D.C. Noir

by George Pelecanos

  Gibson looked down the bar at McManus, who was reading the sports section with his crisp red Nationals cap turned backwards on his head. Asswipe didn’t even know enough to go home after punching out on a beautiful Friday afternoon. He looked up at Gibson and waved his empty Budweiser bottle.

  “Gibster, can I get another one of these?”

  Gibson, who was half-heartedly filling the salt and peppers, sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine with me if you want to drink up your tips.” He grabbed a beer from the cooler and put it in front of McManus, who nodded and said, “That lunch shift sucked today, didn’t it?”

  “You’re telling me. Seventeen dollars in tips ain’t working for me.”

  “I heard that,” said McManus. “Not when I’m only making ten bucks an hour.”

  Gibson walked back toward him. “Did you say ten bucks an hour?”

  “Yeah, man, can you believe that? I tried to get more out of Barry but he wasn’t budging. Said that’s the max for a starting cook.” He turned back to his newspaper, not noticing the color rising in Gibson’s face.

  Just then, as if on cue, Barry appeared on the stairway.

  “Gibson, where’s Karen?” he asked, as he sauntered toward the bar.

  “She took off twenty minutes ago.”

  “She left already? Who the hell told her she could do that?”

  “I guess I thought you did,” said Gibson.

  Barry turned his back, began walking to the stairway, and called out over his shoulder, “Come up to my office. Now.” Gibson hung back for a few minutes, refilling the tooth-pick containers so he could gather his thoughts. Then he walked upstairs, knocked on the door, and pushed it open. Barry pulled his feet off the desk and tried to pretend he had been doing paperwork. But Gibson saw the Sporting News peeking out from under the spreadsheets.

  “So, did you and Karen even think of asking me before she took off?”

  “I told you: I thought she had cleared it with you.”

  “Bullshit.” Barry stood up, turned his back, and pretended to swing a club at a golf ball. “It’s too late for me to do anything about it at this point, Gibson. But I’ve got paperwork to do, so I’m not gonna help you if you get in the weeds.”

  Gibson stared at him in disbelief, thinking, This idiot is probably five years younger than I am. He’s got a big-ass college ring, a fifty-dollar haircut, and a dive restaurant that his daddy bought him, but he doesn’t know the difference between a saucepan and a colander. And he doesn’t know how lucky he is that I don’t smack that smirk off his face.

  “It’s gonna stay slow, Barry. I can handle it,” he said. “Anyway, I thought you’d appreciate it. I’ve been here since 10 a.m.”

  “Oh yeah? You’ve been here since 10? Guess what? I’ll be here until we lock the doors at 10 p.m. tonight, and then for another hour closing up. So please don’t tell me what I’m going to appreciate. What I’ll appreciate is if the waitresses wait on the tables and the cooks do the cooking.” He turned and eyeballed Gibson. “You’re a mess, too. Put on a clean apron. And from now on, shave before you come to work.” He momentarily turned back to his paperwork, then looked up at Gibson as he stood there, seething. “Something else?”

  “Yeah. Actually, there is. How come that little shit down there is making two bucks more an hour than I am?”

  Barry inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowing. “Why is it your business what anyone else is making?”

  “Because I’m supposed to be the head lunch cook. I’ve been here for a year now and I’ve never missed a shift. That kid is just here for his summer break.”

  “That kid works half as many hours as you and is saving for college.”

  “By drinking Budweisers at 2 in the afternoon at my bar?”

  “Gibson, it’s my bar, and unless you’re ready to punch out for good, you better get your ass behind it right now.”

  Gibson shook his head in disbelief. “You know that’s not right, Barry.”

  Barry sat back down at his desk and again leaned over his imaginary paperwork. “The only thing I know is that you better leave my office now, Gibson.”

  Gibson didn’t close the door behind him as he left the room. Downstairs, McManus was gone, and three singles were under his empty longneck—just enough to cover the staff price of his two beers.

