Unconditional Love

I didn’t see Marty after his big date until Tuesday. He was late for work, but I was sort of getting used to this with his frequent commutes to Cuspidor. That Tuesday, however, he looked terrible. I asked him what was going on but he walked away from me mumbling that he didn’t want to discuss it until after work. I instantly realized that he and Vince must have broken up. My heart sank, not because of his loss, for he had only been dating Vince for a few weeks, but because the big date had been so incredibly outstanding that it seemed like such a waste to know it wouldn’t be remembered in a positive way.

Jeffrey had to really pick up the slack during his short shift but that was the sort of thing he was good at. I began to get really irritated with Marty. I knew he was having a difficult time but it was, after all, only a short affair. He did deserve a little tolerance though; all of his time in the closet had left him really only dating for a total of less than two months of his life. It was unreasonable to expect him to behave like a mature, seasoned romantic. When he began to snap at the customers more than me, however, I had to relegate him to the dish pit for the remainder of the afternoon.

As I was wiping down the front counters, an SUV screeched to a stop in front of the bistro and an older city woman came marching in with her cell phone to her ear. I just didn’t have time for torturing her, so as she strutted by, cell phone to ear, hissing her order for some sort of skinny latte, I boldly interrupted her by exclaiming, “All we have is whole milk, lady!” She stopped in her tracks like she had hit a brick wall, actually folding her cell phone closed; a very serious gesture when exhibited by a true blue city slicker.

“What?” she exclaimed.

“Whole milk only, that’s all I have.”

“Whole milk!” she wailed at a ridiculous volume.

“Yes, whole milk. No skim, no soy, just whole milk.”

“How can you sell lattes without skim?” she demanded.

“I can’t sell lattes period, I’m sorry, that’s just not what this town is into.”

“So why do you even have an espresso machine?”

“It’s a long story. I don’t sell but ten lattes a week. Once every two or three weeks an SUV screeches in demanding organic coffee, soy, skim or beans pooped out by a cat. I would be better off throwing this machine out and I guess I really should.”

“But what if someone just wants a glass of skim milk?”

“It’s never come up.”

“Who in the world drinks WHOLE milk!” she wailed, once again at a horrific volume.

“The people of Humbug, that’s who, and I’m sure there are others as well because every grocery store I’ve ever been in seems to carry a lot more whole than skim.”

“Have these people NEVER heard of cholesterol?” she screeched.

“Probably not,” I said, “but most likely that’s because they’re much more active than city people.”

“Well,” she sneered, “once you’re over fifty you need to think about these things. Someone should tell them!”

“Lady, last fall I walked up the alley and ran into old men and women in their eighties and nineties, crawling around pulling carrots out of the garden by hand. It’s like the 1940’s around here and they’ve been doing exactly the same thing since the 1940’s. I bet they still fry their eggs in the fat left from frying their bacon. They’re hardier people and they likely burn all their LDL into HDL from all the hard work they do.”

To my chagrin, this city lady gave me a Humbug Huh – and she did it to the right. I couldn’t help but laugh and she just turned and left in disgust. I got to torture her after all and this new variation was quite fun. The odd part was that I couldn’t help but feeling that I had in some way stood up for Humbuggers. This left me with an icky feeling and I began to wonder if I wasn’t starting to become humbugged myself. I looked down and, to my relief, I wasn’t wearing my rubber boots. I wasn’t quite humbugged yet.

I couldn’t wait to close that day. I needed to talk to Marty and get him out of his funk because there was no way I was going to spend the rest of the week with some heart broken kid moping around. The negative aura that I carried around was plenty for my little bistro and it sure didn’t need to be amplified by his heartbreak. As we locked up I made Marty a vanilla latte, hoping that he would either appreciate the creamy beverage or, at very least, the gesture.

“Here you go,” I said, handing him the mug.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Now sit down,” I snapped.

“Ok.”

“Now talk.”

“I told my family about Vince and they locked me out of the house.”

“What?” I exclaimed.

“They locked me out. I slept in my car on a grid road last night.”

“Back up here. You and Vince are still together?”

“Of course we’re together – you can’t break up after a date like that.”

“But your family didn’t know?”

“They thought I was in town with a girl.”

I had to really readjust. I was incredibly relieved that he was still with Vince but I hadn’t thought about his family. I hadn’t thought about the complications of him coming out, then going back in, then coming out again. A lot of families have difficulty adjusting when a child comes out of the closet but the dynamic involved with a revolving door on that closet was more than I could wrap my mind around in an instant. I needed some more information.

“Ok,” I proceeded, “so you came out when you told them about Daniel. Now you are sort of coming out again. The middle part is still very hard to understand. How did they not know that you were still gay – aside from your not knowing for a while yourself?”

“They knew I was still gay – or that I had ‘that lust’. We talked about it a lot in Mexico. I think that was why they took me with them.”

“So there WAS some sort of deprogramming down there?”

“No - not like you think. We just spent a lot of time together. It wasn’t just my parents – my aunt and uncle were there, and some of my younger cousins too. We did a lot of things together and it was really great. I helped one of my younger cousins learn to water ski and hung out with my uncle and dad on the beach. It was just so great to be a part of that.”

“Where does the whole ‘deny that lust and become a Catholic again’ part fit into it?”

“My parents and I had a long talk on the last night we were down there. They asked me a lot about what I enjoyed about the holiday. Then they told me that it was just that sort of bonding that was part of the sacrament of family. I could either man-up, get married and have children, or I could leave and never be a part of the family again.”

“So they overload you with great family bonding and then threaten to revoke it instantly if you don’t straighten out. Wow, that’s so damn loving of them.”

“What the fuck was I supposed to do?” he lamented.

“I don’t know. I guess you did what you had to do and you bought yourself some time. They were right though – it IS time for you to ‘man-up’.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to put a roof over your own head. Whether you get your own place or live with Vince, there is really no reason for your parents to be involved in your sex life. Actually that’s kind of kinky now that I think about it. It’s time to grow up, Martin. It’s time for you to start living your own life.”

