Lorraine was waiting in the parking lot. They had agreed Bill would follow her to her friend’s house where they could be undisturbed and comfortable. He wondered if she was gonna get cold feet, but apparently not.
“I want the full service treatment,” she said when they were sitting on her friend’s sofa.
Bill laughed. He put his arm around her and drew her close to him. “And what’s that?” he asked.
“How explicit do I have to be?”
“Completely. Tell me your deepest, wildest wishes and I’ll do them for you. It’s not like we’re gonna be dating and spending a whole lot of time figuring out what each other likes.”
“You always so direct?”
“I’m usually shy.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true, but circumstances warrant directness here.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not like the others. Because for most of them this kind of stuff is just a goof. For you it’s got a whole other thing to it.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
“For you it’s like getting up after a serious fall. Or that’s what I think anyway. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“You’re close.” Lorraine stood up. “Let me freshen up. Wanna take a shower and get the funk off?”
“Sure,” Bill said.
It was well after three AM when he lay down next to his fiancé. He took another shower before getting into bed with her. That was to wash Lorraine off. His fiancé was deep into sleep. She only turned once to feel that he was there.
This was how it was most nights. He was gone just about the whole day every day, and while he was making a living, she was just about all alone. He came home late at night, some nights later than others. As she told it, this translated into her having her own set of friends, friends who she saw just about all the time. She and her friends ate together, went to movies on campus together, hung out. She hung out, Bill worked.
His alarm woke him at four forty-five. At five, after the snooze alarm, he rolled out of bed and into clean skivvies, jeans and a T-shirt. When he brushed his teeth, he popped a black beauty, and by the time he was in his car heading off to open up Steakhouse East, he was no longer lethargic. His energy was chemical and he would drink bourbon and beer to counteract the drugs, but that would be later. He would change clothes, grab a coffee, lace it with bourbon maybe, pop another black beauty. Then it was on with the day.
Speed, all around, was his drug of choice. For well over two years while he was in college, he took speed six days a week, three days up, a day off, three days more up. On the day off, he ate and fed his body nutrients. At night, to come down, he popped downers and drank white wine.
Life.
As he pulled into the parking lot, lots of things were going through his mind. He remembered Jim standing by the knife sheath and three times now his wanting a beer. He remembered Lorraine, the couple of hours they had last night. He remembered what she whispered in his ear while they were in the shower. He remembered fulfilling her every desire and watching her enjoy herself on one level while being conspicuously self-conscious on another. She was inhibited at first, but he’d addressed that. He remembered being immersed in her.
Damn I need a drink, he thought as he stepped out of his car and headed to the front door to meet up with Tommy, Bea and Mary. Boy do I need a beer. I need more than a beer, he thought. “You need your head examined,” he told himself out loud before he was upon the others and saying good morning.
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The way of the Democrats: appeasement hence dis-empowerment, keep repeating the lies because the media will report them, corroborate them and the public will believe them since they are unchecked, and then indiscriminately call anyone who in anyway disagrees a racist. Call anyone who disagrees a racist.
In school, red was the shameful color. When a student had a wrong answer or was in any way scolded or reprimanded and something in writing was sent home to the parents, the teacher put it in red.
But then those bastions of educational sensibilities, you know who they are, the wildly liberal education leaders (check out the UFT/AFT/NEA leader-darlings and Hammond-Darlings), touted the notion that using red was not good because it made students feel bad, chastised them, made them feel guilty.
And so the wonderful psychologists chimed in, the same ones who now testify like gods in Child Protective Services (CPS) hearings and trials, whose testimony as experts is accepted as Prima facie evidence, corroborating what the liberal leaders touted, that rather than call a spade a spade, we must not make anyone accountable for their errors because it is damaging to the psyche.
This pattern appears in CPS in the latter 1900s, around 1975, and in education in the 1990s. It is the pattern of using appeasement to deal with a problem or issue rather than working the problem or issue to find a real solution.
