by N. Godwin
“Ah Genie,” I sigh burying my face in my hands.
I look at her through my open fingers. Apollo is sitting directly behind her in my line of vision, lounging back in his chair, listening to every word we’ve shouted or said. He has an odd expression on his face and he changes it quickly when he realizes I’m watching him. He leans back in his chair, sipping his wine, his eyes never leaving my face, and he smiles like the devil.
Hide and Seek
“Gee, tomorrow night, Ali? Its poetry slam night and we’re pretty slam here so we couldn’t spend any time together. No, I don’t think you and Karen would enjoy our angst-driven poetry; the heathens come out of the woodwork then. Friday night? We’ve got a health inspection and a safety inspection, too, and we got two more Halflings today, so—What? My mother said that all by herself, really? That you’d all come for dinner?
“You know, it just occurred to me that we’d have more time together tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure I could pull away, just the three of us. Yes, cross my heart.” Sigh. “See you tomorrow.”
It’s a madhouse here tonight, and these two new Halflings aren’t exactly cooperative. I try once again: “Alright, Robert, if you can’t wait tables I can teach you to bake and--”
“Nah, I didn’t say I couldn’t wait tables,” Robert tells me as he nervously shifts his weight from foot to foot. He pauses long enough to crack another knuckle. “I am a little clumsy, but--”
“Our customers are very patient with that type of thing.”
“Nah, see? It’s just that--” he breaks off to giggle and I stare harder at him trying to steer beyond all the senses Robert assaults.
Tony, the straight man of this duo, joins in Robert’s laughter: “It’s just, he says he ain’t gonna wait on that table, chica,” Tony gestures and laughs. I follow his line of vision over to the hip couple and their Dior-decked baby sitting at table number four smack dab in the center of the restaurant.
“Okay. What’s the problem with that table?”
Both of them laugh again. Robert is milky white and very tall for a fourteen year old, so he hunches over and keeps his arms drawn into his chest. His yellow-brown teeth have an under bite and his ears are large and stick out from the side of his face. Even with those ears as support his glasses can’t seem to stay on the bridge of his nose. If that isn’t enough, he has a complexion that probably even Dr. Ingrid can’t help, but it’s his mental matter that overwhelms. With mouth power, Robert is Mandy’s counterpart, and he talks about the most annoying things. He’s babbled for hours about our oak floor, how if you look close enough you can find all different Looney Tune characters puzzled into the wood, or how our peanut butter sticks to the roof of his mouth more than any other brand. This, he insisted on showing each and every one of us.
Did I mention he giggles like a car with a stuck ignition?
There he goes again. Kind of hits the old spinal cortex and keeps going right on down to your toes. Face it; this is one annoying kid in desperate need of positive attention.
“What’s the problem with table four?” I ask again because I can’t figure it out.
Another burst of laughter follows and they both look at me as though I were the lunatic in this situation. My eyes rest on Tony. He is small bodied and fit with plenty of muscles to keep people at bay, a South American transplant with a cocky attitude. He has five visible tattoos in a land where tattoos are hard earned by the few and the proud, not sixteen year old juvies on the run. You can tell these guys are from Miami or thereabouts because they operate under the pack-mentality, don’t seem to trust anyone, and are lacking basic social graces it takes to navigate the shoreline, any shoreline.
Tony is street smart to the tune of me not believing a word he says. This kid came to us with a loaded semi-automatic handgun. I can read between the lines of his cocky attitude, because we are now being forced to get pretty street wise ourselves; this is one scared little dude.
I wonder what type of thug he has managed to piss off on his trek from South Florida. I sigh, knowing this is one problem we’ll have to monitor closely.
“Go pack your things,” I threaten while I answer the phone. “Demi-Monde. Ali? I don’t care—wear your jeans. No, I don’t own a pair, why? What, my old Bible? How nice of you to notice it at the bottom of my locked cedar chest. You can clean out my closet, too, while you’re at it, take whatever you’d like. Uh huh, and that, too Yeah. Uh huh. Uh huh. Ali, I’m working so goodbye.”
