NO Quarter

by Robert Asprin

  What they wanted to hear. They grinned, cackled. People in their forties, aroused by the decadence we sell by the glass here. There are strip joints, adult novelty shops, and bars, bars, bars. It was giddy culture shock for these four, reminding them of younger days—the males: tireless stud-machines; the females: slim and beautiful, with their pick of dates. At least, that’s how they would remember it. They were cutting loose.

  “Y’er skinny,” the woman with the other man said it at me the way you’d point and comment, “That dog has a fluffy tail.”

  I slid my eyes toward her, held there briefly, while she laughed at her own wit. I thought of telling her I had cancer. But you’re working for tips—their tips—the money they’ll leave you for good service, but more for letting them enjoy themselves however they want to.

  “But those po-leese, they jus’ went by—what’s going on, who’re they after?” It was the man again. He had a thick, graying mustache that looked like it grew right up into his flared nostrils. They all had their individual physical characteristics. My mind recorded just enough while they were here and would attempt to erase them when they left. Of course, they would always be there, somewhere in my head, locked in with all the other things I could not completely erase.

  The two squad cars had been heading down Decatur—toward the Square, toward Canal. No sirens, just lights. Whatever it was had already happened. I shrugged, “Parties get rowdy sometimes.”

  More cackles at that. Give them what they want. Right, right, it’s Mardi Gras every day of the year. Go buy yourselves some beads, join the fun.

  “Y’er real skinny.” She found it funnier this time, laughed longer.

  I am thin. Gaunt, if you must. Not due to dieting, not to exercise. I’ve got a junkie’s body, but I never have used junk and never will use it. What I do have is a persistent lack of appetite. I don’t normally get hungry, or I’m not aware of getting hungry, so I miss meals. I’m not anorexic and wouldn’t expect any sympathy if I was. I simply don’t understand food, why people make such a big deal out of it.

  Which makes being a waiter an odd job choice, I suppose. I’m good at it, though, as much as I well and truly loathe it. I stopped by the kitchen and rattled off the dessert orders for my last group, aware of the grumbles from the cooks.

  “Why can’t yuh just write it down like everybody else?” Joe moaned. A common complaint from him, but I didn’t take it seriously for a four-top. If I have a group of six or more, I usually speak nice and slow to give the kitchen time to make a list. I never write anything down unless the cook needs crib notes. My memory for detail makes me especially good during slam times. Unfortunately, numbers are not my thing. If I had any skill with math I could maybe count cards in the casinos instead of waiting tables.

  I kept my eye on my other two tables, aware of the other waiters and their tables. I heard the hurly-burly of the eight-top, a party of eight college-age yahoos that Nicki had got stuck with. Nicki was young, cute, sweet—too sweet, too nice—and judging by the hoots and grunts coming from her big table, the yahoos were hassling her. I was aware of football jerseys, meaty faces, pitchers of beer on the table—loudmouths, MTV-bred, hormonally overwrought. They were of a type. When they find out they can’t get laid, they start a fight.

  But it wasn’t my table. I had my own customers and my own hustles to work. My four tourists finally settled into eating, the two guys arguing. “It’s alla put-on, Harry, like Disneyland,” and, “Naw, the pahwty never stops, you heard ‘im.”

  I made my rounds. Cleared plates, poured coffee. I chatted with my two-tops, more sincerely than with my tourist feeders. I knew these folks, from the restaurant, from around the Quarter. We could talk about common things.

  I was getting twitchy for a smoke.

  Midnight had come and gone. I knew that much, as I slipped past the waiters’ station of cutlery, coffee pots, and menus, but was surprised, turning the corner and lighting a cigarette, to see the clock reading past one-thirty. It was Sunday, technically Monday, but it’s not the next day until you’ve been to sleep.

  A radio played from the kitchens, loud, drowning some of the chaos—steam and clatter and greasy smoke. Even when it runs smoothly, our restaurant—like any restaurant—is chaotic. There’s a kind of bored frenzy to it.

