I

            When Teatree and Max arrived at noon, three tightly-bound brown packages were stacked on the concrete of the patio before the restaurant’s front door, each strung up with twine as if they’d been produced by Ye Olde Print Shoppe.

            “Hey hey,” Teatree said, collecting the packages. “Presents!”

            “Yeah,” Max said, following up with a bit of a grunt. “Hanukkah ended two months ago. This kind of thing makes me suspicious.” He rapped his knuckles on the glass of the door and peered into the murky dining room.

            Teatree weighed the packages in his arms. “I think they’re menus,” he said. “Did anyone tell you about new menus?”

            Max knuckled the glass door again, more violently. “Nobody tells me anything,” he mumbled, scowling into the restaurant.

            Teatree sighed at him. “Sometimes I think you need a different profession,” he intimated.

            Max eyed him. “Why do you think I’m studying sports management?”

            “That’s real?” Teatree asked. “I thought that was a joke.”

            “Come on,” Max said, looking off bleakly toward the light-rail stop, where a carriage was unloading.

            “I just didn’t know that was even a thing you could study in college,” Teatree said.

            “You’d know it if you went to college, wouldn’t you?” Max snapped.

            Teatree glanced defensively at him and then caressed the package on top of the bundle in his arms. “Here’s Junior,” he added with a nod through the glass.

            Refracted spectrally just beyond the door was the bulky frame of Chef Junior, who tried at the handle after unlocking it but then made a big deal of shrugging up his pants at the thighs so that he could squat down and fumble at the floor latch.

            “I will it,” Teatree said, blinking several times at the door.

            Then the door opened and they entered.

            Chef Junior straightened the legs of his pants. “Anyone else think this door is haunted?”

            “Just you,” Teatree said, passing him quickly to unload the packages onto the bar a few meters away. “And Kieran, but Kieran thinks everything is haunted.”

            “It’s just busted, then,” Junior concluded with a shake of the head. He turned to see Teatree leaning over the packages with a pair of scissors cocked over his head. “Holy shit.”

            “What?” Teatree asked, still holding up the scissors.

            “Easy now,” Junior cautioned as he stepped around Teatree toward the kitchen entrance. “Looks a little bit like a worker’s comp situation here.”

            “I think it’s new menus,” Teatree said, bouncing his eyebrows.

            Chef Junior mashed fingers against his face. “What?” he moaned.

            Teatree unleashed the blow, slicing the twine from the first of the packages and in the same motion deftly closing the scissors, setting them to the side, and beginning to unfold the brown paper wrapping.

            “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Junior said, approaching.

            Teatree had the package opened enough to remove the top leaf of the ream, which was a crisp, heavy-gauge color print of a new bar menu.

            “Just the bar menu?” Junior asked.

            Teatree nodded.

            Junior sighed and wiped the back of a hand across his forehead. “Good,” he said. “Great. I was worried old Tati was springing a new dinner menu on us at the last minute. Again.”

            “Nope,” Teatree said, “just the bar.” He was speaking distantly as he scanned the menu. “Max? Where’s Max? He’s going to need to switch these out.”

            “I’m back here,” Max’s voice sounded from the server station beyond the wall partition by the kitchen entrance.

            “You need to switch out all the bar menus,” Teatree said as he completed the unpapering of the first package and then picked the scissors back up to open another package.

            “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Junior said, passing Max on the way to the kitchen.

            “Wait,” Teatree said strangely. “These are dinner menus.”

            Chef Junior paused and looked down for a moment before finally turning and walking back to the bar to see.

            “It’s weird,” Teatree said, “because they’re the same size as the bar menus for some reason.”

            Junior snatched the top dinner menu from the fresh stack and gave it a quick scan. Then he looked at the back with similar superficiality and then waved it in the air for a moment like a white flag of surrender. Then he trudged off into the kitchen.

            “I fucking hate this place,” Max said as he clocked in at the central bar computer.

            “What’s your problem?” Teatree asked as he worked at opening up the final package. “I mean, why is today any different than any other day you’ve ever had here?”

            Max pressed the screen on the computer but nothing happened so he pressed it two more times and then smacked the screen and tore open the printer mechanism and threw an empty printer roll across the dining room.

            “It’s easier if you don’t fight it,” Teatree said. “You want a clozapine or something? I got shrooms, too, but—”

            “I don’t want fucking shrooms,” Max grumbled as he loaded a new roll into the printer and got himself properly clocked in. “Not right now.”

