The Malevolent Mexican

One awesome thing about working in a West Auckland bar is you are always meeting interesting people. Of course, almost all of them are stark raving mad in one way or another – it's almost a required character trait out West – but some of them stand out more than the others.

• The creepy cricket connoiseur who wears a trilby hat and gumboots and frequently asks me to dance with him on Saturday nights. I am not certain why he feels the need to have a companion to dance with as he finds it completely satisfactory to grind with a pillar. For hours. It is very disturbing.
• The “Dothraki” - a group of women who enjoy wearing bright purple headscarves and strange glasses, tell silly jokes (usually at my expense), and spend most of their time getting completely sozzled. Their nickname was recently given to them by my manager who is now up to episode six of A Game of Thrones and is completely obsessed.
• The many, many, many women who come in on a Sunday night and are convinced the bartender looks like Johnny Depp, despite his indignant protests to the contrary. Trust me - this is hilarious to watch and listen to.
• The lesbian jujitsu practitioner from the dojo next door who once asked me to come over and share a bottle of wine with her after work. It is difficult to turn down a woman who could quite easily rip your spleen out through your ears. It is even more difficult when you have inadvertently given her the impression that you might be bisexual. You see, when she asked me what my “preference” was, instead of replying, “I prefer to maintain a celibate lifestyle and don't like to get involved in sexual relationships”, I may have missed the mark slightly and said instead, “I'm, um, not really into, um, anything in... particular...”. The conversation became quite complicated after that.
• As a fitting follow-on from the previous story I shall mention the two men who are under the impression that I am some sort of “loose woman”. I was taking a bowl of fries out to a couple of stereotypical Westies – hairy, bourbon-swilling, not yet evolved to a state that appreciates either washing machines or showers. As I placed the fries on their table one of them asked me, “Does your phone number come with that?” In a moment of total brain absentee-ism I replied, “Sorry, that costs extra.” Needless to say I spent the rest of the night assiduously avoiding them.
• The slightly drunk man who coerced me and another waitress to arm wrestle for tips while his wife moaned in embarassment. (I won.)
• The people who obviously don't read/watch The Lord of the Rings often enough. One night a group of people wanted to head upstairs to the Mezzanine floor. “Can we go up there?” they asked me. “Or is the way shut?” I peered up the stairs where a red velvet rope provided an obvious clue. “Yes, the way is shut,” I replied and, unwilling to pass up this most excellent opportunity to quote the greatest work of fiction ever created, continued, “It was made by those who are dead, and the dead keep it.” Blank looks ensued. Honestly. It makes me angry how people can be so ignorant.

But possibly the most memorable person – who actually inspired this post – is the Malevolent Mexican.

He came in one morning last week with a document folder and death in his eyes. “I'm here to have a meeting with your manager,” he said brusquely.

“Sure,” I said. “Did you have an appointment at all?”

“Yes,” was his terse reply.

I phoned the office upstairs to see if my manager was available. “Actually, he's gone out, he's not due back for another couple of hours,” the adminisitration lady informed me. “And his phone is playing up so I can't ring him. Plus I don't think he particularly wanted to meet this guy anyway.”

Cunning, I thought. Agree to meet a man you don't particularly want to see, arrange a time, and then make sure you're far away and uncontactable when he shows up. This must be Good Business Accumen, or something.

“Huh,” I said, and hung up. I steeled myself for inevitable confrontation. “Sorry, but my manager's out and he won't be due back for a few hours, I'm sorry.” I say 'sorry' a lot when I'm working.

The man's mouth narrowed. It drew attention to his moustache which I had previously not noticed due to the fact that it was so thin and sinister. It was like pencil line drawn on his face.

“Does he have a cellphone I can ring him on?” he demanded.

“Um... actually... he's been having a lot of trouble with his phone recently so... no, you can't call him. Sorry.”

The look he gave me made my heart quail. Ah! It spoke on how he was certain this was an elaborate plot to make his life even more difficult! All the anger he had experienced, ever, in life, from the time he was a small child and the other boys laughed at the puny size of his willy, to the more recent insult of the departure of his girlfriend who left him to go to Germany with a businessman who had a larger bank balance than him – all flared out from his eyes, swirling and eddying around him in incandescent rage.

It never altered his voice. That was the most terrifying thing – that he was able to suppress and control such intense fury.

“I have driven,” he said, his voice low and steady, “all the way from Northcote solely to have a meeting with your manager.”

“I'm really very sorry,” I said helplessly.

He stood, seething, for several more seconds. I trembled and prayed for salvation.

“I shall write a note for him asking to rearrange the meeting,” he said at last. “Please see that he gets it.”

