Chapter: 6 Goldilocks and Callie
Remember when the teacher called on you in class. You sit there staring at her for another five seconds trying to figure what the hell she wants. You might stutter, stumble on a few words and finally the answer comes to you. You don't give a shit.
I was having one of those moments with Mike Nash. I was staring at his mouth, waiting for a little mouth to pop out and try and eat me like in Alien. He had turned an interesting shade of blue. Not quite lavender. Iridescent almost. Mike Nash had choked on his protein bar. I gazed at the trainers. Their background checks required them to have taken CPR. They had at least three hours practicing on a dummy to prepare them for this situation. I recalled that the choking signal needed to be demonstrated first before any action was to be taken.
"Should I . . .," I asked trailing off looking to Abe, the trainer who ate on a timer.
"He looks fine to me." These guys lived on a strict diet of brown rice and chicken. The only other real protein I'd seen them eat was raw almonds. I think Abe needed more carbs. He needed to rub his two little brain cells together and make a fire.
"I think he's choking. I'm going to whack him on the back. Any objections?" I asked to make sure that in the case that Mike was normally a Smurf blue, I had the staff's full support. The other two trainers, I named them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, scratched their heads and nodded. I whacked, Mike coughed. Tweedle Dee stepped out of the way of any possible projectile objects.
It took him a few seconds but finally he breathed enough air to say, "You're quitting?" I nodded. It seemed like an awful shame to be leaving a horrible job with a great pay check in a bad economy. Mike thought I was an idiot. I had the same idea about him.
"You want to explain to me why you're quitting?" Mike asked then gulped some water from a plastic bottle. He swished the water around in his mouth to clear out any debris. I hated those swishing noises. Nothing, and I mean nothing should have to be inside of his mouth for that long.
"I've been offered a better position." At a bar where I'd get my ass grabbed and the income came in the form of sticky liquor covered dollar bills.
"You haven't even been here a week." Correction. I haven't even been there for a whole day.
"I don't think this is the type of place for me." The guys' boobies were bigger than mine. I was getting boob envy.
"You'll be sorry," Mike sneered through his teeth. Don't even try that guilt trip. I have an Irish Catholic mother, dude. I'm immune to that shit.
I could try to be the better person. I could go up to him, kiss him on the cheek and wish him a beautiful life with many children who ran around doing jumping jacks sporadically and chasing cars. But no. I'm a bitch by nature.
"I'll make more money in a week than you do in a year and I'll do it without the ego trip!" There goes his professional reference. I strolled out of a job before my payroll was even processed. Damn that felt good. I'd called Nolan earlier to make sure I got his job. It required a quick bartender quiz over the phone. Let's see Mike Nash try and name all five clear liquors while maneuvering through the turnpike. I really hoped he wouldn't do anything to piss me off. That would be two jobs in one week and I think that's a Callie Cronin record.
I drove over to the Big Bang looking on the bright side and waved at all the passers-by and bums on the sidewalk. Nolan Kelly owned and operated the Big Bang and its neighboring bakery called Sprite's Delights. The bakery baked at three a.m. and was known to dole out biscuits to the less than sober closing time crowd. This earned it a second name, Drunkin Donuts. I pulled into the back lot of the two establishments promising my inner sugar tooth demons that I would buy them something tasty and my inner hormones that if they played their cards right, they'd get a treat too.
The Big Bang had a seedy frat house appeal on the inside and an outdoor space for bands and keg stands. By day it served as the tailgating headquarters for all sports, mostly football, UCI. By night, the Big Bang turned into a giant mosh-pit visible from space. At seven years old I knew what a football was and exactly how to aim one at the kickball/volleyball/Frisbee eating tree outside of our house. Charlie Brown was lucky his tree only ate kites. Football was the time when my brothers would leave me alone or put me on permanent monkey-in-the-middle status. I didn't tailgate, I didn't watch sports, I didn't care. Needless to say, I'd never been in the Big Bang.
Nolan greeted me with a big pearly white smile and I was not in Kansas anymore. I don't know what I had going on with Jeff, probably a figment of my imagination by now, and it was a very bad idea to screw my new boss.
"You'll be working the bar with Penny," he gestured to a small black girl with dreads. She looked like she could break a man's arm with the flutter of her eyelashes. My fluttering eyelashes only got me free drinks. I was going to need to step up my game. Maybe I'd buy some spiky heels with the next paycheck.
