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A rampage outside the restaurant was nothing inherently new. It happened. It happened everywhere. Most people went on with their lives, and forgot about it the next morning. But of course, it would happen outside Wilford’s restaurant, two days before he was supposed to film some stupid show he didn’t want to film, and kill someone who didn’t belong in this world to begin with. Of. Fucking. Course.
He could deal with that later. Or just never go back to the bar. Maybe he could send Nichola as a spy to figure out if this is something they’d consider a hanging offence.
First, he needed to deal with his shoulder. Something was very, very wrong in his shoulder, which meant a long wait in an emergency room with a little boy who wanted to be anywhere but an emergency room. Eventually, he was seen, his shoulder was put back together how it belonged, and he was given yet another prescription he didn’t want. He still had some percocets left over from his surgery. He’d take those instead.
It was late by the time they got home. Getting Michael ready for bed with one arm in a sling wasn’t the easiest task in the world, but Wilford was willing to put up with the hassle in exchange for the added layer of protection between his mattress and the bed-wetting child. And his bed was exactly where Wilford wanted to sleep. He was in too much pain and too exhausted to want to crash anywhere else.
By morning, he got rid of the sling. He didn’t want it. It was just in the way. He put just enough energy into getting Michael cleaned up and dressed for the day, and getting everyone fed, and that was all he had left. He was tempted to call Andy in, even though he clearly wasn’t going anywhere, but he didn’t want Andy there while he was home. Wilford would take the lazy way out. He found some asinine cartoons, grabbed some of Michael’s smaller toys from downstairs, and collapsed into his chair to wallow in misery for the day. He lasted a whole hour before he had to get up to dig his pills out of his sock drawer. He could usually power through a lot things. Getting run over a few times and torn up from the inside was apparently not one of them. Maybe when he was in his 20s, but definitely not while he was looking down the barrel of 40. Eventually the percocets kicked in, and he didn’t feel quite like he was going to roll over and die. Not from the pain, at least. Maybe from the garbage playing on the TV. He had a new laptop he needed to set up anyway. This would be the perfect opportunity for it.
While Wilford copied the contents of his hard drive over to the new machine, Michael played quietly on the floor, force-feeding his stuffed animals crackers and smashing cars together, apparently enjoying his day off from having to pick out colours and match shapes. Wilford didn’t think a day off would hurt anything, and he thought that if he got down onto the floor, he might never be able to get himself back up. There were other things he could do later that might fill the gap, but he’d do that later, when it was time to start winding the kid down for the night. For now, he needed to get the new laptop set up so he could get back to work as quickly as possible.
“Da da.”
Wilford looked up, finding Michael looking very sad and holding one of his dolls. Her hair had been all tangled up in the wheels of one of his cars, and showed evidence of an attempt to pull them apart.
“You ran her over again, you maniac,” he said. “Give it here.”
Michael crouched down beside Wilford’s chair, watching intently as he tried to untangle the mess. “She’s a girl. You have to be nice to her, or she won’t want to hang out with you anymore,” he said, carefully rotating the wheels back and forth so he wouldn’t have to shave the damn thing bald. “Then how are you supposed to make all your bad choices?”
Eventually, he managed to untangle the doll’s hair from the car’s wheels, but she wasn’t in a very pretty state. Wilford put his laptop on the table and got up to grab a comb from the bathroom, along with one of his ortho bands. Michael followed him into the bathroom, and back out again to the chair, watching as Wilford combed out the doll’s hair as best he could, so he could fix her hair back up into the messiest braid ever.
“There,” he said, handing the doll back once her hair was fixed and tied up with the band. “Now be nice.”
Michael took the doll and trotted back off to his pile of mess in the middle of the floor.
Monday morning came, and Wilford still didn’t feel any better. Michael had managed to go the night without wetting the bed, so he skipped the part of the morning that involved getting the kid dressed for the day. Andy had two working hands and could do a better job at it. On his way out the door, he reminded Andy about the week’s arrangement, and left to face his doom.
