“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.