At the beginning of the shift, when the waiters huddled together to pair up and stake claims to tables, Alana announced to everyone, "I want to work with Michael." So, we spent the evening talking about 'lee, chre, choor', doing impressions of our customers to make each other laugh, we even wrote a poem together, but I didn't inquire about her pregnancy.
As we leaned against the service window, waiting for food to come out she asked, "What is your schedule?"
"I work every Thursday night through Sunday night." I told her, and then asked, Why?"
She wrote on the back of her yellow server's notebook: 'Th - Sun.' And I asked her again, "Why?"
"Don't get the wrong idea." She said, looking over her shoulder toward the dining room. "But I only want to work here when you are working." She then grabbed her food as it came out the window under my nose, and she ran it to her table.
As I stood alone at the service window my first thought was: Some man in the restaurant, someone on the staff, is coming on to her, maybe harassing her, and she feels safer if I'm around, cause I'm her friend and I'll look out for her. Second thought: Brazilian men are reportedly very possessive; maybe her fiancé is giving her shit about working at PIZZA DIVE with all these horny men worshipping her. I picture her telling her boyfriend, "No, no, it's not like that. I only talk to my friend Michael."
And he says, "Who is Michael?"
And she answers, "He's just my friend and you have nothing to worry about because he's busti (gay)."
I tell this theory to my fellow waiter, Allan, who answers, "That's fucking crazy man; you think too much."
"But I'm mistaken for gay all the time." I tell him, because it is true. "I can picture her saying that."
"Man, it's cool that you're humble." Replied Allan as he folded another pizza box. "But if you can't tell that a girl likes you, like, if you can't even except that someone might like you, then you are unhealthy, bro."
"I'm not humble at all." I replied. "I just don't think she likes me like that. She's just Brazilian; she doesn't think it's weird to be nice, the way white girls do. Plus man, she's getting married on the day I'm leaving North America."
"Exactly." Smiled Allan. "We went over this before: you need to tag her."
I wrote him off cause I know he's wrong. Still, he and I went out after work, to a bar, to see my friend Jason Nwagbaraocha's reggae band.
At the club, as I stand in the entrance with simultaneous views of both the stage and the drunks navigating the streets of Ybor outside, JACK asks me to watch the door for him.
"It's $4," he says, handing me a roll of ones and a Sharpie. "Make sure you put an 'X' on people's hands if they're under 21." RICK LOOSE stands behind JACK nodding.
"Where are you guys going?" I ask them. They glance at each other and laugh stupid and I know they're going to get high.
"Fuck you guys, man." I scold them. "That's like you saying to me, 'will you take this responsibility that you don't want so that we can be free to go get high without you?' That sucks man. Thanks."
"Yes or no?" Jack asks from inside the thick red beard exploding from under his Bucs cap. "You watch the door: yes or no?"
I gave him silence and took the ones and JACK and RICK LOOSE crept out the door and around the building to get stoned. Soon after, a guy with a Mohawk stumbled through the door.
"How much is it?" The Mohawk kid asked, unable to focus his swimming eyes.
"Don't worry about it, dude." I said, waving him in, feeling no qualms about not charging him since JACK didn't invite me to the bake-out.
He reached out to grab me for balance but missed by a foot. "Did you see a punk guy come in here?" He asked, his hands still searching the air.
"Just you, bro." I told him, and he stumbled out of the bar.
JACK and his glassy eyes came back and took control of the door and the money and I walked inside, still watching the street through the tinted windows; like a television with the sound turned off. Inside the silent TV, Mohawk slouched drunk as his girlfriend held him up. Her ass was amazing and young in plaid pants, but she had the thin lips of a Florida redneck woman (lips that have evolved from generations of drinking canned beer). She was crying, so I watched them intently and sometimes she looked up at the window through her tears, seeming to notice me watching, but I knew they couldn't see into the club through the tint.
The thin-lipped girlfriend eventually set Mohawk down on the sidewalk while another punk and a big skinhead guy attempted to sober Mohawk by roughing him up. When the action lulled, I'd watch the girlfriend's butt, or the band on stage and when I'd turn back to the glass, the situation was rougher until eventually the big skinhead punched Mohawk in the mouth as he lay on the concrete. The punch seemed slow and not entirely deliberate, like someone was whispering 'don't' in the skinhead's ear as he swung. Mohawk's girlfriend cried but didn't intervene.
My co-worker Allan is a big, broad guy. He could kill me with a punch; literally end my life without opening his hand. So he had no fear of walking out into the middle of the punks and hovering, burning holes in them with staring and eventually conversing with the skinhead, though I couldn't hear them through the glass. As Allan and the skinhead talked, I noticed that Mohawk was bleeding from his mouth and he was having a seizure. I walked to the bartender and told him to call an ambulance.
Mohawk still lay on the ground, bleeding and shaking like an electric shock as we walked by the punks on our way to my truck.
At my apartment we did bong hits and I asked Allan to tell me his side of the scene. He handed me the bong and I handed him my laptop:
"There was a punk rock kid totally yelling, and wasted too: upset and yelling into the faces of his friends, mostly punks and fat chicks, but whatever. The next thing I know, I look out the window, because you were. And that same kid is outside and yelling at an even more punk rock kid. He then kicks at the air in front of the more punk rock kid and this big guy was holding the kid who was being yelled at but the kid who was being yelled at (whom I will call Mohawk from now on) was not punching or fighting back. Anyway, I go back to the music that was being played at the club, but you were still looking out the window so I look back and the big guy grabbed Mohawk by the mohawk, and frail Mohawk fell to the ground and the big guy who, at one moment looked like he was holding this guy back, was now beating Mohawk down while he was already down. So let me repeat: a big guy was beating him down. I'm like, "lets get help," and I walk out there cause IF this big ass guy hits this little punk rocker, as weird as that sounds... Anyway, I'm out there watching this, and Mohawk is down and bleeding and starts to bleed in his mouth and starts to have a seizure, which I have never seen and wasn't about to. I yell, "Does he need help?" Cause I thought he needed it, and I also wanted to let that big bully dork know that someone else is watching, someone who is his own size, and thinks it is uncool. The guy has the nerve to turn around and tell me, "We need a couple of minutes." I tell him, "OK, but he looks pretty bad." And the big punk rock kid said, "I know, he's just been punched in the face." So I'm immediately like, "OK, I know I just saw you punch him like three times." And he says that he only punched him once. I'm like whatever. I have to stop here because I'm like, all fired up now."