Skolnik Page 12
 
But all that took cash he didn't have. Not having cash made him surly and mean. Other people had it, why couldn't he?
     The better the economy did, the President said, the more winners there would be. That was a simple law of economics. Things always started moving at the top and then worked their way down. In the end everyone shared in the wealth. Therefore he was cutting taxes for the rich. That would serve as an incentive and consequently there would be more contests and more sponsors and more people getting rich. A reporter asked him if he was going to enter the contest himself. "I've already won," he said.
     John worked mornings or nights. That meant 6:30 a.m. till 4 p.m. or 4 p.m. till 1 a.m. They switched every week, or sometimes, for whatever reason, he'd work mornings or nights two weeks straight and once for a solid month, like when Mac, the other cook, got married and wanted to be with the wife at night. When he worked


nights the whole day was shot. He'd get up late in the morning and hang around the house until it was time to go to work, at the most doing a little shopping or maybe his laundry. When he worked mornings he could lead a normal life, which meant having a proper dinner and maybe seeing a movie and afterwards stopping in at a bar and having a couple of beers. Mostly he stayed home and watched TV, which he figured was what most people were doing with their time. He didn't mind working nights on weekends since he had nothing special to do so sometimes he switched with Mac at the end of the week and did two straight weekends at night. He envied Mac, who it turned out had been in the Navy too. He had married a waitress from a place down the street where he'd tried to get a job before landing at the greasy spoon and they were able to coordinate their schedules so they'd be together most of the time. Their whole life seemed to revolve around getting their hours straight. The waitresses