“But why can’t they accept me for who I am? Why can’t I be with Vince and still have them love me?”

“Because love is conditional, Martin” I replied.

“But they’re my parents! A parent’s love is supposed to be unconditional.”

“All love is conditional; and anyone who says otherwise simply hasn’t faced adversity.”

“But it’s not conditional for the people who are straight and happy to work in their dad’s store and live two blocks down from where they grew up and make grandchildren for their parents.”

“Oh, Marty. It’s conditional for them too. They just don’t know it because they happen to fit those conditions.”

That night the dining room didn’t echo with laughter.

The Box Store Development

The big gossip in spring was all about the new box store development just outside of town. People couldn’t seem to help but gush at the idea of all the new franchise stores that might be opening. It was obvious which retailers would likely set-up shop in Humbug just by looking at any other major box store development in any other prairie town but Humbuggers dreamed of the most ridiculous array of high end retailers imaginable. Usually they were very offended when I openly laughed at the idea of an IKEA store opening up in Humbug.

I had extremely mixed feelings about the big box stores coming to town. On the one hand it would mean more people moving into Humbug, which definitely meant more customers for my store. On the other hand, the box store development was sure to spell doom for the beautiful downtown that I had so instantly fallen in love with. Few Humbuggers recognized the danger posed to their downtown Main Street by the new development though.

I had trouble understanding how a people who were so averse to change could be so excited about all the new stores. Then it occurred to me that all the big franchises had a strong presence on TV. Certainly if something was said to be desirable on television then it had to be good – as far as the Humbug mind would ever understand. That is likely why they wanted bottled dressings and fast food burgers so badly.

I hoped that the new competition might inspire the downtown business owners to become more aggressive in marketing their little utopian shopping district but I was way off base. The few that I spoke with actually felt that the big box stores would just make people realize the value of the personal service they got when shopping downtown. They were more opposed than ever to the idea of putting up signs to direct traffic to Main Street. Some of them were actually so deluded as to think that the loyalty of their customers would result in the failure of several of the big stores.

Not a single Humbugger seemed to realize that the arrival of the big stores would mean the departure of their old ways of doing business. I tried, to no avail, to tell them that the big stores would never allow them to write cheques for payment at the cash register. They all responded, “This is Humbug and if they want to do business with good German people then they’ll take our cheques – you just watch.” I watched.

It went far beyond the little details of business transactions though. They felt that the ‘upper class’ of Humbug would land all of the management jobs in the new stores. In this way, they felt that all of the big franchise stores could be tailored to suit local business practices. The mayor even had the audacity to send letters to the company headquarters of each confirmed new store to provide them with a list of the hierarchy of local workers. They really and truly believed that major retail franchises would care about what Humbuggers thought of the Bauers as opposed to the Huebers. I tried to imagine the President of Human Resources of Walmart reading a letter from the Mayor of Humbug. What the hell was that guy thinking?

The first controversy to hit the rounds of gossip was the news that all of the stores planned to be open on Sundays. It was completely inconceivable to all Humbuggers that any retailer would have the nerve to open up on their day of worship. City Hall scrambled to enact bylaws against Sunday shopping but they were very quickly served with legal papers that put a stop to their efforts at threat of a hefty law suit. The next plan was to have the priest tell everyone that they should forbid their families from working in the stores on Sundays. This plan collapsed in on itself when they found out that it meant only non-Catholics would get hired. The real problem they faced was figuring out how they were going to keep people from shopping at these stores on Sundays. Just for fun, I spread the rumour that any such boycotts would encounter the same sort of legal implications faced by City Hall in passing bylaws against Sunday shopping.

For the first time, Humbuggers were struggling to deal with the fact that not everything in the world conformed to the social structures of their ten mile radius. As much as this upset some of them, others just held to their belief that they would make the big stores do business the old fashioned Humbug way. On the one hand I felt a bit of satisfaction seeing them face an unstoppable force of progress, but on the other I really felt an impending grief for the culture they were about to lose.

I realized that I really didn’t despise Humbuggers so much as I despised their stubbornness. If only they had been a bit more open to change then they might have had the opportunity to direct it a bit more within their own town. Certainly they could choose to simply boycott the new stores, but they had already been driving into Cuspidor for years to shop at these same retailers. There was no way for any boycott to succeed and the change was inevitable.

It hadn’t dawned on them at all the new stores would have equitable hiring practices. This meant that racial minorities and gays would have equal opportunity for jobs. It also meant that people from the ‘wrong side of town’ would be equal in the workplace with someone as auspicious one of the Hueberts – whose great-grandparents had established the town choir. They just didn’t understand that a big chain store wouldn’t have the slightest inhibition about hiring an unwed pregnant woman.

The worst of all was the implication for local cash flow. There was no way for any of the small Main Street businesses to compete with the prices of these big retailers, which meant almost all money in town would flow out of town. These big retailers had higher margins than local businesses could ever dream of, and every penny of that profit would flow to corporate headquarters to bolster the value held by the shareholders. The shareholders not only couldn’t care less about the effect on the town but would be completely oblivious to the existence of Humbug altogether.

The average shareholder was unlikely to be German, Catholic, or the least bit interested in small town values. Many of them would be gay and some of them would likely even be pedophiles. None of them would be paying property taxes to the town of Humbug and not one penny of their earnings would be dropped in the collection plate at the local churches. Nonetheless, Humbuggers giggled feverishly over the prospect of having these new big box stores in town.

From the moment that I heard the rumours, every time I walked down Main Street I looked at businesses that I knew could not possibly survive another five years. I felt like a doctor who had the test results for every patient in a ward. It was eerie to look upon the faces before you knowing which ones were already diagnosed terminal. It was even more eerie seeing the smiling shopkeepers staring back, completely oblivious to their fates. I remembered all the Christmas lights and how I actually heard Christmas carols in my head. I wondered how many more years this little downtown would look so festive. Once vacant storefronts began to appear, the holes in the décor would be like scars from cancers that had been removed. The thought of it sickened me.

