Western Palaces, page 11
“I’m sorry!” I yell at the closet door.
I start thinking about that J.D. Salinger line about not telling anybody about anything or you’ll start missing everybody. And I hate myself because I have and I do.
The sounds don’t stop from behind the closet door or under the bed.
“Merry Christmas!” I yell before biting into my knee so hard the pain causes me to blackout.
***
A few days later, my knee’s still throbbing and most of the tenants are back and some have the gall to complain about the stench. I mean, how dare they? This is the Tenderloin. And no matter how dense and wet the odor of absolute rot becomes, you live with it. You live with it because you’re a part of it! But they’ve complained, and now they’re wheeling Pearl out of her apartment on a gurney covered by a white sheet. I’m standing in the doorway watching them roll her down the hall, then carrying the gurney down the stairs since the elevator has never worked a day in its life. The lazy fucker.
Besides the sounds of the EMTs carting Pearl’s bloated and rotten corpse away, I notice it’s quiet. The monsters haven’t returned yet.
“Isn’t it tragic?” I hear some small voice say. It’s coming from a short Pakistani woman standing beside me, watching what I’m watching, her hands rubbing together, her big dark eyes wet.
“Is what tragic?” I ask.
“That. Just… that. Poor woman. Died on Christmas Eve from some heart problem. Did you… did you know she had a heart problem?”
“Yes,” I tell her.
“Just so tragic. What a shame,” she says.
“Did you even know her?” I ask this woman.
“No, but—”
Before she finishes I slam the door on her, walk across the apartment to the window looking out over Geary, stick my head out, and I scream. I scream and I wail and I howl and I grunt. I gnash my teeth and spit and growl. I make all the sounds of the absent monsters for them. I make all the sounds of the only one left.
WE HAVE BREADSTICKS
“We have breadsticks,” I tell the German family seated around a table at the back of the dining room in The Olive Garden at the Stonestown Mall. I’m chewing on my pen, holding my notepad, rubbing my left palm on my apron, sweating a little from the pressure of not only taking this family’s order, but those of the tables beside them, across from them, and on the other side of the room. I have two sections today because April, that crazy shitbag, got drunk last night (again) and couldn’t make it in today (again)—called out sick, and, Harold, that dumb fuck, he’s the manager and he bought it and I told that fucker—I grabbed him by his fat neck rolls and pulled him to me and I said, “Look, Harold, you dumb fuck, April is a shitbag and she’s an alcoholic on top of that and if you keep accepting her excuses I’m going to walk—you hear me?—walk. Because I can no longer be held responsible for the duties of so many others. It’s not just April,” I told Harold, the dumb fuck, “it’s Billy and Carly and Gordita, too—all these assholes here treat their duties like a day job. Like something frivolous. Something they can take or leave as they please. And, Harold, there’s no taking and leaving when it comes to The Olive Garden! It’s a career,” I said to Harold, the dumb fuck, “and you aren’t managing the staff around here with much authority. If I were you I would tell all these lazy twenty-somethings that The Olive Garden is no place for frivolity. Tell me, Harold, you dumb fuck,” I demanded, “what does The Olive Garden mean to you? No. Stop. I already know what it means to you. It means a goddamned paycheck every two weeks and perhaps a tug or two in the manager’s office from Tanya—that old bat that gets to work the bar where it’s never busy yet still entitles her to thirty-percent of my tips for some goddamned reason. Harold. Harold. Listen to me, Harold. You listen good and hard because I’m warning you. What? No, don’t even… just… don’t even. I’m warning you. If you keep up this kind of lackluster, limp-wristed approach to running the floor around here—I’m serious, I’ll be up your ass so fast your head will spin as I rip your precious little job right out from under you. And then where will you be? Huh? You’ll be out on your ass, Harold, you dumb fuck. On the streets. Penniless and with no references from The Olive Garden. I’ll be in charge and I guarantee you no one will be allowed to give you a reference, let alone throw a glance your way! Where do you even see yourself in five