Now, getting near to 2020, we see clearly that it does not work, not in education, not with CPS and Child Welfare, not with Iran, North Korea, ISIS, the Chinese, the Russians… Need more be listed?
The Democrats have been using the technique of appeasement for a long time now and, of course, calling its opposition racists. Hillary Clinton relied heavily upon it, as does that native-American (not) Elizabeth Warren, as does the teary-eyed Chucky boy and the master politician Pelosi. They make the most ridiculous statements and the most illogical arguments (sign it to see what’s in it) and the moment anyone disagrees or challenges them, s/he is a racist, a xenophobe or an Islamophobe.
And of course, now a deplorable.
We all know what happened in 2016, how badly the Democrats and their way of the Democrats led them. We all know now, with North Korea and Iran where the way of the Democrats has led us. We all know where the way of the Democrats, the way of appeasement hence dis-empowerment, has taken inner cities (under their control for about 60 years), education, social welfare and the immigration issue. Thirty-two genders, really? Boys in girls bathrooms, really? Doctors having to treat a patient by how they identify themselves on the day of treatment rather than upon the biological reality at the time, really? Criminal illegal aliens not being deported, running free within our sanctuary cities and not being held accountable for their crimes, having more rights and benefits than legal aliens, non-criminal illegal aliens and yes, bonafide, tax-paying citizens. Really?
This is the way of the Democrats.
This is the way of the Democrats and it is leading us into the very destruction of our free society which is supposedly based upon free elections. But the Democrats undermine with their way of the Democrats any real attempt to understand the amount of voter fraud or even identify who is actually voting. The very pillar of our society, as Hillary termed it, the peaceful transition of power, is under siege right at this very moment (and by her too, which is the pot calling the kettle black.)
Truly, most of our politicians on both sides are despicable and deplorable (Congress with an 8% approval rating at times and mocking the President with about a 40% approval rating—which is a good example of why) and they should be kept in line with term limits. They demonstrate what has been said here many times, that man is by nature selfish and greedy.
Of course the Democrats will object to the use of the word man rather than look at the actual statement, and this is the true sense of the problem.
The dinner rebounded beautifully from the night before and Tommy found himself in the kitchen expediting for several hours. Lillian worked Thursday through Saturday, so she would be in tomorrow. Meantime, Bill was glad he hadn’t tripped. The last thing he’d done was get high in the deep freeze, again, just before he came up on the line for the service.
Like always, he had helped Mary finish her setup, not that she actually needed his help. He took out the baked potatoes, ever conscious of the lack of feeling in the fingers he had burned that first day on the line as a cook. All healed now, what was a big negative had turned to a big plus. He could hold really hot things in that hand and grab things other cooks shied away from or needed a side towel for. He carted over the prime rib and carried over the steam table pans when they’d been filled.
He did not deny himself. Between trips from the back to the front, he helped himself to generous servings of Mother Mary. After the first time, when she’d fought him, she relented and let him have his way. He’d take her in his arms, press her tight, reach up her dress in back and feel her behind. Or he’d come up behind her and grind on that soft, curvy structure she had back there while reaching in front to feel her breasts. Once, he’d invited her to sit up on the counter so he could kiss up her legs, but she’d smacked him upside the head for that suggestion. Or, what she really said was that he could kiss and lick anywhere he wanted when they were alone at her place or in The Upper Room. She did not stop him from kissing her lips, or her ear, or her neck. She tolerated him, sometimes looked at him in a kind of disbelief, the way she used to look at Yulie. When she stepped back and looked at him this way, she was simply acknowledging in herself that she was watching a man who was most all the time drunk and on drugs. Bill and Yulie had that in common, only Yulie was into shooting up too. Bill, although he had snorted heroin and smoked opium, did not shoot up.
