The Busboy

It was a Saturday night at the end of August; it started like most any other, but ended quite differently. The parties went off without a hitch. I had two brides - and, more importantly, their fathers -drunk and happy. The other party was some regional Free Mason group. For me, if one of those weirdos wasn't going to tell me where they'd hidden the Ark of the Covenant, then they weren't worth talking to.

I walked into the office to spend a few minutes with Angela before making more rounds. Pierre was sitting in the office, right up on the desk next to the switchboard, facing Angela, and only about two feet from her.

I looked at him like he was garbage, and I gave her a 'what the fuck?' look.

Her eyes pleaded with me. They said loud and clear that she wanted me to keep my cool.

"Oh, good," she said in a fake voice, "you're here. Can you watch the board for a minute while I make these copies for Fordie?" She was clearly using my entrance to extricate herself from her tormentor.

"I think I call her my Jolies Fluer." Pierre laughed as he spoke directly to me, and I caught its sinister overtone right away. I was amazed that a simple sound could say so much.

It was a showdown, and very out of character for him. When he leaned in closer to me, I could smell the booze. He usually drank, but he was having trouble sitting upright.

"Soon, she will be mine," he exclaimed, clearly trying to rattle me. "She will belong to me. There's nothing you can do."

"Speak English, motherfucker!"

Well, so much for subtle, I thought immediately after I said it. It was all I could think to say, and 'think' is being generous. I was basically just reacting, in a red rage.

Pierre rose from his perch right away, and as Angela came back into the front office, he open-hand slapped my face. After my initial shock, I reacted again, but Angela had already firmly planted herself in front of me, her copies strewn across the floor. Her back was to my attacker, and both of her hands were on my chest. I'd had no idea she could move that fast!

"You will not speak to me zis way!" he screamed. "You make respect to me! I am the most wealthy man in the south of France. You are what - a busboy?"

As I started to speak my rage, Angela covered my mouth with one hand and half-walked, half-pushed me out of the office via the backdoor and down the flight of stairs to my office. I let it happen, but part of me wanted to stay and murder the man. That part was very loud.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she shrieked. I'd never heard her use a swear word before. "Calling him that? He could get you fired!" She looked genuinely concerned.

"The prick is laying claim to you!" I shouted right back. "He's doing it right in my face, just so I know he can! I'll fucking kill him."

"Listen to me," she began, ignoring my rant, "no killing. I know what he's doing, and so should you. Some of it, he's been doing since the day he arrived. I turn him down - once a day, at least. The other part, well, he's goading you. If he can get under your skin, make you do... something, well, then he can get you out of the way - fired or worse. That'd be like a chess player leaving his king unprotected - or, more accurately, his queen. With you out of the picture, he'll see me as ripe for the picking, and you won't be here to intervene. He's Ford's nephew, but you're invaluable to Ford, especially now. Be smart about this, David."

She was talking to me like some stupid teenager, which of course, I was. It hurt a lot coming from her. Parts of what she was saying made sense; they were accurate, too. Other parts didn't, though. She didn't seem to understand that me backing off or lying low would be seen as a sign of weakness by Pierre.

Angela took a breath and was thinking about her next salvo. "I can handle him, David. You don't need to lose a great job, falling into the trap he's purposefully setting. If he crosses a line, I'll go to Fordie."

Again, what she was saying made sense to me, but something about how she was saying it didn't feel right to me.

"Let's just go to Ford now," I pleaded. "He's already crossed a line, and you just said he's been doing it for a long time. Why didn't you ever tell me? Why was he sitting so close to you? You should have told him to move, or that he was making you uncomfortable." That elicited a guilty look. I was waiting for some sort of confession.

"No," she said as she took my hand. "I can handle it, and I've had to since ninth grade. Look, Pierre is under a lot of stress. He's selling one of his businesses overseas because he's trying to buy the club..." Instantly, she realized she'd said too much.

