Stupid and Contagious (19 page)

I would be happy to accept one year’s free dining as compensation for this nightmarish experience (provided we can sit in someone else’s section!). I sincerely hope to resolve this matter absent the threat of litigation.

Sincerely,

Royston Felcher, Jr., Esquire

I enjoy my composition so much and think it’s so funny, I print it out and mail it to the restaurant as a joke. I can’t wait til they get it.

I see Brady on my way out of the apartment building, and he’s got a cactus in his hand. It appears to be dead.

“You managed to kil a cactus?” I say.

“Yeah. I remembered the no water bit but forgot the plenty of sunlight part.”

“Sorry. So what are you doing with it?”

“Honestly?” Brady says. “I don’t know. I felt bad throwing it away. I couldn’t do it. So I thought I’d . . . I don’t know. Lay it to rest somewhere out here. Maybe near a tree or in a bush.”

“That’s real y sad,” I say, because it is. It’s also kind of heartbreaking. And sweet.

“Yeah, I’ve kind of been wandering up and down the block looking for the right spot,” he says.

“Maybe it had a great life. Al plants die,” I say, trying to make him feel better. “It’s a living thing. And al living things die.” That didn’t come out as uplifting as I’d wanted it to. “So cheer up,” I add. “Because today it was just a cactus. Someday it’l be you.” Yeah, that wasn’t much better.

“What’s next? You gonna tel me Santa Claus isn’t real?”

“Worse—you know how they tel you when you go to the Olive Garden, you’re family? You’re not
really
family.”

“That hurts.”

“Love to stay and chat, but I gotta go to work,” I say.

“Sorry again about your cactus.”

“Thanks,” he says, pretending to wipe a tear the way Letterman sometimes does.

I’ve decided I’m going to speak with an accent at work today. I think this is a good idea for two reasons.

One, it’s a good way to entertain myself, and two, it may help me stay out of trouble. If I’m busy focusing on the accent, and therefore in character (somewhat), I won’t react to bad customers in my normal fashion.

It’s a toss-up between Australian and white-trash Southern, but I go with Australian. There is a big difference between Australian and British, though to the layman they sound quite similar. I can do Australian perfectly. British too, for that matter. In addition to my keen sense of smel I’ve got this uncanny knack for accents and imitations. When I was little I was like a mynah bird. It caused al sorts of trouble. I’d constantly repeat things I heard—often at inappropriate times.

Like once when I was seven years old I overheard the dental hygienist arguing with my dentist. And when I walked out into the waiting room I proudly said, “For fuck’s sake, Gerald, I don’t blow you for my health.

Either you leave her or I’m going to shove her PTA boat up her ass.”

The whole office got quiet. My mom took my hand and walked me outside, where she said, “It’s a PTA book, not boat. You can’t shove a boat up someone’s ass.” To which I replied, “I must have heard her wrong.” My mom was always very cool.

So I’m Australian today, and so far so good. When people ask, I tel them I’m from Sydney, and I real y love being here. I just hope I can renew my visa when it runs out.

Brett the not-so-new busboy has been mumbling to himself al day. He won’t stop. It’s definitely a mumble, not a hum. I’ve heard the word
fuck
at least thirty-two times. He’s always pissed off. It’s kind of amazing how he’s never been anything but irate. I don’t know what they were thinking when they hired him. I don’t know how he’s managed to stay around.

Table 4 has been asking me questions about Australia al night, and I’ve been playing it up. But they seem to know a lot about my “homeland” already.

“So do you think you’l win another Equestrian?”

one guy asks.

“Pardon?”

“You’ve won three in a row at the Olympics. This would be your fourth consecutive gold medal.”

“Oh, the Olympics. Right. Yeah, we have some good horses,” I say. “Can I get you anything else?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

“No, I’m great. This soup is fantastic. Bet you don’t have anything like it down under,” he says.

“No, we don’t have much soup there,” I say, which is completely lame, but what the hel am I going to say.