  I puffed fast and deep, knowing cigarette breaks never last. I felt the sweat sticking my black T-shirt to my back, despite the air-conditioning; felt my aching calves and sore lower back. I felt—probably more than anything—that sickly sense of indignity. I was at the end of my night, worn-out. Easy to feel lousy about spending these past hours of my life toadying and scraping and degrading myself, kowtowing like a goddamned manservant! Did I do good, boss, suh I live only to please, yessuh.

  Christ, Bone. Lighten up. You’re just a waiter.

  I sucked smoke into my lungs. I patted my apron pocket, feeling the bills there. My tips. All for the money, that’s why we humble ourselves. I wasn’t taking new tables. I was done for tonight, would finish up the ones I had, total my checks, cash out. Leave Nicki and the other kid, Otis, to handle the graveyard. Employees come and go: waiters, cooks, dishwashers. The flake factor is high for jobs in the Quarter, astronomically high in its restaurants. I expect to see several new faces every week, and expect they’ll be replaced before I get to know them.

  The party never stops.

  I pitched my smoke, relishing that lightheaded rush you get when you haven’t had one in hours, and started back toward the floor. Ours is a good restaurant—less pricey than a lot of Quarter joints, sizable portions and, like I said, a locals’ haunt. Real people come here, people who read Tarot cards in the Square and work at the gift and T-shirt shops and tend bar and sell Lucky Dogs from vending carts on the street corners and eke out livings like people do everywhere. Locals, keeping the French Quarter functioning for your amusement.

  I felt a snit coming on. Familiar pointless anger tingled my raw nerves. But there was nothing to do with it. Nowhere to aim it.

  Now that I’d had my smoke, I wanted a drink. Before I could reach the dining room floor to get to my tables, deliver checks, get my customers and myself out of here, this week’s bicycle-delivery kid came toward me. Our eatery is open twenty-four hours and we deliver free in the Quarter. What more could you ask for?

  “Hey, Bone!” A kid, yes, but sometime during the last few years “kids” had somehow become twenty-five-year-olds, which this one was. His head was shaved, the lack of hair compensated for by the junkyard’s worth of ear piercings and the compulsory goatee. What was his name ... ? I accessed that memory file.

  I retrieved the name. “Hey, Spit.” No lie, it was his handle. People get called what they want here.

  “Somethin’s goin’ on down by the river. ‘Round the Moonwalk. Cops. Lotsa cops.”

  I shrugged and went past, and he went to the pickup window. If you’ve got a bike, the stamina, and a willingness to carry a wad of cash through the streets at night, you can make very respectable money doing deliveries. A percentage of Quarter-dwellers become shut-ins on their days off. They order their cigarettes and beer from the corner grocery, they have their meals delivered at night from the restaurants and delis. Quarterites usually know how to tip good. Hell, half of us are waiters and bartenders ourselves.

  By now I needed to get back onto the floor. My tourist four-top was nearly done feeding. My other two tables looked ready for their checks. But Nicki came rushing off the floor past me, a petite hand over her mouth, tears in her eyes. I saw her college-boy eight-top getting up, shuffling out, still hooting and hollering and blustering. Neanderthals.

  Customers come first, yes, but Nicki had worked here awhile. I actually knew her. I turned, followed a few steps, and gently touched her elbow.

  She spun, hand moving from her mouth to cover her eyes. Her other hand was a fist she knocked against the wall
by the coffee pots.

  “I’m not crying ‘cause I’m hurt, I’m crying ‘cause I’m mad.” Which apparently made her madder. She thumped her fist harder. “Fuckin’ ... fuckin’ ... creeps.”

  I squeezed her elbow and backed off. She didn’t want to be watched, and I understood. I went out to my tables. It didn’t matter really what the yahoos had said. What mattered was that they could say it ... or thought they could. Thought they had the right. Hey, fuckit dude—she’s just a waitress, ain’t nothin’.

  You’re working for tips, their tips, you just take it. Take it.

  I wanted that drink more now. Wanted to do other things as I tracked the eight Neanderthals past the windows, out of sight along Decatur. But what was there to do? Take it. Nicki, me ... all of us who do this shit for a living.