  Everything went fine for the first half hour or so. Three parties filtered through and Gibson made an extra eleven bucks. He sipped his coffee, felt a tingle across his forehead from the caffeine, and thought about his plight. He took out of his back pocket the folded up piece of paper he’d carried for five months, with the scrawled figures that traced his pursuit of the elusive down payment.

  Just then a party of four banged through the front door. Two lantern-jawed young men with a blonde and brunette, all in their early twenties and still in their work clothes. The guys had loosened their ties. The girls wore unflattering suits, but Gibson quickly noticed they had opened their blouses a button or two.

  Gibson had seen the two guys in there before. They dressed like little Congressmen but he could still smell the frat house on them. He figured they had gotten off early from their jobs on Capitol Hill, since they were all suited up when the rest of the young D.C. work force sported the casual Friday look most summer weekdays. Gibson silently cursed the recent Roll Call article about D.C.’s cheap watering holes. Most of the Hill rats were harmless enough, but these two guys were definitely the types who thought they owned the world just because they worked for self-serving blowhards who qualified as celebrities in D.C.

  Because Gibson was going to be solo for another hour and a half, he waved them to a table at the back of the room, near the bar. That way, he wouldn’t have to run to the length of the floor and back to fetch their drinks and food. But they plopped themselves down at the booth that was farthest from him, in the front of the restaurant, pulling a chair from another table so one of the guys could spread out at the end of the table.

  Gibson walked over to their table to drop off menus and get their drink order.

  “How’re you all doing today?” he asked.

  “Bring us four Sam Adams,” said the one of the kids, without even looking at Gibson. He had what sounded to Gibson like a Massachusetts accent. He was chunky, but looked comfortable and confident in his suit and tie. Like the other kid, he was sporting that short hairstyle Gibson was starting to detest, where the hair was combed forward and sloped up in front.

  “And two orders of onion rings,” said his friend, a taller, thinner kid who somehow managed to look down his nose at Gibson even while sitting at a table. “We’ll order the rest when you get back.” No pleases thank yous

  I’ve seen this act before, thought Gibson. They’re going to show off for their girls by acting like big-timers. In a god-damn burger joint.

  While he wrote down their order, he noticed the brunette checking out the thick homemade tattoo on the thumb webbing of his left hand. Gibson wished he could change lots of things in his life, but this tattoo wasn’t one of them. He did it himself the day before his mom’s funeral, with just a broken ink pen and a needle with thread tightened around the tip. He was proud of its clarity and proud that he had used his mom’s initials—D.G—instead of the much less inspired MOM

  Back at the bar, he threw two bowlfuls of onion rings into the fryer basket and slipped it into the hot oil. When he placed their beers in front of them, the junior Kennedy didn’t look up from his story. “…So this stupid constituent actually thought the Congressman was the one who had replied to his letter.” He smirked. “As if.”

  A few minutes later, Gibson returned with their steaming onion rings. This time, the kid interrupted his story long enough to say, “Why don’t you just bring us another round now? And quarters for the jukebox.” He handed him two singles, and a long afternoon got longer.

  They ordered their food, and while Gibson threw the burgers on the grill and garnished their plates, two more tables walked through the door—both deuces
. But the kids from the Hill continued to act like Gibson was their personal servant, keeping him running for rounds of beer, mustard, napkins. Their empties piled up in the middle of the table, but they wouldn’t let him clear the bottles because they wanted everyone to see how many beers they had pounded. And when he went to take away their plates, they didn’t help him out at all, instead making him go through contortions to get around the bottles to the dishes.

  Gibson dumped the dishes in the bus pan behind the bar and leaned against the beer cooler. He clenched his jaw and breathed hard through his nose. I’m a cook, not a waiter, he thought. In almost every kitchen he had worked in before coming to the Shelbourne, the cook was the king. As long as the plates went out full and came back empty, nobody gave a shit if he had an occasional temper tantrum. And he never had to put up with haughty, demanding customers—only the occasional bitchy waitress, which was easy enough to squelch by slowing down their orders until they learned who was boss.