Then she and Bea and Henry Lee were gone. Marie in her sunglasses, Jimmy and Grandma were in place. Waiting for orders to come in, Bill was fooling around with both Victoria and Lorraine. The quality of the interplay was different for each waitress—he was gonna do Lorraine after the shift—but with each he could have a real conversation, say whatever was on his mind without having to hold back. Both of them, in turn, responded honestly and candidly, not worried about being embarrassed or shouted out.
Just after Tommy left the kitchen, Lorraine brought him his first beer. By then, some of the early girls were already ordering their dinners. Jimmy stayed late. Grandma did too. Bill knew he was going to run behind all through clean-up. Then, as luck would have it, they had late customers. It was change-the-grease night, so of course the late customers came while Bill was changing the grease.
Bill fed both Victoria and Lorraine Supers. He kept an eye out while they sat in the hall and ate, cleaning up as they did so. He didn’t finish the grease till after midnight, He noted Jim hanging around the knife sheath while the dishwashers were waiting for their transport. This wasn’t extraordinary, but Bill noted it.
“Could sure use a beer,” Jim said.
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Doc! Bill had been carrying around that acid tab awhile, or actually, he had finally left it in his locker downstairs. Now that he was working and he and his fiance were getting a little ahead, he could see Doc when he wanted, score some weed, some speed, some Quaaludes and assorted other stuff. He’d fed Mary some downers with red wine at The Upper Room, that on top of weed. She’d gotten dreamy, slow and lazy. He’d laid her out on the bed and…
Well he wanted to trip now, but it was already afternoon. He was uncertain how this batch of acid would affect him, so he decided to wait till tomorrow. The good thing about Doc was that he did what he sold. So when he offered up the acid, he told Bill from his own experience it was a bit edgy but really potent. Good hallucinating shit, was how he’d referred to it. But then he’d warned that you needed the ludes to come down.
Bill remembered. When he got busted an undercover cop was planted in his paddy wagon. That undercover led a conversation which was secretly recorded and which showed up verbatim at his trial. Bill had been knocked unconscious and was way out of it. He didn’t know what he was saying. He had no idea what was going down. About a month later that same undercover tried to sell him some weed in one of the back streets. He didn’t recognize Bill, but Bill knew him. Bill knew then how they had what they had on him. He knew then, definitively, he’d been a victim of entrapment. He remembered noting, even all messed up in his head, how unusual it was that that guy was let out from the holding cell in less than an hour.
“Yeah, what it is,” Henry Lee said when Bill came into the meat room. “Marie was crazy yesterday. She one wild heifer.”
“Wanna get high?” Bill changed the subject posthaste. “What do you need cut?”
“Listen man, you could have her, you know? I ain’t jealous or possessive. She give good head too.”
Bill went over to the bourbon drawer. He reached under the towels and retrieved the bottle. He helped himself to a good, long drink. Then he took a joint from his shirt pocket. “C’mon, let’s go in the deep freeze.”
“Just cut some tops,” Henry Lee said when they were back at their cutting tables. “It’s been slow in both stores. Man, this is good weed.”
“It is, isn’t it? It’s a new batch.”
“You got more?”
“You want some?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get you an ounce. It’s thirty bucks.”
“Good. Freda’ll like this one.”
They worked about forty-five minutes, mostly in silence before Mary came in. Mary was wearing bobby sox today. She sat on the counter swinging her legs like always.
High and happy, Bill put down his knife and walked up to her. He leaned in, kissed her, and at the same time he reached up her dress and copped a nice, intimate feel of her.
Mary kissed him back. Then, when his hand got too intimate, she slapped his arm and told him to get away. Bill laughed and didn’t move away until she’d slapped his arm three more times.
“Boy what’s wrong with you?”
“Everything’s rosy.”
“And I ain’t talking to you,” she said to Henry Lee. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself after that whatever-the-hell-it-was yesterday. Tommy ought to get rid of her, and I’m gonna tell him to do so. Only a matter of time before your wife loses it and does something to her.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Henry Lee said. “Have a drink, girl. Bill got some great weed. C’mon, I’ll take you into the deep freeze.”
