Staff wanted

“My daughter’s gone off to college.” Tim, the proprietor of Café Ultimate, paused to allow time for the usual response to this statement, then replied “Oh. Biology.” Then he realised that the young woman with whom he was speaking had not made the usual response. Or any response at all. She just sat down looking around at the interior of his café.

“What kind of people come in during the day?” She said a few seconds later, when she had finished her inspection.

“Oh well, not many people at all really. A few more at lunch but Sue and John come in eleven till two to cover that.” Tim avoided answering the question.

“You don’t get kids in then? Playing truant.” She asked it casually, not looking straight at him.

“Oh well a few I suppose.”

“Last place I worked was full of them in the day. You telling me you don’t get any?” She locked Tim’s eyes and he hesitated, almost blushing. “I don’t work for a liar.” she added, for emphasis, still looking straight in his eyes.

“OK we get children. Who probably should be at school.”

“I thought so. That’s why you said come round at six in your ad isn’t it?” She paused to look at the café’s evening clientele. “This is the nice shift. After the little bastards have gone home, and before the big bastards have got up.” She flicked her head back to Tim. “Am I right?”

“Yeah you’re right. So I suppose you don’t want the job then. Because of the kids.”

“Oh I can deal with kids, I learnt how at my last place.”

A glimmer of hope that he might regain control of the interview flashed at Tim. “Oh yes, what experience do you have?”

“Only place I’ve worked was Bob’s.”

“Oh yes, I think I’ve heard of it. It um closed just recently.”

“Yeah it’s closed. Bob couldn’t really keep it open. You know, considering it was burnt down in a delinquent gang fight.” Tim hadn’t wanted to say it, but of course he had known.

“Um yes.”

“Listen I don’t want some poor innocent girl falling for that ‘come by at six’ thing and then getting gang-raped behind the counter. I’ll work here.”

Tim said nothing in reply. He just sat and blinked a few times, lost in thought.

“I’ll start nine-thirty tomorrow yeah?” The young woman stood and extended her open right hand across the table.

“Oh yeah. Nine-thirty.” Tim said, shaking the hand absently. “Do you want a coffee or something?”

The young woman looked at her watch quickly. “OK.”

“Tony.” Tim called across the room. A man behind the counter looked up from wiping a surface. “Let her have a coffee and a cake or something.” Tony nodded as the young woman walked over to the counter.

Tim got up to go back to the stock room. He was thinking about an innocent girl who had worked behind a counter, and had been gang-raped. Biology.

Complimentary Coffee

Jane, the new member of counter staff at the café, twisted the cold tap to make water dribble slowly into the empty coffee jug she had placed in the sink. She took the full jug from under the filter and put it up onto the hotplate built into the top of the coffee machine. After a quick glance at the jug in the sink, to check that it was not filling too quickly, she took out the machine’s filter and, with a deft flick of her strong right wrist, discarded the steaming wet coffee grounds into the green plastic bag that lined the bin. She placed the empty filter upright on the draining board and reached up to the shelf where the filter papers and packets of grounds were kept.

At the exact moment the water in the jug in the sink passed the mark on the side of the jug, Jane was inserting the replenished filter back into the machine. She turned off the tap and poured the jug’s contents into the top of the machine. Placing the jug on the hotplate below the filter caused a light on the side of the machine to flick on. The light indicated that inside the machine a process had started; the water would be heated, then passed through the filter to drip, as coffee, into the jug below.

During this routine a boy watched Jane’s body. He was sitting at a table in the café with two friends. His friends were in his year at school, but only theoretically, since they never attended classes. His two friends could only see Jane by turning their heads. When Jane had started her machine refill sequence the boy had begun tapping the fingers of his right hand on the table, tap, tap, tap, tap. When Jane had reached up to put the full jug on top of the machine, then again when she had reached up to get a fresh filter paper and packet of coffee from the shelf, and finally when she had reached up to pour the water into the top of the machine the boy tapped his fingers faster, tap-tap-tap-tap. This caused his companions immense amusement which they suppressed, squirming and smirking to each other.

After she had placed the empty jug beneath the filter Jane noticed that, as was her habit, she had not put the lid on the jug. The lid, which had a small hole in its centre to allow the passage of the coffee, was on the draining board. She quickly removed the jug, put its lid on and replaced it under the filter. The light flicked off and then back on as she did this. Earlier that day, Tim had stopped by his café to see how his new employee was doing. Then, he had lightly told her off for not putting the lids on. Tim considered that, since few people came in the café at that time of day, the coffee would cool down too quickly if the jugs were left open.