years? Have you thought about that? Me? I see myself running this whole goddamned place. You know why? Because I, unlike you, Harold, you dumb fuck, understand people. I understand their needs, their wants, their desires. I also just happen to understand fine imitation Italian food and wine. What? No. Don’t give me that. I’m gunning for you, Harold. You think I’ll be waiting tables my whole life? You think me so small? So insignificant? Not a chance, buster. I’m here, I’m queer, get used to it. No, I’m not gay. Why did you even ask that? I’m just trying to impress upon you the seriousness of the job you seem to take so lightly. This is the motherfucking Olive Garden, Harold! What? Did you think this was The Sizzler? Did you fucking think this was the motherfucking Sizzler, Harold? Answer me! No. Of course it’s not the motherfucking Sizzler. You dumb fuck. You stupid dumb fuck. You thought this was the goddamned Sizzler. No, fatty, I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do since you’re too stupid to figure it out on your own. You’re going to get on that phone, you’re going to press a bunch of numbers with those pudgy little fingers of yours, and you’re going to tell April to get her alky ass in here, hangover be damned. Hell, have Tanya make her Hair of the Dog. Whatever it takes, Harold, you dumb fuck. Do you get me? Whatever it takes! This is war, motherfucker. We’re on the front lines of imitation fine dining. This isn’t no cakewalk. There are no free rides around here, Harold! What country do you think this is, anyway?” I asked Harold, the dumb fuck, and then I threw a hand towel over my shoulder and stormed out of his office as he handled the phone shakily and punched away at the number pad just as instructed.
But now I’m here, on the floor, sweating buckets because people never know what they want and I’m going to be to blame for that. And, did I mention I have two sections? Have you ever waited on more than one section? No, you haven’t. Because you’ve never had a manager as big of a dumb fuck as Harold and you’ve never worked with as big of an alky shitbag as April.
“I’m surrounded by incompetence!” I accidentally yell out loud.
“Excuse me?” the little German man at the table before me says.
“Listen, mein führer, we have breadsticks. They’re very good. Mmm,” I say, rubbing my belly that’s covered by the apron with a large red pasta sauce stain on it.
I think it’s pasta sauce.
“But, hmm, please… do you have the bowtie pasta?” the guy asks, and I look at him like he’s the biggest dumb fuck on the planet and shout “We have breadsticks!” and throw an extra menu at him and tell him to give me a ring when he figures out what he, his wife, and his little satanic Hansel and Gretels want.
“Oh my god!” I yell, hands flailing over my head, walking in circles around The Olive Garden’s dining area. “Oh my fucking god!” I scream again, for emphasis. “We have breadsticks! Breadsticks, people!” I screech as I spot a breadbasket on one table. I reach in and snatch a breadstick, shove the whole thing in my mouth. I stuff a couple more in my pockets even though staff is limited to two breadsticks per day. It’s all about the bottom line!
“Breadsticks!” I shout again through my full mouth. “These people get it!” I gesticulate while chewing heartily, pointing at the table with two empty breadbaskets and one half-full basket of breadsticks. “These people get it! What are you all doing here? There’s breadsticks! Just get the breadsticks, you stupid shits! They’re free! They’re free!” I say, collapsing to one knee, propped against the table of some single, lonely business woman in her early forties. I bury my head in my arm and start sobbing, choking on tears and snot and she, with hesitation, reaches out and pets the back of my head and shushes me. I leap away from the table like a spooked cat and thrust my finger at her and scream, “Don’t you fucking touch me! Don’t you touch me! I have a girlfriend! I’m a one-woman man, you goddamned seductress! I won’t be charmed by your wily ways!” and then I’m in the room opposite the dining room, which is the bar/café—and of course the bar and the few tables in there are completely empty.
“Tanya, please, set me up,” I beg. I pull up to the bar, sit on a stool, and wipe the tears from my face.
“Um,” Tanya says, looking at me then looking over my shoulder, then looking back at me again. “Luke, what are you doing here?”
