"Well, well, if it isn't a welcome sight for my sore, little, old eyes. What do you have there?" she said, opening the door wider and motioning for us to come in. "And who is this pretty, young thing?"
"Hi Sarah!" I said, leaning over so she could kiss my cheek. "This is Laura Ann. She works with us at Pasta Warehouse." After kissing my cheek then motioning to do the same for Alfonso, she opened her arms wide and embraced Laura Ann, hugging her tightly.
"A friend of these boys' is a friend of mine," Sarah said, placing her hand on Sarah's cheek. "My, you are a pretty girl."
"Thanks!" Laura Ann said, blushing. "That's very sweet of you to say. We brought you some food."
"I see that. Come, please, to the kitchen." We followed little old Sarah into the kitchen and we placed some trays on the counter, some in the oven. Alfonso turned it on then bolted out of the kitchen back to my Civic for more. I followed him, leaving Laura Ann there for Sarah to fawn over.
Outside, Alfonso was leaning on my car, smoking a cigarette, looking proud. I stood next to him, bumming a smoke. He lit one and handed it to me, then said, "Fuck Levonne!"
"Yeah, fuck Levonne. What a jerk."
"He's Dan's little bitch."
"Those two are prolly jerking each other off right now."
"Or giving the good ol' reach-around!" We both got a good laugh out of that one. Alfonso nudged me with his elbow and motioned for us to continue. "Come on, let's take in the rest."
"Yeah."
We each picked up three trays and waddled to the front door. Before stepping inside, I spit my cigarette on the ground and crushed it with my foot. Alfonso, lazy and carefree, spit his cigarette into some bushes to the side of the front porch.
"Hey, man! Be nice," I said, entering the house carefully.
"What did I do?" he said, following me inside, pleading mock innocence.
"The last thing we need is for your dumb ass to burn the house down."
"The house isn't going to burn down," he said, sarcastically. He pronounced that with such sass that I could practically hear his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
Back in the kitchen, Sarah marveled at her unexpected fortune. She seemed genuinely surprised and a little flustered at the sheer amount of food being delivered to her kitchen. Alfonso and I moved things around in her freezer and refrigerator to make room for the extra trays that we obviously couldn't eat at that moment for lunch. It was kind of difficult to do; her refrigerator was already pretty full. One thing was for certain--despite our charitable donation, Sarah wasn't in need of anything. Laura Ann was sitting at the table with Arthur, who magically appeared while we were out front unloading the car. He was fawning over her beauty too, something that Laura Ann didn't seem to mind at all--a serene smile perched on her face like I had never seen before.
Sarah patted me and Alfonso on our backs, as if others doing things in her kitchen made her uncomfortable, and she said, "Please, please have a seat. Relax. Pour yourself a drink."
Alfonso and I agreed and sat down. The familiar setup of a bottle of rum and small glasses sat configured in an inviting pattern in the middle of the table, the glasses sparkling in the sunlight like a constellation of stars. The only thing absent this time was the ashtray and the one-hitter. Nonetheless, Arthur had already poured himself and Laura Ann each a glass of rum as he gently grilled her about where she was from, how she found herself in Austin, what she was doing working at a shitty place like Pasta Warehouse when she could be a fashion model, and so on and so forth. When we interrupted his interrogation by extending our hands for a shake, it was like he snapped out of a trance. He was mesmerized by Laura Ann and I understood why. She was a knock-out.
"How are you, boys?" Arthur said, crushing our hands with his wrinkly yet meaty hand. We both said we were fine besides the crushed hands. "Did you two kidnap this beautiful, young lady? Surely, she didn't tag along with you two knuckleheads of her own free will."
"Arthur!" Sarah said, snapping at him. "Be nice to our guests." She poured us some rum while patting our shoulders, as if to soothe our souls.
"But I am being nice," he said, then winking at Laura Ann. She giggled.
Sarah took a seat with the rest of us then pulled a sixth chair up to the table, then said, "I'm so glad you stopped by. I hope you don't mind but Arthur and I were expecting another neighbor to visit with us. His name is Gene and he lives on the other side of my house."
"But I have the nicer lawn," Arthur said, winking at Laura Ann again. He was really laying it on thick now, as if there wasn't a 50 or 60 some-odd year age difference between he and Laura Ann. But for whatever reason, Laura Ann didn't seem too bothered by it.