As she turned back round, Jane noticed a couple leaving the café and smiled them a quick goodbye. Except for the three boys, who Jane thought were unlikely to buy anything, there was now nobody else in the room. The mid-morning lull had begun. Jane turned to where her bag lay on the floor and bent down to rummage for the book she had brought with her.

“Miss? The time on that clock is wrong.” Jane turned at the voice. The tapping boy had walked around to the end of the counter. Actually coming behind the counter would have constituted a clear transgression. Jane would have been entitled to be cross had he done this, so the boy had stopped just short. He had not lost his child’s instinct for the grey area. The boy’s companions had stayed where they were. They sat with their elbows rested on their table, but their fore-arms held upright so that they could hide their giggling faces by hunching.

“Are you going to get it down and change it?” The boy restrained a smile as he spoke.

“Something wrong with your friends?” Jane asked, glancing across at them. “Are clocks funny now?” They hunched further and pressed their eyes shut, restraining their laughter to make it obvious that the joke was private.

“What’s funny is the way your tits bounce up as you stretch.” His companions hunched further and went on laughing, but Jane noticed that the boy in front of her was now staring at her in a very serious way. Suddenly it had become necessary to assess him as a physical threat. The boy was tall for his age, taller than Jane, and not built small. She remembered that Tim had shown her where there was a baseball bat kept under the counter.

The boy took a step forward, reached under the counter and took out the baseball bat. Without taking his eyes off Jane, he dropped the bat behind him. The clatter of the wood on the tiled floor stopped his friends’ laughter. They unhunched and looked up.

“I want to see them bounce up and out of your bra and through your shirt. I bet those little buttons are just about ready to pop off. Especially with a bit of tearing.” The boy reached towards her, edging forwards.

“Barry!” One of his friends called.

The boy turned guiltily to look at the door of the café, expecting to see somebody watching or about to come in. There was nobody and he relaxed out of the half-crouch into which he had dropped. He looked at the boy who had called. The boy’s aghast face told Barry why the boy had called, even before he started stuttering.

“Fuck’s sake. What is it?” Barry said angrily, hoping to shut the boy up.

The boy only continued to stutter.

“OK” Barry sighed, “Run away if you’ve lost your bottle. Just don’t put me off. Now, where was I.”

“Look out.” the third boy shouted.

Barry had been turning back to face Jane. He heard the shout and flinched as she thrust her right hand out. Thus he avoided most of the boiling content of the filter Jane was flinging in his face. What he did not avoid caught him on the side of his head and ran blistering down his neck inside his shirt. “Shit shit shit. You little slag.” Barry took a step back, wiping and flicking the scalding water-drenched powder with his hands.

In the few moments’ delay caused by Barry’s friend’s sudden reluctance Jane had considered her position. The counter curved round behind her to meet the wall, boxing-her in, so she could not have run away. To use the coffee jug, Jane would have had to lift it off the top of the machine and take the lid off. The filter only had to be slid out. Hence she had chosen the filter.

Now that the pain had momentarily immobilised Barry, Jane had enough time to take down the jug and remove the lid. She did so and threw the entire contents at Barry’s head. The coffee in the pot was hotter, more liquid, and hit Barry more squarely than her previous missile. He stopped swearing and started screaming. He turned away from Jane, blundering his way out from behind the counter. Jane pursued him, getting two ringing hits on his bowed head with the Nevva-Krak drop-proof glass jug before he stepped on the round baseball bat and tumbled to the floor. Jane put down the jug as she picked up the baseball bat. She got two double-handed overhead swings at Barry’s thighs before his friends rushed over.

Barry was curled up in a ball of pain, his face and head on fire, a dull blackness in his legs. Jane stood, holding the bat menacingly and glaring at Barry’s prone form and his hesitant friends. She took a step back.

“Get him out of here.” she ordered them. They complied.

Jane sat at one of the tables for a minute, until her heart resumed its normal pattern. She mused that life was that little bit less stressful when you left the lid off the jug.

Growing up

It was early afternoon when the tall man came in. Only five customers were in the café. The man walked straight to the counter, where Jane greeted him with a smile and raised eyebrows.

“I’ll have heavy tex’ and tomato in a white roll please, to eat here. And a black coffee, no sugar.”

Jane noticed the man leafing through notes in his wallet from the corner of her eye as she prepared the roll. This was unwise, she thought, and bound to attract undesirable attention. She finished the roll, put it on a plate and poured the coffee wondering if there was some way she could warn him. As she passed the plate and saucer across the counter, Jane noticed that attention had indeed been attracted. A seventeen year old thug, one of a pair who had been sitting at a table in the café, had walked over. He stood close to the man, who could not have failed to notice him.