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“Drenovis is skuzzy,” said Victoria after lunch out in the hall. “I know you all don’t like him.”
“What’s to like? For him it’s all about power and getting sex. I never forced anyone to do anything or made sex a condition of employment,” said Bill. “I treat you all the same unless you screw me up purposefully. And I have met a couple of nasty waitresses who deserved what they got.” Bill was sitting on his milk case. Victoria was standing opposite him leaning against the wall.
“Let me guess. Marilyn, who was here when I started, and Jackie who was only here a week and a half.”
“Good call.”
“Marilyn told you to screw yourself only she used a more choice word. Then she was gone the next day.”
“I fired her personally.”
“Make you happy?”
“Not at all. But it was necessary. She didn’t just tell me that. She told me to stick a plate up my ass.”
“Really? Why?”
“She didn’t like the way the food looked when I told her to take the plate. So she said, ‘You’ll fix that plate or I’ll stick it up your ass.’ I told her take the plate or she’d wear it home.”
“So you fired her.”
“You bet.”
“And Jackie?”
“She couldn’t do the job and she was nasty on top of it. She screwed Drenovis then wanted steak every night. I wouldn’t give it to her. She complained to him. He gave me plenty of crap. Robert fixed that one.”
“I don’t know Robert.”
“He’s head honcho. He got me my job. Only he supersedes Drenovis.”
“How?”
“Long, complicated story. For another time.”
“So who’s next?”
“For what?”
“On your hit list.”
“I don’t have a hit list.”
“On your other hit list.”
“Don’t have one of those either. What about you? Got a boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
“Got a girlfriend?”
“Nope.”
“Want to be able to eat steak?”
“Yeah, but not for that.”
“Good girl,” said Bill. “Next time you’re working dinner, you get a super or a Boston. Just can’t let anyone see you eating it.”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. I told you, I don’t run that way. I never came on to Norma or Evelyn or Lorraine. They came on to me. I been kind of working on Lexi, but she started too. You keep putting that candy in front of anyone and sooner or later they take it. I took it.”
“I got some good candy too,” said Victoria.
“You coming on to me?”
“You want me to?”
“Nope. And that’s what I told Lorraine.”
“Why not?”
“That’s what she asked.”
“How’d you answer?”
“I told her it wouldn’t mean anything and couldn’t go anywhere, that she should be looking for more.”
“Who are you to be making that decision for her? Maybe she should be telling you not be fooling around. You got a fiancé.”
“She told me. And I’m just a nobody.”
Knowing Bill was looking right at her Victoria, spread her legs, lifted her skirt and scratched high up on her thigh. She kept her eyes on Bill the whole time.
“You gonna start teasing me now?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay,” Bill said.
“Okay,” Victoria said.
“And…”
“And?”
“And I got work to do.” Bill stood up.
Victoria stood up too. “Me too,” she said. “I’m working tonight so I’ll see you later.”
“How you like your steak?”
“Bloody.”
“Good choice. Me too.”
“Which one’s a better steak?”
“If it was me, I’d eat the super. It’s the same meat from the same top butt, just cut differently. The super is thicker.”
“I’ll save my appetite.”
“That all you got an appetite for?”
“You coming on to me now?”
“Nope,” said Bill. “Not at all.”
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Generally the waitresses were not allowed to have pie. They could have jello, rice pudding, or chocolate pudding, or they could have leftover dessert specials if there were any. Same thing for dinners. They could have hamburger, chopped steak or the fried fish, or they could eat the special if there was one. They could not eat fried shrimp, steak, prime rib or the roast beef at lunch. The rules were strictly enforced. This meant that food was a commodity. If a waitress wanted a steak, she had to give up something for it, do something for it. Some waitresses did and some waitresses didn’t. Some cooks were really demanding. Some weren’t. Drenovis, the manager, was a pig.