Wilford had thought about running the restaurant as he always did, not showing up until the dinner rush. But that seemed dangerous. That was a lot of open time to go without some form of oversight against whatever these fuckers were pulling, so he put Mandy back on the helm and went straight to Del Perro. By the time he got there, the crew were already out in the parking lot setting up. Wilford walked right past them and through the door to make sure everything was good. Devon had taken down all the trees and angels, but the garlands and little white lights he left up looked good. Tasteful in a way that didn’t declare any affiliation. There were more breakfast diners than usual, but a sign out front warning people that a television crew would be filming seemed to act as more of a draw than a deterrent. As Wilford ducked into the kitchen to make sure everything was neat and tidy and running properly, he caught the first camera operator come through the front door, already filming their establishing shots. Already dreading the day, Wilford poured himself a glass of water and downed a few percocets so he could have a chance at getting through the day.
It didn’t take long for things to heat up. Damien Welsh showed up right on time, immediately snooping through the restaurant as if he were curious, and not looking for cobwebs or mould. Wilford went out to greet him, putting on his friendly TV face. He hated the man already, with his 90s frosted hair and black suit. Wilford had never watched any of the man’s shows in his life, but he didn’t look like the sort of person who spent any real amount of time in a kitchen. Wilford showed him around, answered his questions, and eventually led him to a table and gave him a menu. Welsh was going to be here to stir up shit and mock Wilford for not being able to handle it. If that was his goal, he wasn’t going to get a minute of airable footage. He left Welsh out there to do whatever it was he was going to do, and hid out in the kitchen so the servers could relay info to him. Another camera operator had followed him back, but he didn’t care. This pretentious fucker wasn’t going to win.
“He wants one of everything,” Ashley said, throwing her hands into the air as she came back to the kitchen. “One of fucking everything.”
It wasn’t a big menu, but it was still an outrageous order. Wilford checked his watch and shook his head. “You know how to cook?” he asked.
“A little?” Ashley said.
He nodded. “Good, you can help. Tina’s on the floor too, right?”
“Yeah.”
Wilford guided Ashely over to the line and got everything set up as well as he could without straining his shoulder. She could prep items without having to worry about burning anything, or undercooking it. “Sharp knife,” he said, showing her how to use the steel. He grabbed a carrot from the fridge, and showed her all she’d need to do. “Chop, matchsticks, dice, mince,” he said, showing her each in turn. “You don’t have to be perfect, but try to be quick.”
“Okay,” she said, taking the knife.
“Tina can take it all out as it’s done. But we have to be quick.”
With Wilford on one of the stoves and Ashely helping to prep, they got dishes out to Welsh quickly, but apparently it still wasn’t quick enough.
“He wants to know why you’re so understaffed that his server is helping cook?” Tina asked as she came back in for the next tray.
“Tell him most people don’t order thirty fucking items at nine in the morning,” Wilford said. “He sending anything back?”
“I think he’s about to, unless he has four stomachs,” Tina said, disappearing out to the dining room again.
Things only sped up from there, and it didn’t take long before word got out that Damien Welsh was filming there. Soon, the entire place was packed, inside, on the patio, and even out on the beach.
“We’re out of blankets,” Kim said, rushing over to Wilford where he watched from behind the bar. “We’ve never run out of blankets before. What do we do?”
Wilford looked at the crowd outside the door. That was a problem indeed. Not just because it’s all the camera crew were focused on. The registers had a basic spreadsheet app installed, so Wilford pulled that up and made himself a time table on it. He started it twenty minutes out, and expanded it in five minute increments. “How many?” he asked the first group in line.
“Four,” one of the guys said.
“Name and phone number?” he asked. After the man gave that information, Wilford asked for a seating preference. He entered everything into the table and nodded. “Someone will call you when your seat is ready, in about twenty minutes. If you’re not here within five minutes, it’ll go to the next person.”
He sent them on their way, taking the next few groups and doing the same, making three columns of reservations. Once he had the system in place, he handed it back over to Kim. “Highlight the ones you seat, give people with no preference the first available spot,” he said. “Be hard on people who can’t get here quickly.”
She nodded and took over the register again, only managing to clear out the crowd when wait times started to be quoted in hours and people turned around to go somewhere else.
Wilford barely had time to step away from the front when he noticed one of the other servers disappear into his office. He couldn’t see who she was, but it wasn’t going to mean anything good. He followed her back there, closing the door on the camera operator who tried to follow him in. It was Tina, with her face buried in her hands and trying not to cry.
