Fred Feldman buttons up his three-piece suit as he steps through the back door of a Denny’s diner in midtown Manhattan. The kitchen is filled with immigrants from every corner of the Earth, but to Fred they are all African American.

            “What’s up brothers and sisters?” Fred shouts over the clamoring hum of the kitchen. “Would any of you like to provide a testimonial for the hippest publication in New York?”

            The deafening roar of grills, vents, sinks, fans, and ovens fade to silence. The bustling kitchen comes to a standstill with everyone staring at Fred.

            He adjusts the collar of his shirt and winces. Their unblinking eyes send shivers down Fred’s spine. No one is cooking, they are all staring at him, the outsider.

            “Sorry to interrupt your hustle my fellow men and women of industry. I’m here with The Proletariat Press to write a profile on a blue-collar superstar, a working-class hero. Does that sound like anyone you might know?”

            The silence grows. The unassuming stares start to sour. Fred hears his heart loudly thumping in his chest. A few of the employee’s frowns turn to sneers before the entire kitchen erupts in a fit of laughter.

            They hoot and holler loud enough to drown out any background kitchen noise. Fred cannot hear himself think. Instead of feeling ashamed he laughs along with them. His participation encourages the staff to really let it go. Some interrupt their laughter to mock Fred.

            “The Proletariat Press!”

            “A working-class hero!”

            They put themselves into stitches mimicking Fred’s monotone voice. The laughter comes to a climax when one of the line cooks cries out:

            “You came to the wrong synagogue!”

            A sweat-stained chef quiets them down by repeatedly slamming a metal spatula against a flat-top grill. His anger travels through the spatula and into everyone’s ears in the form of a shrill ringing that resembles tinnitus. Line cooks turn and run out of his way as he walks toward Fred. His chef coat is held closed by a single, dangling button that leaves much of his bare chest exposed. A faded, grease covered name tag reads: Terry.

            He approaches Fred with his bloodshot eyes opened disturbingly wide.

            “Hey, man.” The chef pokes Fred with a pair of tongs. “I thought we went over this on the phone. You can’t be showing up here like this.”

            “I know,” Fred says, “you told me not to come when it would be busy. But my journalistic sixth-sense told me I should come during brunch.”

            Fred grins. Terry is not enthused.

            “Look.” Terry sighs. “Mr. Goldfarb—”

            “It’s Feldman.” Fred corrects.

            “Okay, Feldman, you gotta get out of my kitchen. We’re too busy for any nonsense right now.”

            “Woah.” Fred throws his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Don’t be so rash, Terry. I won’t get in the way. I’m an asexual investigator, a fly on the wall; I won’t bother a soul.”

            Terry glares at Fred long enough for him to break out in a cold sweat. He realizes how overdressed he is to be wearing his best suit and a brand-new pair of shoes in a kitchen.

            “I don’t care what you are.” He points his tongs at Fred’s chest. “Don’t bother my employees.”

Fred bows his head.

            “Don’t worry, Terry. You won’t even know I’m here.”

            Terry continues to glare at Fred as he walks back to the grill. His employees backpedal and run to move out of his way.

            Feldman finds an isolated corner and places his back against it. He wedges his skeletal frame in between a giant sack of flour and a plastic tub of frying oil. If Fred could make himself invisible, he would. There is nothing he enjoys more than observing others.

            He takes notes on Denny’s blue-collar workforce using a tape recorder and a spiral-bound notebook. Terry watches Fred out of the corner of his eye as he flips pancakes. Fred speaks into his recording device using a hushed version of his usual monotone.

            “The African American employees of Denny’s seem to work hardest when they are laughing and smiling. Their work environment is jovial and friendly, locker-room talk. If I were still an aspiring comedian, I would try and wow them with a few of my raunchy one-liners. The floors are grimy and the walls are coated with a thin layer of grease, but the blue-collar heroes are focused on preparing food.”