"All of you have nice yards," Alfonso said, being diplomatic.
"Bullshit! Mine is much nicer. I pay good money to those Beaners to make my lawn look that nice. I should enter it into a competition, it's that nice."
"Anyway," Sarah said, dismissing Arthur's insistent tone. "Gene is an interesting fellow. He's a retired chiropractor originally from Dallas. He had a practice in downtown Dallas for 30 years. He was an acquaintance to Lee Harvey Oswald, if you can believe that, of all the people in the world. He has some crazy stories to tell."
"You mean, he's just crazy!" Arthur said, laughing.
"Oh, hush, you old fart. Sorry I keep getting rudely interrupted." She gave a look to Arthur that would have melted steel. He quickly stopped laughing. Sarah then smiled and said, "What's the special occasion? Why all the food?"
Me and Laura Ann and Alfonso looked at each other for a cue of some kind but Alfonso ran with it and said, "We just wanted to do something nice for you. We just wanted to make you feel special."
"I agree," I said. Laura Ann nodded too. "And to be honest, it's been nice getting to know you. None of us have family in town. I think I speak for me and Alfonso when I say that you're kind of like our new family now."
"Yup," said Alfonso, crossing his arms and easing into his chair, as if we were going to stay for a while.
"Well, how thoughtful," Sarah said, obviously taken by what we had to say. She seemed genuinely pleased and touched. "And you too, sweetheart," she said, touching Laura Ann's arm. "That was thoughtful of all of you. As soon as Gene gets here, then we can all have a nice meal together and--" The doorbell suddenly sang a reggae tune. "And that must be him now."
Sarah got up to answer the door and while she was gone, Alfonso filled all of our glasses with rum and setup a new one for Gene, someone I was sure was just as interesting and charismatic and friendly as Sarah and Arthur and who, I imagined, had some very interesting stories to tell. Arthur didn't seem to think so. His enthusiasm for Gene's arrival was less than Sarah's, his disappointment hung on his face like a kid staring at an elementary school lunch tray, hungry in the gut but not excited to eat the lukewarm green beans from a can. He was dubious about Gene's stories and he didn't hesitate to admit it while Sarah was out of the kitchen.
"Gene is full of shit!" he said, punctuated with a mighty harrumph. "He didn't know Lee Harvey Oswald. That's just horse shit." Alfonso, Laura Ann, and I looked at each other but didn't know how to respond. As old as Arthur was, his stocky build and burly hands still looked like they could pulverize boulders. He had an intimidating presence, even for an old dude. Who were we to disagree with him? We didn't say a goddamn thing.
Even though Sarah was only gone for a few minutes, I was beginning to miss her already. I could hear her voice from the front of the house, cheery and breezy, then I heard footsteps coming toward the kitchen. A lighter pair of steps--obviously hers--and a heavier pair, ones I assumed were Gene's. When she got to the entrance to the kitchen, she had a despondent look on her face like she had just heard something grim and unexpected. I wasn't quite sure what to think.
"Well, we have a visitor everyone," she said, looking back then stepping aside. "I think you three may already know him."
A man I knew appeared next to sweet, old Sarah, his hulking frame no different than the last
time I saw him at the P.W., his short-sleeved, button-down shirt partly untucked at his hip, his dirty khaki slacks slung low under his protruding gut, ink stains on his pants and on the pocket of his shirt: Dan the G.M. Sometimes, just sometimes, things in life are revealed to you in such ways that are either beautifully poetic or strangely perverse or plainly banal or whatever. This instance was none of those; it was a curve ball. It was a sucker punch. It was--thinking back now--a life changer. It was a new sign post in the history of me. After that, my life as I knew it was over.
SALUD!
***
Dan the G.M. took a seat where Gene was expected to sit upon his arrival. Sarah kindly offered him a drink of rum but, of course, he turned it down. What else would a tight-ass, corporate lackey who obviously hadn't been laid in a very long time do but refuse a cordial beverage from a kind stranger? Sarah sat down at the table looking pensive and uncomfortable and not herself. Arthur looked thoroughly confused and expressed it appropriately.
"Who the hell is this numb nuts?" he said, then taking a swig from his glass.
