The Barback and the Waitress

Summary

A barback and a waitress engage in a late-night rendezvous, sharing leftovers and intimate moments in a raw depiction of connection and desire amidst the backdrop of the service industry.

Abstract

The narrative unfolds as a barback eagerly meets a waitress after her shift at 2 AM, their routine encounter marked by the grime and chaos of the restaurant industry. They navigate through familiar city streets to her apartment, where they indulge in a meal of leftovers and each other's company. Amidst the sweltering heat and the mundane reality of their lives, they find solace and passion in one another, exploring their physical connection with a well-worn copy of the Kama Sutra. The barback, content with the scraps of affection and food offered by the waitress, grapples with his unspoken feelings for her, contrasting the reality of their relationship with an idealized vision of love and companionship.

Opinions

The author portrays the barback's eagerness and attraction towards the waitress as a consistent and reliable aspect of his life, suggesting a deep-seated longing.
The waitress is depicted as both physically appealing and emotionally weary, carrying the marks of her profession and the complexities of her personal life.
The leftover food, though second-hand and imperfect, is consumed with appreciation, mirroring the barback's acceptance of the waitress's imperfections and the imperfect nature of their relationship.
The setting and atmosphere of their encounters—the heat, the late hours, the dimly lit apartment—enhance the raw and unrefined nature of their connection.
The barback's reflections reveal a yearning for a more profound and reciprocated love, hinting at a dissonance between his desires and the reality of their encounters.
The narrative suggests a critique of the service industry's demanding and often thankless nature, as well as the personal sacrifices of those who work within it.

The Barback and the Waitress

When she got off at zero past 2AM I bound over, leaping lanes of waning traffic to an alley behind the restaurant where we meet up. Steamed and liquor-stained from scores of shot-glasses cleaned, I was my usual disgrace. Weary and bemoaning fresh scars from improprieties born in courses served to single men, she was and always is to me a reliable temptation. Laden in her arms were packaged leftovers from the family meal concocted by up-and-coming cooks and eager sauciers aching to impress a chef preyed upon by stars.

Hungry, she led me down a charted path of turns and blocks we knew by heart to the place she’d richly let on the shady side of the Park. I was beat and she was pretty, but exhausted. Still we claimed the time like we’d never have more than this coveted collective of blurry pre-dawn hours. In ripe swelter with windows cracked to let in air from sidewalk gutters, we’ve made our way quite studiously through our working summer, checking off the many numbered trials presented by a well-oiled copy of her Kama Sutra.

Spread out across a mattress which commands the sacred stage of her subterranean cell, we tore in to consume the random supper inside that box she opened. Tepid portions from an omelette were seasoned by spare flecks of ash let go without apology from the sous chef’s cigarette. Bites she avoided, I took in too easy. Having staved myself since early lunch on stale whips of jerky doled out for the poor man’s happy hour, I was not ashamed, but willing to be satisfied with what she didn’t take.

What I wanted, I confess, were the carrots made lusty in congealing glazes — orange and yellow roots shaved to pose as if they’d never steeped in dirt. Their sugars burnt brought all their secrets to the surface and I wanted them outright. One after another she polished them off, leaving me to forage the weeping anti-pasta imposing vinegary countenance on a slice of cake some wealthy diner had sent back to the kitchen, rejected. I can’t imagine Why. I thought perhaps I loved her. Each time she lets me stay the night I prepare, between the notes of her euphonious ascent to climax and my own more guttural, surmounting pleasures, I try to speak the words out loud.

This time, unchanged, I fell asleep in skin without a cover, too hot to bother with a sheet to make me decent. As intrepid sun rose high I was dreaming, not of scraps or ashen leftovers, but of a lucid offering sealed tight yet freely given — for a price, I could have The one inside The one whose unburnt sugars had not yet been pre-conditioned to settle for my wages, tips and rejected crumbs of cake.