Bill had given Victoria the pie as a lark, because it was late and they were alone, because it was slow and she hadn’t made any money, because overall, of the waitresses, she was pretty regular, much like Lorraine. Being regular meant she was just a working girl interested in doing her job and going home. She was friendly but not overly so. She was soft-spoken and nice, unassuming, a real person. Bill appreciated that. He’d given her the pie because she’d never asked for anything special, ever. She’d never asked for anything.
“You know why you aren’t allowed to eat pie?” he asked her the next day when she’d gotten a piece to serve to a customer.
“No.”
“You see what you got in your hand there? That’s the boss’ profit on a whole pie. If you eat the profit, there’s no point in selling the pie.”
“Really?”
“That’s the profit margin, one piece per pie.”
“Wow.”
“This is a tough business,” Bill said.
Victoria looked at Bill as a person, for maybe the first time, just as Bill looked at her. Their eyes met momentarily.
“I got to go,” she said. “Maybe we can, you know, talk later.”
“Sure,” Bill said. He was tired and cranky and just plain lethargic. He’d gotten home late, but happily satisfied. Then it was quick turnaround, up at five and in at six.
Victoria had back-to-back shifts. Bill was surprised to see her in for the lunch since she’d closed the night before, and he didn’t hesitate to ask her when they had a little free time just before the meal started.
“How come you got stuck with closing and opening?” They stood by the pantry, but Bill led her out the side door into the side dining room.
“Cause I’m not in favor,” said Victoria. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you out here like this. The walls have eyes and ears and this place is a sewer. I know everything you’re doing, and I only know it from listening, from overhearing the gossip.”
“What do you know?” Bill asked.
“Please! Let me see, Bea, Mary, Evelyn, Norma, Lexi soon as you can now that she had trouble with Drenovis. You do acid, smoke pot in the deep freeze, have sex in the party room, the bathroom, and anywhere else you damn well please. Lorraine is next up. I heard you and her are real chummy now.”
“Pretty good report,” said Bill.
“Want more? I can tell you about Drenovis, the owner and Robert, whoever he is cause I never met him, Henry Lee and Marie, and I heard something in the wind about Alfreda coming on to you. I don’t know her either. I miss anything?”
“That’s pretty damn good.”
“I get the back-to-back shifts and the crappy ones cause I said no to Drenovis. Period.”
“Well,” said Bill, “then I’m really glad I gave you the pie.”
“I told you. No secrets in this place.” Victoria smiled at Bill and tapped his arm playfully. “You have fun with Lorraine last night?”
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Bill made a mental note of Jim’s words. Twice now Jim had insinuated that Bill thought he was all that, better than everyone else. Twice now Jim’s tone sounded somewhat ominous.
Bill didn’t think he was anything special. Bill didn’t think he was better than anyone else. Drinking beer was just one of the perks of his position and it didn’t mean anything. If anything, he thought he was less than, less than because he was still on the rebound from having been beaten down by the authorities, almost getting kicked out of the University and doing time in the workhouse. That had changed the course of his life. It had switched the track he was on, once again.
One of the last things he did each night was put the leftovers in the walk-in box. The line sparkled now. The grills and charcoal grills were brushed, the catch-pans emptied and cleaned. One fryer was shut down. All the stoves in the back where Mary did the prep work and Grandma fried her chicken were shut down too.
Tired, more like just beat, Bill untied his apron and slung it over his shoulder. He walked over to the coffee urn and drew himself a mug of Java. He lightened it with cream from the pantry reach-in where the desserts and salad dressings were kept. He noted Marie had covered everything with film, as it was supposed to be, noted they needed to make rice pudding in the morning, noted Marie had cleaned the box as she was supposed to. He sipped his coffee, enjoying the warmth of it in him and the warmth of the mug in his hands, then went over to the dishwasher station.