"My name is Dan Smith and I'm the General Manager at the Pasta Warehouse downtown."
"The Pasta Warehouse? Sarah?" Arthur said, looking at her. "Don't we eat food from there?"
"Yes, Arthur," she said. "We order food from there quite a bit."
"Are they the ones with the tasty bread?"
"Yes."
"Is this guy bringing us more bread?"
"No, I don't think so. Why don't we let him tell us why he's here?"
"Thank you, ma'am," Dan said, a smug smile on his goddamn smug face. It was rather strange to see him there in Sarah's house but I knew why he was there. I just didn't know how he found out we were there. "I'd be glad to tell you why I'm here. These three, young people work for me or, rather, they used to work for me. I came here to tell them they are no longer wanted as employees at Pasta Warehouse. I brought them their final paychecks and I wanted to tell them--in person--to never set foot in my restaurant ever again."
He reached around to his back pocket and pulled out three crumpled envelopes and tossed them on the table. I assumed they were our paychecks--me, Alfonso, and Laura Ann's checks--and like a deck of cards tossed in the air, an assorted array of information related to upcoming bills and rent and groceries and gas and stuff fell through my mind. I immediately knew that the amount of that last paycheck sitting there on the table wasn't going to last very long. He also unceremoniously set a restaurant check presenter on the table, a black padded one made of shiny black vinyl with the words "Thank You" embossed on the front in gold, fancy, script lettering--just like the ones we presented to the customers of the P.W. A bill protruded from the top of it.
"I'm leaving this bill with you for the food you have stolen from my restaurant. I hope you enjoyed the tasty cuisine that my kitchen staff prepared over the last few weeks. I take cash, checks, credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and--for one time only--paychecks."
"Stolen food?" Sarah said, gasping. "Why, I don't know what you mean. I've paid for every order I have ever placed with your restaurant."
"That is true, ma'am, except for the one in your kitchen right now, the one I can smell warming up in your oven and the rest--I'm assuming--is in your refrigerator or freezer. These thieves took quite a bit of food from my restaurant. You couldn't possibly eat it all in one sitting."
An awkward silence settled in the kitchen, one that was stupefying and uncomfortable, and it was intermingled with the delicious smell of some type of Italian tomato-sauce dish warming in the oven. It was a strange environment for the truth, two worlds colliding, our low-paying place of employment and Sarah's comfortable place of retirement. Dan sat there with a sadistic smile on his face, knowing full-well that he caught us red-handed, probably with the information Levonne told him as well as my inability to follow directions and fill out the paperwork while supposedly dumping the food in the dumpster. Or the fact--something that was only clear to me at that moment--that the restaurant had security cameras everywhere but, like a dumb ass, conveniently forgot about while I was loading my car with trays of food. I was such an idiot and I knew I was an idiot. The three of us young servers sat in our chairs, deflated of our self-esteem, knowing also that Sarah reserved the right to judge us by what our former boss was telling her. But, for whatever reason (and I'm still not clear to this day why), she was not going to follow the script he was following or play the game he was playing. She just didn't give a shit.
"Well, sir. Dan, is it?" she said, standing up. She placed a hand on his shoulder. He nodded. "Whatever fanciful world you are living in, that is not the reality here. There is no stolen food here, only leftovers from orders I have gladly paid for in recent memory."
Dan shifted in his seat as if ready to jump up and confront her. "I'd like to look in your refridge--" he said before Arthur abruptly landed one of his meaty hands on Dan's shoulder and pressed him back down in his seat. Dan looked like he pissed his pants.
"You do not have permission to look in my refrigerator or to look anywhere else in my house. From this moment forward, you are not welcome here. If you have a warrant from the police, then by all means, look around. Otherwise, I'd like for you to leave this instant and never come back. I will be looking for another Italian restaurant to patron."
"But--" Dan said abruptly then Arthur grabbed him by the shirt collar and the waist of his pants. With the swiftness of a professional football player, Arthur pulled him from his seat and pushed him out of the kitchen, through the parlor, and roughly pushed him out of the front door. It happened so fast I couldn't believe my eyes. Alfonso and I jumped up after him and stood behind him in the front door, looking out on the front yard, Dan laying face-down in the lawn.
