NO Quarter (2 page)

Cop-car lights, red and blue—they were something for the eye to follow. They sped fast along Decatur, silent but for the gunning motors. I didn’t see the first, just glimpsed the second squad car. Red and blue lights splashed the building fronts and colored the windows of parked cars, and were gone.

I had three plates stacked up my left arm, from hand to elbow ... a balanced load, if you know how to do it, but the dishes made three hot spots that would start burning if I left them there. In my right hand I carried a fourth, and I had a fifth plate on my right arm.

I dealt them off onto the table clockwise, making certain each diner got his or her proper plate without me needing to double back. I had taken the orders for the table, complete with multiple substitutions, without writing anything down. I can remember almost anything I hear or see—if I want to. It is my one special skill, often good for tips. But for this group, it was a wasted effect. All four of my feeders were craned about, looking past the restaurant’s front windows after the police lights.

“See?”

“
Two
of ‘em, even.”

“Wonder what they’re after
...
”

“Aww, I don’t believe any of it.”

“See?” Again, said like a point was being made.

I
had
nearly burned myself, but my face stayed neutral. Never flinch. Somebody brands the back of your thigh with a careless cigarette or coffee pot, don’t cringe, don’t respond. Nobody likes to hear about a waiter’s problems. Certainly not your customers, who want a dining experience where they and they alone matter in the universe.

“You live ‘round here?” I was being addressed by the
See?
ing one. Addressed flat and direct, the way lords of the manor talk to servants in period-costume dramas. A demanding voice.

“I do,” I said.

“Here’n the French Qwardah?”

“Here in the Quarter.” I waited by the table. I had two other parties—two-tops, locals I knew. I’d already brought out their plates. They were eating, happy. They would tip decently.

My foursome here were out-of-towners, but Southerners. I can’t distinguish the subtleties of cracker accents, so I couldn’t say from where. Two couples, middle-aged, dressed for the heat. The women were heavy, the men heavier. Drunk, the gals would make public nuisances of themselves, and the guys would become belligerent. I could extrapolate their behavior at a glance. Luckily they weren’t drunk—not yet, anyway. This late-night supper would fortify them all the way back to Bourbon Street. They were off the normal tourist beat here at this far end of Decatur Street, near Esplanade, here at this restaurant that’s mostly a locals’ hangout.

“Tell me sump’in’.” He leaned toward where I was standing. Latent aggressive air. “What’s it like? Inna Qwardah, livin’—acsh’ly
livin’
here. What’s it like?”

I don’t know what tourists see when they come here. When Sunshine and I arrived two years ago, we got busy scrambling for jobs, hunting up an apartment—not much sightseeing time. The Quarter very quickly became, simply, our neighborhood. It was real. It was where we lived. There are a good many residents here, more than you’d guess, residents to whom Bourbon Street is just a
street
. The endless stream of tourists—and regardless of the season, they never really stop coming—have different expectations.

I offered my table a smile that didn’t involve my eyes. “The party never stops in the French Quarter,” I said with a leer in my voice.

What they wanted to hear. They grinned, cackled. People in their forties, aroused by the decadence we sell by the glass here. There are strip joints, adult novelty shops, and bars, bars, bars. It was giddy culture shock for these four, reminding them of younger days—the males: tireless stud-machines; the females: slim and beautiful, with their pick of dates. At least, that’s how they would remember it. They were cutting loose.

“Y’er skinny,” the woman with the other man said it at me the way you’d point and comment, “That dog has a fluffy tail.”

I slid my eyes toward her, held there briefly, while she laughed at her own wit. I thought of telling her I had cancer. But you’re working for tips—their tips—the money they’ll leave you for good service, but more for letting them enjoy themselves however they want to.

“But those po-leese, they jus’ went by—what’s going on, who’re they after?” It was the man again. He had a thick, graying mustache that looked like it grew right up into his flared nostrils. They all had their individual physical characteristics. My mind recorded just enough while they were here and would attempt to erase them when they left. Of course, they would always be there,
somewhere in my head, locked in with all the other things I could not completely erase.

The two squad cars had been heading down Decatur—toward the Square, toward Canal. No sirens, just lights. Whatever it was had already happened. I shrugged, “Parties get rowdy sometimes.”

More cackles at that. Give them what they want. Right, right, it’s Mardi Gras every day of the year. Go buy yourselves some beads, join the fun.

“Y’er
real
skinny.” She found it funnier this time, laughed longer.

I
am
thin. Gaunt, if you must. Not due to dieting, not to exercise. I’ve got a junkie’s body, but I never have used junk and never will use it. What I do have is a persistent lack of appetite. I don’t normally get hungry, or I’m not aware of getting hungry, so I miss meals. I’m not anorexic and wouldn’t expect any sympathy if I was. I simply don’t
understand
food, why people make such a big deal out of it.

Which makes being a waiter an odd job choice, I suppose. I’m good at it, though, as much as I well and truly loathe it. I stopped by the kitchen and rattled off the dessert orders for my last group, aware of the grumbles from the cooks.

“Why can’t yuh just write it down like everybody else?” Joe moaned. A common complaint from him, but I didn’t take it seriously for a four-top. If I have a group of six or more, I usually speak nice and slow to give the kitchen time to make a list. I never write anything down unless the cook needs crib notes. My memory for detail makes me especially good during slam times. Unfortunately, numbers are not my thing. If I had any skill with math I could maybe count cards in the casinos instead of waiting tables.