"Dave," she said frantically, "you can't say any of this to anyone. Promise me, right now." I reluctantly nodded. "He thought he had it in the bag, but one of the members, Jimmy Leone, I think... he has a relative that owns the Genie's Bottle hotel and casino in Las Vegas. He's trying to get Ford to sell it to him. Pierre is pissed, and he's out for blood. Not that kind of blood - I mean, he's locked into this business deal hard. He... he comes into the office and unburdens himself from all his troubles."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Angela?" My rage had returned. "No, this is it. He's putting the full-court press on you, just like he is on me. And he'll get what he wants, too; that's for sure. We have to tell Ford. He's just the kind of guy you..." I stopped dead in my tracks, realizing what I'd said.

"No, he isn't," Angela said in a low, sad voice. Her face looked as though I'd slapped her. "You are. Yes, he's got money. Yes, he's handsome and charming. But he isn't husband material. He's not any kind of material at all - certainly not loving or faithful or even considerate. You're all of those things. He's already confided in me, Dave. If I go to Ford now, all hell will break loose. It will be bad, I'm afraid, for both of us. Possibly very, very bad."

She was right, of course.

I calmed myself with a silent promise that if Pierre touched her sexually, or hurt her in any way, I'd make him disappear. I knew that promise came with a high price. I also knew that I needed to start planning for that eventuality immediately, and in a very real way. Guys like Pierre had no quit in them. I wondered if Jimmy might unwittingly do me the favor of offing him. I was sure he had all the connections in place to do it right and get away with it.

I made Angela promise to tell me everything that transpired between her and Pierre; if she needed my help, she was to call me over the intercom, day or night. I also told her I'd walk her out every night, without fail. I usually did that anyway, but it had become paramount that I did.

After that, everything was sort of a blur. Two days later, Ford and Joe got into the biggest argument that I'd ever witnessed. Near the end, Joe literally threw his heavy ring of keys at his boss and former brother-in-law. He walked right past me without a word and out the front door. I heard tires squealing out of the parking lot. I didn't even know he owned a car since I'd never seen him leave the premises! At least Ford had the decency to ask me to pick up the slack, rather than tell me.

The office sales staff was told they could only book short-term events - things that were scheduled within two months. Nothing beyond that was to be allowed to book; rather, they could give vague pricing only. Arthur was cut down to just Friday and Saturday nights. Angela looked frazzled. I was frazzled, and knew I had to cut one of my classes, much to Angela's dismay.

Another few days passed, and it was a Sunday night. Without Arthur, it fell to me to do a thorough walkthrough and secure the building.

Angela had paged me to say she would be done in fifteen minutes, so I decided to stop my rounds on the fourth floor, head back down to the Grille Room for my nightly drink, and then go and collect her from the office.

When I arrived at the offices, everything was dark, including the lobby and front entrance.

I peered through the large office window and saw no movement. Immediately I became frantic. I ran down the stairs, into the main kitchen, and out the service entrance by my office to see if her car was still there. It was. I went back into the building and back to the Grille Room to see if we'd bypassed each other - nothing. There were four guys in the card room and I asked if they'd seen anyone. They only grumbled.

The club was a big place, and under normal circumstances, I would have just waited for her, instead of running around in circles. If she'd been doing the same, after all, we might have missed each other multiple times. Then I had a thought: I hadn't seen Pierre all night. I ran to the window and looked out into the valet area, where he usually parked.

I shivered uncontrollably, and panic set in, seeing his car there in valet. I knew I needed to begin a systematic search of the building.

I took the elevator up to the Penthouse Ballroom. My plan was to start there and work my way down. The entire floor was dark, just as I'd left it an hour before. As I was about to walk back to the elevator, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, back beyond the ballroom where the luxury apartments were. Then I heard a click-clack, like Angela's high heels. I briskly made my way across the forty or so yards.

As I passed the glass doors and turned towards the hallway where the apartments were, I froze.

There, backed against the wall, was my Angela. Pierre had his hands pinned against the wall, just above her shoulders, so she couldn't get past. He was leaning in to kiss her.

"Get the fuck away from her, or die!" I screamed with all the authority I could muster.

He turned his head slowly to look at me. Angela should have looked relieved, but instead, her face showed annoyance. I couldn't comprehend that right then; maybe I should have. Instead, I closed distance and got right up into Pierre's face.

"Did you hear me, asshole?"