“This asshole has sent back four plates after eating just about everything, and now he’s refusing to pay,” she said.
This was the kind of tom-fuckery Wilford had been expecting. “What table?” he asked.
“Twelve.”
Wilford nodded, and left Tina to get herself back together. Table twelve was a group of six, and right away Wilford could see who the trouble maker was. The way he sat, looking around the restaurant like he was owed something singled him out as the sort of person who either did this regularly, or had no problem being paid to do it now. Wilford’s money was on the latter.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, stepping right up to the man.
The man started to say something, but apparently had not been told who owned the restaurant. “Your little girl there thinks she can get me to pay for this crap,” he said.
“Yes, that is how it works,” Wilford said.
“But I sent it back,” the guy said. “I’m not paying for something I sent back.”
“You ate it,” Wilford said.
“Because it was in front of me. That doesn’t mean I liked it.”
Wilford shook his head. “Even my three year old knows that he doesn’t have to eat something he doesn’t like. In fact, he’s a fuck of a lot better than you are at it. If you’ve got the balls to make a girl cry, then you’ve got the balls to say you don’t like something.”
Wilford picked up the cheque and looked at it. “Or did you just suddenly realise that you don’t have a hundred and fifty bucks on you?” He looked around the table as everyone slowly started to pretend they weren’t in his party. “I guess they didn’t want to split it evenly like you thought they would?”
He handed the ticket back. “Pay it, and get the fuck out,” he said. He left the table so they could argue over the split amongst themselves.
He hated this whole thing. The thought that they’d be coming back tomorrow, and again on Wednesday, and through the week almost sent him into a rage. The restaurant was supposed to be a hobby, and these assholes had turned it into a circus. He was glad when they were finally able to shut everything down, but even then the cameras didn’t leave. Apparently they wanted to stay for the clean up. Exhausted and in more pain than he could handle, Wilford sat down at one of the tables to check all the messages he’d missed over the day. Ashley followed him over, offering him a glass of water before she started rubbing his shoulder.
“Ow,” he said, not quite wanting her to stop.
“I was almost surprised you came in today. You look like you’re done,” she said.
Wilford took another percocet. “If it weren’t for all this shit, I wouldn’t have,” he said. He flipped through his texts, Andy letting him know that Michael had been handed off to Billy, Billy letting him know that they’d got home fine. A few pictures and videos from Sharon of Michael and Tim playing together.
“He sure is a cutie,” Ashley said, watching the videos from over Wilford’s shoulders. “He starting to talk yet?”
“A little bit,” Wilford said. “Words here and there.” He noticed one of the camera operators getting close, and covered his phone. “Fuck off,” he said.
The camera operator stalled for a moment before finding something else to film.
“Think they got anything worth using?” Ashley asked.
Wilford half shrugged with his good shoulder, and looked over at where Welsh and Daniel-David were having a very quiet argument. “I don’t think so.”
Sure enough, Daniel-David made his way over a few moments later. “So, I know this isn’t the kind of show you’re used to,” he said. “We were kind of hoping for something a little more… typical of day to day operations.”
Wilford and Ashly both looked at him without a word.
“You know, without everyone being so on-guard and rushed about everything. We wanted to see how you’d normally handle things when the cameras weren’t here.”
“Rushed?” Wilford asked. “We have never in history had a four-hour waitlist. These kids were rushed because you brought half the fucking city out here. Now, I think you got more than enough for a half hour. Don’t you think?”
“It’s an hour,” Daniel-David said.
“Then you’ve got thirteen hours of bonus material for your website. You’re done.” He stared at Daniel-David until the man finally backed away, leaving Wilford and Ashley alone.
“Think they’ll come back tomorrow?” he asked, returning to his pile of messages.
“God, I hope not.”
Wilford hung around until everything was cleared up and the crew had gone, making sure the staff knew that he understood how much the day had sucked, and that everyone would be getting their bonuses for not playing along. By the time he got into the car he was exhausted, and he still had to head out to Mirror Park to pick up Michael. Before he could grab his phone to ask Billy to keep him overnight, someone called him instead. Wilford almost let it go to voicemail, but it was Daniel-David. Maybe giving him another stern talking to would make him feel better.