Swim or Sink

It was a Tuesday morning when Marty came in late, once again, and shuffled through the kitchen with an envelope in his hand. As he pushed through the corral doors into the serving area, he hung his head and handed me the envelope. I didn’t even have to open it for I realized that it was time. He walked to the sofa in the dining area and just slumped into it, unable to make eye contact with me. I walked over and sat on the loveseat as I asked, “So, when would you like your last day to be?”

“Saturday,” he said with trepidation.

“Ok, well maybe we can have some drinks after work on Saturday then. How’ld you like that?” I replied.

“So you’re ok with it then?”

“Marty, you desperately need to get out of your parents’ home and you definitely need to get out of this town. I assume you’ll be living with Vince then?”

“No. I’ll be splitting an apartment with a couple friends until we decide it’s time to move in together.”

“That sounds wise. No need to put that stress into the relationship any sooner than necessary.”

“Wow, you really are taking this very well,” he said.

“Well,” I chuckled, “I can’t afford to pay you anyway – I never really could.”

“Why did you keep me on then?”

“You needed a place where you could work thing out and I was hoping business would eventually pick up.”

“It still might,” he encouraged.

“Nah. Maybe over the summer. I think I’ve already snagged all the best customers in town.”

“People will come around,” he further encouraged.

“Well, they either will or they won’t. Without your wages the bistro can float – although I doubt I’ll ever get a paycheque. I’m fine with that, but I’m not putting one more penny into it. From here on in it either sinks or swims on its own merit. I guess the same can be said for you.”

I found myself feeling numb. It was as though I was having an out of body experience and, although in a standing posture, I was floating and slowly rotating like an old forgotten satellite. I knew this moment would come for both the bistro and for Marty. It was like letting go of the back of a bicycle as you watch a child swerve away to either roll down the block or fall onto the pavement. There is no way to let go of that bicycle without first mentally preparing to fully detach yourself emotionally. The slightest gasp or cheer could alter the outcome and every urge has to be stifled. Letting go of two bicycles at once, though, was overwhelming.

I hadn’t realized that both moments were going to come at once, though. For Marty, that moment of truth came when he was ready to leave. I was more than ready for that envelope and knew it could come at anytime. The moment I realized his departure meant I no longer had to subsidize the business to pay his wages, I also realized that that was the moment in which I also had to let go and let the bistro fend for itself. The two events occurring together seemed to multiply the emotional detachment I had mentally prepared for each event, leaving me feeling absolutely nothing. With one hand I let go of Marty, and with the other I let go of the business, and away I floated like a solitary astronaut.

The rest of that week was incredibly difficult. It was easy to forget that I had let go of the business for it would take months to see the results. Marty was another matter. I felt like my son was leaving home and I had so many things to tell him. He was so fussy about his clothes that he already knew how to do laundry, but he was terribly inexperienced with cooking. There wasn’t much time to teach him so I focused on grocery shopping and illustrating for him the price savings of buying unprepared foods.

One of the most difficult skills for all too many novice cooks is the proper preparation of rice. All too often, people who haven’t learned to cook rice properly simply come to the conclusion that it can’t be done or that they just hate rice. This is a tragedy because rice is the most versatile starch in the human diet. It never spoils so it can be purchased in huge quantities at incredible savings. It won’t go all mushy when left too long in a simmering soup and absorbs flavours far better than pasta.

The biggest problem with rice is that every single damn package of the stuff gives the same set of wrong directions: Put one cup of rice and two cups of water into a sauce pan. Add salt to taste. Bring to a boil, then cover and let stand for 30 minutes.

I have no idea why every package encourages people to make mushy, watery rice. I suppose they feel that people will adjust the amounts and cooking time accordingly, but almost no one ever does so. I use a scale to measure my rice, water, and salt in order to produce very consistent results, but nearly perfect rice can be made without going digital. Personally I find that one cup of rice and about 1-3/4 cups of water will make a rice that isn’t mushy but that still absorbs enough water to avoid being crunchy. Salt is still very much a matter of taste but deciding to skip the salt altogether isn’t a good idea. If you are watching your salt intake then put down that damn bag of potato chips. Cooking time on the rice is where almost everyone gets it wrong.

You can’t just cover the rice as soon as it boils and then set it aside. As the rice comes to a boil the heat should be reduced progressively to continue a slow boil. Stir the rice every few minutes as this slow boil continues until the mixture becomes thick and the water becomes a little scarce. Once the water line is below the level of rice in the pot then it is finally time to cover it and let it stand for 30 minutes. Actually, at this point, 20 minutes is often enough depending on the volume of rice being cooked. The extra attention may seem annoying when you have a lot of other things going on in the kitchen but the result is well worth it; soft, chewy rice that flakes apart rather than coming out of the pot in a big mushy clump followed by unabsorbed water.

The easiest way to spruce up some rice into an appealing side dish is to toss it in a basic sautéed mirepoix. Mirepoix is a very standard combination of chopped onion, celery, and carrot. Cajun cooking adapts the standard mirepoix by substituting red bell pepper for the carrot. Simply sauté a hand full of mirepoix in butter and then dump in your rice and toss it a bit. The results are even better when the sautéing is done with some chopped bacon. Whether you use a standard mirepoix or a Cajun mirepoix, a few dashes of soy sauce can produce a quick emulation of the standard fried rice on many Asian menus. I actually fry a Cajun mirepoix in a generous puddle of olive oil and then toss in the rice and some taco sauce to produce the ‘Mexi-Seasoned Rice’ on my menu.

I crammed all the cooking knowledge I could into Marty’s head until it was time for him to leave. He had spread word of his departure to all the customers and we had an incredibly busy Saturday - even including the men who liked to come in for coffee in the afternoon just to watch him bus tables. Not one of them said a word about being sad to see him leave but the look in their eyes revealed their disappointment.