             Fred observes a Nigerian line cook slice a dozen bananas in less than a few seconds. A different, Haitian line cook turns a strawberry into a blossoming flower with one flick of a paring knife. The Guatemalan dishwasher sorts out forks and knives with laser-focus, distracting Fred with the sound of tinkling silverware.

            “They may prepare some of the fastest breakfast there is, but slicing bananas is just a skill. Sorting silverware is a job, not a calling. What does it mean to be a real working-class hero?”

            He turns this question over and over in his head as line cooks flip pancakes, garnish plates, and wipe away sweat for eight dollars an hour.

            “Perhaps the true hero is the man at the top, the man who willingly wears a mask and puts up a façade, just to keep his employees in line.” Fred scratches his chin with the fuzzy part of the microphone. “Terry seems like a noble figure, a decent man.”

            Terry turns his back to Fred to whisk an enormous bowl of eggs. He mixes the eggs effortlessly and pours the yellow liquid onto a greased flat-top grill. While Terry is focused on cooking eggs, a line cook slips away from his work and approaches Fred, grinning. The cook wears a faded pair of pinstriped chef pants with a bleach-stained t-shirt featuring a logo for Fake Business.

            “Hey, bro. You oughta get out of here, dude.” The line cook is doing his best impersonation of a white man. “There ain’t no blue-collar heroes out here, just a bunch of villains, dopes, and junkies. We’re all working for our next smoke break, man.”

            Intrigued by the line cook, Fred decides to keep his tape recorder running. He extends his arm and holds the microphone up to the cook’s mouth.

            “Yeah, brother, you should head down south.” The line cook struggles to stifle his laughter. “That’s where all them good ole’ boys are, working for mama’s sake. They got all that down there, tradition, and culture, and… and Waffle House.”

            The line cook loses all composure and breaks into a fit of laughter. He walks down the line, giggling like a firecracker. Terry curses him out for wasting time.

            But Fred is no longer focused on the bustling kitchen. The line cook’s brief sermon struck a chord with Fred. He holds the tape recorder up to his ear, listening to the distorted playback. His eyes glaze over, and his mouth becomes dry. Deep in his bones, Fred feels an overwhelming urge to visit the American South.

            He bolts out of the kitchen without a second thought. Terry watches him go, sighing at Fred’s robotic strides.

            Fred sends a single text to his boss, Daniella Von Santos, before boarding a flight for Atlanta with his film crew that doubles as bodyguards. Upon arrival, they rent a van and head for the nearest Waffle House. It is 3:30 A.M. in Georgia, but Fred is just getting started. He will not know rest until he has found a working-class hero to occupy the front page.

            Luckily for Fred, Waffle House is an insomniac establishment. The crew arrives to a packed house, waitresses swamped with hungry tables, and only a few empty seats available at the counter.

            Fred’s hired muscle follows him with their cameras on as he takes a seat at the end of the counter. Anyone who requests not to be filmed is placed in a sleeper hold until they sign a nondisclosure agreement. A pear-shaped, mother of five waits for Fred’s order with her notepad held in her frail, shaking hands.

            “You know what you want?” she asks with a tired voice.

            “Of course,” Fred replies, “I’d like to have a chat with you. I am a journalist writing a story about a working-class hero, a member of the workforce who bravely gets out of bed each and every day just—”

            The waitress rolls her eyes and moves her hands to her hips. He trails off when he notices that she is no longer listening. She is staring down at the breakfast counter with her eyes glazed over.

            “Look.” She sighs. “I got other customers who want food, and six hours left on the clock. I can get you some coffee, or I can get you some food. But I can’t be your buddy right now.”

            Fred keeps the grin on his face. Tapping the breakfast counter with his delicate knuckles.

            “I’ll have coffee.”

            The server pours Fred a hot cup of coffee and slides it across the counter. She does not flinch as the steaming-hot coffee spills over the sides and onto her fingers. When Fred tries to take a sip of the coffee, it burns his tongue. He makes a note of the name on the waitress’s uniform: Rhonda.