“You know, I think you’re right,” Daniel-David said almost at once. “We got everything we need. I don’t think we need to come back tomorrow.”
“Good,” Wilford said, hanging up before any more could be said. “Great.”
He could deal with that later. Or just never go back to the bar. Maybe he could send Nichola as a spy to figure out if this is something they’d consider a hanging offence.
First, he needed to deal with his shoulder. Something was very, very wrong in his shoulder, which meant a long wait in an emergency room with a little boy who wanted to be anywhere but an emergency room. Eventually, he was seen, his shoulder was put back together how it belonged, and he was given yet another prescription he didn’t want. He still had some percocets left over from his surgery. He’d take those instead.
It was late by the time they got home. Getting Michael ready for bed with one arm in a sling wasn’t the easiest task in the world, but Wilford was willing to put up with the hassle in exchange for the added layer of protection between his mattress and the bed-wetting child. And his bed was exactly where Wilford wanted to sleep. He was in too much pain and too exhausted to want to crash anywhere else.
By morning, he got rid of the sling. He didn’t want it. It was just in the way. He put just enough energy into getting Michael cleaned up and dressed for the day, and getting everyone fed, and that was all he had left. He was tempted to call Andy in, even though he clearly wasn’t going anywhere, but he didn’t want Andy there while he was home. Wilford would take the lazy way out. He found some asinine cartoons, grabbed some of Michael’s smaller toys from downstairs, and collapsed into his chair to wallow in misery for the day. He lasted a whole hour before he had to get up to dig his pills out of his sock drawer. He could usually power through a lot things. Getting run over a few times and torn up from the inside was apparently not one of them. Maybe when he was in his 20s, but definitely not while he was looking down the barrel of 40. Eventually the percocets kicked in, and he didn’t feel quite like he was going to roll over and die. Not from the pain, at least. Maybe from the garbage playing on the TV. He had a new laptop he needed to set up anyway. This would be the perfect opportunity for it.
While Wilford copied the contents of his hard drive over to the new machine, Michael played quietly on the floor, force-feeding his stuffed animals crackers and smashing cars together, apparently enjoying his day off from having to pick out colours and match shapes. Wilford didn’t think a day off would hurt anything, and he thought that if he got down onto the floor, he might never be able to get himself back up. There were other things he could do later that might fill the gap, but he’d do that later, when it was time to start winding the kid down for the night. For now, he needed to get the new laptop set up so he could get back to work as quickly as possible.
“Da da.”
Wilford looked up, finding Michael looking very sad and holding one of his dolls. Her hair had been all tangled up in the wheels of one of his cars, and showed evidence of an attempt to pull them apart.
“You ran her over again, you maniac,” he said. “Give it here.”
Michael crouched down beside Wilford’s chair, watching intently as he tried to untangle the mess. “She’s a girl. You have to be nice to her, or she won’t want to hang out with you anymore,” he said, carefully rotating the wheels back and forth so he wouldn’t have to shave the damn thing bald. “Then how are you supposed to make all your bad choices?”
Eventually, he managed to untangle the doll’s hair from the car’s wheels, but she wasn’t in a very pretty state. Wilford put his laptop on the table and got up to grab a comb from the bathroom, along with one of his ortho bands. Michael followed him into the bathroom, and back out again to the chair, watching as Wilford combed out the doll’s hair as best he could, so he could fix her hair back up into the messiest braid ever.
“There,” he said, handing the doll back once her hair was fixed and tied up with the band. “Now be nice.”
Michael took the doll and trotted back off to his pile of mess in the middle of the floor.
Monday morning came, and Wilford still didn’t feel any better. Michael had managed to go the night without wetting the bed, so he skipped the part of the morning that involved getting the kid dressed for the day. Andy had two working hands and could do a better job at it. On his way out the door, he reminded Andy about the week’s arrangement, and left to face his doom.