  The yokel with the mustache wanted me to recommend a place for him and his plump friends to go drinking. An authentic New Orleans waterin’ hole. I thought of several places I might send them ... thought wickedly, hidden under my servile face. Thought of all the authentic New Orleans experiences they might find ... interesting.

  “So skinny,” the woman said, with feeling, just in case I’d missed it.

  I recommended a nice, safe tourist club, collected my tips, checked on Nicki before I clocked out and left. She looked through me with cold, bitter, red-rimmed eyes. I lit a smoke and walked out into the hot summer night. It was almost two.

  I thought briefly of Sunshine. If we were still together, I’d be going home to her. I immediately wiped it from my mind—it had been a messy breakup, and our last meeting had been even worse. Instead I would collect Alex, who would be getting off from her own job about now. We would probably go hang with the regulars at the Calf in an attempt to erase the day.

  The party never stops.

  * * *

  Excerpt from Bone’s Movie Diary:

  Remains of the Day—Anthony Hopkins’ finest screen performance. Far superior to Silence/Lambs & his campy Oscar-winning Hannibal Lecter. Remains’ Hopkins is an ice-stiff English butler who gives his soul to serving, sacrificing every human privilege, including the possibility of a wife, & never blinks. Yet we can see his feelings, deep, painful. He knows what he lacks, but he’s too dedicated to change. It’s fabulously bittersweet, not schmaltzy. Appraisals: Remains * * * ½; Hopkins * * * *

  I dumped the entire case, newly-acquired sword cane and all, back at my apartment rather than take the time to repack it. Normally I would be worried that word of my altercation might get out and ruin my deliberately low profile, but I knew that Rose hadn’t actually seen anything. The two fools were unlikely to brag about a fight they’d lost—especially to an “old man.”

  That still rankled. I may have a little silver in my hair, but I really don’t think of myself as old—just more experienced. And in the Quarter, experience counts.

  The brief practice went well, even though I arrived later than planned. Afterwards I relocated to the Calf, along with my pool team co-captain, Padre, who tended bar there. A month ago the owners had changed the name of the bar to “Yo’ Momma’s,” but the regulars, in true Quarter fashion, hadn’t accepted the change. I was no different. In my head it was still the Calf—same bar, same bartender, same regulars, so why call it something else?

  By around two-ish in the morning, early by Quarter standards, I had settled in at the bar to wait until the lingering tourist crowd thinned enough so I could talk pool-team strategies with Padre. Besides being a great co-captain, he was also my oldest friend in New Orleans. While stalling, I joined a group of regulars indulging in one of my favorite pastimes, talking old movies. I had gotten to know a number of them because most of them lived and worked in the Quarter and tended to frequent the same bars I did—probably for the same reasons. The Quarter doesn’t lack for watering holes, but I tend toward the quieter places. Since dance and jazz clubs and bars that cater specifically to the tourist trade are usually loud, I go where the locals more or less “own” the place.

  We were in the middle of casting a fictitious remake of Gone With the Wind. Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson had both been proposed for Rhett, though there was a faction pushing for Harrison Ford. Gwyneth Paltrow was penciled in as Scarlett, with Oprah as Mammy. No one could decide on Ashley.

  “Hey, where’s Bone?” T.J. remarked. “He’s the Master of Moviedom. He should be in on this!”

  I agreed. Where was Bone? He would have plugged right into the current debate. Bone was never so opinionated as when he talked movies. He usually showed around this time of night to collect his friend, Alex, who worked the gift shop at Pat O.’s, a tourist hot spot across the street. Most nights they met up here after work, hung around for a while to decompress, then walked home together since they both had apartments in the same building.

  Bone was a relatively new acquaintance, but we’d hit it off quite well, despite our age difference. I don’t know where he got the name, unless it was because he was thin as a ... well, I’d never asked.

  The first time I saw him I mistook him for a low-level pool hustler. He was shooting late night racks for a dollar. I watched him take four games in a row, only to find that no one in that bar wanted to shoot against him for higher stakes. I eased over.