Jane charged the man for his food. The thug spoke.

“No it’s more than that. There’s a service charge.” The thug extended a hand, open to receive.

The man paused to look at the thug. His hand froze, holding a note, half way between his wallet and Jane’s hand. “A service charge?” The man did not sound afraid, nor as if he did not understand that he was being robbed.

“Yeah. And you pay me instead of her.” The thug twitched the fingers on his outstretched hand in a beckoning gesture.

“You’ve got to be a hard man to take money from people. A tough guy.”

“Yeah well don’t make me show you. I’ll bust you up.”

“OK.” The man put the note he was holding into the thug’s hand.

The thug looked at the note, reading it’s value. Then he looked at the man again.

“Are you tougher than that?” The man asked.

“You make another joke and I’ll bust you up anyway.” the thug said, a mean expression on his face. “Now give me your wallet.”

The man drew the remaining notes from his wallet. “Are you this tough?” he said, holding a few folded notes. The thug snatched at the money, which the man held onto by flicking his wrist away.

“Give me that fucking money or I’ll put you on the floor!”

“OK OK, take it.” the man said, turning his wrist back. “But if you’re not this tough”, he waggled the notes slightly “you’re in trouble.”

“You’re weird.” The thug took the money.

“Well, at least I know how tough I am.” The man left the café.

The man returned to Café Ultimate the following day. It was seven-thirty in the evening and the place was getting busy. The post-work crowd had left the café by then and were being replaced by the usual late evening clientele: small gangs of young punks. The punks liked to show off to each other. Mostly they were content to just call insults and posture; only occasionally would things get nasty, and then the punks generally took it outside. Even so, Tim placed a couple of fairly burly male staff behind the counter at that time of day.

Jane had come in at seven-fifteen to collect her wages for her first week, and had stayed for a toasted snack. There was a shelf wide enough to take a plate and saucer around the inside of the café’s seating area. Jane sat at a stool facing the shelf, taking a quick look around as she did so. Looking around at the occupants of the café just once was a sensible precaution; looking more often invited the occupants to look back. Invited, or challenged.

The two thugs Jane had last seen taking the “weird” man’s money were sitting at a table. They looked different now: one wore an expensive looking jacket, the other a number of flashy neck and wrist accessories. Clearly, the boys had stayed later than usual to parade their newly purchased finery and plumage in front of a slightly older crowd. Hence, unlike Jane, they looked around more than once. When people looked back they smiled at them. And the people looking smiled back. The boys were enjoying themselves. Both of them had been a bit worried about staying late, until the twenty year olds arrived, but they had reckoned that if they were to “play it nice” they would come to no harm. It was all proceeding to plan.

As they checked everybody walking into the café, the thugs recognised the man they had robbed of all that money as soon as he entered. They were too surprised to make any kind of greeting. After looking straight at them, to show that he had noticed them too, the man diverted his attention to placing his order.

“I’ll have heavy tex’ and tomato in a white roll please, to eat here. And a black coffee, no sugar.”

Again the fat wallet came out.

The thugs had a brief discussion whilst the man’s order was prepared. They quickly explained his re-appearance as just a manifestation of the man’s weirdness. They were whispering about whether to approach him, perhaps to rob him again, when the man answered the question himself by calmly sitting at an unoccupied chair at their table. They fell silent, aware of several pairs of twenty year old eyes being turned in their direction.

He looked at them briefly, his face expressionless, then made a neat diagonal cut, dividing his roll into two pieces. The boy who had actually taken the money, who now wore an expensive jacket as a result, was the one to speak.

“Are you a charity?”

The man’s shoulders moved a little as he kicked the thug under the table. The boy yelped, but the man seemed unsatisfied. He kicked again, landing correctly this time, and the boy and his chair tumbled to the floor.

Given a little time by the man’s need to kick twice, the other boy had drawn a knife (another flashy accessory). He now lunged across the table, the knife in his right hand. It was the move of an inexperienced fighter, and the man easily avoided by leaning back in his chair. At the same time he expertly caught the boy’s knife hand at the wrist. Pulling the boy forward and off balance, the man slammed the wrist to the table. As he did so he curled the fingers of his other hand, his right, into a half fist, as though about to knock on a door. He raised his right hand then smashed it down into the back of the boy’s hand. The crockery on the table jumped, spilling coffee and hot chocolate. Then again as the man repeated the strike. The man took the knife from the boys weakened hand, but did not release his wrist. He switched his grip deftly, plunged the knife all the way through the webbing between the boy’s thumb and index finger, then ripped his hand back and down, slashing the flesh apart. The man released the wrist as he stood up and the screaming boy quickly gripped his hand with his other hand, pushing the severed parts together. His screaming subsided into swearing as he crouched over his hand. The man reckoned him no longer a threat and turned to the other boy.