I stare at the ground a moment then tune back into Robert. He is shaking and staring at me earnestly.
“How come I gotta leave? I didn’t do nothing wrong,” he says.
“Anything wrong.”
“So if I didn’t do nothing—“
“Didn’t do anything.”
“That’s what I just said!”
Exasperated, I try again. “You did do something wrong.”
“Make up your mind!”
“Man,” Tony says quickly, “how you gonna kick him out when he ain’t got nowheres to go!”
“He has nowhere to go. Look, if you two want to stay then you have to help work this place. Remember? And your floor shift begins now or you can choose to go clean the kitchen and bus tables if you’d rather. We all tip you out at the end of the night, less money but less stress.
“If you wish to stay the choice is yours. There are however 7 Deadly No-Nos, remember? Hating on people is No-No Number 5. Y’all need to especially take this nugget to heart: we have two very young, very dear, brown people living with us and no one here will tolerate any unkindness towards them, especially for something as silly as their race. The dudes will beat you senseless if you do. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
Robert nods his head and cries softly. “I’ll try, honest I will!”
“Man, don’t let no girl make you a pussy!” Tony exclaims, poking his finger in Robert’s ribs and staring at me through narrow eyes.
“And Tony, that includes making disparaging remarks against girls and women. It’s intellectually stunting for you and mean-spirited towards us, so it just won’t be tolerated. From here on out, each new infraction will cost you five dollars apiece.”
“I don’t understand most of what you just said!” Robert says and hugs his arms into his chest. “But I’d kind of like to know what an infraction is.”
“Bullshit!” Tony challenges me.
“And if you choose to stay here that swear word just cost you five bucks.” I hold out my palm and curl my fingers up at him.
“I’m so confused!” Robert says, trying to follow the conversation.
“I ain’t putting no money in your fuc--”
“No, Tony!” Robert says quickly. “I want to stay.” Tony looks at him angrily and Robert holds his ground. “It’s weird here, I know, but there’s…something else, too, and I like it. Come on, buddy! Can’t we stay, at least for now?”
Tony and Robert stare one another down. Tony is sixteen and already filled with too much anger. “How long can we stay?” Tony likes to know the facts.
“Until you’re eighteen.”
“You mean we can call this place home?” Robert says cracking another knuckle on his long fingers. “I mean home, buddy and alls we gotta do--”
“All we have to do.”
“—is work our shifts, read a few books, then go to school in the fall. That ain’t so bad. And we get all the food we can eat and learn to surf with the dudes in our spare time!”
“And bathe regularly,” I encourage, trying hard not to stand downwind from Robert.
“Home?” Tony chuckles quietly, shaking his head as he looks around the cafe.
Kelly and Genie have the night off and are braiding friendship bracelets and selling them for three dollars apiece. Horst is throwing Cecile up in the air and pretending he’s going to drop her while she squeals and giggles. Ken is on baking duty while flipping hamburgers in the kitchen and singing along with The Doors. Hobie is debating with two customers wh
o refuse to believe that George H Bush used to be the head of the CIA, and Mandy is wearing her new Walkman and still jabbering a mile a minute to Randy while waiting for her bar order. Eunice is talking about Ronald Regan with Sandy at the top of her lungs.
Tony whistles softly. “This ain’t nothing like my home.”
After correcting Tony’s grammar I send Robert on his way to table number four. We watch silently as Robert introduces himself and bumps into the table. We laugh out loud as Robert drops his pencil and is soon down on all fours to retrieve it.
“He’s not so smooth, eh?” Tony says gruffly, yet I note there is fondness in his voice.
“Not as smooth as you, huh?”
“Hey, I don’t got to be here! I make it just fine on my own.”
“Have to be here, and before you go and bus that table over there, how about you tell me your real last name.”
“Smith, man, just like I said.”
“Uh huh. Well, I figure you’ve got some powerful enemies.”