He took his hands away from the wall, and deliberately faced me. "I think I warned you before," he said, wearing the evilest smirk I'd ever seen. "You show respect. Now, you don't work here. Just like Joe. You alcoholic." He was daring me to beat him unconscious. I sensed a trap.

"Come on, Angela," I told her, reaching out my hand for hers. She didn't reciprocate. The pleading, questioning look I gave her must have seemed pathetic. My eyes were asking her what she was doing - what she was thinking.

She moved just ever so slightly closer to him. He noticed as I did, and he draped his arm across and over her shoulder, possessively.

"It's okay, David," she told me stoically, using my proper name. It took a second to register.

"No, it's not," I scolded. "I said, let's go."

Angela didn't move. She didn't speak either.

Pierre's smirk turned to laughter. "She said okay. You heard her words, yes?"

I was perplexed - more like bewildered.

She finally found her voice. "Go home, Dave," she said softly. "I'll be okay. I'll call you tomorrow and we can talk about it."

"Yeah, Daaaaave," Pierre mocked me. "Go home. I'll take good care of her."

My rage melted away for some reason, replaced by a sense of profound sadness - sadness on the same level as when I'd sat with Lisa at her stupid picnic table. I didn't feel like crying just then. I was beaten, but I still had murder on my mind.

I made a last attempt. "This isn't going to go like you think, Angela."

"Yes, it is." Pierre smiled a fake smile. "You hurt my belle fleur and I hurt you. Tomorrow we talk about what happen to you, in this future. Now run home, little busboy."

With that, Pierre, his arm still draped over Angela, spun around. The two of them walked down the hallway to the third room. He unlocked the door and ushered her in before him. He looked in my direction and smiled.

I stood there for a time. I'm not sure why. I no longer cared about her safety. I was about two degrees from strangling Pierre with my bare hands and then doing the same to her. I also wasn't sure where to go. Home, for me, was exactly four floors below, to the very spot. I usually drove Angela home, messed around a bit if it wasn't too late, and then drove back to the club. For some reason, I decided to leave. I had nowhere to go, so I just drove for a while. I couldn't be in the same space where my fiancé was being defiled - with her consent, it seemed.

Finally, I settled on the all-night Greek restaurant we sometimes went to. I got two orders of flaming cheese and a big glass of Pepsi.

When the waitress brought my food, I handed her a five and asked for a pen and a piece of paper. I started to write some things while I ate.

The first thing I thought and then wrote was that my fiancé had tried to convince me that what was happening with Pierre was her fight - hers to handle. My mind went to what was going on in Pierre's room right then. Her 'handling' the situation wasn't working out for either of us. But then I wrote another thought: what if things were going exactly as she wanted? In other words: what if she was with Pierre, and handling me?

Oddly, my next thought was of Lisa. Being honest with myself, I still wasn't over her, even though she'd hurt my heart in ways I still barely understood, and hadn't thought possible until she'd done it. That hurt had infected me with doubt and mistrust. Never mind the technicality of us having been on a break; feelings don't often give a shit about facts. It felt like I was being betrayed again, not technically for the first time. It felt like Angela was hurting me even worse than Lisa had, because, even though it hadn't been her responsibility, I'd genuinely felt like she'd been helping to heal and repair me, and to help me get over that terrible infection. Given how long Angela had been allegedly-handling Pierre - which was to say, possibly handling me instead - I also felt like so much more of a gullible idiot, precisely because the situation with Lisa felt like it should have taught me a hard lesson and made me less of one.

I didn't feel like being engaged anymore, that was for sure. I certainly didn't feel any wiser either. I felt like a two-time loser in love. I wondered how many more losses I'd have to endure, and if all of them were going to be - or at least feel - so similar.

Then, finally, I thought about Pierre. He had power and money. He was trying to prove something to me, or maybe just to himself. I finally understood that if I went off half-cocked, my fight with Pierre would be short, and I would lose it. I thought about my mentors. I never saw those guys sweat, except in the men's steam room. Still, I clung to the idea - the fantasy, if you like - that if I was somehow both quick and methodical, I could make some kind of a statement. I wanted payback, and, sitting there, chewing on that Greek cheese, I decided that there was one cost I was definitely willing to pay. I was definitely willing to lose my job at the club if it meant getting Pierre's goat. Even in my wildest dreams, though, I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it by myself.

