I usually sat at the far side of the bar. It was out of the light and facing the door, so I could see who was coming in. Not that I was looking for anybody in particular; but I’d known too many guys who ended up the hospital just because they sat with their back to the door. I was usually there for happy hour three or four nights out of the week, and everyone knew me. The bartender for Wednesday and Thursday day shift was a cool chickie named Ginny. She was friendly, remembered people, and (after a couple of times) their drink of choice. If you were enough of a regular, sometimes she’d even have your drink poured before your ass was in the stool.
That day was no exception. By the time I got to my usual place, she had my scotch and water waiting for me.
“How ya doing, Ginny?”
“Pretty good, Finn. How about you?”
“Not bad for a Wednesday.” I lifted my drink to my lips. “Even better now.”
“One of those days?”
“Everyday is one of those days.”
She laughed and moved off to deal with another customer. I was a little early, and the mid-afternoon crowd was a mix of late office lunch eaters and the off-track regulars, most of whom were trying to survive retirement. They were my father’s generation – the generation of men old enough to have fought in
“You gonna eat today?” Ginny was back from dealing with other patrons.
“I might. You never know.”
“We have a NEW menu,” she said, showing it to me.
“What, again?”
“They want to try new things,” she said. “Plus they just brought in a new cook and he’s got new specials for the menu.”
“What happened to the old cook?”
“Left.”
Ah. The look on her face was a familiar one. It meant the cook hadn’t left so much as she’d been forced out. That could only mean one thing. Adelle was on the war path again.
Adelle was the owner – though she spent more time saddled up to the bar buying her friends drinks than she did doing the paperwork. She’d originally gone into business with her boyfriend, and they were co-owners of the bar until he left her for a younger girl with firmer tits, a better ass, and a nicer disposition. He sold her his share – cheap – and opened his own place across town. I’d been in there a few times. It was a nice little place. A low key neighborhood kind of place. But it was too far to walk; plus the bus was a hassle, and I hated driving to the bar. Since then Adelle had been gradually running the place into the ground. The economy didn’t help any; but mostly it gave her a good excuse to let the place go to hell. The boyfriend had been the one who dealt with employees and the major paperwork; mostly she booked music acts that drew small crowds and sponsored ridiculous contests in an attempt to “build the customer base.” One of her bright ideas had been to take out the dart boards and put in a claw machine that had sex toys and adult videos as prizes. That lasted until one of the people who brought her kids in with her complained about the brightly colored dildoes her five year old son wanted to try and win. Now the machine just sat unplugged, shoved off into an inconspicuous corner behind a larger than life cardboard cut-out of a bare mid-riffed model advertising Budweiser.
“Is the new cook any good?”
Ginny smiled and sat on the cooler. “I hear he’s pretty good.”
“Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
She shrugged. “He’ll do. Until he quits, too.”
“Temperamental?”
“They always quit eventually.”
Just then, Adelle was walking out on the floor; she was coming out of the back office with one of her bar buddies; a tall, muscular construction worker who was her new flavor of the month. As usual, Adelle was dressed ten years younger than her age and body could stand, and her spray on tan looked splotchy. By the time she and her man meat got to the bar, Ginny had poured him a tall draft and made her a Cosmopolitan.
“How’s the new menu?” Adelle asked Ginny.
“It’s going ok. The new appetizers are popular.”
“What about the burgers?”
“No one’s ordered one yet.”
“Ok.” Adelle took a sip of her drink. “Just so you know, we’re out of avocadoes.”
Ginny started washing glasses. “Ok.”
“So when people order the
Ginny stopped washing glasses. “Huh?”
Adelle smiled. It was one of those smiles like she thought she knew something nobody else knew. “We’re out of avocadoes,” she repeated.
“Yeah. And?”
“And so, if anybody orders the
Ginny wrinkled her nose. “O-o-o-k-a-y. So what are we supposed to tell people when they expect avocado and get guac instead?”
Adelle’s smile widened, like she was anticipating the punch line of a worn out joke. “Tell them it’s avocado spread.”
I looked over at the man meat. He was drinking his beer and not saying anything. But I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was. Ginny looked at me; I shrugged and rolled my eyes. Then she put down the pint glass she was about to wash, dried off her hands, and walked towards Adelle.
“Avocado spread?”