  Like anywhere, people here are usually friendly if you’re friendly to them first, even after midnight in a bar. We were both warmly cocktailed, and he wasn’t at all hostile when I offered pointers. I didn’t lecture on technique. He had a fair arm, even if he didn’t know where to point his elbow. What I passed along was a little sage advice about pool hustling—advice that with my old crowd up North would have been da-da-goo-goo baby talk.

  “You’re showing too much too soon, and too cheap.” Meaning he had a decent game, but shouldn’t flaunt it right away, certainly shouldn’t give it away for a dollar.

  He stared back at me for a few seconds. “Should I know what the hell you’re talking about?”

  Turned out he was a waiter and shot games more for fun than cash. “Not that I couldn’t use the money,” he said, but he knew he wasn’t anywhere near as good as some of the hot sticks in the Quarter. We had a laugh, and I bought a round for the misunderstanding.

  Pool may be the basic sport of the French Quarter, but for me it was mostly just something to do. Just like coming out to the Calf to talk tactics with Padre and have an Irish whiskey or two and maybe bump into Bone were things to do. I was dug in, in the Quarter. I liked it here.

  I ordered another Irish, still waiting for Padre to get some clear time so we could talk. The regulars moved on to another of our favorite movie-related bar games. It’s gotten to be fairly popular, as any number can play regardless of qualifications, and it never really ends. Simply put, one reflects back on the old film greats, then tries to identify who has emerged from the new crop of talents to take each individual’s place. Case in point: Who would you say is the new Jimmy Stewart? Our answer: Tom Hanks. The new John Wayne? Try Arnold Schwarzenegger. Actors are fairly easy. Actresses can drive you nuts. This can and does go on for hours, as everyone has his own opinion and there are no clear-cut right or wrong answers. The bartenders love it because it keeps people hanging around and drinking, which boosts their rings on slow nights.

  We all had our reasons for drinking. Some were social, some not. This was one of those nights when we were all feeling our drinks, but more on the euphoric than depressant side. That is, it didn’t actually improve our humor, but we appreciated each other’s jokes a bit more than usual. Bad humor is the standard language of Quarter bars. If you aren’t witty, you ought to at least be quick with your comebacks. Some nights the puns and crude double-entendres fly so fast it can make your head swim.

  Somebody slotted quarters into the bar-top video-trivia game, and the gang went over to kibitz. I already knew Bone had all five high scores in the movie category. Any two players working together were lucky t
o make a third of his recorded low score. I’m a movie buff myself, but Bone was more like a fanatic.

  It was well past two by now. Where was he?

  At that moment a young man came through the door and beckoned Padre over. I recognized him as one of the waiters from Poppy’s, the diner a few doors up St. Peter.

  Like every other local, I maintained a casual scan on everyone entering the bar, and while the waiter was a known quantity, something about his manner caught my eye.

  How does a Quarterite know when there’s trouble brewing? Hey, how does a bug know when it’s going to rain?

  After talking intently for about thirty seconds, the waiter headed back out. Padre remained where he was, leaning on his side of the bar, his head bowed slightly.

  I hadn’t joined the others at the trivia machine. “Bad news, Padre?” I slid down the bar to him.

  He looked at me a moment without speaking.

  “You know Sunshine?” he said finally. “The little waitress from Big Daddy’s?”

  There was pun potential there. Protocol called for a wise-ass answer. His vibe didn’t.

  “Yeah. I know her.” A local, Sunshine was a cute little bundle of irrepressible energy. Big Daddy’s was a strip club, but she worked as a waitress, not a dancer. A casual bar buddy, she had actually called me very late the night before and left a message on my answering machine—something about wanting to talk to me at noon the next day. Of course, I didn’t get the message until I dragged my night-owl self out of bed at three o’clock that afternoon, well after the requested time, so I didn’t ring her back. Figured that by that time she had either handled whatever it was herself, or had found someone else to hold her hand. Otherwise, she would have called me back. I wondered if this had something to do with that call.