“Tanya! Oh my god, Tanya! I’m working two sections! Two! Why has God forsaken me? Two sections, Tanya! Please, I just need to get through this day. It’s fucking murder out there. Murder! And Harold—that dumb fuck. Is he doing a thing about it? Tell me. Does Harold ever do a goddamned thing about anything? Does no one but me understand that this is The Olive Garden? Please, just a couple shots of tequila. Do a few with me, huh? Do a few with me and then maybe I’ll let you give me a quick tug out back by the dumpsters,” I tell her, winking.
“Seriously, Luke. First, shut the fuck up. Second: What the fuck are you doing here?” Tanya asks.
I finally look Tanya in the face. In her pancake-makeuped face. She has giant blots of blue eye shadow, crusty, powdery skin, bright red lips. Hair teased, singed, and hairsprayed. Her skin hangs and droops. Her breasts dangle, jiggle at the slightest vibration. Behind all the foundation and cracking film and garish colors, she looks sad, scared, caught. She backs away from the bar.
“Cameron?” I ask. “What the fu—where have you been? I’ve been living in your apartment, all alone, for weeks now. What are you even—” I start to say just as hands grip my shoulders from behind. I’m yanked backward and off my stool, landing hard on the tiled café floor. It knocks the breath from me and stars swirl my vision. The mall cop quickly flips me onto my stomach, jams a knee in my back, pulls my arms behind me, and zips my wrists together in locking plastic handcuff strips.
“I didn’t do it!” I yell automatically, my strangling sobs returning. “Cameron, tell them I didn’t do it!”
“Shut up!” the mall cop orders.
There’s a murmur and bustle from the dining room. Some diners are standing on the border separating the dining area from the bar, gawking. My watery vision turns them all into angels, glowing in the daylight pouring through the skylight overhead. They’re all haloed. Some are shocked and grimacing. Others are smiling and laughing. Angelic. A few are pointing, acknowledging my existence, which brings forth more tears to choke on.
Spreading my lips back I lick my teeth with a bloody tongue and scream, “Breadsticks! I just wanted to give you breadsticks! I just wanted to feed you. Feed you all! Free breadsticks! For everyone! Quick! Everyone! Grab some breadsticks… and… and run! Run! I’ll distract them!”
At that the crowd erupts into applause. Some hoot. Some holler. A few are shouting my name, acknowledging my existence. The acknowledgment is punctuated by the mall cop yanking me to my feet, my wrists locked behind my back.
“I didn’t do it!” I yell again, bending over, choking, bawling. “Cameron… tell… them…”
“Christ. Didn’t do what? What didn’t you do?” the mall cop asks, impatient, ready to haul my ass out of The Olive Garden, the only place that has ever given my life meaning, structure, and a free shift meal.
“I didn’t kill him!” I blurt out.
“The fuck? What?”
“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill Harold! I didn’t. I haven’t killed anyone. Not ever! Never!” I cry out.
“Who’s Harold?” the mall cop questions.
The blurry, transparent angels react to that with a respectful, ironic golf-clap and small-talk among themselves.
The mall cop turns his chin into the little two-way radio on his shoulder and says, “We’ve got a live one here. Be sure you have tranks ready before you come pick this shitbag up.”
“Shitbag? Shitbag! I ain’t no shitbag! That’s April! I’m not April! I didn’t kill Harold. I didn’t kill him! I was good! I was very good!”
The crowd gets a little closer now. They’re slapping their knees and giggling. Some are drooling long strings of liquid crystal.
Just then Harold waddles his fat ass down the hallway from the back of the restaurant where his cozy little handjob sanctuary is. He’s red-faced, flustered, winded, stumbling, and wiping red stuff from his belly and chest as if he doesn’t understand where it’s coming from or what it is. When he sees me he points, acknowledging my existence, and shouts, “That’s him, officer!”
“Officer? Yeah right,” I say through the side of my mouth, then chuckle. Mall cop knees me in the back, dropping me to my knees.
The crowd boos. Hisses.
“I sort of figured that out on my own, thanks,” mall cop says, keeping one hand on my shoulder while he talks into his radio again, asking where the real police are. Why they haven’t arrived yet.
The Olive Garden patrons now surround us in a half circle. They’re murmuring, whispering, and filming the whole thing with their camera phones in order to acknowledge my presence and confirm the reality of the situation—particularly, me. That I’m alive and here and meaningful.
