splat chapter twenty-seven, part two

SPLAT CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN, PART TWO

 

There were the members in black tuxedos, looking like clones. And then there were their wives. Skinny women with their evening gowns falling off them, wearing $200,000 jewelry around their necks. Women with square, stout bodies squeezed into something that they'd said, 'Oh sure, I'll just hold in my stomach all night.' Women in sleeveless dresses that were showing off real muscles earned at the gym. Ravenous women that wouldn't eat except after a round of, 'Oh, I shouldn't.' Women who were perpetually dieting and looked daggers at the waiters going among them with trays of canapés.

Passing hors was an assembly line process. Into the pantry, where a cook with a coldbox full of little edibles was busy arranging them on trays. The waiters lined up, discussing the crowd. Then when it came their turn, they hoisted their tray and went out to circulate among guests. Sometimes they didn't get ten feet into the room before their trays were empty and they were coming back to line up in the pantry again.

Suzie was on her third tray, and the room was getting crowded. Her wrists were sore, her arms ached. She had a smile plastered on her face, and was looking people in the eyes, smiling, enticing, tempting, offering. 'Oh, have some of these. Everyone says they're heavenly.'

The details of the hors d'oevres were somewhat complicated. There were baked brie tartlets with toasted pecans. There was mini beef Wellington with a béarnaise dip. There was sliced smoked salmon with capers and dill cream on rounds of melba toast. There was Thai pistachio chicken salad on shrimp toast.

Suzie listened to the descriptions back in the pantry, and rolled her eyes. This audience wouldn't care about the details. She went around the room saying, 'These are salmon, beef, cheese, this is chicken salad.' She said it 793 times. As the guests hovered over the tray, she'd add, 'Take two. It's going to be a few minutes till I can get back your way.'

She noticed another waiter moving in front of her. It was the woman who worked smart. She wasn't making eye contact with the guests; she wandered blindly through the crowd, slowly, lingering near knots of people, waiting for them to reach out and grab food off her tray. Suzie watched her. Poor thing. She waddled. Her legs were short, her ankles were stumpy. Her feet hurt and her hips were creaky. They passed in the crowd. 'I'm getting too old for this,' the woman said in a low voice.

Suzie cruised to another knot of partiers. She walked up to two members in black suits, with short, balding hair, and round faces with glasses. They were way taller and bulkier than she was. Their lissome and shimmery wives towered above her on their high heels. She held the tray above her head. They picked at the food and kept talking.

'We decided to freeze the pensions in our firm,' the one member was saying. 'The employees haven't stopped giving us hell about it.' He gulped a canapé, and continued, chewing. 'They point to the raises we just gave top management, and our record profits, and just won't stop complaining. If I could count the number of bitchy emails I've received.' He selected and inhaled another tidbit. 'They know we have to stay competitive. They need to get off their asses and take greater responsibility in managing their own finances. Get in line with current trends.'

The other member said in a confidential tone, 'I've heard rumors of a walk out.'

'We'll fire every one of them, and won't give them any pensions at all. Goddamn ingrates.'

Suzie lowered the tray and moved away. It was much lighter. The men had only had a few hors d'oevres while they were talking, but the women had eaten morsel after morsel, staring down at the tray like it was a game board and deciding which piece to take next.

Ed the developer saw her before she saw him. 'Darling,' he roared from his circle of members and their wives. She came over and offered them her tray. He leaned down toward her to say softly, 'Where you been all night?' Then straightened up, took a chicken salad, and said proudly to the group, 'This here's my little waitress who takes care of me whenever I eat at the Club. Right, Suzie Q?' His all-seeing wife, embarrassed at his attention to a waitress, kicked him gently in the shin to keep him from breaking into song. Suzie managed an embarrassed half-grimace.

There were tight knots of people in formal wear standing right in front of the pantry door holding drinks and talking very loudly. The knots formed clumps. Having secured their spot nearest the source of the food, they weren't about to move. The waiters had to wend their way through a thicket of black coats and half-naked backs.

The traffic irritated Suzie, and she saw the pained faces of other waiters waiting to work their way through. But they couldn't be rude, they couldn't say, 'Listen, stupid, stand somewhere else.' They couldn't bump the guests, because it would be the waiter's fault. They couldn't catch their attention and say, 'Excuse me,' because the noise level was too loud. They just had to stand there until someone, a wife usually, noticed and moved them out of the way.

One guest was Suzie's instant favorite. A woman in a simple black dress, wearing almost no makeup; not all done up like a Buckhead babe the way the others were. She was being kind to the waiters, asking if they'd been able to sample the wonderful appetizers. She was being so nice that Suzie kept coming back with full trays to offer the woman the first choice of the chicken salad ones, her favorite.

Several times Suzie saw someone whose clothes she admired, and spontaneously complemented her on her dress. As if they cared. If they heard her, they nodded and smiled a genteel smile. It was interesting that so many of the ladies were uncomfortable in  their expensive clothes. They were stiff, they kept tugging at straps or waists or hems. And they wobbled when they walked in their high heels, every one of them.