At four-thirty, I finally decided to go home and try to sleep. I noticed Angela's car was gone as I pulled into my spot. I wasn't sure if I'd expected that or not. I was sure I didn't really know what to expect anymore. Pierre's car was right where it had been, and I needed to go badly from all the Pepsi. Just as I was about to piss all over his driver's door window and handle, it struck me that my car was in the same lot every day too. He could probably just have it towed or worse if he suspected me. Stop reacting and think! I told myself. I pissed on the tire instead, knowing he almost certainly wouldn't notice that. It felt equal parts good and pathetic.

As I lay in bed, surprisingly, my thoughts were not of Angela. I thought instead about where my life was headed. It seemed I'd been fooling myself, and probably in a big way. To leave the club would mean a lot of things I didn't want to think about, one of which would be moving back home to my mother's house - back home. For a moment, my self-pity overwhelmed my reasoning. In my mind's eye, I was a dropout busboy. I was a failure.

But wait a sec, I thought. I'm not a busboy.

That was literally true. I was an assistant general manager of the largest banquet facility in the Midwest, with a country club attached. Okay, maybe it was only the largest in Michigan. I didn't know for sure. Still, I'd learned every job in food service, and I'd been taught by some of the loftiest names in the area. I scheduled over one-hundred-fifty people every week, and on busy weeks over two hundred, counting the part-timers and the on-call union workers. We fed thousands of people every week with astounding precision. Our processes - some that I'd refined myself - were far more efficient than even the busiest foodservice operations in the area. I could tend bar, and I knew every state liquor law, although I broke at least one of them daily. Every night, I was responsible for collecting tens of thousands of dollars.

I'd also learned a lot about life - not the stuff in textbooks, either. I'd learned about how the movers and shakers really lived. I'd paid attention to how stuff actually got done. As I became more confident in my self-assessment and finally dozed, I knew I'd be fine, given time.

When I got out of the shower the next morning, I saw the light on both my phone and my message machine blinking. My first thought was Fordie, and I supposed Pierre would be there too, handing me my walking papers.

It was Angela. She wanted to talk. No 'I'm sorry,' or anything else. I deleted the message. All day I couldn't focus, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I had no doubt that Pierre would make good on his threat.

But it never happened. Angela didn't work Mondays, and the class she had that day wasn't one we shared. Later, I went into my room to change and shower. Angela had left two more messages. I didn't reply. The next morning, instead of hooking up with her to drive to school together, I took my own car. She came through the door, huffing and puffing, a good ten minutes late. Her eyes were burning holes through me. With mine, I dared her to call me out.

I ignored her, and, after class, left without even looking at her. That didn't last long, as I could hear her running and hollering my name in the parking lot.

"Dave! David!" she half-yelled, half-whined. "Stop! Please, stop!"

She caught me at my car door, so I turned to face her. "What do you want, Angela?"

"I want to talk," she cried out. "I left you a bunch of messages. I know you got them. Where were you this morning? I was late because of you."

"What's to discuss?" I asked blandly. "You made your choices."

"NO I DID NOT!" she screamed adamantly. "Nothing happened. I was at your apartment door twenty minutes later, but you wouldn't answer. Then I finally left and realized your car was gone."

"Bullshit!" I spat. "Stop lying. Even if you got cold feet at the last minute, you chose him, in every way possible. You joined him in my torment."

"That isn't true, Dave." She had calmed her voice a bit, but still seemed determined to have it out in a public parking lot. "I was trying to defuse the situation. He... hates you, you know? That's not right, actually. He wants - I don't know - you to be subservient to him. Maybe that's not the right word. He found me walking back towards the Grille Room and told me he'd seen you upstairs in The Penthouse. He... accompanied me. Then he tried to kiss me in the elevator. I told him to back off or I'd make him pay. I'd sue him and the club. He laughed and told me to relax. He told me he thought I was leading him on. Then he didn't do anything else until we both saw you get off the elevator on the other end of the building. He told me to play along, for your sake.