Authors: Johnny B. Truant
Wally was still angry that the deli had gotten so out of control (most people would quit if they thought their boss was being unreasonable rather than start a rebellion), but he saw how bad Philip felt after learning that a massive, cruel joke had been played on him, and let it go. The problem would need to be addressed, and it
would
be addressed, but that came later. First, they had to mend the wounds and stop the bleeding, and so far, interestingly, there had been no harm done.
And really, that was the most perplexing thing. As the two settled down for dinner at El Vaquero, sufficiently far from Bingham’s to let their nerves and tempers cool, the no-effect issue was the one that kept coming up.
“It’s just crazy,” said Wally. “Now that I’ve seen all you’ve done and read that newspaper article, I can’t believe that nobody has taken any sort of action against you – Bingham’s, or you personally. I mean, even if your core audience won’t complain, I’d expect opportunists. People looking for a reason to file a lawsuit.”
Philip took a sip from his glass of water scratched his head. “That’s what I kept asking,” he said. “Why
aren’t
people suing us? And why
are
they coming back? Would you keep going to a place that did to you what we do to our customers?”
“No, but...”
“So I kind of figure they’ve got it coming,” said Philip. “And you see how it’s making the store money.
Lots
of money, in fact. Today’s deposit was almost five times normal. And that’s just with the normal crew. I could hire more people if you want, increase crew to make more food and make more cash. You’d get a raise, I’d get another...”
“Come on, Philip. You’re not going to convince me to allow this to continue, and you know it. I’m the brass here.”
Philip knew it, but he’d been planning this argument all afternoon as he and Wally tried to figure out exactly what had gone wrong. As ludicrous as things at Bingham’s had gotten, certain facts remained: they were a legit business, with legit endorsement by the local paper and even TV news. Customers didn’t have a problem with what they were doing. The store was seeing huge profits. Once you got past the surface-level strangeness of it all, where was the problem, really?
“I don’t get it, Wally. We’re making Bingham money. Does he care how? Does he have to know? This whole town knows what we’re up to and nobody is complaining. We have the nod to keep doing this. Have the lawyers whip up disclaimers and we’ll have people sign them at the door if we have to. People will sign them.”
“Philip, really. Once I got over being pissed off, I started to think it was funny, really I did. I’m amazed that people are still coming in, and in droves at that. But do you realize what we’d be getting into if I allowed this to continue? It’s one thing to have one rogue store going crazy, but it’s another thing entirely to have it be officially-sanctioned policy. Do you think the other campus restaurants wouldn’t have something to say when we stood up proud, said this is how we were going to do business, and then started taking all of their customers? We’d be eaten alive.”
Philip shrugged. “Hasn’t happened yet.”
“It’s just a matter of time,” Wally said. “You’ve gotten lucky. This is a bomb waiting to explode.”
“Don’t you think you’re just looking at this with the eyes of a sane, logical person? Because that’s not how most people are, you know. Most people are...”
“Yes, yes. People are stupid. We’ve had this discussion before. But there’s no way people are
this
stupid. People are petty, too. Why aren’t they suing you for big bucks?”
Philip thought, then said, “Maybe our venture is just new and shocking, like when Larry Flynt started
Hustler
. He was sued and put under fire, too. But look where he is now.”
“In a wheelchair?”
“Rich! His ‘despicable and immoral’ business is now legitimate. What if Bingham’s is a groundbreaking prototype for the deli of the future? What if we’ve started a social revolution, determined to re-claim the Earth in the name of reason and intelligence?”
“Philip.”
Philip stopped, defeated, and took another sip of water. Wally was not budging, so he’d just have to bring it to a halt and they’d reopen tomorrow as plain old, ordinary Bingham’s. It wouldn’t be so bad. Everyone could keep their jobs, and once the furor caused by this month’s craziness died down, they could go back to serving the same bagels to the same regulars at the same old prices. Life would go on.
“Fine,” Philip said, sighing. “We’ll take it all apart.”
He called an emergency meeting the next night.
“The good news is that we finally got some corporate-sponsored home improvement out of all of this,” he told the crew at the meeting. The group had assembled in the lobby, in a rough circle of chairs. “Wally said that since someone has apparently been intercepting our email, the first order of business was to get the phones working again. The Bell guy was in here earlier and they’re already working. So yippie fucking doo-da on that front.”
“Ghetto Phone,” murmured the Anarchist.
“And, as a next step, he wants to use some of the new money to get the rats out of the basement for good.”
“Ha!” said Slate.
“But the bad news – I guess it’s bad news? – is that we have to take everything apart, and turn Bingham’s back into what it was in the middle of the summer, before whoever-it-was started fucking with our email. That means the old décor, prices, and service policies.”
There was an outburst from the floor. Everybody had known it was coming, but hearing it aloud hurt. What would the new, hyper-annoying customers do to them once they were no longer allowed to retaliate? Talk about being eaten alive.
“We have to go back to being tolerant?” said Mike.
“We have to be nice?” said Beckie.
“To kiss ass?”
“To suck the consumer cock?”
Rich shrieked, then giggled.
Philip raised his arms. “Hey, hey. Down, all of you. Yes, we have to go back to not hurting people. No, we don’t have to be nice. I’ll tell Wally that we’ll be nice, but I feel incapable of actually doing it. And it’s not like we were ever that nice before, no matter what the official rulebook said.”
“We’ll still be able to suplex people, though, right?” said Rich.
“No.”
Rich shrieked again.
