The Writer

It has started this way so many times before. An old man sitting in a wooden booth. The server never approaches. She knows the rules. The newbie doesn't know any better.


“Oh him, that’s the writer,” as if that answered any of Julie’s fucking question.

“Right, but the writer is sitting at my table. That means I go into dinner shift with two hungry kids at home, medical bills, and rent due and this old mother fucker at my table.” Julie’s eyes popped damn near out of her skull. “Fuck no.”

“Then go take his order, Jules.” Bret closed his laptop and slipped off the bar stool. “I got a leadership meeting in two minutes. You asked a question, you got an answer. Go take his order, if it makes you feel better.”

Julie turned from the bar and narrowed her eyes toward the far back corner of the dining room. Hell of a way to start a shift. She reaches the old man's table in a dozen swift steps that clacked against the ceramic floor. Each promising everyone in earshot that she is way more in control than she feels. She shifts her apron and draws her pen and pad. With a wide smile and cold eyes, she greets the old man.

“Good afternoon, sir. My name is Julie. Anyone get you started yet – something to drink?”

“Julie, it is a pleasure. And, are you new here?” The gentleman remains still. He is staring down at the notebook on the table. His right hand juts in looping motions as he spills thoughts onto paper.

“I work weekends – nights,” Julie says. “Can I start you with a beer, coke, water?”

“It’s Wednesday.”

“I’m covering.” She has stopped trying to plaster on a smile.

“Rent due,” he says flatly.

Julie audibly gasps. The audacity of this man to make such a statement about her financial stability—or her living situation for that matter. And, she tells him as much—in her head—for a solid four seconds before tilting her head, turning her face up in a queer little smile, and saying, “That’s not your business.”

“Pardon m—”

The heels of Julie's hands clutch the edge of the gentleman’s table. She leans in to him. His visgae was still swallowed in a sea of thoughts on the page in front of him. Julie’s voice was low and slow now, “I’ll have you know I have a mortgage and two kids at home. My bills are paid. Now will that be bud light or coke, sir?”

“I’ll have the brisket entrée, with a side Caesar, croutons on the side. Medium. Mashed potatoes. Corn on the cob. I’ll have your closest proximation to a white ale on tap. I’ll have some extra napkins and a glass of water. Thank you.”

Julie snaps up straight and begins to scribble, trying to keep up with his order.

“I just assumed –” the man begins.

“Well, don’t. Don’t just assume," Julie says.

“I just assumed because the ring line.”

Julie stopped writing. She ran her fingers along the place her wedding band sat for some ten plus years.

“And your roots. It’s been a while since you’ve dyed your hair. Six months? You went dark, why? Pretty woman like you. Mourning, perhaps? The end of a relationship. A failed marriage. You’re still on the mend, but you’re getting there. You don’t cry as much anymore. But sometimes you still do. Sometimes you cry like it’s the first time again. Sometimes you're okay. Sometimes you're stone. Sometimes you're not. Sometimes you’re numb.

Your bills are slipping by in part because you’re just too damned depressed to slog through the motions for another second. But also because you’re not used to this new reality. You’re fighting it. You’re not open. You aren’t able to accept it yet. You're rebeling. We are, each of us, a flower. We must—” the gentleman stopped writing and turned to the quivering girl standing there at his table in the far back corner of the bar. “We must, each of us, remain open. Bloom. Flowers are to bloom.”

Julie said nothing. She stood frozen for a moment. She was dressed in a starchy, black, men's dress shirt. She had on thick, black leggings and black, slipless shoes. She stood there completely naked — exposed. She turned around and walked toward the kitchen door. She passed the bar stool where Bret had sat fussing with the schedule moments earlier when they were chatting.

“And your voice carries. I have very good hearing for an old mother fucker," the gentleman says matter-of-factly. His head was back to his thoughts.

Julies face turned like a beet.



After close, Bret was perched upon his same old stool at the bar, laptop open. His short, combed hair was frazzled now. The breast of his white shirt was splattered with red sauce. He had loosened his tie.

Julie blew through the kitchen door in a bubble coat, scarf, boots, and knit hat, clutching her louie vutton.

“How’d you do tonight”, Bret asked.

“Good, Two seventy one,” She said midstride.

“And how’d things fare with the writer?”

“He sucks. Gave me fifty on a thirty six dollar bill, so ok. But he sucks.”

“It’s always fifty.”

“Huh?” Julie doubles back.

“He always leaves that. He’s in once per week. He sits in the booth. Sometimes he'll order a beer. Usually he gets a water or a coffee. And always he leaves a fifty.”

“Fifty for tap and coffee?”

“Fifty for the time. Hell, a kid got fifty once and the writer didn’t even order anything at all. That old writer just sat there. Looking at a piece of paper. Not even writing. Just looking. For a long time.” Bret was gazing past Julie now to the old writer on that warm afternoon back in June.

He comes back to Julie. “He let’s you know if he needs something. Other than that, all he ever needs is peace and quiet. So that’s what we give him.”

“—huh.” Julie thumbs the folded dollar bills in her pocket. “He still sucks.”