            Fred decides to stay at the Waffle House all morning to do some real, observational journalism. He is shocked to learn that Waffle House is a harmonious temple of racial unity. There are white servers, brown servers, and black servers. Old patrons come in to talk with young patrons. Middle-class whites come in to grab a bite to eat with middle-class blacks. Still, everyone tries to sit far away from the rural, lower-class whites seated in the back corner, drunkenly demanding waffles and shouting between tables.

            Despite the film crew to protect him, Fred does not feel comfortable enough to make audible observations inside the Waffle House. He is a stranger to the diverse racial interactions of an Atlanta diner. Fred watches his white waitress being pitied and over-tipped by middle-class black people. Meanwhile, a homeless white man wanders from table to table, asking for scraps from everyone but the black patrons.

            Everyone seems to stick to their own social group, everybody except Rhonda. She serves every customer, regardless of race, wealth, or health. Rhonda keeps Fred’s coffee mug full all night and well into the morning.

            When the sun comes up, and Rhonda is nearing the tail end of her graveyard shift, Fred orders waffles. Fred’s camera crew leaves to recharge their equipment. But Fred continues to record his experience, using his cell phone as a camera. He is frothing at the mouth thinking about all the content this will produce. The restaurant’s customers turn over a dozen times and Fred documents it all in his hand-held notebook.

            Just before her shift is over, Rhonda busses Fred’s plate. Her tired eyes show sympathy for the suit-wearing New Yorker.

            “I’m sorry for barking at you earlier, honey.” She fills up his coffee mug for the twentieth time. “I promise, I don’t bite. If you wanna talk, I get off in five minutes.”

            They share a nod before Rhonda hurries back into the kitchen, likely washing every dish they have in the restaurant for her last five minutes on the clock. Fred gulps down his final cup of coffee.

            He finds Rhonda seated on an orange milk crate outside of Waffle House’s back door, right next to the dumpster. A cigarette rests on her bottom lip.

            “You smoke?” She asks, holding a pack of Marlboros in Fred’s direction.

            “Sure,” Fred lies.

He places the unlit cigarette in his mouth with no intention of lighting it. Rhonda flicks her lighter and holds it out for Fred to use. She stretches her legs and groans.

“So, kid, what do you want to know again?”

She sucks on the cigarette with a level of satisfaction known only to people who work in the service-industry. Fred coughs like an emphysema patient. He hacks up phlegm and ends up putting out the cigarette with some of his saliva.

“Well.” Fred wheezes. “I needed to find a working-class hero, but I’ve already found you. Now I want to know what gets you out of bed every day, where do you get your drive?”

Rhonda blinks at Fred, massaging the bags under her eyes. She takes a long draw off her cigarette and shakes her head.

“C’mon kid, I’m nobody’s hero. You can’t put me in your newspaper; it would be a blatant lie.” She groans, angered that she feels any remorse for Fred. “You were very persistent in the restaurant, so I figured I’d give you a chance. But if all you wanna do is exploit me for my story, I’ll be on my way. I got a son at home waiting for me.”

The overworked waitress struggles to push herself onto her feet. Fred panics, blurting out the first thought to cross his mind.

“Is that where you find your inspiration?” He is grabbing at straws and he knows it. “Your son?”

This perks Rhonda’s ears up. She turns on her heel and faces Fred with her cheeks flushed.

“My son?” Rhonda places her hand over her heart. “He’s my working-class hero. He’s all I got left.”

“What’s he like?” Fred recovers. “What does he do for work?”

Rhonda narrows her eyes on Fred, rubbing the silver crucifix hanging around her neck. She lights another cigarette and leans against the sagging bumper of her Oldsmobile.

“Charlie’s an entertainer.” She wolfs down the rest of her cigarette. “And an entrepreneur too. He streams video games and comedy content on the internet.” She exhales a cloud of smoke. “If you hop in my car, I’ll let you meet him.”

