Vivian and the Boys, Chapter Five

VIVIAN PORTION

Chapter Five—A Marketable Skill is better than “All My Children”

WE ARE THE FUTURE

Viv smiled as Cantrell and Miguel came out of the orientation, looking little the worse for their intense, on-the-job training.

“So you guys got your jackets?” Vivian said, as she looked adoringly at Cantrell, ill fitted in the ugly polyester blue frock-coat that was the standard uniform for Waiters With Wings, the catering outfit Vivan had been working for on and off for the last eighteen months.

Waiters With Wings was a job only suitable for a Medieval Studies PhD, which Vivian was, a recently discharged bowling alley clerk, which Miguel Chauca, Jr. was…and whatever Cantrell was, it was hoped his employment with WWW would be fruitful.

Miggs smiled at Vivian. “This is great. I can’t believe they pay so well here. The orientation was a little rough. Cantrell is um, unresponsive to setting the table yet.”

Cantrell smiled. It was uncanny, Vivian thought, that although they had now been dating for three weeks, she had never seen Cantrell without his sunglasses, even in bed, and still had no idea whether he had a first name or not. But he was divine.

“Vivian, you were great to get us work here.” Cantrell said, smiling, as he absently scratched a cyst on his neck. “I know I owe you a little money for eating out and stuff,”

Vivian shook her head vigorously. “No, Cantrell, all I want is for you to be solvent, now, babe.”

“Solvent, like paint?” Cantrell smiled disarmingly again, and tried to adjust the blazer, which appeared to be melting on his shoulders. “Damn, this thing is choking me. You think I shoulda gotten a bigger size, Miggs?”

Miguel considered. “Well, maybe you should take out the shoulder pads, Cantrell. You can’t keep carrying them around, shoving them in every jacket you own, like a chick.”

Cantrell was hurt. “I just want to have a build.” He looked at Miggs. “You have a build. I’m too skinny. And I can’t work out, ‘cause it’s gay. I want a non-gay build, which I can get with shoulder pads.”

A WEEK LATER
TARIQ KNOWS ALL
Tariq, the Headwaiter smiled genially at Cantrell, who had just come back from the floor, where they were setting up tables for the Livestock Marketing Council.

"Are you doing the tablecloths?" Tariq asked. "Did you take my suggestion about putting the crease in the middle of the table when you lay the cloth?"

Cantrell grinned at Tariq. "No, I think the Banquet Manager has given up on me putting down the tablecloths. I told him I have eye hand coordination problems, and he just had me wiping silverware."

Cantrell had discovered that the majority of his catering skills were in Pass and Clear, carrying drinks on the tray and picking up the detritus on the tables post consumption.

Setting up, though, had been troublesome. Remembering where tables were to be put, extensive table settings and recalling tea serving arrangements were beyond Cantrell's purview.

It wasn't ADD, he thought, he just had a fun mind. Cantrell's mind wanted to entertain him. But it was difficult to concentrate on yesterday's "All My Children" episodes or what Batman was up to, and also remember who gets a vegetarian plate at Table Six. Goodness, Tariq was talking again.

"You see, Cantrell, you need to learn these things." Tariq's comforting Middle Eastern accent was pushing through Cantrell's soap opera reveries. "Why you do not let me work with you later, hm? I take some time and teach you--"

"I like to Pass and Clear." Cantrell said firmly. He leaned back and watched a representative of the Cattlemen’s College pick his nose and drop the mucus on his salad plate. Oh, God, he's putting his fork into the goat cheese, right next to the booger.

Nothing had grossed Cantrell out more since he'd watched his stepfather put his Marlboro out in the Salisbury steak while still eating the mashed potatoes.

" Cantrell, we want more than you Pass and Clear. We have expectations." Should Tariq take this up with the Banquet Manager? Poor employee attitude. No, Tariq would work with Cantrell.

Cantrell looked at Tariq sleepily. "It's okay man, I think the captains are going to leave me in peace. I've gotten Holly to let me just move stuff around." Cantrell envied the jobs that retarded people had, in a way.

He'd read that there were sheltered workshops in Prince George's County where you could just put stickers on disposable douche containers...ah, the important thinking he could get done there!

But they only paid retards four bucks an hour--and here at the Ziwicki Memorial Ballroom, Cantrell was making eighteen to slop lobster bisque about and refill wine glasses. That was fine, he enjoyed telling the tipsy Revlon Deputy Vice President last week that her decotellage was holding up...and he didn't have to remember anything.

"You know." Cantrell waved his hand vacantly, as he tried to think about a recent murder on "The Guiding Light." "Tariq, um, I just like taking the crap back and forth...it's easy, and invigorating." There! Now he sounded like Tony Robbins.

Tariq was not amused. "You must learn how to do more than Pass and Clear, Cantrell. There is much to do here in the Memorial Ballroom...how will you move up?" Tariq, of course, had his eye on the Banquet Manager's job.

Tariq, by his own admission was a far better leader than the Banquet Manager. Why had they not given him the job, after eleven years here? Was it because he resembled a terrorist? He did not resemble a terrorist. Tariq's mother thought he looked like George Foreman, of the Grill.

But he would help Cantrell.

"Yes, Cantrell, I am only trying to help you." Tariq looked very serious.