The boy he had kicked had brought himself to a standing position by using his chair as support. Leaning forward slightly, so that he could hold his injured left knee with his left hand, the young thug held his right hand in front of him, the palm open in a stop gesture.

“All right, you win. What do you want? You want the money back? You want-”

“Call me Sarrio pip-squeak.”

“Yes. You win Mr Sarrio. What do-”

“That’s Sarrio, just Sarrio. And I want you to know that you weren’t tough enough to take from me.”

Sarrio thought the young thug was faking a little and kicked fast and low to the boy’s left knee. A sharp cry escaped the boy as he crumpled forwards a little. Before he could recover Sarrio moved in and punched him a couple of times, stomach and chest. Then he grabbed the boys ears, one in each hand, dragged him round and butted his face on the edge of the table. He lifted and butted seven more times, then dropped the boy to the floor. Sarrio picked up the chair and sat where the boy had been sitting. He pulled his own plate and cup across the table and began eating.

The boy raised himself on his arms. Dimly, he could see blood dripping to the floor between his expensive sleeves. His friend, who had wrapped a handkerchief around his mutilated hand, helped him get up. They left the café, one hobbling, supporting himself with an arm across the other’s shoulders.

One of the burly men from behind the counter came out with a cloth in his hand. He wiped the table, then the floor. As he was picking up the boys’ crockery Sarrio spoke to him quietly.

“Sorry about the mess.”

He discreetly passed a few coins to the counter-man.

The next day, Tuesday, Sarrio came to Café Ultimate at two-thirty in the afternoon. He was still there at seven-thirty when he had visitors.

There were two of them. They stopped just inside the door of the café. One of them pointed to Sarrio, after looking around briefly. As they walked across the café, towards Sarrio, heads turned and the room went quiet. This was because of the state of one of the visitors, the one who had pointed.

He was limping, and his face was severely swollen and bruised. Half way over to Sarrio, somebody whispered “It’s the kid who robbed him”. His companion was older, old enough to be his father, which indeed he announced himself to be with his opening sentence. It was addressed to Sarrio, in a calm but serious tone.

“This is my son. Do you recognise him?”

“Recognise him? With his face all mashed up like that? How’s anybody supposed to recognise him? Maybe if you had a photo or something.” This provoked a few sniggers from the other occupants of the café.

“That’s pretty funny.” The man stayed serious. Sarrio had hoped that the boy’s father would lose his temper following his joke. He tried again.

“Sorry, I’m being insensitive aren’t I. He was born that way, am I right?” he began. “Let me guess. You screwed some whore up the arse, shot your seed into her diarrhoea, and he’s what came out. You should have used one of those thick condoms.”

The man lost his temper. He lunged at Sarrio, fists flying. Sarrio simply stood up with his chin down and his arms up, protecting his head and chest. He took two or three blows to his guard, then checked forward, inside the range of the man’s flailing arms and went to work with his elbows.

The man had been too busy hitting to worry about his own guard. Four solid blows to his ribs landed before his temper abated and he realised he was hurt. He stepped backward to disengage. Sarrio let his fists fly then, right-left right-left. The man paused, dazed by the punches to his head. Sarrio took a breath and pulled back a little. Although appearing to be withdrawing, Sarrio was actually giving himself room to kick. Sarrio’s waist and shoulders turned and he put his full weight into the kick. The onlookers gasped in sympathetic pain as the point of Sarrio’s left shoe sunk into the man’s abdomen. The man doubled over, breathless. Sarrio held his guard for a second longer, then decided that it was enough and the fight was over.

“You’d better help your dad home.” Sarrio said to the watching boy.

The swelling meant that nobody could tell what expression was on the boy’s face.

“Come on dad. You did your best.” He led his father, staggering, out of the café.

Sarrio watched them leave slowly. Hushed conversation began again amongst the other customers. One fragment reached his ears.

“Good kick. He brought the knee high and turned his hips right into it.”

Momentarily, Sarrio felt like hitting whoever had said that. He realised he was still standing, and sat down. He looked down at his empty plate. All they could see was a good kick, but Sarrio saw the start of a career. He remembered some gangster beating up his own father and remembered how it had made him realise that he had to take care of his own life. It had made him a man.

