Alter Boys

by Chuck Stepanek

  “And where did you park you bike?”

  “Outside. By the front door.”

  Boone Merrill rose immediately.

  “You need to move your bike; right now. Go back the way you came in and move your bike to the back of the building. And then I want you to come in through the back door.”

  Demon obeyed. As he retrieved his bike he experienced a moment of clarity. The Prospector had an image to uphold. The point was reinforced as a couple approached the front door laughing and chatty, then muted as they observed the busboy wannabe fumbling with his bike in the bushes. Demon felt their stares, heard their silence. “Come on, it looks much better inside.” The man quipped. “I should hope so” his debutante partner trilled. They laughed together and left the bike boy in the wake of his dishonor.

  Demon dislodged the bike and then wavered. Should he ride it to the back or walk it? Not wanting to risk another mistake, he walked his bike quickly around the building. There he found two other bikes padlocked to a conduit. He took the cue, secured his bike and re-entered the restaurant via the back door.

  “Well this all looks in order.” Mr. Merrill had dispensed with the sunshine bubbles charade and was now in business mode. It hadn’t taken long for Demon to complete the application, and even less time for the manager to review it.

  “If you’d like to come in Saturday, between the lunch and dinner rush, say around three o’clock, I can have one of the Supervisors show you the ropes.”

  That was it? He got the job?

  “Dress just like you did today. I guess Mr. Hemmingburg already told you that. But if you’re going to ride your bike I need you to do two things for me. One, always park it in the back, and two, clean yourself up a bit in the bathroom before you go out on the floor. You came in here today all sweaty like you had ridden a mile (it was actually closer to two) so wash your face and comb your hair. And, be sure to check your clothes. Take a look at your pant cuffs.”

  Demon did. They were dusty from gravel roads and were decorated with scraps of foliage that he had collected while wrangling his bike in and out of the bushes. Involuntarily he reached down and started swatting at his cuffs.

  “Not in here!” It came out just an octave below an admonishment, but several above a gentle request.

  Demon froze, and Mr. Merrill softened considerably as he took in the kid’s expression. It was the look of a kid that just wants to please. Either that or is stupid and hadn’t understand a word that had been said.

  He resorted to repetition. “You’ll park your bike in back, you’ll come in the backdoor. In the bathroom, you’ll wash your face and comb your hair. And you’ll brush off your clothes; in the bathroom. Not the bathrooms that I’m sure you saw when you came in the front.” Demon had not seen them. “Those are for customers only. You’ll use the employee bathroom at the end of the hall near the kitchen. Do you understand?”

  Demon acceded that he understood.

  “Then we’re finished here unless you have any questions.” Boone Merrill had learned long ago to precede the ‘do you have any questions’ section with those powerful words ‘we’re finished.’ He was a busy man and had a staff of four supervisors who could handle the tired ‘when do we get paid’ and ‘do I have to work during prom’ inquiries.

  For this recruitment he had already devoted 20 minutes. The retention, whether 2 years or two days, was now in the hands of the supervisors.

  “No. I will be here Saturday at 3.” Recognizing that he was being dismissed, Demon rose and politely said: “Thank you.”

  The sunshine bubbles (phony as the day is long) reappeared on the managers face. “We’ll, you’re very welcome.” He got to his feet and offered a handshake. He took the boys inexperienced limp-wrist and pumped it long and firm, taking pleasure in the boys two attempts to withdraw prematurely.

  Beaming, he took the opportunity to drive home one last point. “And we have a zero tolerance policy for lateness. You need to be ready for your shift before it starts. Not when it starts, not after.” He released the grip. “See you on Saturday.”

  Mr. Merrill remained standing as his new hire gave leave.

  Christ, busboys. You hire a dozen and end up with maybe five that are marginally competent and only 1 or 2 that might actually be good.

  He played the old game with himself, judging just how good he thought this one would rate. Tough call. The kid was quiet, did that translate into lazy or to the fact that he was hiding something or was he just plain quiet. He dressed the part, but was that a reflection of doing his homework to get the job, or a clever ploy so he and buddy Jon Hemmingburg could chum around and get half as much work done between them?

  Clearly the kid was socially inept. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all. Limp-wristed hand shake, dirty pant cuffs. God forbid that he’s clumsy to boot. Not the kind of employee you want to have servicing the needs of Southern Minnesota’s wine and dine set.

  Tough call indeed. If he comes from wealth it doesn’t matter, he’s got a job as long as he likes. And if he comes from… (Boone Merrill picks up the application)…and if he comes from Valley street! Good Christ!

  He’ll be out of here in two weeks.

  As Manager of the Prospector, Boone Merrill had always prided himself in his judgment of character. And he knew that the socially inept, sweaty, dirty, bike-riding kid from Valley street would last two weeks, one month tops, and then would be history. But Mr. Merrill was wrong. The kid didn’t end up being just good. He was exceptional.

  3

  As it turned out, Demon needn’t have worried about his moms reactions to his new clothes. She never said a word.

