Beverly cried then. She didn’t mean to cry, maybe. At least Bill didn’t think so. Bill thought once she began articulating things she wanted she might be able to work through some stuff. He didn’t expect her to have an epiphany. He didn’t even expect her to make any decisions. He thought in speaking it out loud she might simply begin to get some clarity.
Her crying was tender. She didn’t bawl or weep. Tears rolled softly down her cheeks. Bill thought she looked wholly vulnerable. He also thought she looked positively beautiful.
So he just sat back and looked at her. He did not reach out for her, did not offer her a hanky. He simply sat and watched. He saw her makeup smear, saw her eyeliner run. That was sexy.
“What?” she asked.
“What?” he said.
“I miss my baby.”
“That why you’re crying?”
“No. I’m crying for everything. Because it’s all messed up. I’m sad and happy and worried and relieved. I’m all mixed up.”
“You don’t have to do anything now. You don’t have to do anything today. Sometimes if you don’t do anything, something will get done. You never know,” Bill said. “You never know anything except what you really know.”
“What do you know?” Beverly asked.
“For sure? Not much.”
“That helps a lot.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t it?”
“Really,” Beverly said, “what do you know for sure?”
“I know I never thought about being a cook, ever in my whole life. I know I needed a job so bad that when Robert came for me that day in the probation office, I would have done anything as a job. Anything. I know I wasn’t looking for a wife the day I met my wife. I simply went to a party that she was at. I didn’t even want to go to that party. I had a car…I told you.”
“Yup, you did,” Beverly said. “But you can keep on.”
“Nothing much else to say about that. She told me later the only reason she was at that party was cause of her friend who wanted to meet boys. My wife told her she’d go with her, help her meet someone.”
“Chance. Fate?”
“What do I know about fate? What do I know about anything?”
“You know stuff,” Beverly said.
“I know I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was fifteen. I know I didn’t do anything wrong, not really, at that demonstration. I wouldn’t even have been there if the professor I was meeting hadn’t wanted to see what was happening.
“I know I got railroaded by the system, entrapped by an undercover agent who tried to sell me weed out in the street some six weeks later. I know sure as hell we are sitting here and I have no clue why we are sitting here other than to be having this conversation.”
“I initiated it,” Beverly said. As she said this, she turned the extra earring in her left ear.
“Yes you did.”
“Well,” Beverly said, “sometimes you just need someone to talk to who is outside of everything else in your life. Sometimes you just need a free shot.”
“Yes,” Bill said. “And I’m a free shot for you just as you are for me.”
“What about the sex?”
“What about it?”
“You and the others.”
“I told you,” Bill said. “I take half the responsibility. Just like I never thought about being a cook, I never thought about cheating. I never thought about other women. There just came a point where it was easier to say yes than to fight it every day.”
“You never initiated anything?”
“Only with one woman, Mary P. And I loved her, sure as I love my wife. That’s something I need to look at. Me. Just me inside myself.”
By Peter Weiss
Just a little blurb in a little news story the other day, like a headline: China’s navy surpasses American navy.
Interesting.
It’s all kind of interesting.
All the while Hillary queried President Trump about accepting the results of the election, she and the Democrats were preparing to not accept the results if she lost and to de-legitimize the Trump presidency if and when she did lose.
So there was the Russian hoax and all the stuff the Democrats have put America through regarding that for four years. Of course now, even though there haven’t been any convictions except for one low-level FBI attorney who falsified documents to the FISA court, we all know that everyone of the Democrats involved in that Russian hoax including the FBI, the Intelligence Community and all the way up to Obama and yes, candidate Biden too knew what they were doing, knew it was a hoax and knew it was part of their grand plan to ruin Trump and his presidency.
We were hoodwinked. We are still being hoodwinked.
Then there was invoking the 25th Amendment a couple of years ago, and again now just before the election, and the impeachment, and so much more.
Well, you all know about all of that. Those of you who drank the cool aid deny it and choose to believe the falsehoods presented by the players and reported as truth by Pravda USA.
But, clear as clear can be, thanks to Obama/Biden Iran grew bold and rich too. Russia went unchallenged, even got a large portion of our uranium. China was supported and assisted by Obama/Biden and the same billionaires who own most of the mainstream media and are part of cabal against Trump, multi-billionaires whose business interests are vastly intertwined with China and who could not possibly go against China no matter what it does.
Even the NBA is there in China, supporting China for its own personal business interests. You know, those big, tall, men of color who are all multi-millionaires and who bash America as racist are supporting and even lauding a clearly totalitarian and racist regime.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
So the little blurb about China’s navy surpassing America’s navy for the first time goes unnoticed while Nancy Pelosi once again takes center stage to destroy President Trump instead of having her House of Representatives look at the serious world events.
