Chapter 2: Samhain

Everybody and their brother were slamming us at the restaurant!

We were downtown in a commuter city.

So typically the city emptied after only five in the afternoon. Usually, people bailed out of the city center even earlier on Fridays. We stopped admitting new customers by seven in the evening most nights. By then our dining room was usually emptied, and done an hour later by eight or nine in the evening. So like most of our city’s restaurants, we closed relatively early on weekdays

But this was Freaky-Friday-Halloween-Friday, so it was like a backward day. Not only were we staying open later into the evening with the unusual crowds, but it looked like finishing before nine was a pipedream.

Because it was Friday.

We were open until nine.

Of course, it was a holiday Friday, so we were busier than normal.

And it was Halloween, so there was all that extra madhouse rushing around at work!

Every time I checked the time I cringed harder and harder!

Why could people not have their office Halloween parties, at the office, during office hours, so I could leave this shit show on time for once!

It was only six in the afternoon, and I could tell this was not going to let up! The universe was just aligning that way. There were just too many bottles of wine out, and the tables were just too dug into their festivities.

You only had to be in the business so long to tell the tables that had zero intention of leaving until you turned the lights out.

I could feel it coming!

We would need to employ cattle prods, which we definitely did not have, to displace the three big costume-bedazzled parties brightening our dining room.

Julia tore into the office raging, and snapped, “Fuckin’ Mark wants to give out free shots! He wants me to make something orange and green.

“But he wants the orange and green separated like a pumpkin. How in the fuck am I supposed to keep liquors in a glass separated by color?

“Oh yeah. But only to paying customers. Which is a TABC false advertising hit! That fuck-stain-Mark is gonna cost me my bartender certification, ‘n my livelihood, ‘cause he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talkin’ about!”

Julie would be pretty if the stress from this place was not thinning her hair and causing that vein in the side of her head to throb.

And we were off to the races!

Apparently, Mark had finally stumbled in later than normal, which meant he was not going to be drunk enough to stagger out and drunk-drive home at his normal time. He would not leave until much later.

Unless he did some serious pre-bar work before gracing us with his presence this was going to be a long evening!

And of course, the dickhead restaurant manager not doing his job, which forced me to do it, was going to keep me late! So not only was the useless paperwork now due early, it could not possibly wait until my next shift on Monday!

By Monday, we will not have our vegetable or meat orders in place for receipt. But now I had to stop, and go out and explain to Mark for two hours why free shots like he is proposing will cost us our liquor license.

I quickly blasted through the inventory and ordered everything as fast as I could. But the ordering process needed to be done right. We could not afford to run out, so that left Julie exposed until I could be sure and finish!

I flew through the work! The last thing I needed was to take my time and find that Julie used the bartender’s ceramic citrus knife to stab Mark a few thousand times venting her frustration.

I skimmed down the inventory shortage sheet, and quickly down the food order pages double checking everything as fast as possible. I hit send routing orders to our vendors and burst from my, well the restaurant manager’s chair, Mark’s chair, and lunged through the kitchen towards the bar before we had a complete meltdown and murder to cover up.

I gripped the door jam exiting the kitchen and flung myself into the service area after Mark. Stress and frustration had me speculating, and wondering if maybe we could conceal the murder as part of the Halloween show we were putting on.

I had to get orders done before leaving, already late for Liam’s party, and I still had no real costume to speak of!

My mind raced through fifty ways to derail Mark’s latest bad ideas.

Julie was already pulling out strands of hair by running her fists through her hair and coming away with hair tangles each time.

As soon as I arrived my phone picked that time, of all times, to start blowing up.

While playing referee about the stupid shots idea in rapid succession I had the crazy ex-girlfriend number whatever message. Then within thirty seconds, my excommunicated mother sent a long prattling message that filled up my phone’s extended preview note’s full available space with zero hint of stopping.

Mark started ranting about why not separating the orange and greens to make a pumpkin shot.

My fucking phone did its little vibration thing again!

Glancing down it was the psycho ex-girlfriend’s number, whichever different number she was messaging and begging to get together at some other party to hook up.

The nut-bag woman probably got dumped again and was looking to use me to fill the emotional void until she could wreck my life again.

Mark snapped at me, “Why you thinkin’ you’r so fuckin’ popular! You ain’t supposed to have y’ur phone buzzin’ at work!”

Refusing to show weakness to the dick, I decided to frost him, as I dismissively told Mark, “Just my hoard of needy women looking for a piece of me this weekend.”

I did not bother to say it was my hoard of crazies. However, I could not figure out how to mute individuals on my phone so they never rang.

Mark fancied himself a lady’s man so that I was getting all the calls frosted his cupcakes and threw him completely off balance.

That silencing the phone’s specific contacts would be my project for Saturday!

Every annoying, psycho woman in my life. All the ones with the ‘do-not-answer’ and ‘ex’ tags after their names were getting muted before sunset on Saturday!

My little daydream respite did nothing for me but dump me back into Mark’s jealousy-inspired stream of profanity-laced gobbledygook.

I needed to get started moving myself towards the door!

The sun was already well set, per the stated start time on the invitation.

Plus I still needed to get the beer I planned to bring for the party treat!

I stopped drinking months ago when I got hardcore into my new high-protein diet for weightlifting and training. So it was not like I had any lying around the house anymore!