  Now, because he was saving for a down payment, he had to grin and bear insults from the same sort of dickheads who were driving up prices all through the neighborhood? Gibson’s stomach churned as he went to wait on another table. The taller kid from the Hill called out “Yo!” to him as he walked by, then held up his beer and pointed to it. Gibson signaled “one minute” to the new table, turned around, and went back behind the bar. He pulled out a cold one and brought it to the guy. Before Gibson could hustle off to wait on the other table, the brunette said, “I’ll have another one, too.”

  “Okay,” Gibson said, breathing deeply. “Anyone else ready?”

  They all ignored him, as Junior, who was making his move on the blonde, launched into another story.

  Gibson hustled behind the bar and brought the brunette her beer. As he started to move off to the table that was waiting, Junior looked up from the blonde long enough to say, “I’ll have another beer, too.”

  Gibson was just about to lose his temper, when he looked over at the table and saw the tall kid elbow the brunette. They were both giggling like grade-schoolers. At first Gibson thought it was only because they were getting a load on. But then he realized that the guys were busting his balls and keeping him running on purpose. They thought he was here for their amusement.

  He looked hard at the tall kid and then at the jerks who surrounded him. He knew that in a just world this was where he told Junior and his buddy what he thought of them and their idiotic gelled hair, right before he made them bob for apples in the deep fat fryer. But instead, he clenched his jaw and thought about how big their check was and how much he needed the tip. Somehow, he managed to walk away to wait on the other table.

  The rest of the shift was no better. By the time Williamson arrived to relieve him, Merle Haggard was blasting and Junior and the blonde were dancing awkwardly in the narrow aisle by the jukebox. No one ever danced at the Shelbourne. Gibson had to slide around them, loaded with dishes, every time he went to a table. His shirt was soaked with sweat and stained with ketchup.

  Williamson took one look at him and said, “Rough one, huh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he replied through clenched teeth.

  He finished up all his parties while Williamson restocked the garnishes behind the bar. The big party asked Gibson for their check and he brought it to them with a forced smile. It totalled $104—not much for four people who had been eating and drinking for a few hours, but a lot for the Shelbourne, where a burger cost only six bucks. When he got back behind the bar, he watched the guys look long and hard at the check, trying to focus on it.

  The table bucked up. It took them awhile. He walked over and they handed him the check and a thick mess of bills. “I’ll be right back with your change,” he said.

  They were already getting up from the table. “It’s all yours, sport,” said the tall one, who actually slapped him on the back. Gibson thanked them.

  He got back behind the bar to the register and counted it, facing the bills out of habit. He counted it once, then again, thinking that some bills must have been stuck togeth There was $112 in his hand. Eight bucks on 104. Not even ten percent, after what they put him through.

  He walked fast to the front door, pulling his apron over his head as he went. By the time he got to the street, they were nowhere in sight. He continued to look for a few minutes, then went back inside the restaurant and into the kitchen to calm down.

  Willie B., the prep guy, had just started his shift, and was slicing and peeling a bag full of fat white Georgia onions. A Backyard Band go-go tune blasted from a flour-covered boom box on the shelf above his stainless steel prep table. Gibson stormed past him and was about to punch out and head home. But instead he turned and barreled up the stairs to the office.

  Barry opened the door and looked up at him. “Everything all right?”

  “Yo man, you gotta do something for me!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Barry, you gotta give me more money or start giving me some good night shifts. I need money and you owe me.”

  Barry’s eyes narrowed. “How do you figure that?”

  “You’ve been underpaying me since I’ve been here. I’m telling you, I need money, man! They’re gonna kick me out of my apartment.”

  “Now you listen to me, Gibson. I don’t owe you shit. I offered you eight bucks an hour on good faith and you accepted it. And as for better shifts…” He hesitated, then took a breath and said, “Listen, Gibson, I don’t want to be any crueler about this than I have to. But you’re lucky I even let you behind the bar on day shifts. You’re really not the type of guy I want out in the front of the house with the kind of customers I’m starting to get at this place.”