            “Are you just hungover?” Teatree asked.

            Max stomped over to the bar counter and looked down at the stacks of new menus. “Which is which?”

            Teatree pointed at the stack at the right. “Those are bar menus,” he said. “Happy hour. The rest are dinner menus. They all need to be switched out.”

            Max made a low noise in the back of his throat.

            “By you,” Teatree said. “We have a couple of hours, but you really should do it first, before wrapping the flatware.”

            Max was breathing heavily. “Why are they the same size?” he asked. “Why are they all small?”

            Teatree shrugged. “Somebody fucked up,” he said. “I’m not going to suggest that I know who, but—”

            Max suddenly slammed a fist down onto the stack of dinner menus.

            Teatree stared frightfully at him. “You’re kinda freaking me out,” he muttered.

            Max looked him in the eyes. “Do you know how to make I Hate Monica?”

            Teatree glanced over at the rack of flavored vodkas and other spirits lining the bar’s central rack. “Unconventional,” he said as he pondered. “It’s with Curacao and orange bitters, right?”

            Max inclined his head. “Kieran’s recipe,” he confirmed.

            “If that’s what you need, my man,” Teatree said with a nod. “You want me to crush half an anti-psychotic in there for you? Maybe some benny?”

            “Fuck off,” Max said, fingering the stacks of menus.

            Teatree moved around the bar and began concocting the elixir. “Bad night with Monica again?”

            “Fuck off,” Max said again.

            Once Max had downed the supposedly restorative potion, he began snatching up the old menus from the host station and bar and scoping out the tables in case menus were to be found out in the dining room. He found several still on tables that had ostensibly been cleared the night before. He eventually placed the fat stack of old menus on the bar and began putting the new menus out.

            “All ready for the onslaught?” asked Teatree as Max returned to the bar with a handful remaining new menus.

            “They’re loaded up,” Max said. “I’m going out for a smoke.”         

            Teatree bounced his eyebrows.

            “No,” Max said, “just a regular cigarette.”

            Teatree jutted his lower lip. “Hey,” he called as Max approached the kitchen hall, “don’t forget the old menus.”

            Max nodded and walked back over and got the stack of old menus, grabbed a couple extra new ones, and took them with him as he entered the kitchen.

            The back of the house was already hot and busy. There was no music playing from the stereo. Chef Junior was at the prep station along with Jux, looking over the new menu that was taped to the service window on the central island. Filippo was elbow-deep in the dish pit, working on a pile of stainless steel containers. Abuse and Danny were on the line, Abuse brunoising peppers and Danny chiffonading basil. Martín was back in the storage room, clearing plastic-wrapped stacks of plates from a spare section of station.

            “Max!” Abuse said, grinning.

            “Shut the fuck up,” Max said.

            Jux looked over at Max and held his hand down at his side with his forefinger touching his thumb. “See what we spilled?” Jux asked, encouraging Max to look down at the finger formation.

            “Fuck you,” Max said. He held up the new menus. “Here,” he said to Junior, “I brought you some extras.”

            “Nice,” Junior said, taking the menus and putting them up on top of the island between stacks of plates without looking at them. He continued his discussion with Jux. “So we’ve got the goat balls, check, and we’ve got the pickled beets, check… what’s that leave us in terms of what’s new?”

            “What about this?” asked Jux, indicating a component of the filet dish. “Are we actually going to do a gastrique or just use the red wine reduction?”

            “You got a job to do,” Junior said.

            Jux nodded. He saw that Max was heading out back and looked over at Abuse, who was looking right back at him. They nodded at each other and immediately began undoing their aprons. Moments later they were on the back patio, smoking cigarettes in the slatted shade of the roof.

            “Who’s running the show out there tonight?” asked Abuse.

            “Please tell me it’s not Packie,” added Jux.

            “Yeah, it’s Packie,” Max said. He puffed and shrugged. “At least we’ll have plenty of business, so he can’t screw me over too bad.”

            “Is he here yet?” asked Abuse.

            “What do you think?” Jux responded. “If he were here, we’d all know it because everything would feel especially douchey.”

            “True,” Abuse admitted. He looked at Max. “Any problems with the new menu?”

            Max shrugged.

            “I hope you looked at it,” Abuse said. “Remember last time he changed the menu.”

