I can't do this alone

I enter the bar through the back kitchen entrance, usually greeted by the kitchen help, chefs and whatnot. Today I had the pleasure of meeting the new guy. I hadn't heard him speak just yet, though I acknowledged him with a friendly "hello." He just stared straight through me with one of the most psychotic looks I've seen in my life. Both his eyes seemed off-center, as though each individual eye was focused on a different spot of my face. His eyelids slightly widened and he only took another puff of his cigarette which I later learned he "bummed" off the terrified waiter smoking 10 feet away from him. I gave him a confused look in reply and walked into the kitchen.

"Do you have a problem with me?"

He sat at the bar as I was cutting fruit before the bar opened. I tried not to make an aggravated face as I replied, knowing as soon as I saw him that he very well may stab me.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just gonna be straight up witchu. Man I like dis job and I don't want my P.O. sendin' me back if I get canned. I just wanna know we're cool."

I told him we were cool, I don't usually have a "problem" with someone I've never met before. It doesn't work that way with me. He then went on to ask me, I swear to God, if I've ever "fucked a sheep." They apparently have them at whatever prison he resided, and he swears that it feels like the same thing. I asked him, politely enough, to get the hell away from me. From now on, I bring a switch-blade to work with me.

This being a Friday night, the bar was full of interesting characters. I found myself having a very stimulating conversation with some successful businessmen. They seemed successful enough, very nice suits, racked up a hefty tab, probably $300 between the three of them. Of course I can't have a stimulating conversation with businessmen about anything "business," we talked of the wonders of legal prostitution in Amsterdam. Did you know that you can have two midgets at a time? Well, Ron did. I still think that they were transvestites. Ron mentioned something about midget transvestites in passing, then when I asked him about it minutes later he changed the subject. His colleagues must have missed it. They can't wait for their next business trip to "Thailand," where the midgets are children! Capitalism at its finest.

I've been seeing Rita. A cheerfully well-dispositioned waitress in the restaurant. Always happy, always friendly, always drunk, never interesting. I've been "seeing" her. By seeing, I guess I mean dating, if you'd like to call it that. I don't understand what one means by the word "seeing," as if that doesn't imply that you are dating as much as it implies that you are screwing, no dinners and money and flowers and candy involved. There is an unspoken communication between two people that makes that decision for them whether they are dating or seeing each other. In this case that unspoken communication has led us both to the conscious decision that this will not last.

James is a server at the bar. Good guy. Hot sister. Brenna. I didn't know she was his sister. I'll start from the beginning. My girlfriend and I are currently in relationship limbo, I guess. "On a break." For reasons that will remain untalked about. Just because it's a boring story, relationships are always a boring story with no one interested in your damn pointless lover's quarrel but you. So stop telling me about how your boyfriend doesn't pay enough attention to you or started talking to his ex or cursed you off, deal with it. Anyway, a very attractive female patron was taking a particular interest in her bartender, i.e. me. I did give her a free half-pint of beer.

The bar closes at 2 am. It is now ten after two, and the bar is full of servers and food runners and bussers and managers and chefs. They are all toasted. I am toasted. I'm having a nice time with Brenna, and Rita is fairly jealous. Rita is somewhat of an anomaly to me. She has just returned from the office where she was with Roger, the head chef and in this case head chef in more ways than one. We have just made out in the kitchen freezer a few hours ago, during the dinner rush and the alcohol on her breath almost sent me into a drunken stupor. Rita always keeps a water bottle of vodka on hand while she works. No doubt about it, Rita likes to have fun. And who am I to judge? Not that I don't feel sorry for a girl such as Rita.

Rita happened to walk by Brenna and me on her way back from her meeting with the "head" chef while Brenna was showing me her tattoo. Rita stormed off aggravated.

The night went well, and wanting to continue our good time, we had a nice little conversation in my car at about 4 am, outside of the bar. After our conversation, Brenna felt guilty. Apparently she just broke up with her boyfriend, and she's not one to talk with other men at this time of night. I, however, knew from Dan and other co-workers that she is not too honest. Apparently her boyfriend was disgusted by her barbie-esque physique, and made her feel insecure. Apparently, you are not allowed to have conversations in your own car at this hour, outside of the bar, because a police officer noticed the fogged windows of my car, from all the hot air released as we chatted the night away. He asked us to step out of my vehicle. As I put my pants back on (it was very hot and I do not like suit pants at all), James's sister decided to heckle the officer. After he refused several times her requests to be arrested I apologized to the officer for the 10th time and drove her to my place.

I lay in bed with my bride to be. My damsel in distress, who surely would have spent a night in jail if it were not for me. Drunken and asleep and I cannot sleep because sleeping beauty snores worse that my father. I miss my girlfriend.

"the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring."

-Hemingway