Wilford had thought about running the restaurant as he always did, not showing up until the dinner rush. But that seemed dangerous. That was a lot of open time to go without some form of oversight against whatever these fuckers were pulling, so he put Mandy back on the helm and went straight to Del Perro. By the time he got there, the crew were already out in the parking lot setting up. Wilford walked right past them and through the door to make sure everything was good. Devon had taken down all the trees and angels, but the garlands and little white lights he left up looked good. Tasteful in a way that didn’t declare any affiliation. There were more breakfast diners than usual, but a sign out front warning people that a television crew would be filming seemed to act as more of a draw than a deterrent. As Wilford ducked into the kitchen to make sure everything was neat and tidy and running properly, he caught the first camera operator come through the front door, already filming their establishing shots. Already dreading the day, Wilford poured himself a glass of water and downed a few percocets so he could have a chance at getting through the day.
It didn’t take long for things to heat up. Damien Welsh showed up right on time, immediately snooping through the restaurant as if he were curious, and not looking for cobwebs or mould. Wilford went out to greet him, putting on his friendly TV face. He hated the man already, with his 90s frosted hair and black suit. Wilford had never watched any of the man’s shows in his life, but he didn’t look like the sort of person who spent any real amount of time in a kitchen. Wilford showed him around, answered his questions, and eventually led him to a table and gave him a menu. Welsh was going to be here to stir up shit and mock Wilford for not being able to handle it. If that was his goal, he wasn’t going to get a minute of airable footage. He left Welsh out there to do whatever it was he was going to do, and hid out in the kitchen so the servers could relay info to him. Another camera operator had followed him back, but he didn’t care. This pretentious fucker wasn’t going to win.
“He wants one of everything,” Ashley said, throwing her hands into the air as she came back to the kitchen. “One of fucking everything.”
It wasn’t a big menu, but it was still an outrageous order. Wilford checked his watch and shook his head. “You know how to cook?” he asked.
“A little?” Ashley said.
He nodded. “Good, you can help. Tina’s on the floor too, right?”
“Yeah.”
Wilford guided Ashely over to the line and got everything set up as well as he could without straining his shoulder. She could prep items without having to worry about burning anything, or undercooking it. “Sharp knife,” he said, showing her how to use the steel. He grabbed a carrot from the fridge, and showed her all she’d need to do. “Chop, matchsticks, dice, mince,” he said, showing her each in turn. “You don’t have to be perfect, but try to be quick.”
“Okay,” she said, taking the knife.
“Tina can take it all out as it’s done. But we have to be quick.”
With Wilford on one of the stoves and Ashely helping to prep, they got dishes out to Welsh quickly, but apparently it still wasn’t quick enough.
“He wants to know why you’re so understaffed that his server is helping cook?” Tina asked as she came back in for the next tray.
“Tell him most people don’t order thirty fucking items at nine in the morning,” Wilford said. “He sending anything back?”
“I think he’s about to, unless he has four stomachs,” Tina said, disappearing out to the dining room again.
Things only sped up from there, and it didn’t take long before word got out that Damien Welsh was filming there. Soon, the entire place was packed, inside, on the patio, and even out on the beach.
“We’re out of blankets,” Kim said, rushing over to Wilford where he watched from behind the bar. “We’ve never run out of blankets before. What do we do?”
Wilford looked at the crowd outside the door. That was a problem indeed. Not just because it’s all the camera crew were focused on. The registers had a basic spreadsheet app installed, so Wilford pulled that up and made himself a time table on it. He started it twenty minutes out, and expanded it in five minute increments. “How many?” he asked the first group in line.
“Four,” one of the guys said.
“Name and phone number?” he asked. After the man gave that information, Wilford asked for a seating preference. He entered everything into the table and nodded. “Someone will call you when your seat is ready, in about twenty minutes. If you’re not here within five minutes, it’ll go to the next person.”
He sent them on their way, taking the next few groups and doing the same, making three columns of reservations. Once he had the system in place, he handed it back over to Kim. “Highlight the ones you seat, give people with no preference the first available spot,” he said. “Be hard on people who can’t get here quickly.”
She nodded and took over the register again, only managing to clear out the crowd when wait times started to be quoted in hours and people turned around to go somewhere else.
Wilford barely had time to step away from the front when he noticed one of the other servers disappear into his office. He couldn’t see who she was, but it wasn’t going to mean anything good. He followed her back there, closing the door on the camera operator who tried to follow him in. It was Tina, with her face buried in her hands and trying not to cry.
“This asshole has sent back four plates after eating just about everything, and now he’s refusing to pay,” she said.
This was the kind of tom-fuckery Wilford had been expecting. “What table?” he asked.