“You’ll let your son be my working-class hero, but not yourself?”

“Jesus Christ,” she gasps, “I’ll do anything to get him out of my house.”

On the way there, Rhonda fills Fred in on the most important information about her son. Charley prefers to be called Chuck and has not had a job since his foot got ran over by a city bus four years ago.

“He drinks about ten energy drinks a day, and he hasn’t been on a date since he was seventeen.” Rhonda drives like the sleep-deprived lunatic that she is. “But he has about four or five thousand YouTube subscribers. He calls them paypigs, but I’m sure he’ll tell you all about that.”

Fred sends a text to his camera crew of bodyguards to meet him at Rhonda’s trailer park, the one that’s next to a chemical processing plant. He double checks his tape recorder and loosens the tie around his neck.

“Tell me about his accident,” Fred asks, “how did it happen?”

 Rhonda sighs as she hangs a hard left. Fred holds onto the bottom of his seat as the car tips onto two wheels.

“Chuck was drunk off his ass with a bunch of his buddies and he got his big toe ran over by one of the city busses.” She shakes her head. “He could’ve been set for life too if he wasn’t so drunk. The city ruled he was at fault and Chucky didn’t get a dime. He couldn’t deliver pizzas anymore, so he started collecting disability and playing video games. His gaming career took off shortly thereafter.”

Rhonda zooms past the maze of billowing smokestacks at the chemical processing plant and the dilapidated sign at the entrance of her trailer park. She continues to speed over the loose gravel road that connects the trailers into a makeshift neighborhood.

She comes to a quick stop in front of her trailer, a double wide. From outside, Fred can hear muffled shouting and slamming coming from inside.

“That’s my Charlie.” Rhonda smiles, straining to lift herself out of her car.

Fred shuts her car door for her, wearing a smug grin. Rhonda nods her thank you and walks with Fred to the front door. She throws the door open so hard it shakes the trailer wall.

“Chucky, I brought company.” She shouts at the top of her lungs. “It’s a journalist, says he wants to write a story ‘bout you.”

Rhonda waits form a reply, but there is none. She rolls her eyes and shouts once more:

“Press coverage means more pay-pigs, which means you can move out.” She whispers to Fred. “Why don’t you head in, honey. You’ll have better luck without me; he hates the sight of me.”

Fred swallows the lump in his throat and nervously exits the trailer’s kitchenette. He opens a door that Fred would expect to be a bedroom. Instead, Fred finds himself within a full-fledged gaming den. The windows to the outside world are blacked out with gaming posters. The only lighting in the room comes off Chuck’s multiple computer-monitors and a strip of red LED lights hanging from the ceiling. Chuck is seated in the center of the room with three computer screens encircling him. Various brands of energy drinks are represented in the pile of empties at his feet.

The lighting in the room makes Fred’s skin look like it is glowing, but it also gives him a throbbing headache. He cannot tell if he smells Chuck’s uncovered feet, or the giant heap of dirty laundry next to the mountain of energy drinks.

Chuck does not break his gaze to greet Fred, he continues tapping, clicking, and flicking at whatever violent game he is playing. It is a third-person shooter where a shirtless soldier with massive muscles and an American flag bandana mows down Nazi soldiers with a Tommy gun. The constant sound of gunfire coming from the game is deafening.

“What publication?” Chuck asks without looking at Fred.

“I’m with The Proletariat Press.” Fred replies. “Would you mind turning that down a bit, so I can ask you some questions.”

Chuck shuts the entire system off. Every screen turns off and the room is wrapped in peaceful silence. Fred can hardly see his interviewee. But Chuck claps his hands and a harsh, white light illuminate the room from above.

“I thought you were some local hack at first.” He swivels in his chair, pointing to a tiny bean bag chair against the wall. “New York is a big market. Why don’t you have a seat.”

