“Grease Grate”

by Joey Damiano

I scrubbed the asphalt I used a big scrub brush on a long stick I doused the grease blob bubbling out of a grate With industrial strength cleaner poured from a gallon jug I scrubbed hard at the blob until it foamed on top The cleaner stripped the oil and even the skin off my hands So don’t touch the degreaser, just dump it on the grease blob Use gloves Teaspoon of sweat collecting inside the gloves Because of the cloudless sun above me The asphalt added 30 degrees to the temperature I boiled under the sun Like the foods I cooked in the chow hall I had my canteen which I drained I scrubbed hard, I really went at the grease blob Until it shrank a bit in size The mass eroding, flattening, washing away With the bucket of water I carried From behind the mess hall I channeled my rage into it It felt like a good workout My forearms, my biceps, my chest Sweat stinging eyes, soaking green undershirt I looked good I thought of it as a workout That’s how I made it okay that I was a college graduate Scrubbing a grate gurgling chicken fat Mixed with pork juice and Crisco While everyone watched me They walked to and from the chow hall Or headed into air-conditioned Quonset huts To sort NBC gear Or to repair hand-me-down army comms equipment I was alone at Camp Margarita I had no girlfriends I tried once, I screwed up the courage in San Clemente To talk to a girl in a video rental store who worked there She had a potato chip-sized pre-cancerous growth under her chin Which the dermatologist shaved on a regular basis She was part Native American We watched Bring It On in the movie theater She was more into girls, she watched the girls on screen Kirsten Dunst in a cheerleader outfit While I stroked her leg, her thigh The first girl I’d touched in three years And I tried to kiss her And I could tell she wasn’t into it One day, I called her uncle’s house Where she stayed Because she didn’t want to be with her mom in Temecula And she said she was on acid, and there was fear in her voice And she told me not to call anymore I fucked something up But at least I had the grease grate She was there, every week Underneath the grease grate the grease pit which always oozed for me The sergeant with a southern drawl ordered me to scrub it And I said yes sergeant I’m sure he enjoyed giving me the job Because that’s how Marines are, we shit on each other We are shit upon and we can’t wait to shit on Someone with a lower rank, some idiot who signed the contract like me Every week I came back and it was there again I scrubbed that spot because the fatty greasy brownish-yellowish mass Always reappeared Seeping out of the grate Where it congealed in the hot sun Marines walked by me and watched me scrub the asphalt I resented their stares They probably weren’t staring, I was paranoid I got myself into this mess I chose this for myself Well, I didn’t sign a contract that said you’re going to scrub a greasy stain On a weekly basis A pointless job which encapsulated my experience In the recruiting office In a strip mall By the movie theater Where I used to go weekly To escape reality They had the posters on the walls Of men with steely gazes in dress blue uniforms Holding swords Other men with steely gazes Faces smeared with cammy paint Immersed in swamp water Wielding a big K-BAR knife or M-16 Ready to disembowel or blow holes in the enemy The promise of adventure The adventure was too hard I wasn’t good at it Amphibious assault Trench clearing Room clearing Grenade throwing Live fire Humping 150 pounds up steep hills Punched Kicked Thrown down on the ground Patting down Black bodies for bombs and weapons in Mombasa I could do it physically, barely, but my mind wasn’t there They knew So Echo Company got rid of me And I ended up at a mess hall scrubbing blobs of grease I knew better I knew better than to join No, I didn’t If I knew better, I wouldn’t have joined I would have gotten a real job that didn’t try to kill me

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Joey Damiano is a writer and former US Marine infantry rifleman. His writing is forthcoming or has appeared in Bluestem, BULL, Chiron Review and other places. He spent formative years on Okinawa Island and on American coasts. He holds master’s degrees in creative writing (University of Southern California) and literature (California State University, Dominguez Hills). Joey lives in Philadelphia.

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