            Max choked a bit on the inhale. “Fuck, man,” he coughed. “That wasn’t my fault.”

            Abuse held up a finger. “The overall situation wasn’t your fault, no,” he admitted. “Entrée descriptions hadn’t been properly updated, and we were working on one set of instructions and you and the front of the house on another. Can’t blame you for that, except that the only people who could have known at the time that we were dealing with different menus were those of you in the front of the house, and you pretty much admitted that you did know that it was a problem but didn’t say anything for days—”

            “I complained the first night,” Max protested.

            “No, you didn’t,” Jux said. “Not the right way. Not in any way that would have been helpful. You just got pissed at Danny. The only reason it took days to work out was because you and the other clowns up there in the front of the house were too proud to admit they were fucking up.”

            Max mashed his cigarette into the concrete and left it there smoldering. “You could have left your precious kitchen and looked at the menus yourselves,” he suggested.

            “And go out front?” Jux cried.

            Abuse shivered. “I don’t even like going to the front-side coolers anymore,” he admitted.

            Max groaned.

            “You know,” Abuse continued, “there was a time at this very restaurant, not that long ago—”

            “Fuck off,” Max said.

            “Not that long ago, I assure you,” Abuse continued, “that the kitchen staff felt not only comfortable but proud to walk out front during service. We cared out about the food. We cared.”

            Jux frowned at him.

            “Don’t say it,” Abuse muttered. “Of course I still care.”

            Max got up and walked toward the door to the back room. “You both know that Tati told us to blame it on you, right?”

            Jux and Abuse stared at him.

            “Of course we do,” Abuse said. “We deflect all the blame, as a rule.”

            Max threw up his hands. “Then why are you getting on my case?”

            “Because you could have done differently,” Abuse said. “Would that have been so hard?”

            Max stared at him, trembling. “You could have, too.”

            Abuse waved him off. “Just make sure we’re all working off the same menus from now on, and everything may be forgiven.”

II     

            By four-fifteen, just over an hour after the restaurant opened to the cool winter evening, the front of the house was already a chaos of activity. Teatree was trying to keep up a conversation with a couple of regulars on one side of the bar while fixing cocktails for a group of several hipster-types at the other side. The group had decided not to seat themselves at the bar but simply take up the space in front of the bar as well as that around a couple of the bar-area high-top tables. Lyle was over by the host station, explaining to a group of four that the bar area was at present full up, but he’d try to find out what was going on to get them seated there for happy hour. Three groups had been seated, a four-top and two two-tops, and Max was hurrying to get them all water.

            Lyle smiled demurely at the group of hipsters in peacoats lingering around the bar and made his way through to Teatree.

            “What’s happening with them?” he asked Teatree.

            “Cocktails all around,” the bartender said. “The new cocktails.”

            “Can we get them to move out of the way of the bar high-tops?” Lyle asked with clear agitation. “I’ve got at least two groups up here that want to sit for happy hour.”

            Teatree continued mixing drinks. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “Even if these dipshits sat down, they’d take up the whole area.”

            Lyle looked over at the right side of the bar, where the pack of hipsters was congregated. The two high-tops that were considered part of the bar were mostly surrounded by them. Less than four feet away in more than one direction were some of the dining room’s regular tables: round, candle-topped, four-chaired.

            “Can I just seat them over there?” asked Lyle.

            “Tati’s word, Lyle,” Teatree said, shrugging and shaking his head at the same time. “You know it. Happy hour is only at the bar.”

            Lyle frowned at the computer screen and exhaled aggressively. “They’re not going to be happy.”

            “It’s not my restaurant,” said Teatree as he set a sheaf of cocktails on the bar before the greedy hipsters.

            Lyle shook his head and skirted the pack as he made his way back to the host station to report to the would-be patrons. There were seven people milling about in the entryway waiting to be seated for happy hour. Even though the dining area’s twenty-plus tables were scantily occupied, they were, apparently, going to have to wait. Upon being delivered the news by Lyle, most of them looked confusedly at the restaurant and then exchanged looks with each other.

            “It might not take too long,” Lyle pleaded. He then went into a detailed explanation of the happy hour guidelines and the precise invisible boundaries that existed outside of his control.

            About that time, Tati arrived. He stood gaping in the entryway like a feeble and confused guard, looking in with wide eyes as if at a horde of invaders that had already breached the fortifications. He was alone, so he set into things without delay.

            “Lyle,” he said, frowning, “come with me to the cheese case.”

