Subway: Stories from behind the counter(Part 6)What goes around comesaround. By Cesar Reyes Torres

Repetition and routine can become hopeless after a while . But they do offer a certain safety net for you in regards to what you can expect for the day. At Subway repetition and routine are a constant guarantee. My routine at Subway consisted of opening the store, setting up the food, baking bread, and making sandwiches. But aside from the required tasks, I had developed a new sense of normalcy from the one that I had previously lost. 

I was dating Liz and I honestly thought I was making progress in that department, I was gonna ask her to be my girlfriend. Meanwhile Kay was making some very interesting friends in Long Beach. Kay was hanging around a lot with Moses, a new guy we hired. He was a pothead and had a real bad crystal meth addiction. But he knew how to make sandwiches and he did whatever we told him to do. If we needed someone to clean the toilet, or clean the trash cans, and sweep the sidewalk, we always asked him to do it. He and Kay started hanging out, probably because Moses smoked a lot of weed just like Kay. Kay introduced him to one of the tenants in the building that hooked him up with all of his weed. The guy that Kay knew was some big hippie guy who had been smoking since the 60s and only sold weed to a very specific clientele. And Kay was one of his clients. Moses in return introduced him to all of his friends, who for the most part were a bunch of Mexican gang members from the east side. At the time the gang members in question, who's official gang name I shall refrain from mentioning specifically, we're fighting with the asian gangs and the black gangs. So as long as Moses wasn't bringing any blacks or asians around they were cool with it. Kay now had friends that rolled in deep numbers, had guns and were not afraid to use them, and who respected Kay because they could tell he was street smart, he was down for what ever like they were, and he had some of the best weed they had ever smoke and he could get more of it. A guy like Kay is dangerous on his own, but when you add a group of other guys to him, that have no ambition in life and enjoy destroying everything around them because they live by the mentality, "I don't give a fuck", along with drugs and drug use. You create a very dangerous problem for someone. And unfortunately that someone became me to some extent.

In the fall of 2004, I was dating Liz and I was the assistant manager at Subway, I was dating a cute girl I had my own car, I didn't have to go to school since I dropped out of college and kept all the financial aid money in cash, and I felt like I was a big fish, even if it was in a small pond. But this new feeling of normalcy I had re-established  would not last.

Gossip is always a bad thing, but the most fucked up thing about it is that even if you don't believe what's being said sometimes, that shit lingers like a fucken fly you can't ever get rid of. Me and Kay ran the store on Ocean in downtown Long Beach, and he had his wife working in the Subway store on Broadway in downtown Long Beach. From time to time we would send them some of our staff to help cover their staff shortages. Everybody knew that I was going out with Liz a lot and that I was sweat on her, and that I would give her a lot of slack even when she made mistake after mistake, and showed up late and Kay wanted to fire her about 3 times. One day we sent over a girl by the name of Cecilia to the broadway store, and while she was there she went on a rant, complaining to one of the girls there, telling her that I let Liz do whatever she wanted. What Cecilia apparently didn't know was that she was actually talking to Kay's wife, and that I talked to Kay's wife almost every day whenever I would go to Kay's house to play play station. But that fact that she said that wasn't what bothered me, because it was all basically true. What pissed me off was when she said that she asked Liz if her and me were dating, and that apparently Liz said "Fuck no!!! If wants to take me out then that's fine, it's like whatever but I'm not going out with that ugly ass foo". When Kay's wife told me that. I felt about 2 inches tall. I felt embarrassed , sad, worthless, and at first I was in denial, but Cecilia had no reason to lie, and neither did Kay's wife. So I did what any immature impulsive 19 year old Subway assistant manager would do, I got angry and I got even. 