“But we can be rude,” said Beckie.
“Yes.”
“Can we... I don’t know... play Scrabble?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And sit on the counters?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
“And play with the sloth, of course.”
“Beckie,” Philip said, “we will of course be getting
rid
of the sloth.”
This time, it was Beckie who shrieked. “And... and Swannie?”
Swannie was a plastic garden planter in the shape of a giant, hollow swan. She had been given to Beckie by a drunken customer who had stolen Swannie from someone’s yard late one night and had brought her into Bingham’s as a sort of offering. Swannie was filled with flowers when she arrived, but Beckie had emptied her and cleaned her and glued the cracks in her body and touched up her worn spots using a can of white enamel spraypaint she’d found on the office shelves. Duly cleaned and lovingly restored to glory, Swannie had become Beckie’s favorite plaything, sometimes swinging from the ceiling, sometimes occupying a chair in the dining room, and sometimes simply resting in her nest at the corner of the front counter.
To delight Beckie, the Anarchist had stuck the point of a screwdriver through the drainage hole at Swannie’s rear from the inside, then impaled a hard-boiled egg on the end so that it clung to her rear like a tumor. He’d tied a string to the screwdriver’s handle and hung the other end near Beckie’s station, tagged with the instructions: “Pull to induce birth.” A tug on the string would retract the screwdriver and force the egg off its end and onto the floor. Over and over while she worked, Beckie would pull the string, giggle, and then reset it all so that she could celebrate the miracle of life with Swannie over and over again.
Philip looked at Beckie and saw the mournful look on her face. “Of course you can keep the swan,” he said.
Beckie sighed.
“Anyway, we’re going to have to go back to being just plain old Bingham’s, and really, that’s not so bad. Tonight and tomorrow, we’re all going to need to all pitch in and... Yes?” He raised his eyebrows at Mike, who was holding his hand aloft.
“We can still call people ‘fat whores’ though, right? I just want to be clear on this.”
Philip squinted. “No, you can’t call them fat whores.”
“What about ‘shit-guzzling cockfiends’?”
“Well, of course...”
“‘Assfaced squidhumpers’?”
“‘Assfaced...?’”
“Certainly ‘cumbucket’ is all right. At least give me ‘cumbucket.’”
“No, you can’t call people any of those things.”
Smooth B raised his hand. “What about ‘monkeyfucking buttpirates’?”
“What’s wrong with you? No!”
Tracy raised his hand.
“No!” Philip repeated. “Call them ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ or call them by their name if they give it to you. It’s only been a month, you guys.”
“Can we still take smoke breaks?” asked Rich.
“In the dining area or in the back, yes.”
Rich nodded.
Philip continued. “I’ll need all of you to help take all of
this...”
He waved his hand around the store.“...down. Wally doesn’t want the store open until we’re back to normal. We’re going to have to...”
There was a knock on the front door, and a pair of customers outside gestured at their watches and shrugged:
Why are you closed?
Rich walked over, turned around, pulled down his pants, and placed his buttcheeks against the glass. “Fuck off!” he yelled over his shoulder. The pair ran away.
Philip stared at Rich as he returned to his seat.
Rich’s face broke when he saw Philip’s glare. “You mean I can’t even do
that?
Oh, for Christ’s sake!” He slumped forward with his elbows on his knees, pouting.
“I was wondering,” asked the Anarchist, “if we were going to have to stop pressing people’s faces against the steamers when they vulture.”
“You do that?”
“Well, only as a third offense. I figure after they’ve been thrown to the mat by Rich and then sprayed in the face with the purple cleaner, they should know better or find another deli.”
“You’ve been spraying people with the cleaner too?”
“Well, sure.”
“Fucking hell. Yes, of course, stop all of that. Just use your heads.”
“And spitting?”
“Jesus, you guys! Did you really forget how to act normal? How to greet customers with courtesy?”
“Courtesy?” It was Bricker, who was considered an unofficial employee now.
“Just be reasonable. Just be logical. Just be intelligent.”
The Anarchist spoke up. “That’s what we’ve been doing! The
customers
are the illogical ones. Are you asking us to become mindless sheep again? Are you telling us to forget everything we’ve learned and ignore how far we’ve come? Are you asking us to de-evolve?”
Philip waved impatiently at him. “Easy there, Socrates. This is a mandate; it’s not open for discussion.”
The Anarchist gave Philip an even look. “Really, Philip, this is ridiculous. The customers are
asking
for this, quite literally. The role of ‘victim’ doesn’t really exist here. None of these people are surprised anymore by what we do. I don’t feel a bit of guilt about any of this. Nature makes choices, conducts experiments, and sees how its creatures fare. Through our little experiment, we’ve uncovered a class of people who have entirely no sense. These people seek their own destruction. You know what we are? We’re a flytrap. We’re a roach motel. We’re natural selection. The smart customers have either been granted immunity or no longer come here. We’re only working on the dumb ones now. The
really
dumb ones, all coming of their own free will. I say, if they want to be harassed and assaulted, then we have every right to it.”
Philip shrugged, held his palms up. “Then you’ll need to start your own bagel deli,” he said. “This one belongs to Bingham and Wally, and they say what goes. We change, or we get fired.”
The phone was ringing. It was a strange sound at Bingham’s, since the phones had been disconnected for so long. Nobody seemed to know what to do.
Finally, Philip stood up. “Who could that be?” he said.
The Anarchist followed Philip’s progress to the back with his eyes. “A fly in the ointment,” he answered quietly.