Read Online Boulevard by Jim Grimsley - Free Book Online Page B

omelets—you have to beg him.”
    For Frank, Felix had made the usual breakfast, scrambled eggs and bacon, potatoes on the side.
    â€œWho else is in love with me?”
    Frank laughed. “Are you kidding?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, darling, Curtis is following you around like a puppy. It’s got Stuart all upset. Haven’t you even noticed? You cold bitch.”
    From there on through lunch he did notice that Curtis was more or less following him around the restaurant and Stuart was watching the whole thing, slamming dishes around and getting in a fight with Umberto, the prep cook, about the salad. Alan was meanwhile sitting calmly by the window, puffing the usual cigarette, off his feet for a moment, as he called it, but glaring at Newell whenever he passed.
    You cold bitch
. He liked the ring of the words, though he had simply been oblivious and not really cold. But he liked that he had appeared cold to Frank.
    The work was what absorbed him, the novelty of it, which he knew would wear away; but for the moment it was what he needed. Alan and Stuart tipped him, ifpoorly, and his stock of cash grew, if slowly. Payday was coming. Saturdays and Sundays the restaurant was busy from the time it opened till the time Newell got off, and the customers were all in a jolly mood. The dining rooms became so crowded that every trip he made through the mazes of chairs and tables became a performance, and he became easy at making eye contact with the customers, for the most fleeting of moments, but enough to fulfill the apparent requirement; he twisted and shimmied through the chairs with his pitcher, his tray, his cloths for cleaning, and he forgot whether Curtis was watching him or not, he forgot whether anybody liked him, he did what he was supposed to do and remembered that he was getting paid money for it, and with the money he could pay his rent, and with that accomplished he could stay here, in the city.
    At the end of the shifts on the weekend, even Stuart and Alan had to give him pretty big tips, they had made so much money off the tables themselves, and Curtis supervised the payout, not only for Newell but for Tyrone. Nearly forty dollars for each day, twenty from each waiter, more money than Newell had counted on. He could buy some decent sheets and a stack of clean, new towels.
    On Tuesday he overslept by a few minutes and arrived at work a few minutes late, only to find the place in an uproar. Alan had caught Umberto looking in Curtis’s desk drawers without permission, presumably for the cash bag from last night, as if it would still be there. Everybody was shrieking at everybody, and the dozen or so customers sat struck with mild astonishment. Newellwent to the office, stuck his card into the punch slot of the time clock. Alan said, “Well, Umberto, if you’re so innocent, what were you doing in there?”
    â€œI was looking for a book of matches.”
    â€œWe have matches right at the register.”
    â€œI wasn’t at the register.”
    â€œWell, ten steps would have taken you right there. You were not looking for any matches.”
    â€œEverybody knows Curtis takes the deposit to the bank at night.”
    â€œSometimes he doesn’t.”
    Umberto waved his hand at Alan and headed back to the kitchen, and Alan followed him there to argue more. Alan came out in a few minutes and spotted Newell with an empty tray, heading to the tables where the customers were paying their bills and fleeing. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you were late.”
    â€œI forgot to turn on the alarm,” Newell said.
    â€œConvenient to be so forgetful. When the rest of us have to do double work.”
    â€œIt was only ten minutes, Alan,” he said, but this time he looked Alan in the eye. Alan wavered and looked away. Newell cleared the empty tables, his stomach already in a knot, and the week was only an hour old.
    When Curtis came in and Alan rushed to tell