A ridiculously slow day, broken up with news that M***** had died. Perhaps 57, a waiter there on and off, career waiter throughout the city so a few people were affected. The owner, he pretends, doesn't really care, seems a bit callous, but that's him, his own kids could die and he wouldn't give a damn...
M*****, to sum him up, career alcoholic waiter, perpetually drunk, short, balding, didn't look a day over 70 (and so to discover his real age was a surprise...), dead on vacation to Europe visiting relatives. And so the nephew regales us the entire day with tales of his drunkenness, his propping himself against the chair while he took the order, so as not to fall over, a notepad for a table of 2, and the letters of complaint that often followed his service...me, I'd happily frequent a restaurant where the waiters felt free to be drunk ass-over-keister at 12:00 noon, but others of our customers weren't so forgiving...
...and the hiring of him, he'd worked here before me, been fired for being a drunk, this time, he came for lunch with his wife, younger, the sad pretty of someone who's made a bad marriage, lived her life in regret, the owner speaks to him, receives assurances of his sobriety, M***** is quick to give them, "been months since I've touched a drop..." even if this were true this wouldn't be the job to keep that promise, but if the owner had looked closer the martini and the half liter of wine on the table might have given him away...
M*****, dead, we'd often wondered and shared his many adventures aloud, the other waiter, A***** never knew him, but knows him well enough through the legends, RIP.