After an hour of wandering through the increasingly tipsy crowd, the noise level was deafening. There were so many guests in evening wear that movement was almost impossible, and Suzie was getting tired. Her feet hurt. She began to stand in one place holding her tray and smiling stupidly. She began to walk slowly. She began to hide in the pantry while her tray was being refilled. She started leaning against the walls, holding the tray with her elbow wedged into her hip, resting her arm muscles. Every time she thought about the hours and hours until she could go home, she moved a bit more languorously.

She paused in a strategic spot with her upheld tray, joining another waiter who was smiling steadily. They stood there and rested for a moment as people came by and absently grabbed a snack. 'I know they're supposed to be rich and all,' Suzie observed after awhile. 'But they've got thicker accents than anyone I've ever heard.'

The woman looked puzzled. 'What's that got to do with it?'

'Well, they sound like rednecks.'

The woman looked at her. 'Girl, they are rednecks. Most of this country is rednecks. What's being rich got to do with it?'

'Well,' she said, embarrassed. 'I thought wealth meant culture, education, refinement. Things like that.'

She sneered. 'What century did you grow up in?'

Suzie came out with another tray of canapés and wandered over to a further corner of the room where she hadn't been before, and headed to a large knot, hoping they would clean the tray for her.

It was the doctor of bling  in a small crowd. Suzie thrust her tray into the middle of them. The doctor gave no sign that he saw her. Canapés started disappearing; Suzie could feel nudges and pressure as busy fingers pounced all over her tray.

The men were talking global politics, the problem of America's image overseas. 'We're a force for good,' someone declared. 'Encouraging countries to become more democratic is the right thing to do.'

Doctor Bling pronounced, 'I personally support the idea of being the world's moral policemen.'

Her tray empty, she went past Ed and his wife. She sure didn't look pleased with him. He kept looking around the room, his big face beaming tightly, like nothing was the matter, while his wife fussed at him. 'All's I'm saying is, is you better behave yourself. If I catch you messing with that horrible Mary Ellen McCall again, you'll be sorry.' Maybe she beats him, Suzie thought. 'I'm ashamed of you,' she continued. 'It's not the way a gentleman acts. Your constant dirty mouth, those awful innuendoes. You make me sick. I don't know why I ever married you.'

The developer rolled his eyes at Suzie. She turned away. His wife continued to berate him. Suzie hear her shrill voice from across the room. 'Tramps. Whores. Other men's wives. Waitresses. How could you?'

Back in the pantry, a cheer went up when they ran out of appetizers and the call went down to the kitchen to send up the main dishes. The waiters began carrying their trays around the ballroom looking for empty glasses and crumpled napkins. Then the trick became to avoid knocking into some guest and spilling over a tray full of glasses. It was a test of skill and navigation for the waiters.

The guests never noticed, but the waiters showed off for each other, turning lithely or bending into impossible shapes to skirt obstacles without slowing down. Eye contact and a grin were all the acknowledgement they'd get, but it was all about being part of the team.

A few minutes later, a string of porters entered the room holding serving trays full of food, which they carried to the buffet tables. Waiters hurried to remove the lids of the bains-marie and light the cans of sterno underneath, the trays were lowered into the frames, and serving spoons were laid on top. Then they got out of the way as the guests converged on the buffet.

Suzie and the rest of the service staff stood against the wall while the guests filled their plates and took their seats. Plenty of partiers ate standing up, so now there was less room to move because of all the people taking up space at the tables as well.

The porters inspected the guests and their things closely, and completely forget to watch the buffet table for empty serving dishes. They were kind of creepy, for porters. Way too edgy, kind of unfocused on being servants, more interesting in figuring things out and watching for opportunities.

She found herself standing next to a porter who wanted to carry on a conversation. He was a tall, skinny white guy in his early fortiess with a grizzled face and crooked teeth. He started by observing how nice everybody looked, and when Suzie responded with a curt nod of her head, he went on to observe that they all looked very rich too. Suzie said nothing, not wishing to encourage him.

He changed the subject. 'This is hard work. My feet are sore.'

Suzie felt sympathetic. So were hers. 'They working you hard?' She asked.

'Ah, it's not so bad. It's kind of cushy. We could be doing hard labor.'

Suzie stiffened. 'I'm sure you deserve it,' she sneered.

He looked her over, offended. 'I don't deserve to be treated like a criminal,' he said. 'I'm dressed up just like you, doing the same job, where's the difference?'

Suzie reacted with physical distaste. 'You're a public enemy. Society has tossed your ass out, away from good honest citizens.' Except there he was.

'I'm not an enemy,' he smiled reassuringly. 'I'm a nice guy.' His hands went out by his sides, pleading. 'I'm a good man.'

She turned away from the table she was watching and glanced at him. He once had a handsome, intelligent face. Suzie found herself less willing to insult him. He might could be a nice guy, who was she to judge?

He looked over at her. 'I'll have you know, Darling, some of these dangerous criminals are in for nothing more than unpaid parking tickets.'

