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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I find them on the patio at Beano, the one, I****, recognizes me and shouts my name, she's with T*****, the chef, the other family I left...
I liked them. Worked there a couple of years ago - maybe less, time, work, sleep, less, it's all a blur. They were cool, and so we sit on the benches and chat, I show I**** the pictures of the trip to Utah, chastise her for the contents of the backseat when finally I got round to cleaning out the car, there were condoms and birth-control pills, all sorts of shit they'd lost when we went on that road-trip to Drumheller, years ago, it seems like a lifetime...
It's good to see them. I missed them, liked them all, they were pleasant enough, but that restaurant, well, the owner, Croatian as well, Alpha dog and he barked a lot, too much, no way to address that without being an asshole, better to leave, on unfriendly terms, but sometimes life is like that. I'm not a dog. Singlehandedly, though, by his example and existence, he explained the whole of the war in Yugoslavia. I understood. And I understood that as Canadians we should be very careful about who we allow to immigrate...but I knew that already.
These people, I**** and T*****, they're the new generation, enlightened, I like them, and we sit an hour and visit before I go in for my coffee and book...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I'm leaving and he's doing less and less. Less, even, than before, and it was never much. Never.
A regular customer, philanthropist, wealthy, switched his schedule from Monday evenings to Tuesday evenings. No reason, but no small coincidence that my schedule changed as well, it's not me, I know, it's the avoidance of the other. He typically tips 22%. The week before, he'd come in with a party, the Nephew served, he tipped 5%. The Nephew, inattentive, preoccupied with his phone, he's fucking lousy. We've now the new waitress, the hostess, the nephew, none of whom will take orders or run food, all of which whom are paid, more or less, as equals. It's bullshit in the extreme. No, really, if you've worked in a restaurant, or anywhere else in the world, anywhere at all, with someone that leaned on their shovel the entire day and told you how hard they were working and how rich they should be you'll understand. He's that guy.
Tonight...3 men, older, spenders. They ask me about him, what's his role, what's he doing? I tell them..."He's (the bosses') nephew"...
...they laugh, family, they get it, and rib me with "you'll be fired before he is...", and I jest in return "I already have...". The last, they don't get, it doesn't matter. I do.
He thinks he's hard working. He defends himself by mocking me, offering to mop my beleaguered brow, "Worker of the Year" he says, no one is fooled. Damn me all you want, but I'm on my feet, still keeping up, his only currency is the internet and all the "Immigration/Islam is Awful" the internet can spew, but oddly no mention of the Italian problem, and when I address it, postulate that Italians immigrate to Canada through manholes left open upon the street, he sort of gets it.
But not really.
It's like the owner showed me, that internet meme - The oft quoted Ricky Gervais:
"When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It's only painful & difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid."
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Now, almost 4 weeks after his return from the old country he's beginning to assess the damage his daughter did. The nephew, he reports that his truck was stolen, not to the police, to me, he hid the keys, it was driven and somewhat trashed over the 3 weeks he was away.
...and there was the sink overflowing, overnight, which caused in the end $20 thousand dollars damage to the floor and ceiling below...
...and the thousands of dollars of liquor that was drunk and the fridge that was emptied...the nephew tells this story well, him putting the leftover pizza in the fridge late at night, then hearing, as if they're zombies, the creeping of hungry children upstairs...
...but this, well, it's a new discovery, the owner, he'd been buying up gold, laying it aside, an inheritance, legacy, for the daughter and her children. For all his children...but now he can't find it, it's all disappeared, 3 weeks she was there and she looted everything, he's in a mood for sure. "Call the Cops" I tell him, why not, he won't, they've lived their whole lives without consequence, repercussions or responsibility, why would he start now? And he thinks it was the grandchild, 15 years old, same age as my daughter, can't imagine it was his daughter...
Meet his daughter. It's not so hard to imagine. Hear the stories the nephew tells, even with his gift of gross exaggeration, you'll realize he's not making it up when you meet them...and the grandchildren? A generation of freeloaders, thieves, whores even more perfected...
Meanwhile, the nephew's telling stories of how his 15 year old cousin has taken to waiting for him in his bedroom...and how a new generation of welfare, thieves and whores will shortly be conceived....
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The text message inviting us out would have been a clue that this wasn't going to be the best organized event...and as it went on it became quite possibly the worse night out ever. And there's a lot of competition, let me tell you...