            By “cheese case,” Tati meant the glass-fronted cooler near the freezers that had been originally designed as a retail cheese counter but was now blocked off by stacks of lounge chairs. He nodded smilingly at the waiting patrons and followed Brian to the ostensibly private space near the old cheese case. They were still in full view of everyone waiting, and not a few of the patrons were watching them.

            “We can’t have people waiting like this,” Tati said.

            “The bar area is full,” Lyle explained. “They’re here for happy hour.”

            Tati looked out at the house, first at the pack of hipsters at the bar and then at the barren dining area. He then glanced at the people waiting at the front near the host station.

            “They look like beggars,” Tati said. “Lyle, you’ve been with Tati’s for what, three years now? Four?”

            Lyle rolled his eyes. “You hired me before you opened this place,” he said. “That was eleven years ago.”

            “Whatever,” said Tati, still staring at the waiting crowd. It had grown: another couple had just entered and was scoping the place, obviously deciding whether staying for the wait or walking down to Portland’s was the better idea. “These people don’t know good wine and cheese, anyway,” he decided.

            “I’ll tell them about the wait for the bar, then,” Lyle said, turning to go.

            “You don’t understand,” Tati added, stopping Lyle by placing a hand on his shoulder. Lyle turned his head to look into Tati’s eyes. “Lyle. Eleven years,” Tati said, smiling intimately. “You know that we have an exclusive thing going on here. We can’t accommodate everyone. Sometimes we need to turn people away, and sometimes people have to wait.” He shrugged. “If you always just seat everyone, there’s no mystique.”

            “Okay,” Lyle said. “I’ll put them on a wait. I think twenty minutes is a reasonable estimation.” He lingered for a moment, awaiting a response from the owner.

            Tati was, apparently, screening the waiting patrons individually. “Tell them forty-five minutes,” he said, clapping Lyle on the shoulder.

            Lyle went to the host station and addressed the waiting patrons. Their responses were mixed. Some were clearly unhappy to hear about the wait and checked their phones to make sure that they’d have time enough before happy hour ended, but others opened their eyes with a kind of anticipatory wonder at what it was, exactly, that was so great to wait for.

            Tati hadn’t waited to see the responses, though. After seeing Lyle off, he passed quickly between the cupboards and stainless-steel coolers of the front storage hall and then through the server station to the bar, where he made eye-contact with Teatree and then went back into the server station to wash his hands in the sink. Teatree’s eyes had been sufficiently wide upon seeing him, Tati was thinking as he scrubbed his hands under the water released by the displacement of the dangling nozzle. He whipped his hands downward, casting off much of the excess water, and then waved his hand before the towel dispenser. He used the small rectangle of paper towel that it dispensed carefully, tossing it into the trash and then shaking his hands again before the sensor in order to further dry his hands with whatever paltry strip the machine might grant him a second time around.

            He didn’t immediately address Teatree at the bar; instead, he made another eye-contact with the bartender and went straight into the kitchen.

            When he entered, the first person to see him was Filippo. Filippo was picking up a stack of filthy plates and, when he saw Tati, he paused, briefly.

            “Jefe!” Filippo shouted, grinning at Tati. Filippo bounced his eyebrows at Tati and kind of rolled his eyes a bit and then went back to cleaning the plates.

            Tati was still watching Filippo when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, some of the kitchen staff hurrying toward the sink by the prep table. Abuse and Jux were there, washing their hands. Chef Junior was next to them.

            “I suppose everything’s going well,” Tati announced to the kitchen.

            Everyone in the kitchen nodded. Abuse was flinging excess water from his freshly-washed hands and waiting for the dispenser to pump out another section of paper towel. Jux smiled and focused on washing his hands. Junior gave a thumbs up, looking at the printed menu. Danny, eyes wide like a caught deer, took a couple of thin slices of prosciutto from the charcuterie plate he was working on and stuck them down onto the cutting-board workstation like lengths of tape reserved for a future work of art. Filippo grinned as he loaded the dishwasher.

            “This is the best place to be,” Filippo said, beaming at Tati.

            Tati inhaled and stopped looking around, finally looking at Filippo. “Glad to hear it,” he said. Everyone was either smiling at him or looking busily down at their work. “Anything I should know about?”

            “This fucking dispenser is too slow,” Jux said, waving his hand in front of the sensor in order to get another little rectangle of paper towel to emerge.