Liz called me the next day, and I had to be honest with myself and admit that I could no longer look or talk to her the same way I did before. So I put a plan in motion and crossed my fingers that it would work out as I was planning it. While we were talking on the phone she asked me for her new schedule, and I told her she had to come the next day from 4 to close, even though she really had to come in from 11 in the morning to 4. So when 12 o clock came and we had a huge lunch rush and were short 1 person, Kay was pissed off, and luckily for me our general manager Patty showed up. Patty brought over some girl who helped us cover her shift and finish the lunch rush. But there was still the question of what to do with Liz. Patty and Kay called me into the office and went over her four write ups, and Kay asked me, "So what do you want to do about your girl?" So I grabbed a sharpee and I crossed her name off the schedule in front of them, and said "fire her ass". They both looked at me and were kind of surprised that I said it the way I did. But nobody argued my recommendation, Kay didn't want to hire her in the first place, and Patty had heard staff complaints and customer complaints about her, and I was angry and bitter over what she had said about me. When I started these stories I stated that working in fast food is all about who you know, and who you can afford to piss off and who you can't. Unfortunately for her, she pissed off the wrong person. She came in at 4 and Kay fired her. I didn't have the guts to do it myself, so he did me a favor and took care of it. He handed her a check and that was it. To my knowledge she never found out that I was the one behind her getting fired, and whatever I was to her just kind of faded away into nothingness which only confirmed that I didn't really mean shit to her anyway. 

What I didn't see at the time was that my decision to fire Liz had many un intended consequences coming my way. After that day, Kay kind of looked at me differently. I guess he didn't think I could be as cold blooded and fire someone who trusted me so much. And to be honest neither did I. But that was the least of my worries at the time. I was going to be confronted with with one of the toughest...

To be continued      

World War Z (film critique). By Cesar Reyes Torres

I was not sure what to expect from this movie when I went to go see it. The previews looked interesting, but zombie movies aren't really my cup of tea. But then again it's, Brad Pitt. He would never sign up or put his name on anything that wasn't worth his time. With that said, I can say that his movie was totally worth my time and money. The story line was there from beginning to end. The action packed scenes were very well shot. The movie had me tense the hold time, some movies are predictable to a certain extent, but just when you kind of think you know what's going to happen, World War Z completely changes gears on you. At one point I was like, "ok so that's how that happend" and then I was like "oh shit, what the hell". If you've already scene most movies out right now and are looking for something new and interesting, Go see World War Z

A Way Forward. By Cesar Reyes Torres

 -The never ending wealth that comes from 

guns and funeral wakes.

-I can't help but think the world would be a better place 

if it had more hugs and handshakes.

-Treating people with respect in hopes they'll do the same.

-Trying to deal with life's tragedies 

without assigning any blame.

-Our prayers seem at odds with our actions, 

but still we pray for the Lord to understand.

-That the world is unforgiving, it's cold, full of hate, 

but there are those amongst it who do the best they can.

-How much is enough anyway, 

and at what point can a man claim a victory over sin.

-How far in life must we go, 

to be able to have the long-sought 

after piece that flows within?

-Sometimes I cry, even if the tears don't fall

-They keep telling me to pray, 

but I honestly wish Jesus just had a number I could call

-I still keep my faith in silence; 

I don't even bother asking for a sign 

-Because the Lord works in mysterious ways, 

and I know he's aware of the struggles I call mine

This is the End (Film Critique) By Cesar Reyes Torres

Laugh out loud hilarious, probably one of the funniest movies I have seen all year. It's the funniest movie I've seen since The Hangover. It's an the original story for once, and everything is completely unexpected. Seth Rogen did an amazing job, everybody in the theatre was dying of laughter. This will probably be the funniest movies of the summer. Go see "This is the End"

Subway: Stories from behind the counter(Part 5) The friends you don'texpect to make. By Cesar Reyes Torres

The white boys up in Boston are nothing like the white boys down here in Cali. Down here there’s mainly a bunch of fucken surfer dudes/ skaters in board shorts, who drive around in their daddy’s cars. But up there, the white boys are some serious fucken thugs. They don’t fuck around when it comes to their neighbourhood. They think of themselves as neighbourhood guys, and if you don’t belong there you better have a reason for being in their neighborhood. Kay was from Boston Massachusetts. He was a street smart guy who made some serious street moves up there. He wasn’t in the Irish mafia or anything, and they don’t do gangs out there like we do them here.  Over here everything has to have initials, and Colors, and a kick back spot, there has to be a hierarchy on whose running what and who’s in charge. But back east it’s a different story.  Kay had the mentality that this my hood, this is my shit, if you cross me the wrong way, then one way or another you weren’t walking out of there. I had to admit I was impressed with the guy. I had grown up around thugs my whole life, but never a white one. He talked like he was the fucken white scar face, with a Boston accent. He moved around a lot of drugs up there. And I don’t mean fucken little 8 ball ounces of chronic, I’m talking about some serious fucken amounts of merchandise. He was making a shit load of money, but at the same time he was smart, and he knew that shit wasn’t going to last. So when it came time that he felt that it wasn’t going to get any better than he had it, he hid most of the money he had made. I don’t know where he hid it, because Kay never told me, he never trusted me to that extent. Kay had a lengthy criminal record out there in Boston. So one day, he was up in front of the judge, and the judge essentially gave him the ultimatum to leave the state, if not he was going to lock him up for many years. This is exactly the way that Kay told me it happened, and I had no reason to doubt the man.  So Kay took his daughter Stacy, and his wife Lucy and moved out to California. He got a huge discount on his rent for managing the condominium he was living in, and so he was able to make a decent living on his Subway pay check, not to mention that he had his wife working at another Subway, and his mother lived in the same building as he did and she took care of his daughter. 