Russia expanded their territory under Obama/Biden as has China. Biden is personally through his son Hunter on the take to both countries. We know this now thanks to real documents and real facts. Yet the biased media ignores it. Of course that’s due to their owners’ personal business interests.
While Nero fiddles…
It’s just a little blurb now. But we know that China is militarizing, building it’s army, navy and missile defense, not to mention its ability to cripple our electronics, energy fields and internet.
Where are the Democrats’ heads? How long will they continue to let the American people down?
By the way.
By Peter Weiss
Jimmy G showed up right before the service for the two parties. They both went off just about simultaneously, or since the banquet chef, Victor and Bill were doing the service, they ran through one and went directly to the other. Based upon their size, these were a piece of cake, no warmer trucks, nothing but preparation, cooking and dish-up.
After the dish-up they sat in the chef’s office and drank a second beer, Jimmy G’s first. They did not sit long, only long enough to watch through the big window as the stewards and kitchen crew cleaned up the kitchen. Bill and Jimmy G would get a break, a good once actually, nearly an hour and a half if they waited until 3:00 to start the setup for The Falstaff Room.
After that second beer, when he and Jimmy G were set free from banquets, Bill headed off to where he would find Beverly. He knew the way better now and finding their secret place was much more easy.
She was waiting for him.
“Hey,” she said.
He said, “Hey.”
She was sitting on the stairs. He sat next to her. They did not kiss or touch. They sat a moment both looking straight ahead at the window before them.
“Been awhile,” Beverly said.
“We’ve been busy.”
“Very.”
“Working hard?” Bill asked.
“Lots of hours. You’ve seen me.”
“I go straight from banquets over there,” Bill said.
“I know.”
“Bet we’ll get a good dinner play tonight.,”
“Serving turkey again?”
“Yeah. But turkey’s easy, real easy, as easy as dish-up from the banquets. It’s sliced, just about portioned and kept hot on the steam table.”
“Really think you’ll sell turkey?”
“Lots of it. People don’t get it all year round so they eat it now.”
“Well, I hope you have an easy night.”
“Me too. No reason to think we won’t.”
“So what’s up with you?” Beverly asked.
“About what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Mostly nothing,” Bill said. “Same stuff different day.”
He wanted to ask how thing were for her at home, but he didn’t. He wanted to ask her what they were doing sitting there side by side, why they were sitting there. He didn’t ask that either. Mostly he figured she’d tell him as soon as she was ready.
“I think he’s going to leave me,” she said after a time. “He hasn’t said anything and hasn’t given any real indications. But I’m starting to feel him pulling away from me.”
“Pulling away how?”
“Distancing himself. I can’t actually describe it, but, you know, he’s not initiating any sex, not making the jokes and comments he used to make. Simple things like when I’m getting dressed he used to say ‘nice ass’ or ‘let me kiss that’ or something like that. Now, nothing. Not just once or twice. I mean nothing.”
“That’s rough,” Bill said. “What are you gonna do?”
“I have no idea,” Beverly said. “Not a clue. I guess I’m gonna wait and see what happens.”
“Well, what about you?” Bill turned and faced Beverly, fixed it so that their eyes met and they were now talking to each other fully engaged.
“What about me?”
“What do you want? I mean you, Beverly, sitting here facing me. In your life, just for you, what do you want?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing I don’t want and that’s a cheating husband.”
“That’s a start.”
“I want to go back to school and get my degree. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a waitress, but I don’t want to do this all my life.”
“Keep going,” Bill said.
“I’m not even sure if I want to be married at all. Not to him, not to anyone. I’m starting to think I want to be alone, just me, take care of myself and not be responsible to anyone but me.”
“Sounds like you have some ideas,” Bill said.
By Peter Weiss
Hard to believe that we’re living in America. Hard to believe that we’ve come to here, to this point in our country’s development, the point where I can’t say what I believe or feel.
It’s nothing really new. I was a teacher in New York. In case you hadn’t noticed about New York… In case you hadn’t noticed, the UFT and AFT have been in the Democrats’ pocket forever, so there in the Bronx where I taught anyone who did not sign-on to the left-wing shenanigans had to stay quiet, to form a kind of secret society where they could speak their minds.
America?
Not really!
Here where I live now some five or six years ago I made a comment about something political that leaned toward the right. A bit afterward, one of the people in a supervisory position at the place where I made the comment approached me privately to tell me they (gender purposefully not indicated) agreed with what I said but would I please be careful not to let anyone know and to refrain from outwardly making such comments in the future.
America?
Not really.
And now it’s silenced in America on steroids.
By Peter Weiss
They cooked a lot of turkeys on Thanksgiving. It was the one quiet banquet day although that whole weekend was relatively quiet.