“What makes you think that?” he asks crossing his arms and avoiding my eyes.
“Could be the way you’re always looking over your shoulder or how you check out each person who walks through that door. Could also be the fact that you keep stealing kitchen utensils.”
“And your point is?”
“That we might need to know what we’re up against in case they come looking for you.”
I meet his eyes and he shrugs it off. “They ain’t gonna ever find me.”
“Aren’t ever going to… So, you’re one clever dude, huh? Well then think about this, we’re a family here and in our family we always protect our own; always, no exceptions.”
I spot Levi Washington as he opens the door and I feel panic. Our HRS Nazi from Hades charges in the front door and begins looking critically around. I groan noticing that Cecile is too far away from me, no way can we make a graceful exit out the back door. I hold my breath as Levi stops to have a word with Mandy for a moment. Mandy is dancing to her Walkman and I feel good about her feeling good, but only momentarily because I realize she will distract Levi for only a couple of minutes. Horst meets my eyes and motions me over toward table number four in the center of the room. We both smile.
“Excuse me,” I whisper quickly to the man and wife, who so far have displayed the patience of Job in dealing with Robert, “but we need a big favor right now, please.”
The woman looks at Cecile and smiles as Cecile in turn tickles their baby’s toes. “You’re going to ask us to baby sit aren’t you?” the woman says after a moment.
Horst and I nod our heads while doing our best to beg silently. Tony is at the next table over and I can tell he’s listening to every word.
“That guy over there can’t know Cecile’s here because he would take her away and put her somewhere terrible!” Horst says in one big breath. “Away from us.”
“And she’s got the sweetest little mama and it’d break her heart.”
“It’d break all our hearts!”
“That’s a nice present you’ve got there, Cecile,” the woman says sweetly. “How old are you, darling?”
“Ah, she doesn’t speak yet,” I say.
“Never?”
“No, ma’am,” Horst and I say.
The husband and wife exchange meaningful glances then look at their baby. “Sit her down,” the father says with a big smile. “Cecile, are you hungry, sweet girl?”
“Your dinner’s on us,” I say as we seat Cecile and explain to her that she must stay right here and help watch their little baby.
“You need your money,” the father tells us, “but you could bring me another beer. Robert over there spilled the last one, on me.”
“Jimmy-Sue, you got a minute?” Levi Washington barks with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “Who is that little Afro-American girl over there making bracelets with Genie? You know you have to report any new kids to me immediately. She’s too young to be here!”
My cheeks are burning as I shield my eyes to feign a look around the restaurant. “Which little girl, Mr. Washington?”
“The black one, Miss Maddox,” he pauses only a moment.
The husband pats his wife’s hand. “That’s our little girl,” he tells Levi. “You got a problem with her?”
Levi doesn’t acknowledge the man in any way just insinuates himself in front of me and walks us over toward the register. ”About this Tony character,” he says. “I don’t trust him. Did you go through all his stuff carefully? Hum? And nothing was out of the ordinary? Hum? Well, just as I figured, there are no missing kid reports for a Tony Smith from any city in Florida.” He says all this in easy earshot of Tony who is busing tables with his back to us. “I know this lying juvie is big trouble. I can feel it in my bones.”
“He’s had a tough time and is just suspicious of adults. That’s all.”
“Just the same, I want you to monitor his phones calls, watch him and report any suspicious behavior to me.”
“Are you asking me to spy on him, Mr. Washington?”
“Well, not actually.”
“Good, because as long as he follows all the rules--”
Levi begins a tirade about what big liars all teenagers are, how you can’t trust them as far as you can throw them, how Tony and Robert were probably working-boys who pissed off a pimp or two. And the phone blessedly rings again.
“DemiMonde? Ali? Seriously? I couldn’t care—why yes, you may have my heat rollers, too. Sorry, I’m busy and still working here. Goodbye.”
I sigh as Levi finishes his list of don’t dare dos and fight the urge to applaud when he winds his way over to Eunice, bypassing table number four and Cecile without so much as a glance.