In the middle of the afternoon a couple of female Humbuggers walked in and ordered waffles. I found it quite odd because Humbuggers generally giggled like simple minded children when I suggested having waffles after noon. They asked for “normal” coffee and didn’t want any toppings on their waffles – just butter and syrup. I prepared the order myself because Marty was in the back doing dishes. After plating the waffles I lightly dusted them with some icing sugar, which was the serving standard that Marty had established. It really gave them a beautiful finish and highlighted the golden crispy finish of the waffles.

As I walked to the table I felt a little tug at my heart just thinking that this was Marty’s innovation in plating and it would likely be the way I plated waffles for the rest of my life. I was sad that he was going but I knew that a part of him would always be in my heart. I set the plates in front of the ladies and smiled as I said, “Bon appetit!”

Just then, one of the women grabbed her waffle off of the plate and blurted, “I said I wanted it plain,” as she began slapping it on the edge of the table to remove all of the icing sugar.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” I screamed.

“I told you that I wanted it plain!” she yelled back as she continued smacking it on the side of the table. Icing sugar dust wafted over her head.

I grabbed the waffle out of her hand and threw it back over the serving counter as I screamed, “If you didn’t like the dusting of sugar you could have asked me to redo it without! What kind of backwards, inbred fucktard are you? Get the fuck out of my restaurant now!”

“I paid for my meal and YOU’RE going to remake that for me!” she screamed back.

I walked behind the counter to the till and retrieved a twenty dollar bill. I crumpled the bill up and threw it at her and said, “Consider your order returned you fucking hillbilly!”

“You can’t talk to me this way! I’m leaving!” she retorted.

Knowing exactly where this was going I grabbed the pitcher of ice water and a glass and walked around the counter to where she stood. I looked her in the eye and said, “Now I know how this works. You fucking rednecks stand there and say you are leaving but you don’t leave – you never fucking leave! So hear this; each time you say something without moving towards the door I’m throwing a glass full of water in your face!”

I poured my first glass of water as she said, “Well if you want me to leave you can just ask me to leave.”

I threw the first glass of water straight in her face and she just gasped, “Well then I’m leaving!”

I threw the second glass of water in her face and she shook the water off of her face like a wet dog and said, “You’re going to hear about this!”

As I threw the third glass of water in her face she began to cry. I put my face within six inches of hers and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Get the fuck out of my fucking restaurant you haggard fucking bitch!”

At that point she actually turned and walked out without saying another word. Her friend, on the other hand, stood exactly where she had been through the entire exchange and just stared at me with horror on her face. I looked at her and began to pour another glass of water but suddenly she just bolted for the door. As I turned to face the other customers they all applauded. I was so angry but I was quickly overwhelmed and just began to laugh.

When I explained to Marty what had happened he was astounded.

“You mean she actually slapped the waffle against the side of the table like she was shaking out a welcome mat or something?”

“Exactly like that,” I replied.

I had seen a lot of rude behaviors in Humbug before but slapping that waffle around was just the straw that broke the camels back. There was just no way of doing anything nice for these hillbillies and their lack of social graces was beyond rude. My reaction was well over the top but it just pained me so much that one moment I could be looking at this beautiful little golden pastry that was lightly dusted in icing sugar and the next moment one of these rednecks was assaulting it and getting icing sugar all over the floor.

I expected to be served with assault charges over the incident but never heard a word back. Apparently that little trollop didn’t have the nerve to explain to the RCMP that she was flicking her waffle against the side of the table to remove icing sugar. Those backward bastards all knew that their behavior was inappropriate – they just felt that within the boundaries of their little hick town that they could behave like spoiled children and get away with it.

The dining room was filled with laughter for the rest of the afternoon as customer after customer relayed the details of my confrontation to the new arrivals. Few Humbuggers ever came in anymore and almost all of my regulars were outsiders who had encountered similarly rude behaviors. My little bistro had truly become a gathering spot to for outsider support and to talk about how backwards most of the townsfolk really were.

When we finally closed that Saturday, Marty was eager to close the blinds and have a drink. He brought some fruit flavoured vodka coolers but I opted to stick to my whisky and water. We raised our drinks in a toast.

“So,” I said, “this is it.”

“It seems like I’ve been here for years,” he replied.

“Well, a lot has happened in the past few months.”

“Yeah. So what do you think will happen here?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. The town is small enough that ninety percent have to know I’m here. There just isn’t much interest in a new menu and I’m just not interested in serving a deepfreeze to deep-fry menu. I’ve got less than a year left on the lease now so I’ll have to see how sales are in about six months.”

“Less than a year?”

“Yeah – it took a long time to open.”

“That doesn’t leave much time to grow.”

“No – it doesn’t. I guess it will have to swim or sink.”

“I guess that goes for me too,” he said.

“Well, at least you have a one great possible lifeline.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“If you do get into trouble, you can always hope to be rescued by a big buff gay lifeguard.”

Once again my dining room echoed with laughter.

Reflection

Once Marty was gone, and the decision had been made to let the business determine its own course, I had some time to reflect on just how far this little adventure had come. As I looked over the numbers I was glad to see that the margins on food were turning out exactly as I had calculated them. In most restaurants that is the most difficult part of the equation.

The problem was volume; or more precisely, lack thereof. The customers that I had accumulated, the ones who actually walked in through the front door with expectations of being well fed, were wonderful. I’ve never been good at names, so I tended to give them nicknames that described the things they ordered or what little I knew about them. To nickname a few, there were Chai, Taco Family, Grandpa & Grandma Coolio, the Phone guys, the Landlord Couple, and the Smoke Shop family.

Most of Taco Family spent a full day in my little bistro while they awaited the arrival of Taco Grandson. The next day they came in to get a really strong Americano for Taco Daughter who had been through a very long labour. When they eventually brought the handsome little new addition to their family into the bistro, I just couldn’t help but feel some pride in being a part of their experience. I hoped that I could be open long enough to throw him a fifth or sixth birthday party. Children of that age were usually ecstatic about the waffles, and I envisioned a double-decker serving with birthday candles and smiled.