            “Do you teach your students to use such vulgar language?” asked Tati.

            “Here we go,” said Danny.

            “Well,” Jux said, “I teach my students to identify situations in which certain usages are or are not acceptable. Much of what I do is predicated on understanding a text’s efficacy—”

            “Have you found any jobs yet?” Tati asked, smiling. “I’d imagine not, considering our economic climate.”

            Jux sighed and continued to fling excess water from his hands since Abuse had taken the next length of paper towel that came out of the automated dispenser.

            “I just learned about Ulysses,” said Filippo as he nodded thoughtfully at the dish pit. “That’s some interesting stuff.”

            “You just like whacking off in public,” Danny said, sniggering into a bucket of ceviche.

            “That’s not the point of the chapter,” Jux clarified. “Not the whole point, I mea—”

            “We’re clear on the entrees,” Junior said, breaking in and approaching Tati. “Everything else, too. We’re ready to rock.”

            Tati eyed the kitchen staff and then nodded. “Okay,” he said, and walked back out into the front.

            “Fucking crazy,” muttered Filippo into the dish pit.

            “Be careful,” Abuse warned. “We don’t want to draw him back.”

            —

            The sun was lowering and the orange light was bright on the tracks of the light rail out front. The pack of hipsters had paid up and exited and could be seen through the tall front windows on their prowl south to the next establishment. Those patrons who had waited long enough were now being seated and they were looking at the new menus. Lyle was attending to them even though he wasn’t assigned to the bar. There were no other groups in the house.

            Tati didn’t say much to anyone in the front because he was immediately drawn to the computer, where, apparently, data could be culled that might expand his profits. He had no idea how to interpret the data, but that didn’t seem to matter. He called for a big glass of zinfandel and after Teatree put the massive red thing on the counter, Tati set into contemplating the mysteries of the computer. Most of his time was spent figuring out how to get the program to show him daily data instead of annual data, as well as investigating the difference between minimizing and maximizing a window.

            “Tati, hey,” Teatree was saying to him. “Hey, yeah, so we have a situation here at the bar.”

            Tati glanced up at Teatree. “What is it?” he asked, as if wondering about why someone cared about the dinosaurs.

            “We’ve got two tables at the bar,” Teatree said, pointing at the tables, “that are disputing their bills.”

            Tati pushed up his eyeglasses and turned to look at the supposed miscreants. “What?” he asked. “Are they unable to pay their checks?”

            “They’re disputing the amounts,” Teatree explained. “It says here on the new bar menus that ‘all handcrafted cocktails’ are five dollars during happy hour.”

            “So what’s the problem?” asked Tati.

            “The new menu has our new cocktails on it,” said Teatree. “You said that the new cocktails wouldn’t be available at happy hour prices.”

            “That’s right,” said Tati.

            “But,” said Teatree, “these menus list the new cocktails in place of the old.”

            Tati gripped his forehead. “What is the problem here?”

            “The menus still say that ‘all handcrafted cocktails’ at happy hour are five dollars,” Teatree explained patiently, “but the list of cocktails is new.”

            “So why don’t they order new cocktails?” asked Tati.

            “They did,” said Teatree. “That’s the problem. They expect the new cocktails at happy hour prices.”

            Tati stared at the bartender and then glanced about the front of the house. “They’re not going to get it,” he said. “The happy hour prices are for the old cocktails only, and only on the old menu.”

            “But they’ve been looking at the new menu all day,” Teatree said.

            Tati stared at him. “Who switched them out?”

            “We were supposed to switch them out when we got the new ones,” Teatree said.

            “I don’t care what you think you remember,” Tati said. “The new cocktails are full price, and they are going to pay for them. Who switched them out?”

             Teatree ticked his head and smiled and turned and began making another round of cocktails.

            “Are you ignoring me?” Tati finally asked.

            Teatree shrugged as he muddled mint and lime in a steel cocktail shaker.

            “I don’t appreciate being ignored,” Tati told him. After clicking around at the computer for a moment, resizing a couple of windows to his satisfaction, Tati took a large sip from his red wine and squinted around the dining area. Then he addressed Teatree again, who was now loading up a black circular serving tray with brimming martinis and a couple of shimmering gimlets. “Are you listening?”

            Teatree winked at Lyle, who effortlessly hefted the tray of beverages and swung around toward the patrons, spilling not a drop.