'Well,' she hesitated. 'There might be some people who don't deserve it, but you've got to be consistent to be fair.'

'What about honest mistakes, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, mistaken identity?'

'Excuses.'

'What about bad laws?'

She paused. A pause that drained the energy out of her thoughts. 'Bad laws.' Suzie thought about it. Like the homeless law. Like the vandalism equals terrorism law. Like the dissent is treason law.

Good rules, bad rules. She didn't consider going over the speed limit to be criminal. Or cheating on her taxes. Or stealing pens and lighters. Or writing on walls.

'Well,' she said. 'The real crime is being a danger to others. The violent acts.'

He agreed with quick nods of his head. 'Yes,' he said rapidly. 'Human life is a sacred thing. Violating a human life should be punished with the harshest tortures ever devised.'

He shifted on his feet rapidly, his weight on his toes like a guy on meth. His eyes darted around the room while he was talking, a nervous smile distorting his lips. 'I contend that property is theft,' he said, looking around to see if anyone was listening. 'It's not really a crime to steal or damage or vandalize somebody's property because it doesn't really belong to them. It's just depreciation. Like, it's just stuff, it gets old and breaks down.

Vandalism, a thing that just happened. She thought about it as she went out to collect more dirty dishes. Well, vandalism did just happen if you parked in certain urban parking lots at night. Suzie fantasized going out and keying a bunch of Hummers in the parking deck as a lesson to those who would flaunt their wealth while others did without.

She came back to Doctor Bling and his group. She could tell by the colors of the dresses that this was a different batch of couples schmoozing with the rising star. She handed the tray into the middle of the circle. Conversation never slowed as they picked it clean. 'We need a unified strategy, a solid brand positioning,' some guy said. 'We need to stick with the taglines that have always worked for us.' He paused briefly to squeeze in a canapé. 'The land of opportunity. That's a brilliant tagline. But we've got to downplay opportunities for women and things like that, because different markets won't go for it.' He looked around at the other men. 'Women should keep their place, anyway.' The wives ignored him.

The good doctor spoke up in a righteous tone. 'The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.'

Continuing to explore the room with a tray half-full of empties, she spotted Jerry talking to another member over by the buffet. The other member was famished, and ate from the serving trays with his fingers. Jerry wasn't interested in diluting his alcohol. He was half-drunk and fuming. 'You know what it costs to keep a prisoner in this state?' he asked as Suzie collected glasses from off the buffet table behind him. 'Fifty bucks a day, $20k a year. And the state's only allowed to recoup thirty dollars from each convict.' The other guy nodded, his mouth full. 'That's why I started this business. We make them work it off. I rent them out and do the paperwork and keep the commission. Everybody's happy.' Suzie finished filling her tray and moved away.

The guests ate and ate. The waiters circled and hovered. The ladies slung their tiny purses over the backs of their chairs when they sat down, and left them there as they got up for more, or wandered over to other tables, and only came back for them when it was time to go to the bathroom with a gaggle of friends. Suzie thought they were being careless with their bags, especially with convicts on the loose, but they looked at her strangely when she cautioned them.

She made a slow circle of the tables, looking at the plates and glasses. It was hard to tell when someone had eaten all they were going to eat. Most people were consuming only some of what they had, and either played with the rest of their food, or left it in front of them. Only a few knew to put both knife and fork together on the plate as a sign to the waiters that they were finished. Suzie heard grumbling among the waiters lining the walls, about etiquette, about badly raised rich people, about pigs in troughs.

She made her way to where Ed and Jerry were standing close together, waving drinks in each others' faces. Ed's belly took up the middle of the space.

'This shit is getting out of hand,' Ed was saying, worried. 'We got to keep them under control.'

'Well, what do you want,' Jerry sneered. 'It's not like they're special effects movie guys, or pyrotechnic experts doing a Fourth of July.'

'I know, but.'

'These are guys with records a mile long. They like playing with matches. That's why I picked them.'

'All's I'm saying is, is that we got to make them be more careful. I didn't know they'd be so hard to settle.'

Jerry waved it away and finished his drink. 'Of course they're going to be a little hard to control. It's creative genius at work.'

He reached over as Suzie passed and dropped his glass onto her tray, nearly making her lose her balance and spill a dozen glasses. She looked back at him. He was staring at her with malevolence in his eyes, as if he'd just spied a rat.

The crowd in the Ladies Slipper Ballroom began slowly to disperse as the guests had enough to eat and wandered off to the dance floor. Suzie and the other waiters picked up their pace, scurrying to the pantry with half eaten food, plate stacked on plate, glasses clinking together, napkins crumpled and stained.

She pushed through the pantry door with her tray, squidged over to the folding table that was now set up as a slops, scraped the food into a trashcan, dumped the drinks into a bucket, stacked the plates into a bus tray, tossed the silver into a water-filled tub, inverted the glasses into the proper rack, tossed the napkins into a laundry basket, picked up her tray, spun on her heels with a squeak, and went out for another load. She was going full steam now. All the waiters were hustling, trying to keep up with the mountains of dirty dishes still being generated in the ballroom. Nobody was chatting, nobody was passing comments, nobody was taking their time.