Foreign food

Sarrio became a regular customer at Café Ultimate. Very regular. Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon and early evening, Thursday afternoon and early evening. He had a constant stream of visitors, but only ever one at a time. One day two people came in together to see him, Sarrio obviously knew them and called to them when they had just got inside the door.

“Hey! Only one person. If you both have to see me then one at a time. OK?”

One of them left.

Some of Sarrio’s visitors just came to talk with him; always in quiet tones. Some came to give or receive money; always discreetly and under the table.

Sarrio ate and drank throughout the day. To drink: either a cup of black coffee with no sugar, or a small bottle of mineral water. To eat: either a piece of a particular cake or a white roll filled with heavy texture pro-meat and sliced tomato. Also, Sarrio insisted that his visitors bought something. If somebody approached his table empty-handed he would say something like: “Look, you can’t just sit here, it’s a café. Go and buy something. The coffee’s good, so is the cake.”

The staff were happy: Sarrio was always polite, always insisted on politeness in his guests, and always took a moment to calm down the more unruly and troublesome customers who might otherwise disrupt the peace and quiet. Also, he always left a generous tip at the end of his stay. Tim was happy: he had regular customers, and the place was losing its reputation as a hang-out for wild kids.

As a mark of his happiness, Tim bought a batch of stand-up plastic triangles with “reserved” printed on them, just so he could leave one on Sarrio’s favourite table three days a week. Sarrio was flattered and pleased at the “reserved” notice. He tried to think of a way to repay this kindness. It came to him on his next “reserved” visit as he stared up at the blackboard fixed above the counter.

A few days later Sarrio came to Café Ultimate accompanied by another man. He was shorter than Sarrio and a little nervous looking. Sarrio bought him white coffee with two sugars and a packet of three biscuits.

A few minutes after they had sat down, Jane noticed that the man had taken out a notepad and was writing and looking up above the counter. He left after fifteen minutes, when he had finished his coffee and two of the biscuits. At the end of her shift, Jane mentioned the note-taker to her relief, who mentioned it to Tim later.

Tim was worried. Was Sarrio helping a rival by telling him Café Ultimate’s prices? Did he intend to open his own café? Neither seemed to make sense, which only worried Tim more: he could see no motive in Sarrio’s actions.

A week passed, during which Sarrio came and went as usual. Tim’s worry did not subside. Whilst the copying of information from the menu felt like some kind of violation, it in no way overstepped the limits of acceptable customer behaviour. However, he could think of no way to raise the matter and was forced to let it lie.

Then one evening, at the time when Tim was always at the café, Jane came by unexpectedly. Tim’s first thought was that, in his worried state, he had forgotten that it was her night to be paid. He checked the calendar first, then asked Jane directly. She said “Oh I’m just on my way out, fancied a coffee.” She seemed evasive. Tim just said “OK”. He did not get her a coffee, such was his distraction; he forgot he was behind the counter.

Then Sarrio came in, it was Monday and therefore unexpected. More unexpected was that he had three men with him, carrying a long, tall, thin, bubble-wrapped package.

“You like it?” Sarrio said to Tim, who was staring in bewilderment. Sarrio looked at the package, seeing the cause of Tim’s confusion. “Turn it round. It’s the wrong way up.” The men turned the package over, no easy feat due to its size.

Tim blinked, trying to focus on what was beneath the bubble-wrap. Then he smiled. It was a new menu board. He started laughing, then remembered his manners.

“Thanks Sarrio. I don’t know what to say. I mean, you shouldn’t have.”

“Don’t mention it.” Sarrio turned to his men. “Who’s got the numbers and stuff.”

One of the men pulled a plastic bag from his jacket pocket. Sarrio took it and went over to Tim, dismissing the men with “Put it against the wall over there.” He gave Tim the bag and, putting his arm around Tim’s shoulders, led him over to where the board was being leaned against the wall.

“These are the numbers you put on it for the prices and things. You just stick them on tonight and I’ll have they boys around tomorrow morning to hang it up and take that old one down.” He leaned a little closer “And you could put some of the prices up you know. You’re getting different people in here now.” There was one more thing:

“Oh look, I changed this bit here.” Sarrio leant down and pressed a piece of the wrapping to make the letters underneath more clear. “Where it used to say Bar B Q, I changed it to Barbecue, see?”

“Oh yes.”

“Bar B Q, what does that mean? What is it, pronounced Barb’k? Sounds like Iraqi food or something.”