"The Bang closes at two, we clean up, and then I work the bakery from three to eight." This guy was a machine. Nolan continued the new employee orientation. We went over dress code, or lack thereof, and bouncer names. Turns out Abe moonlighted as a bouncer at the Bang. I was expected to learn their famous drinks by tomorrow. Penny didn't look too bad after a few blunders with the vodka bottle. I wouldn't want to grab her ass in a dark room though.
The office crowd was from six till ten, followed by the douchbag crowd from ten till close. I knew how to make three of the ten drink specials that no one ever asked for. The girls wanted something with an umbrella or sugar with an ounce of alcohol. The guys wanted beer. The cheaper the better. Nolan didn't carry Natty Light. So I spent most of my night breaking off all ten pink fingernails on PBR cans. By eleven o'clock I'd forgotten why on earth I'd talked myself into this and wanted nothing more than to cuddle up in the fetal position with my thumb in my mouth.
"Two red headed sluts!" D-bag number eighty-nine asked. Two bubbly Tri-Delts behind him were gazing around trying to find themselves another warm body to get free drinks from. Eighty-nine had on some glitzy Ed Hardy shirt with a tiger trying to claw its way out. If I were on his chest, I'd try to get out too. His hair had been gelled to statuesque perfection. Numbering them off was necessary to keep tabs. There are only so many variations of button-downs, relaxed fit jeans and Sketchers a man can come up with.
I had no idea how to do specialty shots. I barely knew how to make jungle juice. Kool-aid and every liquor known to mankind, right? I'd lost Penny over an hour ago when she'd been surrounded by a kick-ball team celebrating their first win. Kick-ball, seriously, that's all I played in fourth grade. Nolan even blended in with the crowd and there was a lot of murky dishwater heads bobbing up and down. Red. Red. What can I make that would look red? I ducked behind the counter and scavenged through the liquor cabinet praying that something would inspire me. Hmm. Grenadine is red. The toe of a brown shit-kicker came into view.
"What are you doing?" Nolan asked above me. Wasn't it obvious? I'm trying to get two girls drunk so that this douchebag can get laid.
No turning back now, "What's in a red headed slut?"
"We don't serve mixed shots. We only have one shaker and Penny uses it as a weapon whenever her ex-husband comes in." Good to know I wasn't the only one using household objects as baseballs. Nolan held out his hand to help me up. Gooey warm feelings traveled down my spine and into my panties.
"They don't have to know that," I paused finding the Jager. I poured two shots, Eighty-nine payed, and the Delts stuck out their tongues after throwing them back. Jager tastes like tar. The rest of the night went like that. Someone would ask me for an, insert random shot that doesn't taste good and can make the lining of your stomach disintegrate, and I would pour them whatever I thought was appropriate. Five years of creating ads for fake clients and where do I end up, behind a bar putting my college education to use by making up shots. It wasn't all bad. If the crowd got dull, I would start daydreaming about Nolan's butt turning into a Big Mac. I knew I was hungry when guys turn into burgers. I was horny when they turned into naked Greek gods.
By the end of the night, I had an apron full of bills, some more wet then others, and had even broken up a love triangle realized in the girls' bathroom. It involved me pulling them out by their bra straps since they'd ripped apart their tank-tops. My mother is never to find out about this. Shooing away dozens of leftover last call patrons is like herding cats.
The outside world looked hazy and tired as I stepped back into it. I'd been inside since five p.m. and the potential of a warm soft bed sounded delicious. I was ready to fly home on autopilot and melt into the covers when I noticed Nolan jogging over to the bakery to start his second job. The Catholic guilt built up from a lifetime of brainwashing bubbled up. I still mentally grimace when I say God's name in vain and I cross myself whenever riding shotgun with my brother Joe because he doesn't believe in the brake pedal. As of now I was a recovering Catholic, but it still had a grip on my head. Nolan was going to work for another five more hours and I was going to go home. I was not going to look like some love-sick puppy dog. The memo didn't reach my feet. They were still headed in the direction of Nolan's butt.
"Would you like some help?" I asked making sure that I really, really, meant it before those words came out of my mouth. See, I can be sincere.
Nolan was fiddling with the door lock and jimmying the handle. The door popped open with a grunt, and he fell in. I burst out laughing. I had been on my feet for a million hours, my stomach had eaten itself three days ago and an old man getting kicked in the balls would have sent me giggling like a hyena.
I held out my hand and Nolan said, "I knew you were good for something. Penny doesn't laugh at me when I'm down. She'd probably kick me."
"You only had three people working tonight for a crowd of two thousand. I would have kicked you, but I'm too tired." Not counting my multiple personalities which bickered back and forth that this was the lowest I've ever gone for a job.