We start downtown, patio, after work, they've already had a few drinks. It's just F**** and G***, friends of G***, but they're already hammered. His old server friends are still working, promise to catch up with us after...
We move across the street, the Nephew joins us, they begin doing shots. Lots of shots, too many shots. It's a stupid-man-thing, this get uncontrollably drunk, but they feel entitled, none of them are going to be driving...
When you're sober and everyone around you is beyond hammered it's a pretty boring night out. I drove, my excuse not to drink, I could have walked but I didn't want to partake in this...wisely...
G***'s got a taste, he's looking for treats, wants me to order him some, I don't have the number, he brings it up again and again...
We move on to the Gay Bar, G***'s idea, thinks he can hook-up some shit there. No luck, they're getting ridiculously hammered, and now he's giving offense to everyone he meets, trying to pick a fight, the other G***, the nephew, F*****, keep intervening, and so he throws punches at us, hard punches, he's sorely trying the friendship, without a doubt the worst drunk I've seen in my life, and in a straight bar you could let him get away and find some justice, but here...
You don't want to be the asshole on his stag that connects or retaliates, you simply endure it, and the night grows long with enduring...
...outside, he's trying to pick fights with everyone, us included, the group can't keep together, always someone is going back to apologize for G***, break something up, a couple of Mexican homosexuals stop and throw bottles at him, he wants to go, wants to fight them, F***** intervenes, 5' tall F*****, gets punched, his glasses broken, there's only so much I can take, this is more than I should have to, anyone should have to...I give up, still sober, go home, abandon them all strung out on the street, the next day G*** is texting his apologies, he's the worst drunk in the world and that was the worst stag ever...
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A productive day. Daughter to camp, AMA, Maps and Health Insurance, Bank, deposit cheques, write up a years worth of child support, various other things...
Then Lunch with A*****. His last night, Saturday, he's on vacation with the rest of us, going back to Italy, but he's decided not to return. I don't blame him. Life here, in this restaurant, it's fucking shit. He misses his daughter, his common-law, well, there are problems there, but whatever battles he faces there are easier than the restaurant here. He's done.
So is the restaurant. Lunch, a cheap ethnic buffet, we talk about it, how tired it is, the faded and worn linen, dirty, old, it's over, it's time. The owner, the customers, the freeloaders and moochers, it was, still is, an institution, but it should be done. Over. Now. He's free, I still have a month left, and the impending vacation with the daughter, the trip (just passed) to Saskatchewan, they're all threatening my finances...
We talk, of his past few days, the going away parties, the people he saw, people he missed....he didn't miss much. In the two years he worked here he left the city maybe 3 or 4 times, always, only with me, to Waterton one weekend, Banff another, Prospecting, Drumheller another. His life, otherwise, was work, the classic immigrant-on-immigrant slavery, the Conservative sanctioned and thinly veiled "TFW" program, the 12 and 15 hour work days, 5 and 6 days a week...
The restaurant, we've been besieged as of late with Corporate Realtors, Accountants, he's making plans, we don't know what they are but we can guess, the Nephew, supposedly the "Inside Scoop", he isn't privy, he provides us with contradictory guesses as to what it's all about twice a day...
I'm envious of him. I don't want to go back, at all, ever, we've been through a lot, me and him, we and the nephew, he's been a sport, born all our innuendo and insults, dark gallows humor, he's been a good worker, a proper colleague, co-worker, another stand-up guy in the trenches, these are rare, and we talk about his job offers, opportunities back home, they are not so good, restaurants there are run much the same as restaurants here, shit pay, long hours...but there, there's no tipping, no compensation, it's worse, if it can be imagined...
Awkward, these goodbyes, he still has to pack, get to the airport, me, to pick up my daughter from camp...
But it's time, and he comes round the jeep to give me a hug, he's crying, and I feel it, feel every fucking inch of shit this country dumped on him, there's no reason for it, fucking hell, and a slight epiphany, selfish motives perhaps, mediocre financial gain, but I'm in the same boat, and why is it so fine that the restaurant so shit on me, and I double my resolve to leave...
...he's crying, leaves quickly, I promise to visit him, but time and paths weave and I think we both know better...
In a sporting good humor, good-naturedly wearing the boots, belts, cowboy shirt I picked up for him, he'd never been hit on by so many men in his life...