I entertain these people for the better part of my night, taking time away from other tables, because they’ve been the nicest. They also have the biggest check, which translates, hopeful y, to the best tip.

When they leave, they wish me wel and hope that I can extend my visa. I open their check and they’ve left
no
tip. This makes no sense whatsoever. They were way too nice to do that.

Brett sees the expression on my face, walks over and takes a look at the check.

“Motherfuckers!” he says, seemingly more angry that I am. In fact, I’m not mad at al . I’m more shocked than anything. Brett, being the busboy, gets a percentage of my tips—so he’s taking this personal y.

He’s steaming. But then he smiles this giant grin. He reaches onto their table and picks up their digital camera, which they’ve left.

“They’l probably come back for that,” I say. “They know where they had it last.”

“Better believe they wil ,” Brett says, putting the camera in his pocket and walking away with it.

“They were my table,” I say, walking after him. “You can’t keep it. I’l be the one to get in trouble.”

“I’m not gonna keep it,” he says, continuing into the kitchen.

About fifteen minutes later the customer comes back. I assume it’s for his camera, but it’s not.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I meant to leave cash when I signed my credit card. I don’t leave tips on my credit cards, and I guess I had too much wine. I completely forgot.”

“No problem,” I say. And he takes some cash out of his wal et and hands it to me. See? I knew they were too nice to stiff me.

“Here you go. Thanks again. You were great,” he says and turns to leave.

“Wait,” I say suddenly. “You forgot your camera.”

“Oh my God! I didn’t even notice,” he says.

“Hang on, let me get it,” I say and go into the kitchen to find Brett. He’s not there. I look al over, but he’s nowhere to be found. I panic, thinking he decided to final y quit and take the camera with him. But final y I spot him coming out of the bathroom and breathe a sigh of relief.

“Brett, I need the camera. The guy came back.”

Brett smiles this real y strange smile.

“He was commenting on the soup, right? He real y liked the soup.”

“Yeah,” I say as I take the camera from him.

I race back to the guy and return his camera.

“Here you go. This is a nice one. Don’t go leaving it at your next stop,” I say with a wink.

“I won’t.” He winks back. “Thank you
so
much.”

Brett walks over to me. He looks annoyed.

“You were awful y chummy with the guy that stiffed us,” he says.

“He didn’t. He didn’t even come back for his camera. He came back because he realized he forgot to tip.”

“How do you forget to tip?” Brett asks and now he seems even
more
angry that the guy came back and tipped us than he was when he thought he stiffed us.

“I don’t know. It happens. He’s drunk. He paid with a credit card.”

“Fuck,” Brett says.

“What?”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

“What?” I say.

“The guy was commenting on the soup, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I heard him saying how much he liked it.”

“Yeah?” I say impatiently. “And?”

“I just took a picture with his camera. Of me pissing into a bowl of soup.”

“You what? You peed into soup?”

“Yes.”

“And took a picture of it.”

“Yes.”

“What is
wrong
with you?” I fairly scream in his face.

“I hate people. It’s fucking cold outside. I’m thirty-seven years old, and I’m a busboy. How much time do you have because I can go on and on—”

“Brett! I can appreciate al that . . . but you just did something real y bad.”

“Hey—I didn’t know he was going to come back and tip us.”

I feel sick. I feel clammy and sick. I can’t believe he just did that. I’m mortified. Partly because I can’t fathom how someone could do such a thing. And worse, I’m
one
of them. I can’t believe I spit in that guy’s Caesar salad a month ago. I feel awful.

Granted, it’s not pee, and I didn’t take a picture of myself doing it, but I feel truly awful just the same.

Sydney was
so
right. Forget karma paying me back—

my own guilt and shame are doing plenty for that cause. I hate myself for doing that. What have I become? I know that nine out of ten waiters have spit in food or much worse, but I could have been the one that didn’t. And Brett doesn’t even think what he did was wrong. Except in the context that the guy came back. If he hadn’t tipped us Brett would feel perfectly justified.

