Ernie has explained that cutlery is the easier of the two shop jobs still available, even if it doesn’t pay well as broom shop, the school’s big moneymaker. I’ll be making sets of knives, spoons, and forks, rolling them in paper, sliding them in plastic bags, and hot sealing the ends before the school sends them to the distributor. Boring but easy, and I can talk with the other kids on my shift. Sometimes, he says, you get to listen to the radio, a big deal because radios aren’t allowed in the dorm. The best part is Mr. A, who he thinks is the coolest teacher, listens to music that some of the other teachers would call a sin. (God, they love that word.) He knows because he worked in the broom shop one semester. (I don’t ask why they fired him: I’ll just assume he broke something.)

Mindless as it sounds, I’m guessing cutlery will be a major upgrade from the noise and mess of the broom factory. I have my game face on until I open the door and see Gordo. I feel haunted. Everywhere I turn, there he is. I know he’s not thrilled to see me either.

He surprises me by being professional when he tells me how the process works, making the rules clear, outlining the possible slipups and how to solve them. The Gordo running this shift for shop is not like any Gordo I’ve seen (or, for that matter, even heard about). He shows me the target board, with all the piece-per-hour goals and tells me he’ll start me on a modest goal so that I can ease in.

As I roll little bundles of forks and spoons and knives (seriously, there is nothing this boring in Back to the Future), I see how he checks in with the other kids working cutlery. He scoops up stray utensils at the end of a table where a spacey-looking boy hasn’t even noticed they’ve fallen. Gordo doesn’t shame him, just reminds him to be careful, and when a girl has trouble with the plastic in a heat sealer, he steps in to solve things, joking about the equipment. He’s so foreign to me: Gordo the helpful, Gordo the diligent, Gordo the nice. I could see Mom dating this guy.

When he loops back around to my station, he nods approvingly. “You’re doing great. We’ll keep your target low anyway, so you don’t have to stress.”

“That’s so sweet!” The words are out before I can recall them, and he freezes, then boils.

I just meant to thank him, but, unfortunately, I sounded exactly like myself when I did—and that was enough to flip the switch, igniting the Gordo I remember.