Cantrell was waiting until it was time to clear the table. It interested Cantrell that most adults that he'd watched here in the Ballroom didn't clean their plates.

Cantrell had always been good at cleaning his plate as a youngster--it was only later, with multiplication tables and other more stringent requirements where he'd encountered trouble--but he'd remembered all the fuss his siblings had gone through because they wouldn't eat their beets. But these fuckin' people threw out more food...

And then you just know they go home to Illinois and kick Junior around for not finishing his okra, Cantrell meditated. At twenty-five, Cantrell didn't quite identify with the adults. There was too much of him back in the misery of Cub Scouts, flash cards, and Vacation Bible School, (three words that definitely did not belong together)

"Cantrell, did you hear me?" Tariq prodded. "I want to help you. I want you to learn the full job of being a catering butler. Presenting a tea service and remembering special orders is part of the job description."

Cantrell smiled at Tariq, looking closely at him. Gold teeth are FASCINATING. People were always trying to help Cantrell. He remembered the Head Counselor of his halfway house, Adonis Hampton telling him, "We tryin' to hep' you, man."

Cantrell didn't need no fuckin' hep. "It's just not my thing, Tariq." he said gently. Cantrell was learning real tolerance and politeness in this confusing work with ambitious immigrants. "I like clearing up, there's no focus there."

Tariq's thick eyebrows now resembled necking caterpillars. He was mad. "Perhaps Special Events are not your field, Cantrell. You do not seem to have the aptitude--"

"No, no, catering could be done by trained monkeys." Cantrell said soothingly. "Don't worry about it, this isn't a career, unless you've got a metal plate in your head."

Looking at Tariq's expression, Cantrell wondered if he could've phrased that differently.

"You are still a relatively young man, maybe you could go to Coyyege?"

Coyyege? Oh. Yeah, if I can't remember where the demitasse goes, of course I'm going to do really well memorizing algorithms or writing papers on "The Age of Innocence" at the University of Slippery Rock, Cantrell considered. Hey, that was the first complete thought I've had since last September. Maybe I'm NOT a pothead.

"I like to Pass and Clear," Cantrell said once again. No, let me rephrase it. " I prefer to Pass and Clear." Why go to school when you know your preferences? It's like if you're gay and they want to re-train you to be a straight Baptist at one of those camps.


"Or there are other jobs where you might prosper. " Tariq commented. "Have you thought of doing other work? Another more fulfilling career?"

Cantrell gazed at Tariq, his patience with this discussion growing thin. "No, there aren't any jobs for people with my um, resume around here, that pay like this one does. This is it, unfortunately"

Shame they don't have factories anymore. Cantrell pictured himself dropping prizes in Captain Crunch boxes on a conveyor belt.

Cantrell wondered if Tariq would finally shut up now, and let him resume his thoughts about "All My Children. But the dude was on a ROLL.

Tariq shook his head. "You...there are many other job that you..." Ah the English. Tariq gesticulated with his napkin.

Cantrell smiled. "Use your words, Tariq."

Tariq tried again. "You are not good at this, or your attitude about this work is not good. You should look into many other interesting professions. Computer?"

Cantrell looked over at the diners. Jesus, Tariq had ruined all his down time with this career thing. Mercy. Now he was going to have to clear up all the slop. And his mind had been off "All My Children." involuntarily for twenty full minutes.

"I think your grasp of economics and the job market is a little weak, but hey, do you like betting, Tariq?" Cantrell asked.

Tariq brightened. He took his mother on the free bus to Atlantic City every Sunday. "Yes!"

"Okay, how's this. If you can get me a full time job making more doing something else than working here within the next two weeks, I'll give you fifty bucks. I'll have a good job, be able to pay you out of my first check, and I'll be outta your hair...but if you can't get me another job, I stay here and you pay ME fifty bucks."

Tariq reflected. His caterpillar brows grew thunderous. "I am not going to give you fifty dollars!" His eyes were blazing.

But Cantrell had forgotten about Tariq. It was time to clear, and he was hoping he wouldn't have to pick up the Cattleman Collegian's booger infested plate. But it would just be his luck.

Tariq had spun on his heel, heading for the kitchen, to scream at the dishwashers. "I will give no one fifty dollars." he muttered over and over again. Cantrell, cheerful Western infidel, wandered off to pursue his beloved Pass and Clear.

And there was Vivian, giving instructions to someone. She was an amazing girl, Cantrell thought. Vivian saw him and was coming over.

Cantrell liked Viv, but she was so intense. All the time intense.

“Honey! You got off the phone so fast this morning.” Vivian kissed Cantrell’s cheek.

“Well, Tariq says I have to limit my personal phone calls, Vivian.” Cantrell rubbed his eyes behind the Ray-Bans.

“But honey, I called you at home.”

“I know but I have to practice for when I’m at work, right? And I was watching something.”

“You can’t choose Spongebob SquarePants over me, Cantrell!” Vivian sounded a little forced there.

“I Tivo Spongebob. No, I was watching the Iron Chef. No, It was “I Love Lucy” Something.”

Vivian squeezed his arm. “I know it’s hard getting back in the swing of working every day, Cantrell, but you’ve got a girl now, and you’ve got to learn responsibility.”
A girl? Where? Cantrell almost looked around the Hubert D. Zwicki Memorial Ballroom, and then remembered, and smiled down at Vivian. She was really great, really she was.