Summary: by Lawrence Watt-Evans Read by Jonathon Hawkins Links for this episode: Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Lawrence Watt-Evans About the Author… from Amazon.com… I’ve been writing fantasy for thirty years… no, my fantasy’s been published for thirty years. I’ve been writing it since I was eight. It’s what I always wanted to do for a living, and I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve been able to manage that. I try to write fantasy with an element of common sense to it — not so much mythic archetypes as sensible people. Other than my job, my life’s pretty ordinary — a nice house in a quiet neighborhood, a wife, two grown kids, and an overweight cat. About the Narrator… Jonathon Hawkins is a public school teacher in Madison, Wisconsin, where he spent a decade or so introducing Greek and Norse myth to middle-schoolers. Now teaching computer tech, he’s reading here to keep in practice until his toddler and new infant are ready to hear all about Loki, Artemis, and Papa Cthulhu. Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evans Harry’s was a nice place — probably still is. I haven’t been back lately. It’s a couple of miles off I-79, a few exits north of Charleston, near a place called Sutton. Used to do a pretty fair amount of business until they finished building the Interstate out from Charleston and made it worthwhile for some fast-food joints to move in right next to the cloverleaf; nobody wanted to drive the extra miles to Harry’s after that. Folks used to wonder how old Harry stayed in business, as a matter of fact, but he did all right even without the Interstate trade. I found that out when I worked there. Why did I work there, instead of at one of the fast-food joints? Because my folks lived in a little house just around the corner from Harry’s, out in the middle of nowhere — not in Sutton itself, just out there on the road. Wasn’t anything around except our house and Harry’s place. He lived out back of his restaurant. That was about the only thing I could walk to in under an hour, and I didn’t have a car. This was when I was sixteen. I needed a job, because my dad was out of work again and if I was gonna do anything I needed my own money. Mom didn’t mind my using her car — so long as it came back with a full tank of gas and I didn’t keep it too long. That was the rule. So I needed some work, and Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers was the only thing within walking distance. Harry said he had all the help he needed — two cooks and two people working the counter, besides himself. The others worked days, two to a shift, and Harry did the late night stretch all by himself. I hung out there a little, since I didn’t have anywhere else, and it looked like pretty easy work — there was hardly any business, and those guys mostly sat around telling dirty jokes. So I figured it was perfect. Harry, though, said that he didn’t need any help. I figured that was probably true, but I wasn’t going to let logic keep me out of driving my mother’s car. I did some serious begging, and after I’d made his life miserable for a week or two Harry said he’d take a chance and give me a shot, working the graveyard shift, midnight to eight A.M., as his counterman, busboy, and janitor all in one. I talked him down to 7:30, so I could still get to school, and we had us a deal. I didn’t care about school so much myself, but my parents wanted me to go, and it was a good place to see my friends, y’know? Meet girls and so on. So I started working at Harry’s, nights. I showed up at midnight the first night, and Harry gave me an apron and a little hat, like something from a diner in an old movie, sam[...]