Except the porters. They were still holding up the walls, watching the diners, still never minding the levels of Bourguignon and Coq au Vin and Veal Marsala and Shrimp Curry in the bains-marie, making excursions instead to hover in the vicinity of the members' back pockets.

Jerry was over by the bar when she came out, waiting impatiently for a drink. The bartender had seen him coming, and handed him his fresh whatever  as he got to the head of the line. He took it without a word, and moved off, turning back to his conversation with a fat member with glasses and short, balding hair.

'Let me get this straight,' the guy said. 'You convict them, and then sell them back into the same workforce.' Suzie was standing with the bartender, clearing dirties from the side of the bar.

Jerry nodded, taking a sip. 'The only net effect on the economy is a reduction in available money,' he waved his glass, 'because they won't be spending anything where they're going'

The guy shook his head. Available money, isn't that a key factor in causing a depression?'

'Not a depression,' he said pedantically. 'A period of revaluing and reprioritizing our resources.'

They each had a slug of their drink and looked around. Suzie glanced at the bartender and could tell he was listening. Jerry explained, trying to interest the guy in the worldwide implications. 'The class you want to protect is the class with the major spending habits.'

The member nodded; sure.

'Well, the best way to conserve resources is to confine all consumer spending to the rich.' Jerry took another drink and looked him in the eye. 'And all it takes is doing away with the free working class.'

Suzie saw the bartender's eyebrows raise, as he graciously continued to serve all the roaring drunks who came up to the bar.

The guy blinked, then took another drink. 'Yes, how elegant. Bye-bye Wal-Mart. Their entire customer base will be in jail.'

Jerry nodded seriously, sloshing his drink. 'We foresaw that problem and reached out to help. Wal-Mart is one of our biggest collaborators, actually. We've done visioning sessions with them that were just astounding. They've got this slave-labor issue figured out. They pioneered a lot of modern personnel methods that we really admire.'

Suzie finished loading her tray and moved toward the pantry.

'They'll be better citizens than before,' Jerry watched her go. 'Their contribution will be channeled where society needs it most,' he said to her back. 'Not wasted on things like entertainment, putting gas in their pickups, or sitting around watching TV. Subhumans.' She could hear him from the door. Suzie didn't go back near Jerry for awhile.

At 9:45, the Service Manager came around to tell them they were going to close the doors and break down the buffet at Ten, and after everything was cleared away, they were to join the waiters in the Southern Sportsman Ballroom to tend to the dancing drunks.

The breakdown began. The ultra-polite Service Manager followed the last of the guests to the doors and shut them, and the moment there was nobody around to see them, the waiters went to work like cockroaches in the dark.

Tray after tray of uneaten food went back to the pantry and was dumped into the trash. The sauces came back brown and gloppy looking, with bits of whatever the guests had been dipping into them. Gross. The leftover hunk of prime rib went straight to a Sous-chef who took it downstairs to dry it out for the employee meal tomorrow. Oh well.

They rushed to help themselves to whatever morsels they desired, cramming lumps of cheese and chicken wings into their mouths as they came through the doors, eating chocolate covered strawberries, stuffing themselves with ham biscuits, gobbling mouthfuls of grapes, wrapping things in paper towels to sneak home. But, eat as much as they could, the food in the garbage can could still have fed a multitude.

It took much less time to break everything down than it had to set up. Half a dozen waiters stripped the tables of their linens and folding everything, and dumped the fancy gold top cloths into a basket to be returned to wherever they'd been rented from. Then the porters took the tables and chairs away, along with a few handbags.

The waiters had a few moments of standing around in the pantry, catching their breaths and basking in the glow of their unnoticed hard work, and then it was into the other ballroom, to watch the members and their wives party down, to clear away glasses, to walk around with trays of pastry, to ache longingly for the end of the evening.

Ed stood by himself in the middle of the room. He watched Suzie as she picked up empties, and waved her over to deposit his glass on her tray. 'How you doing, Sweetie?' he asked, all smiles.

She almost felt sorry for him for having such a bitch of a wife. On the other hand, she didn't know anyone who deserved it more. She made some inaudible remark and tried to move on, but he reached out and grabbed her free arm. 'How's about you and me slipping off to my car?' he asked. 'I've got heated leather seats and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the back.'

Suzie looked at him like he was crazy. 'I like your new uniform,' he leered. He wanted to tell her just what her uniform did for him. There was his wife just finished yelling at him, and there he was hitting on her the moment her back was turned. Where was the hag, anyway? Suzie spotted her, sitting down next to another wife, their heads together.

Suzie wandered over to where the wives sat, and found a few glasses to collect. Ed's wife was holding the other woman's hand and looking concerned. She looked like she'd just finished fainting. Suzie walked up to them. 'Is everything okay, ladies?' she asked. 'Is there anything I can get for you?'

