George Pelecanos (32 page)

"Oh yeah?
You've been here since 10?
Guess what? I'll be here until we lock the doors at 10 p.m. tonight, and then
for another hour closing up. So please don't tell me what I'm going to
appreciate. What I'll appreciate is if the waitresses wait on the tables and
the cooks do the cooking." He turned and eyeballed Gibson. "You're a mess, too.
Put on a clean apron. And from now on, shave before you come to work." He momentarily
turned back to his paperwork, then looked up at Gibson as he stood there,
seething.
"Something else?"

"Yeah.
Actually, there is. How come that
little shit down there is making two bucks more an hour than I am?"

Barry
inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowing. "Why is it your business what anyone else
is making?"

"Because I'm supposed to be the head lunch cook.
I've been here for a year now and I've never missed a shift. That kid
is just here for his summer break."

"That
kid works half as many hours as you and is saving for college."

"By drinking Budweisers at 2 in the afternoon at my bar?"

"Gibson,
it's my bar, and unless you're ready to punch out for good, you better get your
ass behind it right now."

Gibson
shook his head in disbelief. "You know that's not right, Barry."

Barry
sat back down at his desk and again leaned over his imaginary paperwork. "The
only thing I know is that you better leave my office now, Gibson."

Gibson
didn't close the door behind him as he left the room. Downstairs, McManus was
gone, and three singles were under his empty longneck--just enough to cover the
staff price of his two beers.

Everything
went fine for the first half hour or so. Three parties filtered through and
Gibson made an extra eleven bucks. He sipped his coffee, felt a tingle across
his forehead from the caffeine, and thought about his plight. He took out of
his back pocket the folded up piece of paper he'd carried for five months, with
the scrawled figures that traced his pursuit of the elusive down payment.

Just
then a party of four banged through the front door.
Two
lantern-jawed young men with a blonde and brunette, all in their early twenties
and still in their work clothes.
The guys had loosened their ties. The
girls wore unflattering suits, but Gibson quickly noticed they had opened their
blouses a button or two.

Gibson
had seen the two guys in there before. They dressed like little Congressmen but
he could still smell the frat house on them. He figured they had gotten off
early from their jobs on Capitol Hill, since they were all suited up when the
rest of the young D.C. work force sported the casual Friday look most summer
weekdays. Gibson silently cursed the recent Roll Call article about D.C.'s
cheap watering holes. Most of the Hill rats were harmless enough, but these two
guys were definitely the types who thought they owned the world just because
they worked for self-serving blowhards who qualified as celebrities in D.C.

Because
Gibson was going to be solo for another hour and a half, he waved them to a
table at the back of the room, near the bar. That way, he wouldn't have to run
to the length of the floor and back to fetch their drinks and food. But they
plopped themselves down at the booth that was farthest from him, in the front
of the restaurant, pulling a chair from another table so one of the guys could
spread out at the end of the table.

Gibson
walked over to their table to drop off menus and get their drink order.

"How're
you all doing today?" he asked.

"Bring
us four Sam Adams," said the one of the kids, without even looking at Gibson.
He had what sounded to Gibson like a Massachusetts accent. He was chunky, but
looked comfortable and confident in his suit and tie. Like the other kid, he
was sporting that short hairstyle Gibson was starting to detest, where the hair
was combed forward and sloped up in front.

"And
two orders of onion rings," said his friend, a taller, thinner kid who somehow
managed to look down his nose at Gibson even while sitting at a table. "We'll
order the rest when you get back." No pleases thank yous

I've
seen this act before, thought Gibson. They're going to show off for their girls
by acting like big-timers.
In a god-damn burger joint.

While
he wrote down their order, he noticed the brunette checking out the thick
homemade tattoo on the thumb webbing of his left hand. Gibson wished he could
change lots of things in his life, but this tattoo wasn't one of them. He did
it himself the day before his mom's funeral, with just a broken ink pen and a
needle with thread tightened around the tip. He was proud of its clarity and
proud that he had used his mom's initials--D.G--instead of the much less inspired
MOM

Back
at the bar, he threw two bowlfuls of onion rings into the fryer basket and
slipped it into the hot oil. When he placed their beers in front of them, the
junior Kennedy didn't look up from his story. "...So this stupid constituent
actually thought the Congressman was the one who had replied to his letter." He
smirked.
"As if."

A few
minutes later, Gibson returned with their steaming onion rings. This time, the
kid interrupted his story long enough to say, "Why don't you just bring us
another round now?
And quarters for the jukebox."
He
handed him two singles, and a long afternoon got longer.

They
ordered their food, and while Gibson threw the burgers on the grill and
garnished their plates, two more tables walked through the door--both deuces.
But the kids from the Hill continued to act like Gibson was their personal
servant, keeping him running for rounds of beer, mustard,
napkins
.
Their empties piled up in the middle of the table, but they wouldn't let him
clear the bottles because they wanted everyone to see how many beers they had
pounded. And when he went to take away their plates, they didn't help him out
at all, instead making him go through contortions to get around the bottles to
the dishes.

Gibson
dumped the dishes in the bus pan behind the bar and leaned against the beer
cooler. He clenched his jaw and breathed hard through his nose. I'm a cook, not
a waiter, he thought. In almost every kitchen he had worked in before coming to
the Shelbourne, the cook was the king. As long as the plates went out full and
came back empty, nobody gave a shit if he had an occasional temper tantrum. And
he never had to put up with haughty, demanding customers--only the occasional
bitchy waitress, which was easy enough to squelch by slowing down their orders
until they learned who was boss.