The dish machine was shut down and the dishwashers were already downstairs changing into civvies. He checked the pot washer sink to see that all the pots were done. Then he went over to the machine, checked it was properly shut down, all the racks were cleared and the dishes put away. As always, there were the few remainders. They sat in the one rack kept each night just for them. He stood by this rack, finished his coffee, put the mug into the rack.
Next was to wait for Tommy. Any minute now Tommy would come into the kitchen and tell him it was a wrap, that there’d be no more customers. Then he and Marie could go on downstairs and change into their street clothes.
Victoria came in instead. She walked all the way into the kitchen and told Bill Tommy said to close it up. Then she stood there and took off her apron. “Think I could have a piece of pie?” she asked.
“What kind you want?”
“Blueberry.”
Bill went over and served up a piece of blueberry pie. He took two clean forks from the silverware that was washed and waiting to be used in the morning and handed one to Victoria. Before he gave her the pie, he took a small piece of it from the tip of the triangle and ate it.
“Eat a forkful now,” he said. “Then you can take it out there and if Tommy says anything, you tell him it was mine, that I decided I didn’t want any more so I gave it to you.”
“Thanks,” Victoria said. She smiled at Bill, ate a piece of the pie and went out with the rest into the dining room.
Bill told Marie if she was finished she could go on and change and go home. Then he went back on the line. He shut down the one fryer he’d left on in case they got orders, shut down the Garland and the half of the charcoal grill he’d left on. He double checked everything on the line and in the back where Mary worked. Then he went downstairs to change.
Bill shut down the exhaust fans, the last thing he did before he went out front to say good night to Tommy. Tommy okayed him to leave and so he stepped out the front door and into the chilly November night. On the way to his car, another car pulled up by him and rolled along side him.
“Hey big boy, wanna get warmed up?” Evelyn asked.
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Somewhere in the neighborhood of seven thousand military personnel have been killed since 9/11 and the number of wounded is conservatively about thirty-three thousand. Some estimates are a lot higher. But the government-run VA is broken, its leaders corrupt, and the politicians capable of effecting change are inept and themselves more devoted to special interest groups than to the Vets. To think the VA can go on as it is and fix itself from within is insanity.
Even more insane is our having gone into Afghanistan. The Russians fought there for some nine years and we experienced the long, protracted Viet Nam war. Insanity to think we could have done better in Afghanistan.
Ditto education. Our education system is broken. We let special interest groups contribute vast sums of money to our legislators to maintain the status quo. In turn, we throw more and more money into a system that has continually shown it does not work as it is supposed to. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results: insanity.
Our inner cities are broken. From one to the next to the next, they are crime-ridden, drug-infested and steeped in poverty. If one states the facts as they are, one is branded a racist. The same Democratic leadership has run these cities the same way for more than fifty years and it keeps getting elected. Insanity.
Social Security funding was supposed to be tucked away and left only to fund Social Security. Nevertheless our leaders have dipped into those dedicated funds repeatedly. Any wonder the system is going broke? Insanity. Even if we refund it, would it be reasonable to expect our leaders not to break it again? Have our leaders ever shown themselves to be fiscally responsible? If we believe they suddenly will become so now, aren’t we being insane?
There’s no limit to the insanity which abounds today. You have to sign it to see what’s in it was a new height in crazy. Hug a terrorist, however, seems to give it a run for the top position. Yes, that’s what we should do. We should offer the terrorists who are hell-bent upon destroying our way of life hugs, money, jobs and counseling. Insanity.
Dare we talk about the bathroom laws? the identity laws? the medical laws? A doctor is now expected to treat a patient in accordance with the gender s/he identifies with on the day of treatment as opposed to the biological status. Beyond insanity, honestly. Apparently those self-identification rules are all good except on April fifteenth when one wants to identify him/herself as being poor to avoid paying taxes. They break down there, when it comes to paying taxes. Even if you identify as poor you still have to pay up.