Me and Kay, got along instantly. We both liked the same Rap music, we both liked the same kind of girls, and since they had transferred me to the morning shift, all we did all day was check out girls, talk with a Tony Montana accent from Scarface, and the go kick it at his house, drinks beers, and play Smackdown vs Raw. I honestly thought of Kay as my best friend. I knew his family, he even trusted me to wait for him at his house one time when no one was there. I learned a lot from him. He taught me how to install a car stereo system, what the different wiring meant on car speakers, he taught me how to install amplifiers and about how subwoofers worked. He was the kind of friend that had your back. I grew up on my own, and all my friends were a bunch of girls growing up. I never really knew what it meant for a friend to have your back to the point where he’s willing to fight for you. I had heard that people had friends that way, but I never had one. 

It was the fall of 2004. I had dropped out of college and I was working two jobs at Subway. One was in the day at the Subway on Atlantic blvd, the second was in the night time and it was in the store on Anaheim and MLK. I was working with this girl and she had a boyfriend who didn’t like me. He was just looking for a reason to fuck me up. He was from some crew out in Whittier, and he was in the store talking shit with two of his friends. I got a call from Kay, and he said”

Kay: Hey you left your memory card in the PS2

Me: Alright ill pick it up laters

Kay: Yooze guys bizzy over there?

Me: It’s alright, I’m just a lil annoyed right now

Kay: whys that?

Me: this fucken girl here, has her bitch ass boyfriend here with his homie 

And there talkin shit

Kay: What ?? What the fuck they say to yooze???

Me: their just talkin shit you know..

Kay: Fuck that, i'm headed down there

Me: Nah its cool don’t trip. Hello , hellooo

FUCK….!!!!

I called him back but he had already left. Luckily for me, the girls boyfriend and his idiot friend ended up leaving shortly after me and Kay hung up. But true to his word Kay came down to the store with one of the guys that worked with us. His name was Moses. They walked in and we shook hands, and he asked. “So whose talkin?” Nobody had ever done anything like that for me. I had to admit I owed the guy for it. 

So with Kay running the show at the store, things developed into something different. And I became a part of something that I looked forward to again. Our morning shift consisted of 6 people. There was Kay, me, Moses, Celina, Hector, and Liz. I had to admit I had a little crush on Liz. She didn’t have any experience, she had dropped out of high school, she failed the 3 out of 3 math problems on the back of the Subway application, but I thought she was cute. So when Kay came to the back, I said

 “ you gotta hire that brod”

Kay: fuck that , your thinkin with your dick Ceeza 

Me: Like you weren’t thinkin with yours when you hired Celina

Kay: Ha ha ha, you got me there

Me: come on dog, 

Kay: fuck it, consider it your Christmas present 

So Kay went and grabbed a W2 form and hired Liz to work in our morning shift and in our Night Shift sometimes. So now I had something to look forward to everyday, and that was to find a way to hopefully ask Liz out. But while I was doing that, Kay was on the verge of….

To be continued…

Just Passing Thru. By Cesar Reyes Torres

Some moments in life, you can repeat over and over again in your mind and just pray that that one moment in time was different.... That if that single moment was different, your life would be better in so many ways. and you can think about it over and over again till the stars fade away, and the night gives way to day..but you must always remember that our time here is temporary, and we are only passing through. Life is but a bus stop and a classroom...God dropped us off as he saw fit, it is up to each of us to learn and make our holy father proud, and one day he will pick us up, and we can rejoice and behappy that hopefully we did right with the time he gave us here, and ask forgiveness for any wrongs that we commited..