Fred sinks onto the bean bag and pulls his knees in to avoid touching any of Chuck’s laundry. He takes out all his interviewing materials: notebook, water bottle and microphone. Chuck smiles wide, showing off his caffeine-stained teeth.

“I was in the middle of a twenty-two-hour Nazi Hunter marathon before you showed up. I cut it short ten hours in, so this interview better be worth it.”

“Well, Chuck, I’m Fred Feldman from The Proletariat Press and I’m looking for a working-class hero to occupy our front page.” Fred replies. “Now that we got that out of the way, why don’t you tell me some more about yourself?”

“Okay.” Chuck grunts. “Uh, I’m Chuck Alves, better known as ChuckThe420God on YouTube. I’ve been making gaming content ever since a tragic bus accident took me out of the work force. So, I got a couple thousand subscribers, nothing major. It’s enough to support me and let me buy something for my mom every once in a while, that way she doesn’t annoy me all the time.”

“You’re very lucky to be able to support yourself doing what you love.”

“Oh yeah,” Chucks agrees, “totally. But I’m not one for saving my money, that’s boomer shit. My mom tried to save money and look where it got her. I invest all my earnings back into myself. Every time I get a YouTube check, I go straight to 7/11. They know me there. I walk in and I say, ‘hey get me the usual’ and they come out of the supply room with three pallets of energy drinks. That’s seventy-two energy drinks. It costs two hundred dollars when they’re not on sale.”

“That explains your collection.” Fred points to the nearby pile of empty cans.

“Oh, yeah, I’m just waiting to recycle those.” Chucks adds defensively. “Like, some days I wake up and I don’t wanna game for sixteen hours straight. But that’s not my choice to make anymore. I have fans relying on me and I can’t let them down.”

“That’s very noble.” Fred nods slowly. “I’ll be blunt with you, Chuck, I’ve been struggling to find America’s next working-class hero, but you seem like the perfect candidate. Are you comfortable with your picture being on our website’s front page?”

Chuck is taken aback. He leans back in his gaming chair, producing a creaking sound that makes Fred’s skin crawl. Chuck throws his hands up and covers his face, violently rubbing at his eyes.

“Is that a dealbreaker?” Fred asks.

“No.” Chucks stops massaging his face. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. You would expect a fancy publication like yours to pick some hedge-fund manager or venture capitalist as the working-class hero, not some dope like me.”

Chuck shakes his head, trying to focus on his interview. But now Fred is distracted. Fred is having another lightbulb moment, similar to the one that led him to Atlanta in the first place. Fred’s best friend from childhood— his only friend from childhood— is a venture capitalist, worth something close to twelve billion dollars.

“I’m fine having my picture taken.” Chuck scratches his stubbly cheeks. “But I might need to clean up a little bit beforehand.”

Fred can no longer remember why he came to this horrific trailer park. No one wants to read a profile about an over-weight Youtuber living in his mother’s trailer. There is no denying it, the next step in his journey must be Silicon Valley. To Chuck’s dismay, Fred stands up and robotically makes his way to the door.

“Wait,” Chuck shouts, “what’s going on?”

Chuck stumbles out of his gaming chair, trying to catch up with Fred. In the kitchenette, Fred and Chuck come across Fred’s camera crew, which has Rhonda pinned against the refrigerator, cameras pointed at her from three different angles.

“Give us your statement.” One of the cameramen barks.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Chuck protests. “Get your filthy hands off my mother!”

The camera crew restrains Chuck, effortlessly pinning his arms behind his back and lifting him off the ground. They place mother and son next to each other, pinned against the refrigerator. Fred is uninterested in all of this. His one-track mind is already thinking about investment banking.

“Leave these people alone.” Fred commands the camera crew. “We have to catch a plane. We’re going to Silicon Valley.”  

This was an excerpt from my latest book The Fake New Novel available on multiple platforms here. Or directly from amazon here.

I will be publishing a video of me reading of this chapter, and some others in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.