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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2021
We get them.
He's a regular, sort of a "Yosemite Sam" type character, wealthy, long uncombed grey hair, he's got his own private room in the back of the restaurant where he always eats. We set it up for him every day.
But some days he doesn't have a reservation and comes in to find it full.
It throws him in a rage. The thought that other people have his room, that he has to eat in the main dining room with the rest of the patrons, it's unheard of. He's curt with the staff, demanding, dismissive, not his usual patronizing self, we've given away his room, there's no placating him, the owner, he buys him drinks, pays for his dinner, and still that's not enough, he leaves without tipping or saying goodbye.
He's petulant, with occasional flashes of small mindedness.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2310
"She's not a slut you know..." he tells me, and I hadn't suggested that she was but he's been finding himself in this position of defending her more and more lately.
They're new best friends, the beautician and him, he takes her drinking every night, she crashes at his place, he's paying of course because she's broke and pretty and I know he very badly wants more than her friendship, and I try to picture the awkward scenes where she rejects his clumsy advances and crude propositions, delicately so as not to interrupt the free flow of liquor and grass, she's increasingly in his debt, and knows it, and it would be a simple enough thing to even matters out...
She's not so popular. At first she was, attractive and pleasant enough, but she's hungry for money, she's been for a couple of beautician try-outs, but they haven't worked out, and her ambition to move into the front and usurp the other waiters/hostesses position with him as her spokesperson, it's not making her any friends.
"She's not a slut you know..." and it may, may not be true, I don't know, don't care, he's gotten awfully touchy about things we used to be able to laugh about. I ask him what he's up to after work and he's quick to say "Nothing" and when invited out for a drink decides quickly, too quickly, that he's tired and going home.
After she's gone home he's caught surreptitiously texting in hidden and private rooms in the restaurant, hastily flipping shut his phone when you draw near.
"We're just friends.." and I believe him, not the intent but his complete lack of smoothness, finesse, his desperation and stupidity will keep them friends, late night threesomes with Jack Daniels until she passes out on the sofa and his fumbled gropings go ignored in service of the debt.
Every morning a fresh hangover, he's tired, wants to sleep....
I'm curious, given his skills and approach how many women have found they weren't sluts, thought they were and though reputation confirmed it circumstances proved otherwise, how many survived the power assault of drinking and smoking and still found they had hidden reserves of integrity and morals, I'd ask but he's a poor witness.
He's doomed and you want to tell him, "heed the friendly warning", but he's become far too sensitive and so we walk round it in conversation, there's the World Cup and what we did (and didn't) do this weekend, there's how many days to vacation?
And there's her walking into the dining room to bum a cigarette and ensure we're not talking about her....
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2101
He's stopped taking his medications. It's obvious, but he thought he'd tell me anyways.
They were bringing him down, he couldn't move, couldn't work, now he feels better, full of life...
He's right. On his meds he was a Zombie, nothing to say, impossible to talk to, reminding you very much of Jack Nicholson in "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest" after they'd "fixed" him, the medications he was taking were some sort of Chemical Lobotomy and you wondered if the cure wasn't worse than the disease. But he's feeling better now, and it's only a matter of time.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1947
Big Talker, he's got a business meeting today and I see him walking confusedly up and down the other side of the street before finally coming to wait at the bus stop with me.
He's carrying a briefcase, which is how I know he's on his way to an important business meeting.
He's dressed for it too, ankle-length leather coat such as Neo might have worn in "The Matrix", only his is kind of crinkly, the cardboard leather you get at discount leather stores, underneath you can see black sneakers, black blue jeans.
There will be big deals done today.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2079
She started last week, the new dishwasher, older, 40, but blonde, pretty, perfectly fit body and surgically enlarged breasts. It's a question they ask new employees, even dishwashers, and word leaks out to the rest of the staff...
"She has fake-a boobs, look at this, feel them...."
She's pleasant enough, friendly, a friend got her a job here while she waits until something comes up in her field. She's a beautician.
Now you know she's not going to last, no one in the kitchen ever does, and the added pressures of being harangued by a bunch of groping males will probably hurry her on her path to getting her career back on track.
But jobs are scarce and she keeps coming into work, she's broke and needs the money. After work, G., the other waiter, single, shorter than her, takes her for drinks. She can't pay, she's too broke, but he doesn't mind.
Now she's way out of his league. Pleasant, very attractive, but dumber than a sack of hammers, and even as such she's still out of his league, but he's trying.
We tease him mercilessly, and at first he enjoys it, but as they continue to go out, as he continues to pay and as she continually discovers new hidden reserves of untapped virtue he starts to get cranky.
The old ladies in the kitchen, they've noticed his new infatuation and mimic him following her around, ply him with questions, he gets defensive and irate. He's not getting anywhere, she's just a friend, and this friendship thing is winding him up.
Tonight she started as a hostess. And it's a curious night indeed, as the old (last weeks) girlfriend will be working with them as well, and while she's said a hundred times she doesn't want date G., to go out with G., somehow or another she's come to rely on his asking. And the new girl, the new dishwasher, she's delighted at the chance to go home and dress in a revealing outfit, high heels, get out of the dishpit, who wouldn't be?
The old hostess is assigned to the floor with Franco.
****
G's very helpful. And his ex professes her happiness for him, and I suggest they all go on a double date, her with her imaginary facebook boyfriend and G with his new hopeful, but no one finds me very funny.
****
I sing to G's ex to console her: "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone..."
****
The old hostess hates her. Absolutely, with a passion, and doesn't give her the time of day. Previously she had been the sole object of sexual harassment, and while she complained about it incessantly the threat of losing her position is proving too much for her.
****
Sometime during the night the tip basket disappears. The hostess keeps it up by the coat check, it's her little bonus, in addition to what the waiters give her, and it's gone missing. G blames the old hostess, everyone else says the new hostess ditched it in hopes we'd up her tip out extra. She needs the money, after all. I've seen nothing, have no thoughts or opinions on the matter. G's mad as hell.
****
At the end of the night there's the cash out. It's only G, Franco, G's ex and me, the rest have gone home. There are words about the new hostess, they quickly escalate to shouting, G's ex gets in on the action, G suspects old hostess of stealing tip basket, G's ex is appalled at G's blind loyalty to a "New fucking piece of ass" and pretty soon everyone's screaming at the top of their lungs. G's ex isn't so happy either. There's no peace made, only a momentary truce while the money is thrown and divided, the new hostess gets half a cut, G's ex is angry she even got that much, "She did fucking nothing and she's getting how much!!" and the screaming match begins again, G defending her, Franco and his sister on the attack.
****
It's not a happy restaurant.
She's the fly in the ointment. It's not her fault that she's pretty, it probably is that she's stupid, and it's certainly her fault that she's been so misleading G. And no matter how you slice it there will be no happy endings.
But, then, here there never are.