"Have a nice day, numb nuts!" Arthur said, wiping imaginary dust from his hands then straightening his shirt. A few strands of silver hair popped out of his meticulous haircut, waving in the air like seaweed bending in an undercurrent. He wasn't breaking a sweat.
"Dude," Alfonso said. "You're awesome!"
"I still got it," Arthur said, proud.
"Shit, I wouldn't mess with you," I said.
"You better not." Arthur winked at me then headed back to the kitchen.
I took a peek through some curtains at a window next to the door. Dan the G.M. limped back to his car. I could see someone sitting in the car waiting for him, a black dude, Levonne I suspected. I couldn't tell for sure but I was certain it was him. Alfonso looked out the window too and confirmed my suspicion.
"If Levonne had come in too, this place would have been a cluster fuck."
"Yeah," I said, closing the curtain.
We went back to the kitchen and sat back down at the table. Laura Ann was still there though noticeably upset. Arthur and Sarah were there too. Sarah had a concerned look on her face, as if she knew exactly what the three of us would have to endure in the coming weeks or months. Little did I know that I would never see Sarah or Arthur again after that day. If you would have told me that at that very moment, I would not have believed it. I liked her very much and in a weird way, thought of her in a matronly, grandmother way. She didn't have to stick up for us at all but she did, like something a mother or grandmother would do. It was very sweet. She poured each of us a drink.
"Well, I'm not sure what really happened here just now but I certainly have built up quite an appetite. Who's hungry?"
We all acknowledged that, yes, we were all very hungry. Alfonso made a toast about friends and we ate a very nice lunch together.
SALUD!
After we were finished, Alfonso, Laura Ann, and me said our goodbyes. We hugged Sarah and carefully shook Arthur's hand, who was still beaming. When Alfonso and Laura Ann headed out of the kitchen for my car, I lingered back. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. I opened it and shuffled some things around--a condom, some scraps of paper with phone numbers on them, business cards, and family photos--eventually pulling out a shriveled and ratt
y $100 bill. I looked at the bill for a second--knowing full-well that I sure could use $100 in my immediate future--then I unceremoniously handed it to Arthur.
"What's this for?" he said, surprised, taking the bill.
"I don't know," I said. "For helping us, I guess."
Sarah smiled at me then I waved goodbye and left.
The Cicada and Ruminations about Childhood Dreams
Absolutely everything Alfonso owned fit into one duffle bag and one trash bag. Everything. I walked him out to his car and watched him throw the bags into his trunk. That morning, he had cashed his last paycheck and used the money to have his tires rotated and aired up, got an oil change for $19.99 with a coupon I had been saving from my junk mail, and filled his car with gas. His Accord was still a piece of shit but it was in good enough shape to get him to his mother's house in Rosenberg, Texas--about a three hour drive away, outside of Houston. He didn't want to go to his mother's house but he didn't have a choice. He had no money, no prospects for making money in the immediate future, and he wasn't any help to me. He had decided on a whim to drive back home and start over. I was sad to see him go. He was like a brother to me: my big, Mexican brother.
"Call me when you get there," I said, extending my fist. He tapped it with his fist.
"Mos def," he said. "It was fun. Thanks for letting me stay at your pad."
"No problem."
"Sorry I can't help you with the rent."
"Don't worry about it."
"What are you going to do?" he said, twirling his car keys around his index finger.
"Look for a job I guess. I'm not going to my parents' house in San Antonio. My home is here in Austin."
"I bet you could get a job at that Greek place you used to work at if you went home."
"Nah. I don't know if I want to work in another restaurant."
"Oh yeah?" he said, curious. "Where are you going to work then? At a fancy corporation? Be a big wig? CEO?"
"Maybe," I said, a smirk on my face.
We both laughed.
"Later," he said. He sat in his junky Accord--covered in bird shit and dried leaves and pollen and tar--and started the engine. The car farted black smoke and water droplets out the tail pipe. He slammed the door closed, rolled down the window, cranked his stereo--the squeal and boom-bap of Ice Cube introducing NWA on Straight Outta Compton crackling the stereo speakers--and he tore off. His car rattled and creaked down the incline to the parking lot exit. He squealed the tires as he drove away on his desperate trip back to where he grew up, his arm extending out the driver-side window, waving goodbye.
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