Grandpa & Grandma Coolio were rather young to be grandparents, but they brought their little grandson in for a waffle almost every week. Seeing the little guy with syrup smeared ear to ear always made me happy. Another young man who enjoyed the waffles was the son of one of the phone guys. He was old enough to place his order himself and took great pride in being very mature about placing his order and inspecting his plate upon delivery. Quite a few Humbuggers could have taken lessons from him in the social graces.

Landlord couple and the Smoke Shop family came in at least twice each week for lunch and always had interesting stories about their encounters with Humbuggers. We spent hours talking about Humbug ways and wondering how anything in town ever got done. I can’t begin to do justice to some of the stories that they told me about their tenants and customers. At the core of every story, however, was a childish, rude Humbugger that felt he or she should be worshipped for being good German.

Chai always pushed the boundaries of what I could make in the lines of beverages. I would have to say that she was the inspiration for almost half of the specialty drinks I developed. Her favorite food was my roasted red bell pepper cream cheese. There is just no way to describe the flavour and aroma created by mashing freshly roasted red bell peppers into cream cheese.

There were so many nice couples and families that came in that I really had to wonder where everyone else was going. Of the sixty or so families that I had on my list, I realized that only three of them were Humbuggers. Even those who were Humbuggers weren’t the true blue German Catholic Humbugger type. I had the highest respect for these people because they had lived their entire lives in the oppressive little town but still managed to hold onto their individuality.

Since most of my customers weren’t the sort to conform to the Flintstone Whistle, they often came in at times when I could give them extra attention. Many of them tended to sit on the sofa and serving them was like serving guests in my living room. Although it looked like I might never get a paycheque out of the bistro, I knew I would always cherish the conversations and laughter that inevitably echoed through the dining room around that coffee table.

It just confounded me that so many Humbuggers excluded themselves from this sort of experience. Getting traffic into a restaurant should be the easiest part of the business equation. Good food at great prices usually results in line-ups at the door. My regulars confirmed that the food was spectacular and every single one of them thanked me for the prices. Getting true blue Humbuggers in the door for food was a challenge that I was beginning to think I could never live up to.

Even after six months I still had people walking through the door referring to the place as The Humbug Coffee House. Most of them had never liked the coffee house, and it had never been well supported, but they liked me even less for trying to change it. Worse than that, I had refused to conform to their way of life. Anyone who didn’t conform was made to feel very unwelcome – and all too often that applied to my customers as well. As I have explained previously, Humbuggers can’t seem to whisper, and so I heard all too well the rasping hisses of criticism. I didn’t dress like them, celebrate Christmas, vote for the right candidate, and worst of all; I was an atheist. On top of all of this, I refused to be a doormat for them and I spoke my mind.

To top it all off, I had hired a gay fellow and a pastor who didn’t preach at the ‘right church’. When a true blue Humbugger did come in for coffee, I would often see them leave as soon as I committed a horrible faux pas, such as greeting a Native customer with a friendly hello. No exception to their strictly mandated set of protocols could be overlooked.

As they became aware of my refusal to conform to their backward, redneck ways, several Humbuggers took the time out of their day to come and warn me that a Tim Horton’s was coming to town. They recommended that I drop my prices on coffee and get back to free refills or my coffee shop would never make it. When I cheered the idea of a Tim Horton’s, thanking fate for my great fortune that finally Humbuggers could go somewhere else for coffee, they usually just got stuck in a Humbug Huh. With a quick comment on the weather they were quickly rebooted and usually just left, having lost their train of thought.

I was making ends meet with my fresh menu, and if I just worked through to the end of the lease I could recover my investment in the equipment as wages. For me, it seemed like the moral victory of refusing to serve factory food and actually getting out without losing a fortune would be worth it. I knew that Humbuggers would always remember my bistro as a failure because I never even learned to serve a ‘normal hamburger’ but in a way I viewed that as a sign of success as well. If Humbuggers felt I was doing things wrong then it was obvious that I had to be doing things right.

Trumpets and Turnips

After more than a year in Humbug I had a lot of time to study their protocols. I was still mostly confounded but I did manage to figure a few things out, particularly about the highest order faux pas of speaking your mind. It just didn’t seem possible that anyone could spend a lifetime not expressing themselves without their head exploding. To this end, Humbuggers had developed an elaborate set of passive-aggressive exceptions to this rule.

In the Humbug mind, you were not really speaking your mind if you weren’t speaking directly to the person on your mind. For this reason, it was acceptable to express strong opinions when in the company of no more than four close friends – none of whom was included or affected by your opinion. Usually this was done in a tight huddle around a table covered with coffee mugs and torn sugar packets. It was important to implement this form of expression in a raspy, hissing whisper so as to give the impression that you really didn’t want other people to hear what you were saying. Such exchanges precluded the speaker from being considered ‘opinionated’ because the exchange was considered ‘just gossip’. Gossiping was a considerable pastime in Humbug, and helped me to understand their strong desire to meet in public places for coffee.

Furthermore, you were not ‘speaking your mind’ if you didn’t directly address the person or the issue which you were criticizing. This exclusion acquitted those who, for instance, walked by Jeffrey hissing, “Next thing you know, they’ll be marrying pigs and chickens.” Jeffrey knew all too well that this was a local way of criticizing the United Church policy of performing same sex marriages, but if they weren’t speaking to him directly and didn’t specifically mention his church then it would have actually been a bigger faux pas for him to confront them. By the very act of confronting them he would have been addressing the person involved directly and making his disapproval clear – and that would have made HIM ‘opinionated’.

Perhaps the most ridiculous passive-aggressive outlet they had was a page in the Humbug Herald called ‘Trumpets and Turnips’. The little column allowed people to ridicule any person or business in Humbug as long as they didn’t explicitly name that person or business and, to take the passive-aggressive approach to superlative measure, the contributors name was never published either. The most appealing aspect of these Trumpets and Turnips, in the Humbugger mind, was that they further fueled or corroborated gossip. In my mind, it turned the local newspaper into nothing more than an official gossip column. This published gossip served in place of graffiti and further corroborated the outsider assessment of the local newspaper as a colouring book. They should have sold it with crayons.

