elisah
12-20-2003, 06:20 PM
It was Mother's Day and slow. Chontalle assured me the men would come. After they all took their mothers to lunch and all. The dancers were all late. I had been there since 9 a.m. cutting up limes for the cook and now I was growing restless.
So were the few men there. I had already been groped by a group in the corner. Leslie had been dancing for 6 songs straight and was getting pissed. No one was tipping and Michael-the entertainment coordinator/bouncer-kept coaching her to shake it faster.
I was younger then. Eyes wide open and so afraid of the little I'd already seen. My boss was working the bar and kept asking to see my chest. He bared his own in invitation. Assuring me this was the perfect time to turn over and go from waiting tables to dancing on the stage. I was starting to consider it. Boredom and the promise of a couple of shots pushing me in a direction I had not previously considered when I came across a funny looking man seated center direct of the stage.
He was old. Gray haired and thinning, and dressed like all old men. Button down. Slacks. Unremarkable. Someone I would have normally passed by. Let someone else wait on him. No tip here. No story. But he called me over and asked to buy me a drink and it was this or the other so I settled on this.
Coming back with my virgin Bay Breeze and his Wild Turkey and Coke, I settled in to get a better look at him. His eyes were haunting. Pained. I thought to myself, this man has seen too much. Way more than most. He nodded and asked me if there was alcohol in my drink. I said yes immediately regretting the lie. He knew better. I knew he knew better. But he kept them coming.
One after the other. We hardly talked. Just sat soaking up eachother's company. Me thinking various thoughts. Wishing I was other places. Feeling bad I was taking advantage of this man. Thinking about how the commission I was making off these drinks plus his tips would cover the diapers I had to buy that night. Wondering what had caused him to age so badly. Wondering if that would happen to me, when out of nowhere he asked if I would like to play a game.
"What kind of game?", I asked.
"A surprise...something I haven't done in a long time."he said,"you got a pen?"
Thinking he was probably trying to get my phone number I told him no.
I don't like surprises or games really. He got up and went to the bar to get a pen.
When he came back he told me he would ask me some questions. He didn't want me to answer them. Just think the answer in my head. Then he would write down what he thought the answer was and when he was done we would see how many he got right.
Great, I thought, what a creative way to get a number, but I decided to play along.
He asked the first question,"What's your favorite band?"
I thought about it as he scribbled an answer on some paper. He then crumpled it up in a ball and put it in my hand.
"Don't read it yet,"he said.
"What's your mother's middle name?"
He wrote again as I thought about my answer. Depositing his paper ball in my hand he asked another question.
"What month is your daughter's birthday?"
Too weirded out by the game we were playing, I thought of the month, but completely missed the fact that I had never told him I had a daughter. I would realize that later though as I would rehash this moment again and again in my mind trying to make sense of it.
He gave me another paper ball and said, "O.K. one more question."
"What is your favorite food?"
He gave me the final ball, and told me to open the first one.
I opened it and it read, Knock Knock.
I laughed. "Is this some sort of joke?"
"No", he said,"What is your favorite band?"
"The Doors." It was then that the point of the game dawned on me. I hurried to open up the next paper.
It read, May.
Still hoping it was a joke, I asked, "what is this...my daughter's birthday?"
"No",he said,"That's your mother's middle name."
I opened up the next ball to find November '95.
"Now that's your daughter's birthday", he said. Smiling. Digging on my wonder/discomfort.
The final paper read Mexican food.
"Ha, my favorite food is Italian,"I told him.
He laughed and said he couldn't always be right. I asked him how he could do this. He told me he didn't know. He hadn't always been able to. He noticed it first in his twenties, shortly after his uncle died. He thought maybe it had come from him. But it had ruined his life. He said once you knew what people were thinking, you no longer wanted to know them. He hadn't shown anybody this in years.
We drank some more, and the club filled up. I finally left him to go wait more tables. I eventually "turned over" and went on to work there for a period of years before quitting to persue teaching.