“Look,” he says. “If it comes up, just say you don’t

“Look,” he says. “If it comes up, just say you don’t know how it got there.”

“If?
If
it comes up?”

He grabs his crotch. “It’s obvious
you
didn’t do it. A
guy
had to do it so you’re off the hook.”

“They can figure out who was working tonight, you know.”

“What are they gonna do?” Brett says. “Make us al pul out our dicks in a lineup?”

“Who knows?”

“Just don’t worry about it,” he says and walks away.

Brady

This morning I wake up feeling a little confused and a lot hungover. Heaven is sitting on my bed, and my reality seems a little distorted.

“Hi,” I say, not sure how many beers I drank last night and wondering what the hel went on.

“Morning,” she says, and she doesn’t seem happy at al . Did something happen between us? I’m going to hope for
no
if this is her reaction to it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask hesitantly.

“Everything,” she says. She fal s onto my bed and buries her face in the pil ow. “How did this happen?”

she asks. At least I think that’s what she asked. Her voice is so muffled with her face in the pil ow.

“Too much alcohol?” I offer, now thinking that maybe we had sex.

“Huh?” she says, and sits up.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m hungover. I may stil be drunk, in fact. Speak slowly, and start at the beginning.”

“It’s not that I’ve failed—real y . . . it’s not. I mean, I
do
the job. I do what I’m supposed to do. Sure, I may have had a few ‘conflicts’ as Marco likes to say.” Who is Marco, and what is she talking about?

“Uh-huh . . .” I say, trying just to listen and appear to know what we are talking about.

“I think it’s just . . . you know what it is?”

“No, I don’t,” I say.

“I failed to adapt. I entered a world I didn’t know, and I just didn’t adapt.” She sighs. “And for whatever reason, I can’t. People make changes in their life, and they blend and assimilate. They find a way to make it work. That’s where I’ve always taken the wrong turn.

By not taking a turn at al .”

“I’m sorry, what
are
we talking about?”

“Work,” she says. “The restaurant. I wasn’t always a waitress, you know.”

“So we didn’t have sex?”

“What?” She sits straight upright and looks at me like I’ve got three heads and one of them is wearing a sombrero.

“I don’t know. I just woke up, and you were here.”

“Zach let me in on his way out!”

“Ah. Okay then.”

“Gross!” She recoils. “You think I’d have
sex
with you?”

“Gross?”

“And you wouldn’t remember it?”

“I’m stil stuck on the gross part,” I say, scratching my neck and squinting.

“Believe me, if we had sex you’d remember it.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“But we won’t,” she says quickly.

“Fair enough. So back to you. You didn’t adapt.”

“Exactly,” she says. “And I hate feeling like a failure.”

“You’re not a failure. You’re just not a very good waitress.”

“But I could have faked it better.”

“Wel , what happened? Did you get fired?”

“No,” she says glumly. “But I got a warning.”

“Okay. So, that’s not the end of the world.”

“That was before Brett peed in my customer’s soup.”

I’m sure I’ve heard what she said. Every word.

Clear as a bel . Yet it seems essential to add,

“Pardon?”

“Not his actual bowl of soup. It’s not something I want to talk about.”

“Okay . . .” I say quite happily because I’m stil half asleep, and the last thing I want to think about right now is pee soup.

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” she says.

At that moment I feel something on my foot. It’s cold and wet, and it freaks me the fuck out.

“What the
hell
?” I say. I jump out of my bed and see Strummer at the foot of my bed. “Oh . . . didn’t know he was here, too. I felt something under my covers, which was apparently a nose. Hi, Strummer.”

“Sorry.” Heaven’s real y down. I don’t know what to do, but it seems like it’s on me to cheer her up. So I put on a sweatshirt and jeans and grab my keys.

“Come on,” I say.

The Central Park Zoo is one of those places that people who live in New York City don’t take advantage of enough. It’s right here in the middle of Central Park, and it’s got everything you could possibly want from a zoo. Most important, the monkeys. It’s nearly impossible not to enjoy monkeys.