The developer's wife looked up and recognized Suzie. Her look of concern was replaced by revulsion. 'No, thank you,' she said archly. 'We're perfectly fine.' But the other woman asked for a glass of water in a voice Suzie had to bend down to hear.

'I'll be glad to get you some water,' she said. 'Just sit right there and I'll be back in a moment.' It was only when she came back and handed the water to the woman that she realized it must be Jerry's wife.

She looked like a specter. Her skin was ashy white. She looked over a hundred years old. Her wig had slipped down over one ear. The skin on her neck was papery, and her arms were sticklike. Suzie wondered why she was here. The woman was obviously ill, and needed to be in bed. Did Jerry force her to get dressed up and come out? Suzie felt immensely sorry for her. She looked like she was going to die right there in her chair.

'You look unwell,' she said. 'Are you sure I can't call a taxi for you?' Jerry's wife looked like it was a wonderful idea, but the developer's wife hushed her up. 'I said,' she sneered gracefully, 'we're perfectly fine. Thank you all the same.' She turned back to Jerry's wife. Suzie left them and headed back to the pantry.

She was clearing a table in the far reaches of the ballroom when she was jolted by a hand grabbing her elbow. It was a mousy little woman with short hair and a black sequined gown shapelessly draped over her worry-thin body. Tugging at Suzie and leaning into her at the same time. 'You've got to help me find my shoes,' she said very softly, very close to Suzie's ear. She clutched Suzie's arm with a desperate grip. 'You've got to help me find my shoes, or my husband's going to be angry.'

She was very drunk. Luckily Suzie had a table to support her, or they'd have been weaving around the ballroom like waltzing clowns. Suzie tried to prop her up by her elbow, and assured the woman that she would look until she found them, and that she'd be right back. The woman stared into her eyes with childlike trust.

Suzie stabilized her against the table, and stared down at her clothing for some distinguishing mark so she'd remember who this person was once she'd rounded up her shoes. She wore a dark brown cut-velour scarf in oak leaves. It would do for a landmark.

She looked into the woman's face. 'Tell me about your shoes.' The wife had short dirty blonde hair, and a sad face, a pitiful face, like she wanted to please but her master beat her. A blonde Springer Spaniel.

She thought for a moment. 'They're dark brown, sling back.' She waved a hand vaguely at the room. 'I left them under the table somewhere.'

Suzie went around grabbing the bottoms of tablecloths and billowing them up so she could get a good look underneath. She looked in the corners, looked in the decorations, looked in the hall, looked in the lounge. Finally she found them kicked deep into a bushy display of kudzu vines, honeysuckle and gardenias. Then she realized she was never going to find the woman in this crowd if she had moved from the table. Which she had.

Suzie spent a bunch of time wandering around looking at women's faces. She thought it was strange to go through a crowded room and only see one thing. That wasn't usual for a waiter. Well sometimes it was. Most times waiters saw everything, aware of every nuance of movement, behavior, conversation, game, scheme, dynamic.

She got stuck behind a couple of members for a moment. While she waited for traffic to thin out, she listened to them discussing the Battle of Atlanta at the end of the Civil War. About Hardee's men sneaking around the back of the Union soldiers in the night for a surprise attack. Hardee was a street in her neighborhood. They also mentioned Brantley, Manigault, Holtzclaw, Cumming, Walthall and Stovall. All streets in her neighborhood. All Confederate Generals in Cheatham's Corps. 'A bunch of history, right there,' the guy was saying. 'I can't wait to get in there with my metal detector when construction starts.'

She passed them a few minutes later, and this time they were talking about the Peculiar Southern Institution. 'The idea that slavery was an inferior economic system is a damned Northern lie.' The guy sounded heated, but all Suzie saw of him was his back. 'They insisted it was unprofitable, but don't you believe it.' The other guy made I Hear You noises. 'Slavery was incredibly profitable, the best possible return on your investment,' he continued. 'Much more efficient than family run farms, and no harder on the slaves than what any white farmer or factory worker had to put up with in those days.'

'Slavery was incredibly profitable, the best possible return on your investment,' he continued. 'It was much more efficient than family run farms, and no harder on the slaves than what any white farmer or factory worker had to put up with in those day.'

Suzie decided she'd had enough of that part of the crowd for awhile, and went to another part of the room, slowly, looking at every woman's neck, only looking at women's necks, automatically blurring out whoever didn't have anything around her neck, fiercely examining everyone who had anything around her neck at all. She zeroed in on a green scarf. Her eyes snapped to a silver choker. Maybe she should have been looking to see who was barefoot, but she continued her roving search for the oak leaves and the blonde hair.

She felt like a dog looking for her owner. She's not in this room. I'll go into the next room. Are you here? Are you here? You are my person, I know your smell, I will find you. I must find you. It's my mission. I'm a good waitress. Pant pant pant.

She didn't find her. But eventually she found someone who was also looking for the shoes.

