Kelly's Bar Page 4

more than a half year after Billie came to Kelly's Lefevre arrived a bit before ten-thirty and heard what he assumed was Chico and Billie already working in the kitchen. But when he went in to say Good Morning, he found that instead of Billie, Chico's wife was helping him. When he asked why, Chico explained that Billie had quit. He said she had a good reason which Chico and his wife knew, but which they had solemnly promised not to tell anyone until Billie gave them the OK. She had to get some things settled first, and as soon as she did, she'd let Chico know. Then he could tell everyone the whole story. Lefevre asked if Billie were in trouble, and both Chico and his wife smilingly answered that the waitress was in no trouble at all.

  To show just how firmly he intended to respect Billie's confidentiality Chico abruptly changed the subject to the issue of finding a replacement. As a favor to Billie, his wife had agreed to substitute for a while. But she had other responsibilities, so they needed to recruit a new waitress ASAP. Lefevre resignedly accepted the topic change because it was clear that Chico was not going to say anything more about Billie's departure. Not only did the bar owner want to learn why he had lost the best waitress-helper he had ever had, he also had a strong desire to ask Chico something else, but he didn't dare do so while the cook's wife could hear. So Lefevre accepted the change of topic and started considering with Chico whom the might get to replace Billie.

  As the work day progressed Lefevre continued to want to ask his question, but Chico's wife, being completely unfamiliar with the tasks required of a waitress-helper and in need of her husband's constant directions, was seldom out of hearing. Finally, Lefevre happened to step into the kitchen to call in a hamburger order for someone sitting at the bar just as Chico's wife exited the kitchen to carry an order to a table. With her out of hearing he finally could ask his question.

  "What did you do about the ticket?" he whisperingly asked.

  The referenced ticket was a lottery ticket, one which Chico had been given as a tip, and which turned out to be a thousand dollar winner. Usually people don't tip cooks, but he and Lefevre each had received a dozen lottery tickets as tips. It happened when three management people from a nearby small manufacturing company came into Kelly's at closing time the previous Friday. They said they had been having a business meeting which was running way long and asked if they could finish it at Kelly's while eating. The barkeep and his cook both agreed. They closed Kelly's to other customers, took the trio's food orders, and while the food was being prepared and served, the three managers spread out their papers over several tables, turning Kelly's into their temporary boardroom. After this group finished their meeting and meal, since it was well after closing time, Lefevre and Chico just left the trio's dirty dishes on the table to be cleaned up the next day. When they arrived Saturday morning, they found two envelopes tucked under the dirty plates, one with Lefevre's name and one with Chico's. Each contained a dozen lottery tickets. The drawing had occurred late Friday night, so Saturday morning the winners had already been determined, and one of Chico's tickets had won a secondary prize of a thousand dollars.

  For almost every other person, this outcome would be great good luck. But Chico's wife is unalterably opposed to all gambling, so hostile he was sure she would not accept the lottery ticket tip. He had a delicate problem, and Lefevre was curious to learn whether he had handled it, and if so, how. Chico answered his boss's whispered question with a big smile, and said there was no need to whisper. His wife knew the whole story. Indeed, she had refused to accept any gambling profits. So they decided to give the ticket to Billie who needed the money so she could quit Kelly's and get out of town.

  The fact that Billie had needed to get out of town reignited Lefevre's fears that she was in some kind of trouble. Chico again assured him she was not. But he also again told his boss he couldn't yet reveal what she was up to. Lefevre began to get a little angry. If Billie was not in any trouble, then helping the best waitress they had ever had to run away from town and from her job was virtually an underhanded act of treachery against Kelly's and against Lefevre himself. If Chico hadn't been such a valued employee for so long he probably would have been fired on the spot. As it was, the bar owner simply had to bite his tongue, swallow his anger and wait for Billie to OK Chico's explaining everything to everyone.

  VII

  The explanation came about a week and a half later when Chico arrived at work one morning with a small bulletin board, one the size often hung on the wall of a child's room. Under a transparent plastic protective cover, four things were stapled to the board: A glossy copy of a photo portrait, a newspaper clipping, a photocopy of a legal document, and a personal letter addressed simply to Kelly's. Chico handed the board to Lefevre with a smile even brighter and wider that his usual.

  The photograph pictured two young women, each smilingly holding a champaign glass up in a toasting gesture. One was Billie. She was not wearing her customary jeans, but rather formal dress slacks. The other gal, whom Lefevre did not recognize, was wearing a frilly white feminine party dress. The clipping was from a small town weekly newspaper. Under a headline announcing issuance of the town's first gay marriage license was another picture of Billie and the unknown woman. They were smilingly filling out some kind of form. The photocopy was of the apparent resultant legal document, a wedding license issued to Billie and to one Polly Martin. The letter was an explanation.

  Polly, it said, is the woman who worked in the trucking company office, the woman whom Stag claimed as his shack up partner. She never was. She only was a roomer in his big house. Somehow he had learned that she was a convicted but firmly closeted lesbian. Aware that she therefore would not dare to contradict him, he started boasting that she was his sex partner. Polly was angered by this, but never tried to set the record straight because, while Stag's claims were demeaning, they also shielded her closeted lesbian status. Billie also was only a roomer in Stag's house, and also a closeted lesbian. She knew Stag was deliberately and dishonestly giving everyone the impression that she too was his sex partner, and she also was angered. But just as with Polly, Stag's boasting lies helped her stay in the closet. Living in the same rooming house, it didn't take long for Billie and Polly to learn of their mutual, carefully hidden, different-from-usual sexual orientation. Nor did it take long thereafter, for love to blossom between them. When the courts in Massachusetts declared it unconstitutional for gays to be denied legal marriage, Billie and Polly decided the criticism they'd get from people like Stag was little price to pay for coming out and enjoying the rights, honor and joy of marriage. So they made up their minds to move to Massachusetts as soon as they could.

  With their exceedingly close, virtual father-daughter relationship, Chico explained to Lefevre, he had known of Billie's situation. He knew she and Polly were saving money in order to move to Massachusetts and get married. When he got the winning lottery ticket tip, since his wife would never accept gambling winnings, he proposed to her that they give the ticket to Billie. His wife gladly agreed.

  That day at lunchtime Chico got his revenge for the bullying badgering Stag had been heaping on him for years. When the blowhard came in for lunch Chico took the bulletin board to his table and gleefully pointed out not only to the lying braggart, but especially to everyone else in Kelly's exactly what the articles on the bulletin board indicated. Stag left without eating his lunch. He's never been back in Kelly's since. Customers who work at the same company Stag does report that he applied for a transfer to one of the company's other cities, a transfer he immediately accepted when offered, even though it involved a demotion.

  After Stag's deflation and departure things at Kelly's settled down to a peaceful new normal. Lefevre found that the lying braggart's absence had little effect on profits. Billie was replaced by the wife of one of the mechanics who works at the city road maintenance shops. Their kids are both in school, so she is able to take advantage of Kelly's part-time position to earn a little extra income f
or the family. She is pleasant and quickly learned the job's requirement, so she handles the waitress-helper position all right. But, of course, nobody would ever fill the job as well as Billie did.

  One morning about six months later Chico came to work bursting with happiness. He had gotten another letter from Billie. She told him that Polly had been successfully medically artificially impregnated, that the baby was a boy, and the couple were going to name him Chico.

  "I'm going to be a Godfather!" in his thick Mexican-Spanish accent the excited cook eagerly told everyone who came into Kelly's that day. And everyone shared Chico's joy.

  END