On my first day as a busser at The Old Spaghetti Factory, I circle the dining room with a black plastic tub. Collect a stack of bloody plates caked with hair and silver teeth. A baby gnaws on my ankles. Isn’t she silly, the mother says, licking her sauce stained lips. I leave my left foot behind. With a few meatballs squirreled in my cheeks I crawl down the drain. A rat’s paw emerges through the tool booth window. I offer a meatball then swim blindly toward the light.