  “What’re you saying?” said Gibson. “You’ve—”

  “Gibson, just call it a day. Go home and think about whether you want this job—the way I’ve set it up. If you come back Monday, I’ll know you do. If not…honestly, I don’t give a flying fuck.”

  Gibson crossed Thomas Circle and trudged through the neighborhood. A woman with a broken flower in her tangled hair sat on the wall of Luther Place Memorial Church, belting out a song that Gibson didn’t recognize. He walked past brick town houses and an apartment building with a sign that read “Starting in the low-400s!” as if that were something to be excited about. Office workers and tourists didn’t bother with this part of 14th Street, but for Gibson it was home, and it bothered him that even here a new upscale furniture store was bumping up against his favorite chicken joint.

  He got home around 6:30, went straight into the bedroom, and threw a wad of bills on top of his worn dresser. Not counting his hourly, he ended up making sixty-two dollars, which was more than he thought he’d end up with when he headed out in the morning. But all he could think about was the platter of shit sandwiches he was force-fed all day by those fucking Hill punks and that asshole Barry.

  * * *

  He climbed into a hot shower. His skin tingled, then got used to the burning spray. As the water ran over his head, a rank smell of burgers and fryer grease filled the shower stall, like he was one of those freeze-dried meals you eat while camping. He ran the water full blast on his head for a couple more minutes until the smell disappeared. But the steam couldn’t ease his anger and shame, or the pressure he felt behind his eyes.

  He had to get out of the apartment, so he slogged down 14th toward Franklin Square. On the way, he dropped into a small liquor store for a forty-ounce beer. With his back to K Street, he sat down on a bench in the square, staring at the towering statue of John Barry in his cape and commodore’s hat. After five months of near sobriety, the beer tasted incredible.

  While Gibson drank from the bottle, which was still wrapped in brown paper, he looked up at the office buildings surrounding the square, and then at the new luxury apartment building on 14th. He thought about the home where he had grown up in Arlington, right across Key Bridge. His old man, an honest, hard-working guy, had lost that place—and killed
his wife’s spirit in the process—by running up around $15,000 in debt. Twenty years later, even a small bungalow there went for more than half a million. Where’s the fairness in that, Gibson wondered.

  He watched a skeletal man with a scraggly beard rifle through a trashcan, and thought for the fiftieth time that day about the money he had to come up with by the end of the month. Gibson finally admitted to himself that there was no way he would be able to raise enough scratch in time.

  He was restless, so he walked a block along K, stopped in at A-1 Wines and Liquors for another forty, and grabbed a bench at McPherson Square. Across the park he saw a man huddled inside a dirty hooded sweatshirt next to a mis-matched set of Samsonite luggage and a stuffed black trash bag. Over his shoulder, straight down Vermont, the top half of the Washington Monument was visible above a clump of rees The streetlights cast an eerie hue over the park. Gibson leaned back, stretched out his tired legs, and sipped slowly from the bottle. Late-night businessmen and tourists from the nearby hotels avoided him as they crossed through the circle, on their way to the subway stop on the corner.

  A little past 10:30, he polished off his third forty. He had been doing numbers in his head again, thinking about how many hours he had worked over the past year at the Shelbourne. At forty hours a week for roughly fifty weeks, he calculated that he’d put in around 2,000 hours over the past year. He multiplied that by the two bucks an hour that he figured Barry had cheated him out of, and arrived at the tidy sum of $4,000. Money that he could have easily saved. Money that would have enabled him to reach his down pay ment.

  He twisted the open end of the damp brown bag tight around the thin neck of the empty bottle. He reckoned that $4,000 might be in the range of what the Shelbourne was going to do that day, since they rang nearly a grand on a decent lunch and at least two or three times that on a Friday night.