            Tati watched in horror as the drinks were delivered. “Do you know what’s going to happen to the books if we keep this up?”

            Max hurried up to the bar. “I need the espresso martinis as quick as you can,” he told Teatree.

            Teatree winked at him before grabbing a large shaker and pouring in about six ounces of black drip coffee, a few tumblers of smoked cinnamon vodka, a bit of questionable half-and-half, and an unpromising squirt of simple syrup. After popping on the lid and shaking it with two hands like a shill on a shake weight infomercial, he produced, with a magical flourish, three new milky brown drinks brimming at the very terminations of their wide, shallow glasses.

            “Those are not on the happy hour menu,” Tati observed.

            “They’re not made with espresso, either,” Teatree noted.

            “Irrelevant,” Tati said. “They aren’t on happy hour.”

            “They are right now,” Max said.

            Tati’s eyes widened. “What?”

            Max grinned horribly at him. “They are on the happy hour menu,” he said. “We’re all working off of the same menu, the happy hour menu, and it’s this one right here that everyone’s looking at, so, if you want, you can go explain it to them but I am not doing it and nobody else around here is going to do it either because we’re all working off the same menus and that is the menu and those espresso martinis are on it.”

            Tati was staring at the martinis. “Don’t deliver that,” he finally warned.

            Max looked at him. “Can I tell you something?” he asked as he lifted up the loaded black service tray. “There’s this thing called short-term loss for long-term gain, like when you trade your aging star for a couple of rookies and a better draft position in the upcoming year. Yeah, maybe you’re going to lose a few in the meantime, maybe for years, but if you don’t switch things up and go for building a good team you’ll just find yourself year after year frustrated with the increasingly poor performance of your all-star. So fuck you.” He walked off to deliver the espresso martinis.

            Tati watched.

            “It was only about an eighth of a dose of anti-psychotic I gave him,” Teatree offered as he worked at a new set of cocktails. “He’s just emotional about his girlfriend, I think.”

            “No,” Tati said, “he’s right. I think. Did he learn that in college?”

            Teatree shrugged. “You know I never went to college,” he said. “Ask Jux. He might know.”

            Tati shook his head. “That is doubtful,” he said. “He doesn’t know practical things like that. He just knows about literature celebrating public masturbation.”

            Teatree giggled. “Really?” he asked with a giggle. “That’s hilarious.”

            Tati eyed him. “It’s no joke,” he said. “William Faulkner was one of Ireland’s most beloved poets.”

            “Oh shit,” Teatree said, eyes wide and pupils dilated.

            “Please don’t use vulgar language at the bar,” Tati cautioned.

            —

            The night air was cold and crisp. The rubber mats were still dripping from their hooks by the dumpsters through a thin haze.

            “Man,” Jux said, drawing from a massive joint and then handing it over to Max.

            “And woman, dude,” Abuse corrected. “Let us not forget.”

            Jux nodded meaningfully. Then he added, “You think this smoke is just from us, or is it a complex fire or something?”

            “It’s just the Pasta Station over there,” Duke said.

            “On a no-burn night?” Jux asked.

            “They don’t play by the rules,” Duke said. “Those motherfuckers burn food and trash all night. Day and night. It’s all they know. That and saving on sanitizer solution costs by not really using it.”

            Max took three quick hits on the joint and passed it on. “I think Brian was about to fire me tonight.”

            “You?” Abuse asked. “Why would he do that? Doesn’t your grandpa run the power company or something?”

            “It’s not about that,” Max said, rolling his bloodshot eyes.

            Duke had the joint now, and he took a couple of quick puffs and passed it underhand smooth to Arturo, who took it and, after a quick laugh, passed it to Abuse.

            “You don’t want any?” Abuse asked.

            Arturo shrugged. “I got to be ready for piss tests and shit,” he said. “Refrigeration school’s for real. Mota makes me crazy, anyway. I’m doing this shit straight.”

            “Amen,” Abuse said. He took a huge drag. He offered it about but nobody wanted it so he shrugged and flicked the little joint across the patio so that it arced right down into the murk of the ten can filled with butts and moisture by the dock gate. It went out with a little hiss. Then Abuse lit up a cigarette.

            “So can I ask a question?” Jux asked.

            Nobody said anything. Something like a bird made a sound far out past the lot in the darkness. The thick booms of a car’s speakers pounded for a moment beyond the restaurant and receded.

Max farted. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he suggested.

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