If someone gave a turnip to the ‘local plumber who overcharges senior citizens for house calls’ then the town would be abuzz for the rest of the week. Every single plumber spent hours looking over their previous week’s schedule of house calls, looking for elderly customers who may have been offended and trying to figure out which of their children or grandchildren might have had the nerve to pass along this turnip. The local citizens, in turn, would spend their week trying to figure out which plumber was overcharging old ladies. The resulting gossip left everyone feeling a little bit of anger rather than allowing the two parties that were directly involved to deal with the greater turmoil of direct confrontation. In a way, this mechanism acted as a sort of communal catharsis, allowing everyone to share the burden of the emotions involved in what would have otherwise been a much more focused expression of opinion.

This rather bizarre set of workarounds to self expression ensured that everyone had a small portal through which to vent, but never really allowed anyone to completely relieve their burdens. This left the average Humbugger rather pent up and frustrated but at the same time kept them from blowing their tops. Since it had taken me a year to decode just this much of the complex set of Humbug protocol, I wondered just how much more there must be to the full tome of unwritten rules. I realized, though, that I wouldn’t live long enough to completely decipher the Humbug Great Wall of Hieroglyphs.

It had been almost a year, and my sales were almost identical to when I had started. Although I had been successful in dramatically increasing the ratio of food to coffee, and sales had increased a bit over the summer, there was just no way a little cafeteria-service bistro was ever going to be successful in a such a small town. There wasn’t a viable going concern to sell, so my best option was to auction the equipment to retrieve what equity I could. I decided on the final day of operations and put up a sign.

“I’ld like to thank those who have offered their support, but I regretfully announce that The Humbug Bistro will be closing on February XX, XXXX.”

As I posted the sign on the front door, I felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. It was hard to watch that bicycle lose momentum and finally tip onto the pavement, but the anxiety of watching it swerve down the block, wondering what was going to happen, was finally over. I was going to take a bit of a financial hit from the closure but I felt well compensated by the lessons I had learned. I wondered if I might even be able to get somewhere writing a book about the experience.

The next Tuesday, after Jeffrey had switched on the ‘OPEN’ sign and reversed the door signage to say ‘OPEN’, he came back into the kitchen and said, “Hey, boss – you’re really going to be closing down?”

“Yup,” I replied.

“For real?”

“For real.”

“Well, boss,” he continued, “You mistyped ‘I’d’ on the sign. You have an ‘l’ in there.”

“Actually, Jeffrey, that’s how I always type it. It’s an antiquated way of contracting ‘I would’ that I guess has fallen out of favour. My grade school teachers were very old and pounded that spelling into my head.”

“So you always type it like that?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

Jeffrey’s expression turned a bit sour, and he seemed to be contemplating my spelling idiosyncrasy far more deeply than I could readily understand.

“Something wrong, Jeffrey?” I asked.

“I just noticed that spelling in a turnip, today,” he replied.

“Ah, so you spotted it,” I chuckled.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” he scolded.

The turnip of which he spoke was a little snippet I had snuck into the local paper, saying, “I’ld like to give a turnip to the local restaurant that scoffed when I found a hair in my soup.”

“What’s wrong, Jeffey?” I asked.

“Heather, this is just about the only restaurant in town that doesn’t serve soup.”

“What happened to ‘boss’?”

“I’m not sure I want to call you ‘boss’ right now,” he scorned.

“Oh, don’t take it so damn seriously, Jeffrey.”

“Did you really find a hair in your soup at a restaurant?” he asked, giving me the benefit of the doubt.

“Of course not, but that gets people talking. They won’t let you print the name of the restaurant so everyone in town starts yammering on about which restaurant it must be. In the end, because I don’t serve soup, it always leads to a little kick in sales.”

“So you did this on purpose and you’ve done it before!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, why not? It’s ridiculous to let things like that be published anonymously so why not take advantage of it?”

“How long have you been doing this,” he demanded.

“I don’t know, maybe eight months.”

“That’s horrible!”

“It’s just business, Jeffrey.”

“No, it’s not just business. People in town take those damn trumpets and turnips very seriously!” he barked.

“Damn, Jeffrey! Take it easy,” I lamented.

“This puts me in a very bad position. I can’t know about this and let people go on thinking that someone actually found a hair in their soup at a local restaurant.”

“Then pretend you don’t know about it.”

“I just can’t do that.”

“You know, Jeffrey, it’s little kicks in sales like that that actually pay your wages. The place doesn’t make any money you know.”

“Then I would be better off without those wages.”

“So you’re quitting?”

“I think I have to.”

“Well if you quit then there is no reason to tell people about the turnip. It’s not like you’ll be benefiting from it.”

“I can’t keep quiet about it. I’m sorry.”

“You know, Jeffrey, telling people about it won’t make life better for them. You don’t know what sort of a can of worms you’ll be opening once they lose faith in their little passive-aggressive public bulletin board.”

“That’s not something I can concern myself with. It was you who tainted the turnips.”

I just burst out laughing when he said that. As I laughed I said, “So I’ve blasphemed the sanctity of the turnip, have I?”

“It’s not funny!” he barked.

All I could do was laugh. I couldn’t believe he took this issue so seriously, although I always knew he was too honest for his own good. As I continued to laugh I could see the anger well up in him and it just fueled my laughter even more. Finally he couldn’t contain his anger anymore and he began shouting at me.

“I’m going to have to tell people about this. This is fraud, or something. People get very upset about those damn turnips; they take them very seriously. Worse yet, because you start them with that ‘I’ld’, they are going to be able to figure out which ones you put in the paper. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep this quiet.”

He was so upset that I managed to stifle my laughter as I said, “Oh well, Jeffrey, I guess you have to do what you have to do.”

He marched out the door, never to be heard from again. I was quite startled at just how rigid his moral convictions really were and I really just couldn’t believe that he saw absolutely no humour in it. I began to wonder just how many people would go through back issues of the Humbug Herald looking for ‘I’ld’s. I could never have imagined.