Angels.
They chitter. They chatter. Some give me the thumbs up. Can you imagine? Angels. Angels giving you the thumbs up?
“That’s him, officer. Like I said. This crazy… this crazy… guy… came storming into my office, started yelling at me about people that don’t even work here, calling me by a name that isn’t even mine, and then he proceeded to… proceeded to…” he says, trying to catch his breath. “He came… back… and he threatened me and when I asked him, politely, to leave, he kept yelling at me. Me! Then he… he punched me and knocked me down and hit me and hit me… and… and poured Olive Garden secret sauce all over me!”
The crowd of angels erupts into laughter and applause. The room illuminates.
“See!” I shout from my kneeling position. “I didn’t kill him! I really didn’t!”
The applause gets uproarious. A couple of watery angels break out their trumpets and wail.
“He’s crazy!” the fat man exclaims, nearly hyperventilating.
“I’m not crazy!” I scream. “You’re the one that’s crazy!”
My audience laughs and laughs and claps and claps.
“He doesn’t even work here!” Harold cries.
The host of blurry, watery angels stomp their feet and raise their hands to the heavens, praising Lord Almighty for this glorious day. They say “hallelujah”. They ululate and speak in tongues.
“What’s going on here?” Harold asks, flabbergasted, still wiping red secret sauce from his bulbous torso.
“We have breadsticks!” I yell, and my waterfall angels quickly leap upon Harold and the mall cop and slap their mouths down on them and drown them in rivers of seraphim spit. When my oppressors have sucked in their last watery breath, the congregation unfurls their wings of bright white light. The brilliance of their illumination washes out everyone else in the room, including Cameron—or, Tanya, or whoever that was. Then the watery angels scoop me up from the floor, and I’m instantly freed from my restraints as they gather me under the arms and carry me up through the skylight, up into the azure sky, high above The Olive Garden and San Francisco, the places where I knew I had given my all, every last bit of myself, since the very beginning. And the angels, watery and blurry and glowing like diamonds, carry me up and up and up, on my way to where Cameron, Toby, Abigail, Naomi, Eric, Serena, Pearl, and all my friends have gone. They haven’t abandoned me. No one has. They’re just waiting for me. Somewhere along the edges of the sun’s scalding fingertips. They’re waiting for me. And I’ll greet them like it was only yesterday that we still loved each other. I’ll greet them with pockets full of breadsticks.
THE GIFT
Just then, Sanchez reaches across the table and pulls something from my forehead with a quizzical look, his brow furrowing and his mouth frowning. Between his fingers he rolls a hard white stone and I realize it’s a tooth that he just pulled from my forehead. And what’s worse is that I don’t know if it’s from headbutting Eric last night at Bourbon Bandits when he kept insisting Abigail was alive and well and that no, he would no longer be my supplier, or—or if I’m growing goddamned teeth from my goddamned forehead; or, worse yet, the beginnings of horns. Before I can ask him to hand it over so I can inspect the tooth, he chucks it over his shoulder where it lands in an old man’s coffee who’s too involved in his San Francisco Chronicle to have noticed. Later, after me and Sanchez have left this establishment, the old man will choke on that tooth and be saved by an equally frail and decrepit old woman via the Heimlich. Both recent widows, they’ll marry soon after, happy to have found each other despite the dramatics and brush with death. They’ll do lots of things on their bucket lists like stroll the Great Wall of China and have sex in the restroom of a McDonald’s one last time, as they both had, separately, in their teenage years with their first and only true loves. He’ll eventually hack her to pieces and leave her in a suitcase in front of the Salvation Army in much the same way he did with his last wife.
“Um… thanks?” I say, rubbing the divot in my forehead, feeling like I’m missing something now.
“You’re welcome,” Sanchez says, chewing on a toothpick, leaning back, and slinging one arm over the back of the booth in Righty McGee’s, a kind of hofbrau opened by some confused Irish baseball player a long time ago. The place is saturated in the scents of roasted meats, dark woods, and old smoke trapped in walls like ghosts.
