrate Cam, though.

“Ugh. Nevermind.”

“Dude, what are you asking me? Use your grown up words.”

“She looks familiar to me. Where has she worked before?” Cam asked, finally able to make sense to David.

“She worked at El Payasos for a while,” David said after a moment of reflection.

“The clown themed Mexican joint?”

“Yep.”

“Which one?” Cam asked.

“The one on the north side of Speedway,” answered David.

“The one off Fryman Avenue or the one by that car and home audio place,” asked Cam, trying to clear up the confusion.

“The one by SK5000. ‘Home of the one dollar dash fire’,” said David in a sing songy way, reminiscent of the local radio ads which ran during every break on the local sports talk station.

“That doesn’t help me, then. They salsa at that one tastes like spicy clown sweat.”

“Descriptive,” said David. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. Maybe ask her where you know her from,” said the boss as he made his way back to the front.

“What is her name?” asked Cam, catching David just before disappearing back into the front of the house.

“Mason,” David replied just as the swinging doors closed behind him.

“Mason. Why is that name familiar to me, too?”

Cam stared out into the dining room long enough to get another good look at the girl. She saw him looking at her, then smiled. Cam didn’t know it, but his face contorted in a very odd way shen Mason smiled at him. He intended to smile back, but instead he flashed a hybrid look of confusion, arousal and imagination. He quickly broke eye contact with the pretty girl and went back to half-ass washing the dishes.

He submerged his hands in the sink and, to the untrained eye, he appeared to be slowly fishing around in the soapy water for small plates. In actuality, Cam was lost in his thoughts again. Actually this time he had only one thought: why was this girl so familiar to him?

He pictured her smile. He knew that smile, but from where? “I have not had sex with that girl,” he told the soapy water and Tora, the waitress who had snuck up on him to scrape her plate.

“Probably never will, either,” offered Tora with a chuckle. The joke fell on deaf ears, though, and she left the dish pit.

“Wait a second,” he said to the way past its prime sponge he held in his hand. “Mason from Detroit? It can’t be.”

Cam remembered back to his childhood. He moved from Detroit at age eight but he still remembered that girl. He remembered that name, anyway. Mason Cera. And the smile. “Yeah, the quiet girl with the shy smile,” he reasoned to the growing stack of still dirty side plates. He pictured her walking through the busy hallway of the run down elementary school they attended together. She had long, straight brunette hair and that small but inviting smile.

He looked out the porthole and caught a glimpse of the new girl. She was smiling again. He looked deep into the dirty dish water as his mind began to wander one more time. Now he was picturing growing up with the little girl. He reminisced about the dances he didn’t go to with her at Beard Elementary. He smiled at the false memory of taking Mason to Southwest High School’s prom in her beautiful purple and white dress. He thought of the time they did not go to the Greek festival in downtown Detroit and split a falafel.

The pace of the world around Cam began to really quicken as he daydreamed about the girl next door. She did not, in fact, grow up next door to Cam, but that was of little consequence to him. It was his memory, his fantasy really, so he could have her live wherever he wanted her to live. Waiters and hosts moved to and from the dish pit very quickly. Cam worked very slowly and very steadily, maintaining a pace that kept up with those around him while he continued to fantasize about the girl.

Cam smiled at the time he didn’t rent Mason a boat and of the lovely picnic they had not shared on the rocky beach somewhere near Canada. They had so much fun not attending many Detroit Tigers and Michigan Wolverines games together over the years. “She sure looks sexy in that Tigers hat,” Cam mumbled to himself, picturing the way she looked at Comerica Park the day they did not see Justin Verlander throw his third no-hitter.

The one false memory that really stuck out to him, though, was their first kiss. This fictionalized version of Mason was wearing a black shirt, had her hair up and was wearing very little makeup. They had just not seen a movie at the theater her uncle actually did own in Lincoln Park and he walked her back to her car. She smiled that smile that always got him and he could not help himself. He leaned in, she smiled and he closed his eyes.

“Cam,” she said, encouraging him softly with her sweet voice. “Open your eyes.”

He did as the voice told him to and, for a moment, was happy he did. He opened his eyes to see the pretty girl, all grown up and now standing before him a beautiful woman, smiling at him. He felt a welcome tingle in his pants which egged him on further and further. At this moment in his life, the dishes were the furthest thing from his mind. He had the girl of his dreams standing in front of him and, even if it was just a dream, he was going to kiss her now.

And he did.

Cam planted a soft, gentle, loving kiss on the lips of his dream girl. Her lips were soft and she smelled good. He expected her to kiss him back more than she did, but he just wasn’t great at dream kissing, he reasoned to himself. They kissed for what seemed, to him, like an eternity. A glorious, romantic eternity. He broke the kiss and looked at his dream girl. He wanted to see that beautiful smile again.

Only she wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, she looked downright pissed. She confirmed her anger by slapping him across his face as hard as she could and storming out of the dish pit.