As soon as I get the glass, I look for lipstick. If there are traces of waxed prints on the rim I will leave. Lemons in glasses of water seem nice but are suspect. Let me taste for myself how clean a place is. There is no lemon and no ice. The scuffed, red plastic tumbler is still wet and slightly warm from the washer. It smells faintly of bleach. I don’t care if the water is cold; I’m not going to drink it. The man who has left the glass is tall and lumbering, and his midsection rounds through a white dress shirt over the top of black khakis. The ill fitting pants are pleated and taper down just short of his ankles revealing socks that do not match: one is navy and the other black. I sip at the water. Tap. Cool. Clean enough. I find something on the menu that is well cooked. Black khaki Brad comes back.
“Do you want garlic bread with that. Anything else to drink sir. Salad. Italian, Ranch, Blue Cheese, Raspberry Vinaigrette. Yes, we do. Balsamic. Thank you.”
There is no inflection in his voice. I know his name is Brad because occasionally a woman’s vapid call summons him to the kitchen. Nail-bitten fingers work the ballpoint across his ticket book. He takes my menu. There is no one else seated in what they call Kelly’s Bistro, but occasionally someone will rush in to pick up a pizza or a sandwich. It’s early. Not even five yet. If I don’t eat before six I can’t get to sleep before nine. I hear Brad fumbling around with dishes in the back. He slides a small serving plate across a counter, opens a fridge. Goes through the bland process of tossing lettuce and tomato with balsamic. I try to imagine what he does at the end of his shift. After tallying his tickets, tipping out the cook, wiping down the coffeemaker, and punching out, he walks home. Smokes one cigarette. He wishes he were meeting up with some gang at the bar. But there is no gang for Brad. His cramped apartment warrants escape.
There are probably fluorescent tubes flickering to life above the well-worn, brown shag carpet where Brad hangs his coat in the narrow closet. Piles of grayed sneakers, a few mateless mittens and plastic bags clutter the floor below the tangle of wire hangers and scarves. With the toe of one shoe tugging at the heel of the other, Brad secures a hangnail between his teeth and rips it off. He takes his reddened pointer to the sink and rinses the minor wound cooling the sting in the stream of the faucet.
“Would you like fresh ground pepper.”
Brad’s thumb trespasses annoyingly close to the lettuce before releasing my salad onto the vinyl tablecloth. He turns to retrieve the mill and I hear a repulsive lick—the extra balsamic. He dries the licked thumb on the pocket of the short black apron that snuggly wraps his waist below the paunch. He can’t actually prefer the vinegar to something such as Ranch. When he shops it must be at his convenience. Not a box store kind of convenience, more the corner store. Cheezits and Dr. Pepper. When he does venture the grocer’s market, his shuffling against the cart blocks aisles and aggravates other customers. The wheeled basket is always diagonally parked as if he has had to veer in toward the products and make a protected space for his selection of Chef Boyardee. A young mother with a car seat in her cart has to leave her infant to drag his mess out of the way. He doesn't notice and feels irritated when he returns to find his cart cramping him up against the shelves of canned goods. I’ve had to push past this ignorance many times.
I am crunching through my romaine and tomato slices (avoiding the ones at the edge where his thumb was) when I hear the brand ringtone of a Nokia. Most likely his mother or the video store with news of an overdue DVD. Jurassic Park or some such bullshit. Brad sounds surprised. There are expletives. He takes the call further into the recesses of the kitchen. Maybe he missed an opportunity for a career change. Who would be fulfilled in schlepping plates of mediocre foodstuffs around all day? A sharp but muffled kind of bark comes out of the kitchen. The cook and Brad exchange staccato sounds but I can’t make out the conversation. Is he quitting? Brad rushes from the kitchen with a steaming dish of pasta. His gait is suddenly made furious by a leaning of his head into a top heavy, compressed stomp. The black khakis produce a quickly swishing sound of friction. He lets the plate down at a hurried angle that shifts the pile of sauce and lasagne nearly into my lap. Then, remembering his place, Brad struggles to compose the insipid waiter look he is used to, but his sensibilities won’t obey. A terrifying milky sadness lines the edge of his lower lids, his right cheek trembles just beyond the corner of his mouth. Our eyes meet and he feels the weight of my knowing. He pulls at the ticket book from his apron, but it is stuck in the folds. When he finally wrenches it free, he takes my ticket and slaps it next to the plate. Looks at it. Picks it up, flips it over.
“Will there be anything else.”
No comments:
Post a Comment