I kept my eye on my other two tables, aware of the other waiters and their tables. I heard the hurly-burly of the eight-top, a party of eight college-age yahoos that Nicki had got stuck with. Nicki was young, cute, sweet—too sweet, too nice—and judging by the hoots and grunts coming from her big table, the yahoos were hassling her. I was aware of football jerseys, meaty faces, pitchers of beer on the table—loudmouths, MTV-bred, hormonally overwrought. They were of a type. When they find out they can’t get laid, they start a fight.

But it wasn’t my table. I had my own customers and my own hustles to work. My four tourists finally settled into eating, the two guys arguing. “It’s alla put-on, Harry, like Disneyland,” and, “Naw, the pahwty never stops, you
heard
‘im.”

I made my rounds. Cleared plates, poured coffee. I chatted with my two-tops, more sincerely than with my tourist feeders. I knew these folks, from the restaurant, from around the Quarter. We could talk about common things.

I was getting twitchy for a smoke.

Midnight had come and gone. I knew that much, as I slipped past the waiters’ station of cutlery, coffee pots, and menus, but was surprised, turning the corner and lighting a cigarette, to see the clock reading past one-thirty. It was Sunday, technically Monday, but it’s not the next day until you’ve been to sleep.

A radio played from the kitchens, loud, drowning some of the chaos—steam and clatter and greasy smoke. Even when it runs smoothly, our restaurant—like any restaurant—is chaotic. There’s a kind of bored frenzy to it.

I puffed fast and deep, knowing cigarette breaks never last. I felt the sweat sticking my black T-shirt to my back, despite the air-conditioning; felt my aching calves and sore lower back. I felt—probably more than anything—that sickly sense of indignity. I was at the end of my night, worn-out. Easy to feel lousy about spending these past hours of my life toadying and scraping and degrading myself, kowtowing like a goddamned manservant!
Did I do good, boss, suh I live only to please, yessuh.

Christ, Bone. Lighten up. You’re just a waiter.

I sucked smoke into my lungs. I patted my apron pocket, feeling the bills there. My tips. All for the money, that’s why we humble ourselves. I wasn’t taking new tables. I was done for tonight, would finish up the ones I had, total my checks, cash out. Leave Nicki and the other kid, Otis, to handle the graveyard. Employees come and go: waiters, cooks, dishwashers. The flake factor is high for jobs in the Quarter, astronomically high in its restaurants. I expect to see several new faces every week, and expect they’ll be replaced before I get to know them.

The party never stops.

I pitched my smoke, relishing that lightheaded rush you get when you haven’t had one in hours, and started back toward the floor. Ours is a good restaurant—less pricey than a lot of Quarter joints, sizable portions and, like I said, a locals’ haunt.
Real
people come here, people who read Tarot cards in the Square and work at the gift and T-shirt shops and tend bar and sell Lucky Dogs from vending carts on the street corners and eke out livings like people do everywhere. Locals, keeping the French Quarter functioning for your amusement.

I felt a snit coming on. Familiar pointless anger tingled my raw nerves. But there was nothing to do with it. Nowhere to aim it.

Now that I’d had my smoke, I wanted a drink. Before I could reach the dining room floor to get to my tables, deliver checks, get my customers and myself out of here, this week’s bicycle-delivery kid came toward me. Our eatery is open twenty-four hours and we deliver free in the Quarter. What more could you ask for?

“Hey, Bone!” A kid, yes, but sometime during the last few years “kids” had somehow become twenty-five-year-olds, which this one was. His head was shaved, the lack of hair compensated for by the junkyard’s worth of ear piercings and the compulsory goatee. What was his name
...
? I accessed that memory file.

I retrieved the name. “Hey, Spit.” No lie, it was his handle. People get called what they want here.

“Somethin’s goin’ on down by the river. ‘Round the Moonwalk. Cops. Lotsa cops.”

I shrugged and went past, and he went to the pickup window. If you’ve got a bike, the stamina, and a willingness to carry a wad of cash through the streets at night, you can make very respectable money doing deliveries. A percentage of Quarter-dwellers become shut-ins on their days off. They order their cigarettes and beer from the corner grocery, they have their meals delivered at night from the restaurants and delis. Quarterites usually know how to tip good. Hell, half of us are waiters and bartenders ourselves.

By now I needed to get back onto the floor. My tourist four-top was nearly done feeding. My other two tables looked ready for their checks. But Nicki came rushing off the floor past me, a petite hand over her mouth, tears in her eyes. I saw her college-boy eight-top getting up, shuffling out, still hooting and hollering and blustering.
Neanderthals.

Customers come first, yes, but Nicki had worked here awhile. I actually knew her. I turned, followed a few steps, and gently touched her elbow.

She spun, hand moving from her mouth to cover her eyes. Her other hand was a fist she knocked against the wall by the coffee pots.

“I’m not crying ‘cause I’m hurt, I’m crying ‘cause I’m
mad
.” Which apparently made her madder. She thumped her fist harder. “Fuckin’
...
fuckin’
...
creeps
.”

I squeezed her elbow and backed off. She didn’t want to be watched, and I understood. I went out to my tables. It didn’t matter really what the yahoos had said. What mattered was that they
could
say it
...
or thought they could. Thought they had the right.
Hey, fuckit dude—she’s just a waitress, ain’t nothin’.

You’re working for tips, their tips, you just take it. Take it.

I wanted that drink more now. Wanted to do other things as I tracked the eight Neanderthals past the windows, out of sight along Decatur. But what was there to do? Take it. Nicki, me
...
all of us who do this shit for a living.