“Twelve.”
Wilford nodded, and left Tina to get herself back together. Table twelve was a group of six, and right away Wilford could see who the trouble maker was. The way he sat, looking around the restaurant like he was owed something singled him out as the sort of person who either did this regularly, or had no problem being paid to do it now. Wilford’s money was on the latter.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, stepping right up to the man.
The man started to say something, but apparently had not been told who owned the restaurant. “Your little girl there thinks she can get me to pay for this crap,” he said.
“Yes, that is how it works,” Wilford said.
“But I sent it back,” the guy said. “I’m not paying for something I sent back.”
“You ate it,” Wilford said.
“Because it was in front of me. That doesn’t mean I liked it.”
Wilford shook his head. “Even my three year old knows that he doesn’t have to eat something he doesn’t like. In fact, he’s a fuck of a lot better than you are at it. If you’ve got the balls to make a girl cry, then you’ve got the balls to say you don’t like something.”
Wilford picked up the cheque and looked at it. “Or did you just suddenly realise that you don’t have a hundred and fifty bucks on you?” He looked around the table as everyone slowly started to pretend they weren’t in his party. “I guess they didn’t want to split it evenly like you thought they would?”
He handed the ticket back. “Pay it, and get the fuck out,” he said. He left the table so they could argue over the split amongst themselves.
He hated this whole thing. The thought that they’d be coming back tomorrow, and again on Wednesday, and through the week almost sent him into a rage. The restaurant was supposed to be a hobby, and these assholes had turned it into a circus. He was glad when they were finally able to shut everything down, but even then the cameras didn’t leave. Apparently they wanted to stay for the clean up. Exhausted and in more pain than he could handle, Wilford sat down at one of the tables to check all the messages he’d missed over the day. Ashley followed him over, offering him a glass of water before she started rubbing his shoulder.
“Ow,” he said, not quite wanting her to stop.
“I was almost surprised you came in today. You look like you’re done,” she said.
Wilford took another percocet. “If it weren’t for all this shit, I wouldn’t have,” he said. He flipped through his texts, Andy letting him know that Michael had been handed off to Billy, Billy letting him know that they’d got home fine. A few pictures and videos from Sharon of Michael and Tim playing together.
“He sure is a cutie,” Ashley said, watching the videos from over Wilford’s shoulders. “He starting to talk yet?”
“A little bit,” Wilford said. “Words here and there.” He noticed one of the camera operators getting close, and covered his phone. “Fuck off,” he said.
The camera operator stalled for a moment before finding something else to film.
“Think they got anything worth using?” Ashley asked.
Wilford half shrugged with his good shoulder, and looked over at where Welsh and Daniel-David were having a very quiet argument. “I don’t think so.”
Sure enough, Daniel-David made his way over a few moments later. “So, I know this isn’t the kind of show you’re used to,” he said. “We were kind of hoping for something a little more… typical of day to day operations.”
Wilford and Ashly both looked at him without a word.
“You know, without everyone being so on-guard and rushed about everything. We wanted to see how you’d normally handle things when the cameras weren’t here.”
“Rushed?” Wilford asked. “We have never in history had a four-hour waitlist. These kids were rushed because you brought half the fucking city out here. Now, I think you got more than enough for a half hour. Don’t you think?”
“It’s an hour,” Daniel-David said.
“Then you’ve got thirteen hours of bonus material for your website. You’re done.” He stared at Daniel-David until the man finally backed away, leaving Wilford and Ashley alone.
“Think they’ll come back tomorrow?” he asked, returning to his pile of messages.
“God, I hope not.”
Wilford hung around until everything was cleared up and the crew had gone, making sure the staff knew that he understood how much the day had sucked, and that everyone would be getting their bonuses for not playing along. By the time he got into the car he was exhausted, and he still had to head out to Mirror Park to pick up Michael. Before he could grab his phone to ask Billy to keep him overnight, someone called him instead. Wilford almost let it go to voicemail, but it was Daniel-David. Maybe giving him another stern talking to would make him feel better.
“You know, I think you’re right,” Daniel-David said almost at once. “We got everything we need. I don’t think we need to come back tomorrow.”
“Good,” Wilford said, hanging up before any more could be said. “Great.”