'Those are Margaret's shoes,' she said, as Suzie walked down the hall toward the bathroom with the shoes in her hand. Like she might suspect Suzie of stealing them.

Suzie handed them over. 'She asked me to help her find them.'

The woman smiled with brittle care. 'Thanks. I'll take them to her, I know right where she is.'

Relieved of her burden, Suzie went back into the ballroom, and cleared tables for a few minutes.

She stopped to take empty glasses from a couple of members. 'I'm tired of all the criticism,' one of them said. 'All these angry unbelievers and liberals accusing us of the worst crimes and excesses. They're attacking Jesus, and I for one won't stand for it.' He pounded his empty glass into his fist. His friend muttered.

'I mean, we were here first. We invented the American culture. We instilled this country with a noble, Christ-centered tradition. And now we have all these other cultures cutting us down and demanding changes. You don't take our shared common values and call them biased and prejudiced.' He thumped his glass onto Suzie's tray. 'We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong, and people are just going to have to get used to it.'

She passed Jerry with a full tray. He was reciting a list to a couple of other members.

'The banks, the Church, everybody. Audi, BMW, Daimler-Benz, Ford Werk, Volkswagen. IG Farben, Bayer, Siemens, Leica, BASF, Degussa, Krupp, Bosch, Electrolux, Blaupunkt, Deutsche Telephonewerk - they own T-Mobile. I've got a bunch of stock in that company.'

She passed Jerry again with an empty tray. He was speaking with the fervor of a preacher in front of a camera. 'They operated at peak capacity all the time. Yes. And they made enormous profits. I'm telling you. Yes. Not just from the low low cost of labor. Not at all. Also because there was no benefits cost.'

One of his friends said, ' Now that's what I'm talking about.'

She passed Jerry again just to make sure what she was hearing. 'Never even had to feed them, really,' he was saying urbanely. 'Just order up another one from the camps and send the wasted unit to the ovens. That's how cost-effective it was.'

She moved away, and noticed the woman with the oak print scarf again. She had her shoes on, and was flitting like a ghost around a hi-boy, her hands fluttering, going into a crouch beside it, making her self small so nobody could see her. She was plastered. Then she flitted over to her husband who was standing at the next table scowling, and made as if to hang off his neck, but then flitted away again to flutter in front of him, like a six year old courting her father, whispering Don't Be Mad At Me things.

Suzie didn't like the looks of the husband. He was a fleshy man, his chins came over his collar and bowtie. He had no lips, his mouth was pressed in wrinkled disapproval. He meant to be severe with her, and wasn't falling for the seductive act.

Suzie went to bus the table around Jerry and his group. He was draining his drink and she stopped to let him deposit it on her tray. 'Disposable people,' he was saying, looking down at her with no expression on his face.

She wandered off to gather more glasses and noticed a guy with a drink in one hand, leaning against a wall, squeezing his wife's ass through the flimsy material of her backless dress. She loved it, and was draped across him smooching his neck.

After a few more rounds of the glasses, she decided to check the lounge for new deposits. She found the blonde oak woman with her shoes on, huddled against a table in the front hall, looking sulky.

'Did you found your shoes?' Suzie asked, for something to say.

The woman's face brightened as she recognized her. 'Bless you. You're so kind to find my shoes.' She grabbed Suzie's hand.

Suzie wondered why she looked so upset. 'How are you doing, then?' she asked.

'I'm very angry.'

'At whom?'

She glanced fiercely down the hall toward the bathrooms. 'At my husband.' She swayed and bobbed when she talked, leaning and straightening. She gave Suzie a hug. 'Thanks for finding my shoes,' she said, sighing. 'I love you.' She started to cry.

Suzie gently disentangled herself from the arms of the weepy woman.

'He's on the board of directors. I'm so embarrassed.'

'Are you embarrassed for yourself?' The woman nodded tearfully. 'Don't be,' Suzie said, squeezing her hand. 'You can't let anyone make you feel small.'

She looked at her shoes. 'I embarrass him.' A tear started to fall. She was gripping Suzie's hand tightly, so she reached up with the other hand up to wipe it off her cheek.

'You'll be aight.' She wiped another tear.

She sniffed. 'He's embarrassed that I had a little too much to drink.'

Suzie snorted. 'That happens to everyone. It's not a bad thing. You're a good person.'

She brightened. 'I am a good person. I try very hard.'

Suzie agreed. 'You're a good person and you'll be fine.'

She started to cry again. 'He never notices I'm a good person.'

'He's a mean man.' Suzie remembered his scowl. 'It's a power thing,' she tried to explain. 'Don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself..' She felt like she was scolding her.

The woman teared up some more. Suzie wanted to tell her to just go ahead and divorce the bastard. She'd seen how they were together. He was the disapproving, stern guy who thought he knew best and that she needed to do things his way. He was punishing whenever anything was less than he expected it. An alcoholic himself, by the looks of it. The kind that sits and broods in front of the TV set, and then gets abusive and ugly. And if she was drinking too then they'd get into a shouting match, and he'd hit her and slam off into another room. 'Divorce the bastard and start again.'