“Of course,” I hurriedly assured him. “Did you need paper?”

“No.”

“Or a pen?”

“No.”

“Okay!”

While he wrote I took the opportunity to study him. He was wearing a normal blue business shirt, though he had rolled the sleeves up to his elbows and undone the first few buttons. A large expanse of chest hair showed through the opening. Evidently, the rest of the hair that should have formed a part of his moustache had migrated south. Understandable. No living thing would willingly be a part of that face. The shirt was tucked into belted jeans that flared out at the base. And his shoes had little heels on them.

Moustache, shirt, flared jeans, heeled shoes – to me, he looked like some sort of sleazy Mexican such as one sees in movies.

I described him, later, to someone else from work, who immediately guessed he was from the porn industry.

It is a testament to my upbringing that I am more willing to identify someone as being a Mexican rather than a porn industrialist. However – it turns out that I was wrong.

The business card he handed to me along with his note was overlarge and featured several bikini and stiletto-clad women standing next to cars.

After the man left – his heeled shoes going thud, thud, thud like beats of doom against the concrete floor – I found out that he was wanting to host some sort of event at our bar along the lines of having scantily clad women strut about onstage. Fortunately, my manager is not keen. I am glad. I think my soul might just shrivel up and die if I had to lay eyes on that man again.

Word Doodling

Izak convinced me to post a snippit of my story that I've been working on for the past couple of eons. So. Here is the first draft of the intro. Dun dun dun dun.

Lay your hand upon me, stranger, and hear what I would say. I have watched you from afar, heard you call when no one else would listen. I know who it is you are seeking. I had hoped you would find me.

Who are you? What… are you?

Who am I? I am the same as you – an abberation in the system of life. I breathe the cool air, feed upon the products of the earth, and the sun warms and sustains me. I am no more, and no less, significant than any other creature. I have walked beneath the aging trees. I have sung songs and foretold the future. I have laughed, I have danced, screamed, cried, shouted in fury and sighed in joy. I have loved and been loved in return. I think that I have experienced every known feeling. But for all this – I am dead. Much like you. As to what I am – well. Look at me. Can you honestly say you have never seen anything like me? Your eyes are not blind. I am what I appear to be.

But who and what are you, silver-haired stranger? Are you my first pilgrim? Missionary Woman once foretold that I would be a Prophetess, even an Oracle. Somehow I don’t think my current state is how she imagined my life. I’m dead, after all. But Missionary Woman always says that death doesn’t exist the way we think it does. I don’t know what she means by that. I’ve never known what she meant. Sometimes I think she’s so full of odd sayings she ran out of space for common sense.

Still. You came this way seeking answers. I don’t have all the answers, but I know the ones to the questions you seek. You are looking for a man named Kunze. I know where he is and I shall tell you where to find him. But I have a price for my knowledge, pilgrim.

What is it that you want?

Your ears. I require you to listen to me and remember what I tell you. You see, stories are intriguing things. People can create a hundred different versions of the same story, I’ve noticed. And there have been many, many different stories told about me. But none of them have been my own version. I have never told anyone my full story. But I shall tell you, for two reasons: first, because you have a sharper mind than anyone I have ever before encountered and you are not likely to forget my story. And second – because you are my first pilgrim. It’s been years since I died and became what I am. Years. You are the first pilgrim. The first to come to me in all that time. Who knows when the next pilgrim will arrive? I cannot afford to be too picky.

Besides – regardless of whether you remember my story or not, the point is that my version of the story will have been told and shall exist in some sort of formless way. Perhaps you have heard of the Realm of Thought? Philosophers like to argue about the nature of its existence. The story shall live there, forever, for anyone who wishes to hear it.

You are in a hurry to leave. Time is pressing. Your companions are missing, dead, or dying. You cannot afford to stop and listen to the ramblings of a mad thing. I understand. But look up at the branches above you. Do they sway and murmur in the breeze or are they as still and silent as death? You are right, they do not move. But, ah, you think. Perhaps there is no wind here? A logical assumption. Turn your head to the left. A moth rests upon thin air. Its wings do not flutter and yet it does not fall. To the right, the stream ceases its tumbling over rocks; frozen water that is not ice. Even your heart does not beat. Nothing is moving.

Your thought is faster than time. Our minds are joined. You wish to know, and swiftly. I wish to tell, equally as swiftly. Time is subjective to our desires. While we speak an outsider looking in might almost have just enough time to sneeze or scratch his bum. So you see – no harm can come of your lingering to listen.

So, pilgrim. Do you agree to hear my story?

Yes. But you must tell me where Kunze is.

Of course. But the story must come first. Else you shall have no reason to stay and listen to me.

Very well. Tell.