Ditto HHS. Ditto CPS, IRS, Medicare, Medicaid and on and on. These days, even the FBI is broken.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. One would like to think that the government really does want to take care of our veterans and that overall it has good intentions toward its citizens. But in today’s United States, that thought reflects a certain insanity. With the advent of career politicians and their overwhelming support of virtually unregulated super PACs and lobbyists, it is clear that our leaders’ goal is only reelection. Taking care of the country, even particular constituents, is merely a by-product, and more often lip service.
We are now locked into a government comprised of politicians whose only purpose is sustaining their position and maintaining their power. This is Social Darwinism (On Social Darwinism). And that has led us to insanity.
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Bill started cleaning up. Tonight was a strain-the-grease night, so his cleanup time was considerably lessened. He was breaking down the steam table when Lorraine came back from the bar.
“I don’t have much time now. I have to do the clean up.”
“Well here.” Lorraine led him back out to the hall where she lifted her blouse. “I took off my bra downstairs,” she said as he looked at her. She took his hand and guided his fingers over the stretch marks around each one. When she’d finished that, she brought his hand up for him to feel the fullness of her breasts. She helped him fondle her. “You like?”
Bill took his hand away, leaned in and covered one breast with his mouth. He suckled for a moment then stepped back to look at her. “I like.”
“Goddammit,” she said. She let her blouse down and after making sure she was covered, she drew him to her and kissed him. As she did this, she took his hand up under her skirt, all the way up under her skirt. “See what you’ve done to me?”
Bill laughed a playful laugh. His fingers moved where they could explore all of her. He felt her pressing on him.
“I’m embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“I took off my panties too. I wanted you to do this.”
“Tomorrow I’ll kiss every stretch mark you have. Everywhere. I’ll kiss anywhere you want me to. And then you can whisper in my ear exactly what you want and how you want it, so your first time back on the bicycle, if that’s what it is, is just right for you.”
“It is my first time back. When I get home, tonight, I’m taking a long, hot bath. I’m gonna practice on myself. I haven’t done that in two years too.”
“Well here.” Bill took her hand inside his pants and gave her a nice feel of him “So you know what you’re getting.”
“Thanks.” Lorraine helped herself for a moment then withdrew. Then they simply faced each other in the hall and laughed.
“I was embarrassed because I’m so turned on,” she said. “Apparently you are too.”
“Apparently I am. Only I’m not embarrassed. You did that to me and you should feel good about it.”
Lorraine straightened herself up and took a moment to regain her composure. “I’ll try to let myself.”
“Good. Now go on home and let me finish up here.”
“Tomorrow.”
“And tomorrow and tomorrow,” said Bill. He watched her go out the back door then stepped into the kitchen where he went to work immediately, first finishing breaking down the steam table and then getting the soapy water and scrubbing brush to wash down all the stainless steel.
About eleven-thirty, Victoria, the closing waitress, came in and ordered a hamburger for her dinner. Victoria was just another waitress, one Bill did not have any history with. She had been there when Bill started, was privy to all the goings-on and kept herself mostly aloof. She had not been one of Drenovis’ back-seat-in-his-Riviera conquests. She was a seasoned waitress who could handle even the busiest nights with no muss or fuss. That was how she’d gotten the job. Of course she wanted the best shifts, but she hadn’t done anything untoward to skirt the seniority line.
Bill cleaned as he cooked her food. He asked her to bring him another beer before he set up her burger, and he contented himself with systematically finishing up everything he had to do, from scrubbing to scraping to emptying the grease drawers and straining the fryers. Then he film-wrapped the leftovers, leaving the film open in one corner of each storage container so the food could cool.
“Sure could use a beer,” Jim said again when Bill was leaning against the counter sipping his beer.
“Wish I could. If I could I would,” said Bill.
“Think you’re goddamn something,” said Jim.
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