He was the kind of boy
you'd never think could cry.

The punk with spiked red hair
and clothes from random bins
in the thrift store.
Somewhere along the way,
he found himself a brown leather jacket
and silver-framed red sunglasses
(and spent hours ranting
just how great it had been
that he'd only been charged ten
when they'd been marked fifteen).

He'd spent four years
working graveyard shift
at a coffee shop;
a job you'd expect only a goth
or punk could take.
No one sane,
that's for sure.
Especially not for so long.

He once told me
he only had the job
because punk rock had lied to him;
you couldn't screw society.
You needed money to live.

Nights were getting stressful
for everyone.
The new (inept) girl
kept threatening to walk.
I kept pulling back farther into myself,
refusing to work with customers.
He kept getting more and more manic
and our bakers kept screwing up.
The store was falling down around us.

The managers,
who only exist during the day,
have never seemed to care.

Last night,
the punk with the fading red hair
took me aside,
and I wondered if he was sick.

His eyes were wet.
His skin was pale.
He couldn't meet my gaze,
he fidgetted
and his voice trembled
as he asked me if I was quitting.

Without thinking,
I said I was looking.
Because there's new workers coming in,
because I'll go back to too few shifts.

He shook his head,
glanced over his shoulder.
I wondered if he meant
that the newest trainee wouldn't last,
then his eyes found mine
for the first time that night.

"I'm leaving."
He swallowed,
looking more than sick.
I didn't know what to say.

The punk boy with shining wet eyes
had quit a few times before.
He had come back
when he remembered he had to somehow afford food.
But this time, he's adamant.
So sure, he's made himself sick.
Needing to let go so bad,
he'll go back to his parents.
For the first time in years.

The entire night
fluxtuated between his worry about his own future,
laced with pangs of guilt for the store,
and the wild manic side
he's always forced over any weakness.

It was the first time
since the last night-shifter was fired
that everyone actually got along.
The first time the punk boy
ever told me anything
with any sincerity.

He truly was scared.

Upong receiving his resignation,
which gives two and a half months notice,
the manager actually hit him with the folded note
and told him to take it back.
He laughed and joked,
never backing down.
The manager told him
to bring it to someone else;
she couldn't deal with it right now.

So the punk boy took his note,
slightly beaten through his abuse,
and withdrew to the back staff room,
where I could hear him swearing to himself
and maybe even choking on a sob.

When he came out,
it looked like some tears had already escaped.
I swallowed
and mouthed "I'm sorry."
He shook his head,
forcing a bitter smile.

He will be leaving
in November.
He's been working there
since I used to only come in the obscene hours
to grab a coffee and talk with friends.
The place won't seem real without him.

Once the managers
calm themselves down,
he says he'll talk to them
about promoting me.

I seem bound by guilt
to stay in a job I hate,
but I can't abandon
the punk boy to a fourth winter
in that hell.