  Perhaps she didn’t notice. Clothes went into the washer, clothes came out. Clothes go in, clothes come out. It was just another of her OCD routines. Perhaps she even found comfort in the increase of wash cycle cycles. The boy no longer wore the same clothes each day and there was always a half full basket of laundry just begging to be handled.

  The clothes went just as unnoticed as the new job. Maybe the kid was staying late at school helping with another agnostic play, or maybe there was a late session of story-time where he sat on the floor, casting his heathen eyes on the pink underwear of his high school harlot. It mattered not. There were doors to be locked and unlocked, burners to be checked and rechecked, talismans to be touched in a perpetual loop cycle that kept her feet flying around the kitchen and her mind devoid of everything external.

  Thus, at home, Demon’s presence and his absence continued to go unnoticed. At work though, it was a whole ‘nother matter.

  4

  “Effin’ A De-man, slow down. I don’t mind you doing all of the work but you’re makin’ me look bad.” The Bird chose his words carefully and delivered them quietly despite the semi-seclusion of the busboys station. “You keep up at this pace and they’ll only need one busboy a night – you!”

  Demon heard the words but his mind and eyes were elsewhere. His back was to the Bird, his eyes to the front. To the dining rooms, his charge, his duty.

  He was at his post. A hidden sentry in the shadow of the enclave but with full view of his assigned territory. He scanned the rooms constantly, waiting for the subtle clues that would prompt him to action.

  To say that he had been a quick study in the art of bussing tables would be a vast understatement. He was more than quick, much, much more. His training had been brief. Clear the table, wipe it down, tote the dirty dishes, and re-set the place settings. Do this, and do it fast. In the restaurant biz, vacant dirty tables were costly. Only clean, re-set tables could accommodate the steady stream of patrons with fat wallets and purses filled with plastic.

  He raced like a madman from table to table plucking silverware and soiled coffee cups, depositing them unceremoniously into his plastic tote. Out came the wipe clothe, the table top crumbs and spills franticly erased. He streaked from dining room to dish room, gathered fresh silverware and re-dealt the table settings like a Las Vegas high rollers blackjack dealer
.

  He may have come here to earn money, but soon learned that he had come here to please. And so when instructed to work fast; he blazed.

  All would have been well, but after his first month Demon began to earn a bit of notoriety from the Prospector regulars. In comparison to the deliberate pace of the other yellow shirts that hovered like sleepy bees on a hot summer’s eve, Demon darted through the rooms like a screaming yellow-jacket.

  “There’s that kid I was telling you about.” Dick Schuster, Vice President of Operations for the local 3M plant, lifted his crab fork to trace the path of the flying busboy. “Right over there, behind you. Look, there he goes!” Dick’s wife had her back to the object of her husband’s gesture. She vacillated between honoring his private request and the public indignity of turning her head to gawk. “Too late, you missed him.”

  Dilemma resolved.

  “We see that kid here every Thursday night after golf league, racing around the place. You should have heard Phil Dohmeier, he said that the kid flies around like a demon!”

  A sudden disruption rocked the table. Dee Schuster, darling daughter of Dick and her mother, suddenly choked and gagged on her soda. She had been sipping harmlessly on her drink hoping to avoid being dragged into the conversation about the busboy. Yeah, she knew who he was, no she didn’t want to acknowledge the fact. But when her dad had brayed: ‘he flies around like a demon!’ She was caught totally unprepared. It was part laugh, part gag reflex, and a whole lot of Pepsi foaming into her nasal cavity.

  “Honey, what is it?” A stupid question when you consider she was at the moment incapable of providing a verbal answer. Dee scrambled her napkin from her lap and covered all but her forehead. A series of coughs, and very unladylike (but silent) spits and nasal sprays were delivered into the cloth.

  She laughed, a sign that she was indeed alright, but mostly… ‘He flies around like a demon!’ …mostly because she just couldn’t control it.

  Diners (caring and curious) at adjacent tables realized that the excitement was over and turned back to their meals; commiserating with each other about similar experiences.

  Dee now attended to her eyes where the Pepsi induced tears could not be distinguished from the tears of laughter. She dabbed at the ducts and at the dual streams on her cheeks.

  “I’m…I’m fine.” She laughed, coughed and laughed again. Her mother handed her the stray napkin from the empty fourth spot and this she took gratefully, again covering her whole face and willing herself into some semblance of control.

  Demon! He actually called him demon! Another stifled high pitch laugh/sob combination. The fresh napkin helped muffle the burst.

  “Thank you, really I’m fine. The Pepsi just found the wrong pipe.”

  “We’re just glad you’re okay sweetie. Dick Schuster’s constrained face radiated concern for his daughter, even though he was disgruntled for having his story interrupted. “I’ll have the waitress bring you a new soda.” Dick had introduced the story and by god he wasn’t gonna let his clumsy daughter cheat him out of it. He re-directed. “Or maybe I’ll try to flag down the demon.”