I always hoped that he would come back, but he never did. No one else seemed to miss him. After all, at first glance, he was most unremarkable.
So were the few men there. I had already been groped by a group in the corner. Leslie had been dancing for 6 songs straight and was getting pissed. No one was tipping and Michael-the entertainment coordinator/bouncer-kept coaching her to shake it faster.
I was younger then. Eyes wide open and so afraid of the little I'd already seen. My boss was working the bar and kept asking to see my chest. He bared his own in invitation. Assuring me this was the perfect time to turn over and go from waiting tables to dancing on the stage. I was starting to consider it. Boredom and the promise of a couple of shots pushing me in a direction I had not previously considered when I came across a funny looking man seated center direct of the stage.
He was old. Gray haired and thinning, and dressed like all old men. Button down. Slacks. Unremarkable. Someone I would have normally passed by. Let someone else wait on him. No tip here. No story. But he called me over and asked to buy me a drink and it was this or the other so I settled on this.
Coming back with my virgin Bay Breeze and his Wild Turkey and Coke, I settled in to get a better look at him. His eyes were haunting. Pained. I thought to myself, this man has seen too much. Way more than most. He nodded and asked me if there was alcohol in my drink. I said yes immediately regretting the lie. He knew better. I knew he knew better. But he kept them coming.
One after the other. We hardly talked. Just sat soaking up eachother's company. Me thinking various thoughts. Wishing I was other places. Feeling bad I was taking advantage of this man. Thinking about how the commission I was making off these drinks plus his tips would cover the diapers I had to buy that night. Wondering what had caused him to age so badly. Wondering if that would happen to me, when out of nowhere he asked if I would like to play a game.
"What kind of game?", I asked.
"A surprise...something I haven't done in a long time."he said,"you got a pen?"
Thinking he was probably trying to get my phone number I told him no.
I don't like surprises or games really. He got up and went to the bar to get a pen.
When he came back he told me he would ask me some questions. He didn't want me to answer them. Just think the answer in my head. Then he would write down what he thought the answer was and when he was done we would see how many he got right.
Great, I thought, what a creative way to get a number, but I decided to play along.
He asked the first question,"What's your favorite band?"
I thought about it as he scribbled an answer on some paper. He then crumpled it up in a ball and put it in my hand.
"Don't read it yet,"he said.
"What's your mother's middle name?"
He wrote again as I thought about my answer. Depositing his paper ball in my hand he asked another question.
"What month is your daughter's birthday?"
Too weirded out by the game we were playing, I thought of the month, but completely missed the fact that I had never told him I had a daughter. I would realize that later though as I would rehash this moment again and again in my mind trying to make sense of it.
He gave me another paper ball and said, "O.K. one more question."
"What is your favorite food?"
He gave me the final ball, and told me to open the first one.
I opened it and it read, Knock Knock.
I laughed. "Is this some sort of joke?"
"No", he said,"What is your favorite band?"
"The Doors." It was then that the point of the game dawned on me. I hurried to open up the next paper.
It read, May.
Still hoping it was a joke, I asked, "what is this...my daughter's birthday?"
"No",he said,"That's your mother's middle name."
I opened up the next ball to find November '95.
"Now that's your daughter's birthday", he said. Smiling. Digging on my wonder/discomfort.
The final paper read Mexican food.
"Ha, my favorite food is Italian,"I told him.
He laughed and said he couldn't always be right. I asked him how he could do this. He told me he didn't know. He hadn't always been able to. He noticed it first in his twenties, shortly after his uncle died. He thought maybe it had come from him. But it had ruined his life. He said once you knew what people were thinking, you no longer wanted to know them. He hadn't shown anybody this in years.
We drank some more, and the club filled up. I finally left him to go wait more tables. I eventually "turned over" and went on to work there for a period of years before quitting to persue teaching.
I always hoped that he would come back, but he never did. No one else seemed to miss him. After all, at first glance, he was most unremarkable.