Bill, Jimmy Banquet Chef and Victor did all the turkey set up. They did it days before the actual holiday so that on Thanksgiving morning all they had to do was pop the pans into the rotary oven. Actually they cooked some on the day before so they would be ready to serve turkey early in the day. That way the birds would be cool enough to carve the way they needed to carve them to get yield and aesthetics.
They also made pans and pans of stuffing with their own bread totally from scratch. These they cooked off the day before too so all that needed to be done with it was heat it up. Flavors marinated and increased when left to sit awhile.
The Friday had only two parties, no real banquets, and the parties were small, one for fifty-five and one for forty. They were both in the afternoon.
Bill cooked them with Jimmy Banquet Chef and Victor. Jimmy G came in at noon and disappeared immediately, lost in space, gone somewhere, no one knew where, or if they knew they weren’t saying. Bill wanted to ask, but he didn’t.
If Jimmy G had been around, he would only have been responsible for the vegetables, not even the potatoes. One party had baked potatoes. The vegetable stewards put those into the ovens in the stoves after they’d washed and scrubbed them.
The other party had scalloped potatoes. Victor and Bill did those. The vegetable stewards peeled and cut the potatoes. Bill and Victor prepared the liquid “sauce” to layer over them. Bill and Victor also layered the ingredients in the pans and set the pans to bake.
They had a time to rest. It was only two small parties so there was a lull, a good forty or so minutes when nothing was happening except watching everything as it cooked. Jimmy Banquet Chef took Bill and Victor into the chef’s office and they sat and drank beer. This was one of the few times they drank during the day and it was only because the day was easy and the banquet crew was going home early.
“You can go visit one of your girlfriends,” Jimmy Banquet Chef told Bill.
Bill didn’t say anything. They’d all been working very hard and they were enjoying the slow moment.
“I’m good,” he said after awhile.
“Before you know it your probation will be over,” Victor said. “Goes fast, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does,” Bill said.
“My aunt is crazy about you,” the banquet chef said.
“I like her too,” Bill said. “She thinks she’s my mother. She dotes on me and takes care of me.”
“She wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Victor said. “So don’t you go letting her down.”
“And don’t you be quitting on us either,” the banquet chef said.
“I have no intentions of it.”
“Good.”
They could only sit a little while. Then they all went back out into the kitchen to check on how everything was progressing. They worked on turning a few things and rotating pans and making sure the potatoes were working okay. Jimmy Banquet Chef checked with the vegetable stewards to make sure the vegetables would be ready on time.
When they went back into the office, not for another beer but to finish the one they’d started, the waiters and waitresses were just coming into the kitchen. They would be having their little meeting, getting their assignments. Bill saw Beverly walk in and he saw the little French one, Nora. come in behind her. Nora had dark red lips and a droll expression on her face. Clearly, Bill thought, she did not want to be there. Beverly had an extra earring in her left ear.
“We’ll have another beer after the service,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said. Then, “Where’s my goddamn cousin?” he asked.
By Peter Weiss
I’m not a young man. I like to think I’m not that old either, but truth is I’m in my early seventies. I only say that because any way you slice it, I’m getting toward the end of the time allotted me.
So I saw the debate last night. No big deal. I suspect a lot of people saw it and everyone has their own opinion about the debate, the candidates, the election. I suspect we all have our own opinions about the United States and the state of affairs in America.
Well, that’s America, and that is what makes America great. It’s not the only thing that makes America great, but it’s one.
My reaction to the debate is one of sadness.
I’m not sad about the debate. I’m not shocked by what we saw. We all knew it was coming and we all watched the media egg it on. After all, that’s how they make their money.
I’m sad because I thought my retirement years and the years left to me would be peaceful ones, quiet ones, ones in which the country I live in did not sadden me or make me feel despair about our futures, especially the futures of our children and grandchildren.
I’m sad because I thought my country would let me live out my remaining years without imposing itself upon me.
I don’t think that for a second anymore.
I think we will have this election in a little more than month. If Trump wins re-election the next four years will be like the last. The leftists, aided and abetted by their lapdogs, the mainstream media Pravda USA owned and operated by the richest men in the world with international interests, will continue ripping apart the country, attempting to destroy the second term like they tried to do to the first.
America, its people and its future will continue to be collateral damage to the left’s insane attempt to gain unlimited and unchallenged power.
If Biden wins, he is a puppet for the left. In power, the leftists will destroy America.
So I am sad. I am sad that no matter how this election goes, my remaining years will be spent watching America be destroyed. And of course if the lefties win I will have to pay for the destruction with my increased taxes that are taken from my modest pension and limited Social Security. If you believe that Biden won’t raise taxes for anyone making less than 400K, I do have a bridge to sell you.
We all deserve better.
Quick note: This was written before the President contracted COVID.
