RACE|RACISM

Bugs Bunny

A short story

I had a friend named Benny who worked the kitchen. We called it ‘back of the house.’ I was ‘front of the house; I worked the register, made the coffee, ran the food to tables. Benny made the food with the other cooks, in the kitchen.

Benny was black and everyone else working the cafe was white. None of us ever mentioned it and I never wondered how Benny felt about being the only Black employee, until this one day when this one guy came in.

This guy was big and really white, like he had this close-cropped hair and was all bulky and wore a suit with no tie, and he had this sort of smell like a new car — leather and acid. He ordered coffee; he wanted fresh coffee, not espresso, nothing fancy, he said, just good ol’ fashioned coffee. He asked if the coffee was fresh. I said I put it up half an hour ago; he said I didn’t know coffee because coffee deteriorated after twenty minutes so by the thirty-minute mark it was stale, and he didn’t want stale coffee and would I make it fresh again.

Now there was a line of people behind him wanting things and three cooks in the kitchen needing orders and if I made a fresh pot of coffee, customers would have to wait, and the kitchen would get slammed with orders all at once.

I told the guy I didn’t have time to make new coffee, and would he just take the coffee from the pot, and he said no, and he wanted to see my manager.

So, then Benny came out of the kitchen.

Benny was tall, really tall, and he wore this yellow T-shirt with a picture of Bugs Bunny on it and he wore his apron around his waist and had a cook’s bandana on his head (they all did that in the kitchen, the cooks all wore those bandanas to keep the sweat from dripping in their faces). Benny’s bandana was yellow too. Benny never smiled, Benny didn’t talk much, but when Benny talked everyone listened because Benny had one of those voices you just listen to.

So, Benny comes out from the kitchen in his yellow bandana and Bugs Bunny T-shirt, and he nods at me and gets a cup of coffee. He takes this long sip and goes, Ahhh, like in the commercials.

Good coffee Judes, he says to me.

Man.

The guy looks at Benny, looks at me, and says, “Why doesn’t he make a fresh pot since all he’s doing is drinking coffee on his boss’s dime?”

Benny looks at the guy and says, “I am the boss, Mister.”

The guy looks at Benny and says, “You’re a n###.”

All the customers in the line kind of gasped and everyone moves around like they’re ants whose hill got kicked, and I didn’t know what to say. Benny just stands there with his cup of coffee in his hand. Then he puts his coffee down. Then he takes off his bandana and his apron.

Two other cooks come out of the kitchen — Brent, the kitchen manager, and Sam, the Smartass (I called Sam a smartass because he was always making jokes at me). They stare at the guy; they stare at Benny. We all stare.

No one says a word.

Then Brent tells the guy to go, we don’t use that language here. And the guy he points at Benny like his hand is a gun and Benny is the target and he says to Brent, “Is this joker your boss?”

Brent looks at Benny, looks at the guy, and says he’d appreciate it if the guy left.

The guy kind of huffs and then he sneers, he looks Benny up and down, and he spits on the floor near Benny’s feet. He leaves. That’s it.

Benny stands there watching that guy stroll past the window and away down the sidewalk and Benny walks out of the cafe.

Sam runs out after Benny, calling and calling him, and the customers stand around until Brent tells me to start taking orders and I do. I hear one lady tell another lady she couldn’t believe what just happened.

This was back in 2000.

I think Sam came back in and helped Brent in the kitchen, and I think maybe we had a meeting with the owner later that week, about how to handle situations like the one with that guy, and how to respect each other. I think we did, but now I don’t remember.

Benny came back to work the next day. We were all really nice to him. No one mentioned what happened. Except Sam. He and Benny had these short intense talks by the walk-in. Sam was always wanting Benny to do something, Benny was always saying no.

Benny and I both quit the cafe that June. We didn’t stay in touch.

Anyway, years later, I ran into Sam on the street; he didn’t recognize me at first, it’d been decades since we’d seen each other, but I said “Hi, Smartass,” and he lit up with a huge smile and remembered me. We hugged.

We had coffee and got caught up. He was working in tech now. He had a belly on him; I teased him about that. He laughed.

He said he’d stayed in touch with some folks from back then. He said Brent was working on one of the islands, running a kitchen. He told me all about Allie, this girl who worked front of the house with me, and I told him I’d forgotten all about her. Sam said didn’t I remember, he always had a crush on her, and I was always making fun of him because she was so out of his league? I said yeah, I guess I remember Allie.

He said, he and Allie ended up dating after he quit, they got married and had a kid, but they were separated now.

I remembered Allie; I remembered hating her. I remember being so sick of every guy in the place always making eyes at her. I remembered Sam always making eyes. I got all uncomfortable remembering Allie.

Then Sam said he stayed in touch with Benny too; Benny moved back to Philly, he said, but they talked a lot.

I tried to remember Benny, but I couldn’t. Sam looked at me strangely, and said, don’t you remember Benny? He quit right before you did. Benny the black guy.

Oh, I said. Yeah. But I only vaguely remembered.

Sam said Benny was an LNP now and had a kid too, and he and Sam and his kid and Sam’s kid hung out the last time Sam was back East.

I was thinking about Sam and Allie, so I only half heard him talking about Benny. Then all of a sudden, I remembered Benny. I remembered a little about that day.

Oh yeah, I said, Benny. I remember Benny.

Sam said Benny kept the yellow T-shirt, with BUGS BENNY on it, we’d all gotten him for his birthday that one year.

I said I forgot we’d done that, and I always remembered it just saying Bugs Bunny; I laughed.

Sam didn’t laugh. He got all quiet. He said he’d been surprised Benny kept that shirt.

Why? I said.

You know why Sam said.

I tried to figure out what he meant; he watched me. Finally, he said, you remember what happened?

Then I remembered that guy spitting on the ground near Benny’s feet. I told Sam, yeah, I remembered that. What a piece of shit.

That guy didn’t spit at his feet, Sam said. He spat right on him. After calling him the N-word, remember? We all just stood and watched. We all just stood around and watched. I tried to get Benny to file a police report on the guy for assault. Don’t you remember?

Things felt weird then; I couldn’t think what to say.

Anyway, Sam said, he’s doing good.

Good, I said. But I still felt weird. I still couldn’t remember it all the way Sam did.

Sam said he had to be going and we hugged, and he took off, but I sat there trying to remember that day and everything that happened.

And you know what? In my memories, that shirt still said Bugs Bunny.