Real Bar Patrons: The Family Man

Jim, a man of about 50, sits down to dinner with his young family. His 2 children look to be between 6 and 8 years old, one boy one girl, both with blonde hair. His wife appears to be in her late thirties. I’ve served them before but on this night one of the wait staff serves them. I’m not much good with the fancier procedures. After a substantial meal the wife ushers the kids off to bed. The man sticks around and orders a sixteen dollar glass of cabernet. Walter, my manager comes in to bust my balls about some dirty dishes that aren’t really my responsibility. This is one of the rare occasions when he ever gives me flack so I don’t mind. Jim leans in a little,

What’s that guy’s fucking problem. Who is that guy?

"That’s just Walter, he’s the manager here."

What’s up his ass?

"Oh no he’s a cool guy actually. He just gets confused some times.”

He seems like a prick square to me. A bunch of hot shot assholes run around this hotel don’t they?

“Yeah, you get a good amount of them in here.”

When I was your age, well actually more in my thirties anyway, when I was young I ran a bar in LA. We had some old pricks like that. One time some old guy mouthed off to me so I finger fucked his wife in the bathroom. The old bag, she loved it. This old geezer was drunk as hell. He didn’t know what was going on. She slipped me 100 bucks with the check.

“Are you serious?”

Oh definitely, These old broads they love to get fucked. That asshole who was in here earlier, you should fuck his wife…. I’m serious. These people aren’t real people. They got no concept of what matters. I got my wife and my kids, and 10 years ago we had to put my oldest Shaun in the ground. He was 9 years old. These people have no concept.

“I know what you mean.”

I know you do. You’re not like these jokers. Where you from?

“ah originally Connecticut, but I just moved out here from New York a few months ago.”

Connecticut is a nice place. We stayed up in Long Island back when I had a couple race horses.

“Horses eh? I love the track. I haven’t been out here yet, but it’s a good time.”

We had a good horse we used to run around down here in Del Mar. I think he got spooked here. The trainer messed his head up for a couple months. This son of a bitch was a stone cold alcoholic. I used to warn him about coming around the job sauced up, especially around the animals you know they don’t like that shit. So one time this asshole you know what he does. He gets all sauced up again, and goes to the stable one night. He’s playing around on the horse or something and he messes up his leg. This was a 200,000 dollar race horse. So what we did, we taught the fucker a lesson. The next day we dragged him out of his house and threw him into the cage and let that horse give him a couple good kicks in the ribs.

There aren't too many more words spoken between us. Jim quickly downs his last glass of the evening, signs off on the bill and goes on his way. I see that he's left a 10 dollar tip on an 18 dollar order. Truly a gentleman and a savage.