If I Start Having to Raise my Hand to Go to the Bathroom . . .

Had last night off and I didn’t go in until the dinner shift today. It was a nice break after working split shifts all last week. I am tired. Very tired. This is probably not also helped by the fact that I have gone out after work all but two of the last I don’t know how many nights, one of those I spent on the sofa with a migraine (I am sure none of this is related). Sunday I had planned for rest, but found myself with a beer during the Vikings game at Manny’s friend’s place and somehow ended up closing down the thirteen hours later. This was arguably much more fun than sleep.

Tonight after cashing out my one and only table for the evening, I took a moment to step off the floor and relieve myself, and ran into the bartender, who was just finishing her business. We’ve become friends in the three weeks since the restaurant finally opened and have gone out for drinks (including Sunday night when  she was only going to meet up with Manny and I for one beer), but mostly we either walk home together or get a ride from her brother instead of walking separately, in the same direction, in the dark, with pockets full of cash.

All of this terrifies the tiny Albanian who employs us. He distrusts everyone. Assumes everyone is a crook. Consequently, he treats us only slightly better than he might treat a prisoner were he a guard. And he thinks that the bartender and I, because we talk to one another outside of the prison walls, are somehow colluding to steal his money and rip him off. I’ve been doing my best to ignore him. Trying not to chat with the bartender any more than necessary for work (even though I’m chatty and friendly with everyone else) because every time I talk to her, the tiny Albanian is suddenly standing between us, telling one or both of us to do some thing he just thought up.

So tonight, when I stepped out of the stall and found the bartender washing her hands on her way out of the bathroom, I knew we were in for it, and even made a joke to her about walking out separately so he didn’t think we were plotting in the toilet. When I got back to the nearly empty dining room, my boss was standing near the hostess podium, glaring at me. I looked past him to say good night to the guests on their way out the door, and he reached out, grabbed me by the arm, and growled at me, “Please explain why the two of you have to go to the lavaratory at the same frickin’ time?”

I just stared at him, his fingers gripped tight above my elbow. I still don’t know how I managed to keep my cool or my job.  

Grendel

Getting ready to go to work, which is to say I am sitting on the sofa after standing outside for not one but two cigarettes in the grey, dreary morning. I have twenty or so minutes before I need to shower and dress and catch the bus downtown where, even though I have told myself I don’t need one, I will smoke another cigarette in order to calm my nerves before walking  through those double doors to the darkened restaurant, where the owner will be sitting, waiting to pounce. No doubt he will have found something to piss him off, something about which to be suspicious, and the calm I have spent this morning cultivating will be replaced with anger and frustration that if I stick up for myself and tell this tiny Albanian immigrant what he really needs to be told, I will be fired. Even worse is the possibility of being kept on, and treated with even more suspicion and hostility.

Money is a bitch. And I think I’m working for her son.