The thought kept coursing through my head, ‘Stupid boss!’

Shackled to the desk, shackling me to this place with his boat-anchor quality stupidity, I was getting more and more frustrated.

Mark nattered all the way through the evening meal, and since he was not drinking, spending so much time arguing, he was irritably sober.

He was at least impatient and left once he was drunk. Sober he was worse!

His incoherent arguments had no excuses then!

Drunk, alright, I can understand him not making any sense. But it was like the guy was brain-damaged or something. He was just smart enough to mess up everyone’s lives around him but just dumb enough to be completely useless when it came to anything essential.

How a person like that could exist was mind-boggling!

Mark went on and on until he realized that Julie was packing away the bar, and snatched back the pilfered and untouched bottle. He objected ferociously!

Julie snapped, pointing at the clock, “It’s nine-fifteen! We’ve been closed for fifteen minutes! All alcohol needs to go away!”

Mark snapped, “Well what about our free shot offer!”

My head suffered a renewed stress headache I had not suffered in months since changing my diet and workout, I gently lifted my hands in surrender. I placated calmly, “Next year we can discuss it earlier. Not the day of Halloween. We’ll work on it a few weeks before next Halloween, that way we can make a good offer and people will hear about it.”

Sober, and grumpy, Mark just eyed Julie, turned and eyed me, eyed Julie, and paced off between us.

Julie behind the bar, and I standing in the middle of the space, were just left flapping in the breeze.

She did not even bother moderating her voice. Julie just said conversationally as she finished wiping down the bar, with Mark still in the restaurant, “What a dick!”

I agreed, but checked the door, only to see it close and the lights on the handicapped parked sports car come on. The car idled long enough for a seat belt to go on and for him to check traffic before peeling out that one time.

I looked at my phone and cringed at the fifteen silenced messages from my flock of crazy ladies. I sighed and told Julie, “I’m running late. I still need to get a costume for my thing tonight. Can you close up?”

Not even bothering to speak, Julie just flicked her hand at the door, dismissing me.

I retrieved my stuff from the office and was out before I could let the door hit me on the ass on the way out!

I knew I was forgetting the costume. I should have bought a real one a week ago!

Panicked, I was down to throwing together the idea of going as a lumberjack. To kill stress I listened to funny songs on the way home, so I could leave shit at work and not pollute my personal space with it.

And the ‘Lumberjack Song’ came on from my ‘Get-The-Fuck-Out-Of-Work’ playlist.

That still meant that I needed to get out somewhere on the way home to grab the clothes instead of a real costume.

I rushed to the retail clothing store around the corner and swimming against the rush of traffic there, I just had to buy the flannel shirt.

The jeans were in my closet, but I had no real red & green lumberjack flannels because it just does not get cold in Texas. And when it does get cold, it is only cold for a few days usually.

With the flannel in hand, I raced over to one of those temporary Halloween costume pop-up stores on the way back to the house.

The stupid Halloween store had no plastic ax for sale. They were damn near sold out! They were practically just bare shelves. There were only full costumes in XXXL and itsy-bitsy smalls remaining.

And nothing left for the last-minute boring-sized person like me.

The haggard store clerk mocked me, when I asked, “Dude, this store closes tomorrow. I got like eight more hours on this twelve-hour shift. After we kick y’all out I got like five more hours ‘a pullin’ stuff down, counting, and boxin’ for inventory. We gotta sell out tonight or they gotta keep the costumes until next Halloween in a storage container.”

I felt dumb and apologized. The guy was just a seasonal employee looking at a really long shift and unemployment tomorrow morning.

I raced home, going home to change and bringing a real wood ax from my garage. Because of course, plastic ones were sold out!

Arriving late in my rush, I rang and Liam answered immediately in a brown robe, tied with a white rope at the waist, and a deep thick hood thrown back.

Next to him was the most gorgeous devil-girl complete with reddened purple skin, long flowing black hair, black horns, the cliched slave bikini, and a slowly waiving hanging tail. Her piercing green eyes were yellowed by seasonal contact lenses.

I belted out, “Wow! Look at you two! I guess I’m not winning the costume contest!”

Liam appraised me, eyes running up and down, taking in the ax over my left shoulder, down my gaudy red and green tucked-in flannel, over my belt and jeans, and all the way down to my old work boots. His eyes reached my boots and looked up shaking his head.

I continued obliviously complimenting both, “You two look amazing! Let me guess, please, Liam is the Druid and,” I hesitated not knowing or recognizing the magnificent woman next to him. So I apologized, “Sorry I don’t know your name, ma’am, but horns, body paint, and tail, you’re a succubus this year?”

Looking back up, Liam ignored my question to his newest girlfriend, and demanded, “No treat? You did not follow the instructions on the invitation.”

Looking at him weirdly, feeling my face pull to the side I considered. Then it hit me, and I barked, “Shit! I had it on my list! I was going to grab a few cases of beer, but I was rushing and late leaving work, and excuses, excuses. Sorry, I’ll go get it now.”

I turned to leave.

The devil girl shook her head, playfully tossing her own long loose black hair. She lunged forward to my left arm, hooking me under the bent elbow holding my wood-ax. She made a pouting faux apology as she pulled me inside, chiding me, “I’m sorry! You read the rules and accepted the invitation. You arrived at the threshold without a treat! It’s a trick for you! No backing out now.”