Now,
because he was saving for a down payment, he had to grin and bear insults from
the same sort of dickheads who were driving up prices all through the
neighborhood? Gibson's stomach churned as he went to wait on another table. The
taller kid from the Hill called out "Yo!" to him as he walked by, then held up
his beer and pointed to it. Gibson signaled "one minute" to the new table,
turned around, and went back behind the bar. He pulled out a cold one and
brought it to the guy. Before Gibson could hustle off to wait on the other
table, the brunette said, "I'll have another one, too."

"Okay,"
Gibson said, breathing deeply.
"Anyone else ready?"

They
all ignored him, as Junior, who was making his move on the blonde, launched
into another story.

Gibson
hustled behind the bar and brought the brunette her beer. As he started to move
off to the table that was waiting, Junior looked up from the blonde long enough
to say, "I'll have another beer, too."

Gibson
was just about to lose his temper, when he looked over at the table and saw the
tall kid elbow the brunette. They were both giggling like grade-schoolers. At
first Gibson thought it was only because they were getting a load on. But then
he realized that the guys were busting his balls and keeping him running on
purpose. They thought he was here for their amusement.

He
looked hard at the tall kid and then at the jerks who surrounded him. He knew
that in a just world this was where he told Junior and his buddy what he
thought of them and their idiotic gelled hair, right before he made them bob
for apples in the deep fat fryer. But instead, he clenched his jaw and thought
about how big their check was and how much he needed the tip. Somehow, he
managed to walk away to wait on the other table.

The
rest of the shift was no better. By the time Williamson arrived to relieve him,
Merle Haggard was blasting and Junior and the blonde were dancing awkwardly in
the narrow aisle by the jukebox. No one ever danced at the Shelbourne. Gibson
had to slide around them, loaded with dishes, every time he went to a table. His
shirt was soaked with sweat and stained with ketchup.

Williamson
took one look at him and said, "Rough one, huh?"

"You
don't know the half of it," he replied through clenched teeth.

He
finished up all his parties while Williamson restocked the garnishes behind the
bar. The big party asked Gibson for their check and he brought it to them with
a forced smile. It totalled $104--not much for four people who had been eating
and drinking for a few hours, but a lot for the Shelbourne, where a burger cost
only six bucks. When he got back behind the bar, he watched the guys look long
and hard at the check, trying to focus on it.

The
table bucked up. It took them awhile. He walked over and they handed him the
check and a thick mess of bills. "I'll be right back with your change," he
said.

They
were already getting up from the table. "It's all yours, sport," said the tall
one, who actually slapped him on the back. Gibson thanked them.

He
got back behind the bar to the register and counted it, facing the bills out of
habit. He counted it once, then again, thinking that some bills must have been
stuck togeth
There
was $112 in his hand.
Eight bucks on 104.
Not even ten percent, after what they
put him through.

He
walked fast to the front door, pulling his apron over his head as he went. By
the time he got to the street, they were nowhere in sight. He continued to look
for a few minutes,
then
went back inside the
restaurant and into the kitchen to calm down.

Willie
B., the prep guy, had just started his shift, and was slicing and peeling a bag
full of fat white Georgia onions. A Backyard Band go-go tune blasted from a
flour-covered boom box on the shelf above his stainless steel prep table.
Gibson stormed past him and was about to punch out and head home. But instead he
turned and barreled up the stairs to the office.

Barry
opened the door and looked up at him.
"Everything all right?"

"Yo
man, you gotta do something for me!"

"What
are you talking about?"

"Barry,
you gotta give me more money or start giving me some good night shifts. I need
money and you owe me."

Barry's
eyes narrowed. "How do you figure that?"

"You've
been underpaying me since I've been here. I'm telling you, I need money, man!
They're gonna kick me out of my apartment."

"Now
you listen to me, Gibson. I don't owe you shit. I offered you eight bucks an
hour on good faith and you accepted it. And as for better shifts..." He
hesitated, then took a breath and said, "Listen, Gibson, I don't want to be any
crueler about this than I have to. But you're lucky I even let you behind the
bar on day shifts. You're really not the type of guy I want out in the front of
the house with the kind of customers I'm starting to get at this place."

"What're
you saying?" said Gibson. "You've--"

"Gibson,
just call it a day. Go home and think about whether you want this job--the way
I've set it up. If you come back Monday, I'll know you do. If not...honestly, I
don't give a flying fuck."

Gibson
crossed Thomas Circle and trudged through the neighborhood. A woman with a
broken flower in her tangled hair sat on the wall of Luther Place Memorial
Church, belting out a song that Gibson didn't recognize. He walked past brick
town houses and an apartment building with a sign that read "Starting in the
low-400s!" as if that were something to be excited about. Office workers and
tourists didn't bother with this part of 14th Street, but for Gibson it was
home, and it bothered him that even here a new upscale furniture store was
bumping up against his favorite chicken joint.

He
got home around 6:30, went straight into the bedroom, and threw a wad of bills
on top of his worn dresser. Not counting his hourly, he ended up making
sixty-two dollars, which was more than he thought he'd end up with when he
headed out in the morning. But all he could think about was the platter of shit
sandwiches he was force-fed all day by those fucking Hill punks and that
asshole Barry.

* *
*

He
climbed into a hot shower. His skin tingled,
then
got
used to the burning spray. As the water ran over his head, a rank smell of
burgers and fryer grease filled the shower stall, like he was one of those
freeze-dried meals you eat while camping. He ran the water full blast on his
head for a couple more minutes until the smell disappeared. But the steam
couldn't ease his anger and shame, or the pressure he felt behind his eyes.