She looked around wildly. Suzie knew she could never bring herself to file for divorce. Look what she'd be losing. All her friends. All the clothes and jewelry and the nice house and the vacations. All the people who air kissed behind each others' ears and said HaYow AWher Yew.

She left the woman holding up the table in the front hall, and went reluctantly back to picking up empty glasses. Suzie noticed the guy, still squeezing his wife's ass, now standing over by a hi-boy. His hand had moved lower. People were looking. She was squirming. He had a big grin on his face.

Suzie cleaned up a few hi-boys, delighting in swiping fresh drinks from partiers who'd just then parked them on the table and gone onto the dance floor. She didn't drink them, though some waiters were sneaking the dregs of likely glasses as they walked into the pantry. She carried them back to the slops table, poured them out, and inverted the glasses into the rack.

Suzie took her tray and went to check for glasses in the ladies' lounge. The ladies had been extraordinary diligent about taking their drinks to the bathroom with them, and just as careful to leave them lying all over the sinks and dressing tables. As she was coming out of the lounge, she was waylaid by Ed the developer, who whipped the tray out of her hand and put it down on an end table. Opening a closet door, he whipped her inside and shut it again.

Ed was all over her, his hot alcoholic breath on her neck, in her hair, searching for her lips, his weight crushing her back into the shelves of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, his hands relishing the feel of tuxedo skirt, the polyester pleats covering Suzie's breasts. She shoved him away. 'You know,' she said coolly, 'your wife is tired of your flirting with anybody you identify as female.'

He paid no attention. 'Oh, Baby, Baby, I want you so bad,' he crooned, drooling, as he fumbled for a feel. She shoved him away. The back of his head hit the door with a thunk.

'I'm going to have to make a scene if you don't stop this,' she said coolly. He paid no attention. He was grabbing at his crotch with one hand, grabbing at her skirt with the other, and leaning on her to keep her still. She shoved him away.

The door popped open and he went sprawling onto the floor. Suzie emerged from the closet, straightening her hair and smoothing her skirt, and saw him propped up on his elbows, grinning at the progress he'd made. A couple of guests on their way to the lounges stopped and exclaimed over him, looking at Suzie. Another member helped him up and they staggered into the men's lounge. Suzie collected her tray and fled for the pantry.

She went back out for another batch of glasses and bottles. Her feet really hurt her now, and her lower back was sore. She was almost on automatic, her eyes admitting only the light from empty glasses, her ears unfocussed. Little phrases came at her out of the din. The vacation house. The renovation. The sitter. The President. The war. The hurricane.

She walked by a group of wives being lectured by someone's husband. 'Liberals are notorious opponents of good old American values,' he said, explaining. 'Where the husband goes out to work, and the wife stays home and takes care of the family.' The women nodded politely and glanced at each other with blank expressions.

She cleaned up a hi-boy where two men were watching the dancers and talking.

'Deliberate mass firing for profit enhancement,' one said. 'It's the latest trend.'

The other guy said, 'It's a natural and objective market phenomenon, like a hurricane or a tornado.'

She noticed the guy squeezing his wife's ass. It was almost porn. She had one leg half-up on his thigh and was wriggling into his crotch. His hand was inside the back of her dress, fingering her thong. His grin was larger than ever.

Ed found her clearing glasses off a table in the back of the ballroom where it was poorly lit and practically deserted. 'I'm serious about taking you out, Little Lady,' he said as he circled the table toward her.

'You know,' she said, straightening, lifting the tray. 'I'm working here. I'm trying to get my job done, and you're hassling me.'

He kept coming. 'I own you anyway, practically,' he said in a spiteful voice. 'I pay your wages.' He swaggered up in her face. His voice softened. 'You need to be nicer to me.'

She backed off. 'You do not pay my wages. And I don't work for tips.'

He kept coming. 'No, really. You better get friendly.' There was a warning in his voice.

She look at him with disgust. 'Fuck you. You can't influence my behavior. You're not even getting real service. All you're getting is what minimum wage buys, the appearance of service. And you'd better appreciate my performance, or I'll spill something on you, ooh.' She shook her half-full tray at him, clanking the glasses.

'Shit.' He was getting angry. 'You women have never had it easier. You get to steal jobs from men or stay home and play house. Marriage and divorce are a business to your kind. You trade for sex just like any whore.' He kept coming. 'You can even join the Army and see the world if you want, and there's no danger of being killed in combat.' She could see the fury in his eyes. Fortunately, he was drunk, and she could run faster than he could.

'I can see you've put a lot of thought into it,' she observed, backing around the table.

He kept coming. She eventually did something she might have regretted in another life. Ed got within spitting distance, his little eyes squinched up, his face as red as if she'd already slapped him. He reached discretely for her breast, and she threw a drink into his face. He backed off for a moment, startled by the ice cubes pelting his glasses, and kept coming. 'Aw, come on,' he pleaded. 'Be nice to me.' He reached for her ass. She took aim and kicked him in the knee. He went down, howling, holding his leg. Suzie put the glass back on her tray and prepared to return to the pantry.