  That did it. Dee Schuster could take no more. “Excuse me” she squeaked. Rising from the table, napkin plastered to her mouth, she paraded out of the dining room smothering chuff’s and snorts. This time her mother did turn her head to follow her daughter’s progress. To have not done so would have conveyed a lack of parental concern—at least to the all important eyes of the other patrons that is.

  In the foyer, away from the probing eyes of those who witnessed her societal faux pas, Dee Schuster let go. She performed that awkward laugh/cry/choke/snort combination of ages old.

  She slowed her pace as she moved past the hostess station toward the restroom. The door was broadly labeled as ‘Show Girls’ in typical Prospector motif, yet parenthetically titled ‘Ladies Room’ to avoid any misunderstanding. The men’s room was similarly branded for the ‘Cowboys.’

  She ducked inside, found the last stall blessedly empty, sat down and had herself a good long laugh/cry session.

  ‘The demon’

  A bray of laughter built in her diaphragm and raced toward her voice box. She stiffened, resisted, and forced the unwelcome outburst back to where it came from.

  Control.

  She could do this. Besides, wasn’t there something good to come out of it? Of course! She now had a great story (vastly embellished in some parts, conveniently overlooked in others) for school. A great demon story for school.

  Control became confidence.

  He flies around like a demon. Even her dad’s drunken buddies knew him as the Demon. This was getting better and better by the minute. She wouldn’t avoid watching him, she would absorb watching him, gathering every bit of buffoonery that she could exploit.

  Dee flushed (without necessity) checked herself in the mirror, and exited the ‘Show Girls’ room. Not quite ready, she found a seat in one of the plush foyer chairs, and took inventory. For now, she was back in control. No coughing, gagging, laughing. But out there, in the dining room, was her passive mother, her loud-mouth father, and, AND the cause of her embarrassment, the Demon.

  That, and one Mr. Boone Merrill.

  5

  He hated it. Absolutely hated it. Of all of his job duties, tending to matters out on ‘the floor’ were the lowest of the low. Boone Merrill was a desk man, had always been a desk man. He thrived on compiling weekly sales reports. He took pride in scheduling just the right amount of staff based upon day-part, season, holidays, even local events that could have a bearing on patronage. He knew when to make a menu change, creating a noontime special on red snapper when the inventory was at risk of being dated.

  Yet as well as he did behind the desk, he knew that it was his performance in front of the desk that provided him with a large portion of his job security.

  His three hostesses were well instructed. If so much as a single plate or glass was dropped ‘out on the floor’, call Mr. Merrill. Within moments, Boone Merrill, the manager himself would be on display, stooping to retrieve shards, observing as the busboy finished the job, and then exchanging pleasantries with the victimized party.

  An unruly liquored up patron in the bar? Call Boone. In a heartbeat the manager would introduce himself and sit down and have a drink with the customer, thanking him for his generous patronage. Then would come the promise of ‘the next time you’re here, the first drink is on the house’ as he leads the drunk unwittingly to the coatroom.

  Complaints over slow service, overcooked food, a water spot on the butter knife? Boone, Boone and Boone.

  The worst ones though were the choking’s. The hostesses couldn’t always tell if a diner was shaking off a winter cold or if they had an under-chewed chunk of prime rib wedged in their windpipe. But Boone didn’t take any chances. Any episode of choking (no matter how insignificant) could have a grave impact on the business.

  ‘I was at the Prospector last night and this lady was eating the prime rib and started coughing and got blue in the face. I ain’t going back to that fancy death trap.’

  It very well could have been a mild asthma episode, completely unrelated to the food or the purveyor. But for anything more serious than a demure cough in a hankie, Boone was savvy enough to involve his presence.

  In seven years he had only had to perform the Heimlich maneuver once. The frantic call from the hostess left no question that this one was serious: “Choking! Lady! Twelve!” He raced to table 12 and found the writhing woman nearly face down on the table. An ashen-faced man was standing behind her, patting her on the back. Around the room, diners gawked, some wanting to help, none knowing what to do, and most hoping that the situation would resolve itself.

  “Let me.” Boone moved himself into the spot gratefully vacated by the pale back-patter. In a manner that was completely the opposite of the futile procedure that had been tried, Mr. Merrill reached around the woman’s midsection and yanked up – hard.

  The force lurched
her halfway out of her chair. Boone capitalized on the momentum and pulled her fully upright. He tugged again and again at her sternum. On the second tug the woman’s face lifted, she opened her mouth and a large chunk of New York strip streak popped out and landed unceremoniously in her tablemates rice pilaf.

  She vacuumed in air with three noisy, rapid and deep inhalations. Boone did not release his grip. He recognized that his hands were in a highly compromising position around the woman’s body. However he knew that she wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. He held her for another minute while her breathing steadied and her quivering abated. Once satisfied, he began to lower her to her chair. Unnecessarily for her; but necessarily for those watching, smoothing her dress and moving his hands to a safer territory in the process.

  There was no applause, no shouts of ‘well done.’ The diners returned to their meals with a little less appetite and a little more diligence in the practice of chewing. Conversation gambits would be hard to come by.