Word spread like wildfire and within a day the local library didn’t have a single back issue left. By the next day there was a line-up outside the Humbug Herald’s office; every single person demanding a full year’s worth of back issues. The publisher was overwhelmed and began doing full runs of every issue as fast as they could. The publisher was furious, although I thought they would have been happy about all the extra sales and circulation.

The hatred towards me was astounding, although my regular customers found the whole thing hilarious. A petition went around asking people to sign up and boycott my ‘coffee shop’. The funniest part about the boycott was that the people who signed up were all people who had never actually eaten at my restaurant in the first place. I even found a note on my windshield which read, “GET OUT OFF TOWN!”

If nothing else, at least I had somewhat unified the Humbuggers. Nothing brings a town together like a common enemy, especially when that enemy is an outsider. I was most likely leaving anyway, so I was quite willing to take on this hatred if that was what it had to come down to. The real problems started when they forgot just how much they hated me and began to turn on each other.

Long before my authorship of particular turnips had been revealed, several inaccurate accusations had been made due to the little snippets. Just for fun, I had been salting some of the turnips with bits of gossip that I had heard from my old nemesis, coffee row. As it turned out, because I had used some morsels of real gossip, several people had been wrongly accused of being either author or subject of these turnips.

The increased pressure caused by these allegations, compounded by the lack of direct emotional vents, had created a critical mass of sorts. The wrongly accused began to actually directly confront their accusers and Humbug was not ready for that. Brother turned on brother, cousins began family feuds, and even some business relationships fell apart. For this, I felt terrible. Being hated by a townsfolk that I would never see again was one thing, but I had never meant to turn them against one another.

After about a week of this turmoil, things seemed to settle down a bit. I hoped that the great eruption might have provided some relief of the underlying pressure of a people who took things way too seriously. After all, these little turnips had been there for years, if not decades. The next week, no one had the nerve to submit a turnip, except for one little passive-aggressive comment about my fictional submissions – authored by ‘anonymous’.

Closing Day

My second Christmas in Humbug was even better than the first. To start with, I didn’t have any reason to bother with Christmas decorations. Secondly, I had properly calculated my tobacco needs and did not need to set foot outside for a full six days. Finally, I had some unexpected visitors who really lit up my spirits by showing up with a poker table and full Texas Hold’em poker set. We played for 28 hours straight and kept the stakes low enough so that no one left crying. I hate to boast, but I actually made more money in those 28 hours of poker than I had in over a year of running the restaurant – that is to say, I made just over fifty bucks.

My dining room echoed with more laughter than it had ever been filled with before – and there were only three of us. It echoed with laughter as my friends and I plotted the perfect closing day for the Humbug Bistro. With each hand we plotted in greater and greater detail. After all the hard work, just the thought of our little conspiracy brought me more satisfaction than hitting a straight flush on the river. It was going to be a Siesta Saturday and certain to be a day that Humbug would never forget.

The first part of the plan relied on the fact that no Humbugger can, under any circumstances, resist a sale. To this end I planned an elaborate ad campaign to ensure not a soul in Humbug would be left unaware that all meals would be two-for-one on closing day. For at least one day I would have a line-up out the door and a dining room filled beyond capacity. I almost shook as I thought of all the excitement.

The last part of the plan was to arrange for an auction house that could empty the restaurant for me and dispense with all matters after I had departed. In this way I could ensure that my final moments at the bistro would be the climax of a wonderful event, rather than the tedious work of cleaning and moving all the equipment. I might have opened for business on 26 hours of wakefulness fueled by espresso, but I was going to close for business on 8 hours of partying fueled by Southern Comfort.

I was sad when my friends finally left, and I have to admit that it was incredibly difficult to open back up after the holiday. I hadn’t taken so much time off in almost two years and the idea of going through the 12 hours of prep work for opening was the last thing I wanted to do in returning to work. Still, I had my fantastic closing day to think about and the only way to get there was to open back up again.

Since the whole Trumpets and Turnips fiasco, business had actually picked up a bit. I still wasn’t really making any money but at least I was busy enough that time seemed to pass a lot more quickly. The last couple of months of any business are hard, even the ones that I had sold for significant profit. Just knowing that old customers will eventually become strangers again, and projects on the wishful-thinking list will never be, makes the whole process seem a little pointless.

I worked almost entirely alone since Jeffrey had left, except on Saturdays. He hadn’t been gone more than a week when Anna just popped by asking if she could pick up some Saturday lunch rush hours. As always, her nose for work and gumption for just hopping to it came through. She didn’t even mention Jeffrey’s departure but it was obvious that she must have heard about it. She did make known, however, that she found the whole Trumpets and Turnips scandal hilarious.

I made a point of preparing special treats for us each Saturday and including her in the preparation. She talked about becoming a lawyer or doctor but I truly felt she had the natural talent to become a chef. She was very happy to learn how to make Shrimp Scampi and even prepared the crab stuffed mushrooms for her family. She just always seemed amazed when she learned how some of the finest foods were actually quite simple to prepare.

Each day that I toiled, chopping and dicing, I thought about those pamphlets for pre-processed product that would make my life easier. I thought about them and I despised them. I had committed myself to a fresh prepared menu and by that point I was going to go down with the ship. Obviously this wasn’t the most lucrative course of action, but I felt a certain pride that I had not allowed my menu to be reduced to the lowest common denominators.

Right up to the end, Humbuggers walked in the door referring to my bistro as ‘the coffee house’, asking for ‘SUPE’, and warning me of my imminent doom when Tim Horton’s finally came to town. Apparently the notice of my final day in business didn’t catch their attention. When I tired of them I would just say something to catch them up in a Humbug Huh, something like, “You wouldn’t even say that if you expected me to believe it.” Occasionally I would leave them hung up in their Humbug Huh for several minutes without rebooting them. Usually I left them just long enough to fix myself an Americano or, for more entertainment, to do the Macarena.

