There are two glaring flaws to this logic. Flaw Number One is that, you know, sometimes the customer is just plain wrong. For instance, when they tell me they handed me a twenty and I clearly have been handed a ten. Also, when they insist that Art Garfunkel had to have written at least one of those songs. Flaw Number Two is that the customer is now well aware of his magical “always right” powers and has systematically began abusing them. Throwing a razorblade in a salad and then complaining that, hey, there’s a razorblade in my salad. Complaining that the handle of the steak knife just isn’t quite right and, as a result, I want a free steak! And, you know, is there any way you can substitute the kale for mashed potatoes? Or, like, man! Is that a water spot on the side of the glass there? Free round for my buddies! The water spot is buying! It gets to the point where every day I’m inches from walking out of the shitty restaurant I call a job and starting some racketeering gig to pay my bills. Until one of the few remaining anomalies of greatness walks into the establishment, table for two. Regulars. I don’t know what it is. They tip well. They’re friendly. And they don’t even mind if their chicken takes twelve minutes to be delivered to the table instead of the corporate standard of ten. If there’s a problem, they act like humans about it. They don’t want something for nothing. They want something, sure. But, for whatever reason, they’ve evolved past the rest of us and are willing and able to pay for it. What gall those sons of bitches have! I only have a few people who come in to my restaurant and ask specifically for me, but those few people are the sole roadblock to my furious exit and new life of organized crime. There’s this old couple. They come in every Sunday, park in the handicap spot every time. He drives. He helps her out of the car. He comes in, and we immediately talk about how the Diamondbacks are doing. I don’t give a shit how the Diamondbacks are doing, but he doesn’t have to know that. He likes the idea that I care, and, why not admit it, so do I. If I were to give a shit about how the Diamondbacks are doing, I would do so only because of him. Only to make his fantasy more realistic. After the initial banter has settled, without even asking, I bolt for the soda fountains. Two Iced Teas. Lemon for him, none for her. Too acidy. “Acidy” was her word, not my own. Earlier in my employment, I had accidentally given her a lemon. Without even bothering to mention my error, she waited until I was sufficiently out of sight and simply handed her lemon to him. No correction. No dirty look. No “I want this for free because I told you no lemon and this is clearly a lemon.” Most regulars get the same thing every time. The same drink, the same meal, the same odd modifications. “Could you, um, put a lot of eggs on that?” Not these guys. They are far too classy for that. They look over the menu every time, though barring the distinct possibility of Alzheimer’s, they must have that thing memorized by now. She “likes to make it easy on me,” a lot of the time. By this, she means “I’ll have whatever he’s having.” It took some confused looks to weasel that translation out of her, but once I got it, I got it. No telling me twice. They would always leave five dollars on their roughly twenty-two dollar tab. Which soon became a twenty dollar tab because of the “golden apple” discount I had been giving them without telling anyone, even them. Which soon became a sixteen dollar tab after I quit charging them for their iced teas. I’d say “take it easy,” and they’d claim there was no other way to take it. And that was that, for a good year or so. Last Wednesday, he came in alone. It wasn’t Sunday. It was Wednesday. She wasn’t there. He ordered scotch. Things were wrong. What the fuck, man? Things used to be consistent. Routine. I asked what happened to his wife and his answer could not be simpler. “She passed away.” I sensed only the slightest lump in his throat as he said it. It was probably something for which he had been preparing for quite some time. He had been staring his future in its ugly, lonely face for longer than most people could handle. Wednesday night scotch drinking, crossword puzzles, wondering how his kids are. He had made the mental preparations to cope with the loss. But I didn’t. Even though the loss to me is completely insignificant, almost unworthy of mention, dwarfed by his own loss, it still meant something. Am I just clinging to the tragedy of others for lack of my any real tragedy in my own life? These people, these tertiary characters in my life, barely remembered, saw once a week, never even bothered to learn their names? The middle school janitor that signed your yearbook because, let’s face it, you weren’t the most popular kid in the school and he didn’t want your signatures pages to go unused. The boy whose grandparents lived next door and who would visit and sometimes shot baskets with you or watched you skateboard. Your sister’s friend who one drunken night confided some real personal shit in you and neither of you ever talk about that night and you still get that uncomfortable feeling inside whenever you see her at a bar or hear her name mentioned in conversation. The guy you used to play video games with after school—but not him so much, because he was a rather large part of your life—but his brother, who you swear had some kind of learning disability but who could whoop ass at Street Fighter Two if need be. These people that you don’t even really know, but you understand that they understand the process. They aren’t out for something for nothing. They’re willing to pay. These are the regulars. These are the people who have an understanding of distance, of never coming too close because, hey, they have their lives and I have mine. These are the ones whose deaths I’m never certain how to deal with. Sure, a dead best friend or grandfather is easy. You cry a lot. You remember the best things about them. You scream at God for taking them from you. You go to their funeral and hug their family and say, “everything is going to be okay.” And you aren’t sure why, but you mean it. But I can’t say that about these people. For all I know, nothing will ever be okay again. After all, Fossum just took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and then gave up six straight runs to extend the Diamondbacks losing streak to twelve.
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