Adelle took a sip of her drink. “Yeah. Sure. I mean, that’s pretty much what it is, right?”
“Um, no. Not really,” Ginny said. “They’re gonna know the difference between plain avocadoes and guacamole.”
“Trust me.” Adelle drained her glass. “It’ll be fine.” She held out the empty martini glass towards Ginny. That was her way of saying she wanted another. I was sitting near the mixing station, so she came over and started another Cosmo in a clean glass.
She looked over her shoulder to make sure Adelle wasn’t listening. She wasn’t. She was too busy fawning over her man meat and pushing her tired sagging tits in his face. He clearly didn’t mind, but I suspected that he’d have ditched her for one of the waitresses if it wasn’t for the free booze and easy piece of ass.
“Can you believe that?” Ginny was leaning close and whispering.
“I can believe most things.”
“Would you believe that? If somebody tried to tell you that guac was avocado spread?”
“Maybe it’s not so much believing it. Maybe it’s not having a choice.”
“She just didn’t order them,” Ginny hissed. “This kind of shit happens all the time. Like two weeks ago with the beer shipment.”
That had been truly tragic. I showed up to the bar and all the domestic taps were empty. It had happened before – usually the day after the Superbowl, the World Series, or the NCAA Championship. But this had been just a regular day. The Tuesday bartender – a young single mom named Shannon who liked to increase her chances for tips by wearing tight tank tops and a g-string that always managed to show just above her jeans – had told me the distributor changed the delivery schedule without telling them. The next day, Ginny told me the truth; Adelle hadn’t ordered more beer because on the day the order needed to placed to get it there in time, there wasn’t any money to pay for it; the distributors were working with her on cash only basis. That hadn’t stopped her from supplying all of her friends with free booze, though.
“Well,” I said shrugged. “What can you do?”
“It’s just so stupid,” Ginny shook her head. “People are gonna KNOW. Right?”
“Yeah. Sure they will.”
“You’d know. Right?”
I told her that of course I would. Most anybody would. I mean, there were probably some truly ditzy people out there who wouldn’t know the difference, or people who are too drunk to care. Of course, I had trouble imagining that avocados would taste good on a hamburger and I also had trouble imagining the kind of person who wanted to be healthy but still wanted their grease and read meat, too.
She finished mixing Adelle’s drink and took it over to her. Then she came back over.
“I should say something,” she said.”
“Why?”
“You know… at the rate things are going, this place will go under in six months.”
That wasn’t a pleasant thought. I hated the idea of having to change bars. New stool. New bartender. New cast of regulars to deal with.
She continued. “I mean, it’s just a shame, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“I should say something.”
I didn’t see any way that could turn out well; but I guess everyone has to draw the line somewhere. I quit a job once because they wanted me to cut my hair. The line doesn’t always have to make sense to anybody else.
I finished my drink and Ginny took my glass to make me another. “Are you going to talk to her now?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’ll wait until tomorrow, before my shift starts.”
Get her before she starts drinking, I thought. Smart.
I stayed for a few more drinks, and I left at the end of Ginny’s shift. When I dropped by the next day, I asked her how it went.
“It didn’t.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
She shook her head. “I tried to tell her. Some people are allergic to onions. Some people have to watch their salt. You gotta take those things into consideration.”
“Very true. So what’d she say?”
“She got mad. Yelled at me. Told me she knew what she was doing.”
Ah. “And what did you say?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“So you’re just going let it happen?”
She shrugged. “I figure a customer will complain about it. Then she’ll have to do something.”
I wasn’t convinced. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you’re right.”
“You ain’t kidding,” she answered. I finished my drink and she poured me another. We talked about other things. Adelle came out of the back office, sat at the bar and drank Cosmos while her man meat downed tall drafts. Adelle and Ginny maybe exchanged words twice the whole time I was there. Both times were brief. Other regulars came in, and Ginny had their drinks ready for them. When I left, Ginny was in the process of counting her drawer and Adelle was standing next to the juke box dry humping the construction workers leg and cackling.
The following Wednesday, Ginny wasn’t working.
“What happened?”
“I was getting complaints about her,” Adelle said, smiling. “I had to let her go.”
“Complaints from who?” I asked.
She looked down at me. “Regulars.”
I didn’t answer. I went back to my scotch and considered ordering a