It seemed like forever until I finally worked the last Friday. There was just one more day to go and every detail was in place. I actually went out for dinner at another restaurant before returning to my little apartment. My anticipation of closing day was greater than any child’s anticipation of any Christmas. As the hours dragged by I just laid there staring at the ceiling. Eventually I did drift off, and actually slept through my alarm. I had to rush to get the bistro open on time. Fortunately all the waffle batter and toppings were ready to go so all I had to do was brew coffee and warm up the waffle irons. I also had to let my staff for closing day in a bit early so they could get changed.

Closing day was going to be the only day that my bistro ever offered full table service. I had enlisted the help of five waitresses and I only had eight tables. Anna came in for a full eight hour shift to assist with the increase in expected traffic and to help get people seated. When I opened the front blinds there was a line right past the windows, a line of Humbuggers who couldn’t resist a two-for-one Belgian waffle breakfast. For the last time, I switched on the ‘OPEN’ sign.

I couldn’t even push out the front door to set up the sandwich board on the sidewalk because of all the Humbuggers pushing their way back in. I just backed up and started shouting for them to find tables because we had waitresses for the day. Everyone jostled for position and we managed to get them stopped as the tables filled up for the first round of orders. Anna gave instructions for people to remain in the foyer until there was more room and she would come and get them seated.

The room was abuzz with everyone discussing what waffle topping they were going to have. Finally I started the CD player and got some good old fashioned disco music playing. On their cue, the waitresses made their way up from the back hall, showing off their formal attire and assuming the gait of fashion models on the runway. This is where the fun began.

My waitresses were actually Marty and four friends with whom he had taken to putting on drag shows. Their drag names ranged from ‘Filly Mignon’ to ‘Charity Fantastic’. I couldn’t keep their names straight but Marty said that was fine because it was anything but a straight show. As they approached the tables and introduced themselves to their customers, I never saw such gaping expressions of horror. This was the worst thing that could ever happen to a Humbugger; two-for-one meals served by drag queens.

It took several minutes for my waitresses to solicit orders – one customer’s upper denture plate actually fell out into his coffee. The room became dark as the light from the front windows was blocked by a collage of eyes pressed forth to view the spectacle. The conflict in their expressions was obvious as they all tried to determine if two-for-one Belgian waffles was worth the humiliation. In the end, their Humbug frugalness won out over their pride.

Eventually the orders started coming back and Anna and I worked faster than we had ever worked before. Marty, who I think was going by the name ‘Filly Mignon’, took over on waffles as we weren’t getting many orders for espresso. Anna kept running the register and called the orders like a pro. Vince, who had opted out of the drag show, furiously fought to keep up in the dish pit. I had to run to the kitchen to start preparing stock pots full of toppings, for even I hadn’t foreseen the volume of orders coming in.

By the time I had set up extra hot holding for the toppings and hauled them all out to the front it was already time to start cooking the lunch menu. I had prepared about seven times as much as usual but still had to wonder if it was going to be enough. As the lunch menu became available a lot of Humbuggers started asking for ‘bah-jah’ burritos in lieu of waffles and Marty had a chance to show off his long, low cut, red evening gown as he again started waiting tables.

The highlight of the afternoon had to be when he asked Lyle Duerr if he would like any black olives on his burrito. Every single hour I had worked, and every single dollar I had spent, to get to that point in time was worth the expression on Lyle’s face five times over. I have a pretty good command of the English language but I couldn’t begin to describe that expression without writing a volume that would make the works of Tolkien look like a grocery list. In a word: gobsmacked.

The only oversight in our plan was that the average drag queen only has to maintain his costume long enough to trounce about the catwalk a few times. None of them had realized the difficulty of making it through an eight hour shift on stiletto heels. Within an hour they all had to change their shoes and none of these guys were the sort to wear sneakers. This left my team of waitresses wearing very masculine looking fine Italian men’s shoes. The contrast of their shoes with their remarkably perfect women’s attire was almost as stark as the contrast between them and the Humbuggers. All of this taken together had to be the most ridiculous situation I had ever, or would ever, encounter.

The Humbuggers kept the orders coming for the entire afternoon and traffic had barely begun to thin out as we approach closing time. We actually had to turn a few of them away at the end of the day. As we closed at five, however, things were only just getting started. I had invited my entire list of regulars for a fabulous farewell dinner.

Most of them came in the back way in order to avoid the crowd that had gathered out front. They were gratefully seated by their assigned waitresses and patiently sipped wine as I prepared the final meal to be served at the bistro. We actually had to close the blinds to get the last of the Humbuggers to go away, for they just couldn’t stop staring at the drag queens.

I borrowed the menu from Marty’s and Vince’s date and started with baked Camembert and crostinis. The salad course was a shrimp Caesar and the main course was my famous chicken and spinach lasagna baked in a ricotta béchamel. As the guests wound down their meals on a dessert of chocolate fondue and sliced strawberries we turned the music back up and began the final party.

I was so glad to be able to spend my final hours at the Humbug Bistro with these special people. We relived the greatest moments and laughed to no end about the coup of closing day. One of the best stories was Jeffrey’s experience with the nitrous oxide, but as we laughed I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that he wasn’t around for closing day. I remembered him driving from Cuspidor to help me on opening day after Maria left me hanging and I wished things hadn’t ended so badly.

As the night went on I wound up with stacks of coasters with everyone’s e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Everyone vowed to keep in touch but I had been through this situation too many times in the past to be able to believe it was going to happen. Either way, I knew I would always have some of the most incredible stories of my life to keep me company in my memories. The last of my special guests didn’t depart until nearly sunrise and finally it was time.

With the bistro lights shut off for the last time, only the street lights cast shadows into the dining room as I closed the door. I turned the key and listened to the click of the lock; a cold, hard sound signifying the end of what was and what might have been.

Epilogue

Well there you have it – almost. There is actually an epilogue to this novel however it is only going to be available in the print version of the book when it finally gets published. Thank you for reading.