Jerry was there in a moment, the lawyer in him rushing to take advantage of an opportunity for litigation. 'What do you think you're doing?' he demanded in a very loud voice. Members and their wives turned to stare.

Ed was still rolling on the floor. He was trying to look up Suzie's skirt. 'I told you you better be nice to me,' he warned. Suzie turned to go, resisting the impulse to step on him.

Jerry hurled a final insult as she walked away, incensed at her audacity. 'You're just a stupid little white trash whore,' he said in a voice she could hear from the door. 'You'll never do anything with your life. You'll never make any difference. You might as well be dead. And you're a horrible waitress.' He laughed cruelly. 'You can't even do a simple job like waitressing right.'

The Service Manager found her in the pantry. 'Suzie, I need to see you in the office.' he said, and led her down the stairs into the kitchen and straight to Chef's office. He unlocked it, and shut the door behind them. He stood towering over her. 'I've noticed some very disturbing things about you tonight, Suzie,' he said heavily.

Suzie was tired. Her arms felt like she'd been tied up all night. Her feet ached like there were chains attached to her ankles. She sighed.

The Service Manager looked her up and down. At her stapled skirt. Her runned tights. Her flat shoes. 'It's come to my attention that your attitude has gone downhill in a hurry.' He moved closer. It felt menacing. Suzie had only the bookshelves to back up into.

'I've had complaints from several of the members,' he continued. It was a different kind of threat from when Ed had her boxed into a closet. This was the kind of threat where she felt in danger of her life. Sweat bloomed on her forehead, and a chill went down her spine. 'And their wives have been complaining about you, too.' She began to feel light-headed.

The Service Manager put his hands on his hips and took a lecturing stance. 'I would never have believed it possible of you. Assaulting a member. Twice. What were you thinking? We could have you arrested for this. You'd deserve it, too.' He shook his head, satisfied with his assessment, and not giving her any chance to explain.

'You're trouble,' he continued. 'I knew it from the beginning. You don't go along, you don't get how the game is played. You ask too many questions, and you've got a superior attitude. You'll never make a good waitress,' he finished.

Suzie started to explain that Ed had been harassing her for months, and tonight he had grabbed her ass in public and tried to rape her. But the Service Manager cut her off.

'We're going to have to let you go,' he said as if it pained him. 'We're willing to pay you two weeks severance, but you're finished working here as of right now. We'll send you your paycheck.'

Suzie was mad. 'You don't want the publicity,' she stated, then thought about it. 'I could tell such tales that the Club would be in the news for weeks. I could bring a lawsuit that would keep the Club in the papers for months. Years.'

The Manager looked severe. 'You know,' he drawled, 'we've had reports of missing items, and we're going to search you before we let you leave.' He got a mean look. 'And never mind the severance.'

Suzie snorted, exasperated. 'You know damn well it's the new porters who are stealing things.' She was sick of the whole thing. 'Can I go now?'

He shook his head and gazed at the ceiling. 'Maybe I will turn you over for questioning,' he said, then grinned maliciously and slouched against the door. Suzie felt him looking at her. It made her itch.

He stood there blocking her way. 'Why couldn't you just be nice to the members?' he asked reasonably. 'They're ordinary people. They're good people. They deserve a little respect. Especially from the likes of you.'

Suzie counted to ten. 'No, they don't. They go out of their way to make me feel small and worthless. And the Club treats us like slaves. I don't have to be nice to asshole antichrist members.'

He scowled. 'You've gone out of your way to insult them, especially Mr. Collier and Mr. Sweat.' Suzie had to think of Ed and Jerry's last names. 'They're very, very unhappy with you. Mr. Collier is considering bringing assault charges against you.'

Suzie fumed. 'You know,' she said, resolving to barge through him, feeling just the least bit claustrophobic and panicky in the confined space. 'I'm sick of catering to a bunch of ruthless, paranoid assholes who validate their low self-esteem by the relentless pursuit of power. How can you say they're good people? They're not good people at all.'

In the end, they let her out of Chef's office and marched her through the parking garage to her car. The Manager and one of the guards stood and peered into it suspiciously as she got in, started the car, and drove off the premises. A uniformed gate attendant radioed when she left the gates.

She made her way home in shock. The events of the evening swirled in her head. The conversations she'd overheard, the drunken behavior, the feel of the developer's hands on her crotch. How could they fire her? She needed that job. No, fuck it. Fuck them. She hated the job, she was glad they'd fired her. But how dare they fire her? She hadn't done anything wrong. It was so unfair. She was so pissed off.

To calm herself down, Suzie went by Krispy Kreme. The hot doughnut light was on. She got in the drive-through lane, and hardly noticed ordering. She found her hands shaking, and realized she needed to get herself together, so when she got her three hot ones, she pulled in to a space beneath the sign and put the car in park.

She worked the bag open with right hand while her left still clutched t