Killer Ken keeps saying something about debate time even though he knows its Wednesday, and Wednesday is hump day and we never do anything but celebrate the midway point with calm. But Ken wants to debate the war on drugs that George H. Bush instigated in Florida years ago when he was Ronnie Reagan’s vice. I look at him like he’s nuts, excuse myself, go into the ladies bathroom and slide down to the floor. I close my eyes and inhale slowly.
“Jimmy-Sue, you in there?” I hear Kelly’s soft voice ask from beyond the door.
“Uh huh,” I sigh and stand to unlock the door.
“I’s really got to go,” she says as I open the door. “I can’t make it upstairs.” She sits down as I lean against the wall and she pees for two minutes. “I’s don’t know why I’s pee so much lately. I’s really got to go!” she tells me, staring at her hands and the dozen of friendship bracelets on her wrist.
“ I’ve really got to go... Never add an s when you say I. And your mid-sentence Ds still sound like Ts,” I say instead, wishing I had more courage, wishing I had to tell her almost anything else in the world than her truth.
“Uh huh, I’ve really got to go,” Kelly says in her usual mock-teasing voice. She finishes her business, flushes, stands and goes over to the sink and begins washing her hands. “Oh, I made this one for you,” Kelly says speaking slowly with perfect diction as she slides a red, white and blue bracelet from her wrist and holds it out to me.
“It’s so beautiful,” I say and study her almost-trusting face. I begin to cry as I tie the bracelet around my wrist.
“Are you crying?” she asks, “What’s the matter?”
“You’re pregnant, Kelly.” My words stumble out clumsily.
She puts the toilet lid down and sits staring at me. “Oh,” she says.
I can’t tell what she’s thinking because she’s silently staring into space. I swallow hard. “You’re about five months along. If you don’t remember, the process takes nine months.”
“Oh.”
“Now don’t worry about the money because we’ve already thought of a fundraiser and we can go to Pensacola to have your procedure done.”
She just stares at me.
“You’re a little farther along, and it will be unpleasant, I know, but I’ll hold your ha
nd every step of the way. We all will.”
“What procedure?”
“Um, well, your abortion.”
“Abortion?” she mouths the word.
“Yeah, you know, where they terminate your pregnancy.”
“I know what an abortion is.” Her eyes narrow as she rubs her abdomen with both hands. “How do you think I could do that, kill my baby and all?”
“Kelly,” I groan. “You’re 12 years old! You’re way too young to have a baby.”
“I done—I’ve done it before,” she says matter-of-factly.
“And who’s ever heard of a nine year old having a baby! You have options this time. You’re a child not an adult. You’re not supposed to have to deal with this situation yet. This was man-made by evil people.”
Kelly turns her back on me and washes her hands in the sink. “Maybe God meant for me to birth sweet babies to help make up for the bad ones He lets slip through?”
“No, Kelly, there’s so much more to this situation than meets the eye.”
Kelly meets my eyes in the mirror and shrugs. “I’m keeping my baby.”
Her shrewd gaze is unyielding and I look away because it burns. I sigh and stare at her friendship bracelet on my wrist.
Someone begins knocking earnestly on the bathroom door as I forget any words of reason and study Kelly’s reflection in the mirror. “I really need to go!” the voice outside pleads.
Kelly walks past me and unlocks the door then steps beyond me, out into the café. I watch as she blends into the crowd as the urgent stranger propels me out of the bathroom and closes the door behind me. I watch Kelly and feel as though something between us has broken away, the pieces flying off in every which direction as I struggle to find my voice.
Randy is desperate and will do anything to get Ken to help him on his dopey new idea for an article for the local paper. Randy knows, just absolutely knows, this one will make him rich and famous. As if things aren’t nutty around this place enough, politics has taken on a new life with Randy this summer. He has embraced it as if the game had just been invented for his own financial gain. Picture Ted Nugent and Rosy O’Donnell having a kid and you can kind of get the picture, in 3-D Technicolor.