100 People:xiv. David Harrison

Israel looked at David Harrison, wondering what David would have been like if he did not live in Utah. In Provo , Utah. No Mormons to shock or piss off or blaspheme against. No one to understand his constant joke—singular—about how he wants to attend BYU and become a pottery major. Israel had hear David say that at least one during every shift they shared. If he did not need the job, Israel wondered if he would give David, the shift manager, the time of day. But Israel just stood their flipping meat paddies, while David delved into his old bag of blasphemes to make the other Mormon employees squeal.

“You know Jesus totally committed suicide,” David said, “I mean, he was the only one that could give up his own life, so he’d have to kill himself if he were to die.”

Beth lowered her head and quietly said, “You know, I’ve wondered about that. I mean he was the only one that could take his life.”

“Order up,” Israel shouted dropping two Supreme burgers down a shoot under a heat lamp. He spun the order wheel, pulled the food ticket, dropped it onto the Supremes. Then he spun the wheel to double check what the next order was and went back to grilling meat.

Israel would look at the corner of his eye at David who was trying to convince Beth that it was alright to believe Jesus committed suicide. Israel thought David looked like that Harry Potter, minus the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Of course, no one knew who Harry Potter was. Just some character from this new book that was for kids, but for some reason his brother-in-law was much too interested in the whole thing for an adult. It would die out though, who wants to read an entire series of books based on wizard school? But David was smart, Israel knew this and despised it a bit. He was capable of landing a wife of higher status than himself, while Israel did not even have a girlfriend. David managed to propose during Titanic. To David it was just a matter of hormones, and that movie got plenty of the female hormones flowing so it was just a matter of whipping out a ring. Damn, Israel thought, clever as serpent. And harmless as a snake.

Israel put three patties onto buns with all the fixings that Beth had prepared. Then he dropped six pieces of cheese onto patties that were still cooking.

“That isn’t even the worse of it though. Just think about it. Before Jesus was…like Jesus he was a teenage boy,” David said as he pushed up his glasses that had slid down the sweat on his nose.

“Uh…,” said Beth.

“You just know Jesus masturbated when he was like twelve. You know he jacked off.”

“No way. No way. Don’t even say that,” said Beth.

“One-hundred percent of teenage boys—Iz you know what I’m talking about—how many teenage guys jack off?”

Israel flipped two patties, “Being teenage has nothing to do with it. Pretty much all guys—period—masturbate.”

“Gross. Gross. Stop,” said Beth as she squirted mayo onto two buns.

“You see,” said David, “All guys jerk off so Jesus had to. He jerked off and killed himself. You know I brought that up at church one time—during priesthood—yeah, the bishop yanked me into his office for that.”

“Can we get some help at the counter,” a distorted voice said over a speaker.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said David.

Beth prepared three buns for fish burgers, while the fish fried in the fryer. “You really think Jesus masturbated,” she said to Israel.

“Don’t listen to what David says. Of course, I don’t even believe what the Bible says about Jesus, so maybe I’m just used to ignoring people’s crazy-Jesus stories.” Israel picked up a scraping utensil and started scraping the caked on grease from the grill. He wondered if David’s fascination with pottery had anything to do with that movie Ghost.