Photo by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash
Here I am cleaning the bar while they sit on their asses smoking cigarettes. I’m not the only employee here. Why doesn’t the boss yell at Juan and Carlos to clean up?
Juan grinned at me from his bar stool as he let smoke sail out of his pursed lips like the exhaust of an old car. He winked and I cringed. Using his thumb and index finger to put his cigarette back into his mouth, he turned away from me slowly to rejoin the conversation between the boss and Carlos.
They were chatting about one of the women who had come to the bar that night. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the leering looks on their faces, it was derogatory.
The woman had come in alone, walking into the bar around 9 p.m. in a purple satin blouse, a black pencil skirt with a slit up to her panty line, and black stiletto heels. She flipped her dyed-blonde hair over her shoulder as she sat down at an empty table, the lace of her panties showing at the top of the slit in her skirt.
Quickly, both Juan and Carlos had rushed over like ants at a picnic. Together, they bought her a martini.
She stayed for awhile as I made drinks behind the bar and Juan and Carlos waited on tables. She sat alone for only a few minutes because a tall man in a suit asked if he could sit with her. She smiled at his question and waved him into a chair. For two hours, the dyed-blonde and well-dressed man chatted, their elbows on the table as they leaned toward each other.
Finally, they got up. She smoothed down her skirt and tucked in her blouse. He held out his hand. She put her hand in it. They walked across the dimly lit room and out the double door together.
It was 4:30 a.m. The bar had closed at 4 a.m. Since then, I had gathered the dirty glasses from the twenty-six tables in the room and put them in the dishwasher. I had collected the ashtrays, dumped the ashes into the trash, cleaned each of them in a pan of soapy water, and set them to dry in the drying tray.
While I was doing all this, Carlos and Juan had sat down with the boss at one of the high tables. The boss had pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bar and poured it into three glasses. They had been drinking their whiskey for half an hour while I did the cleanup all by myself.
How misogynistic. Juan and Carlos got paid for drinking whiskey with the boss while I played Cinderella?
I wiped down the top of the bar, rubbing it with a cloth until the granite gleamed in the low lighting. I threw the caps and empty bottles of liquor into the recycling trash, counted the remaining bottles of liquor, and wrote the numbers down on an inventory sheet.
Suddenly, I blew a gust of air out of my clenched mouth and banged my fists on the bar. I turned toward the men drinking whiskey and waved my hands.
“Hey, when are you guys going to sweep and mop the floor and wash the tables?” I yelled over the music that was still blasting from the juke box.
The boss stopped what he was saying, put his glass up to his mouth as his eyes settled on me, and swallowed the last bit of whiskey in his glass. Carlos and Juan’s eyes turned toward me in silence.
“Hey, Grace, you do such a fine job. Why don’t you clean up everything tonight?” the boss said. He cocked his head toward Carlos and Juan ever so slightly as he spoke.
I took a deep breath, my chest expanding like a balloon while anger filled my eyes.
“Boss, the sweeping and mopping is not my job. I’m the bartender. The waiters are supposed to do those chores,” I said, trying to hide my fury.
The boss poured more whiskey into his glass as Carlos and Juan grinned down at their table. Carlos took his hands and pulled the ends of his bowtie to straighten it. Juan flipped one of his hands into the air like he was dismissing a servant.
This was ridiculous. Why would I want to work in a place with such a male-chauvinist crew? I had to show them that I wouldn’t put up with this. No woman should.
I untied the short white apron that was hitched around my jeans, scrunched it up into my right hand, and threw it across the room at the three men. It landed at their feet.
“Whoa, girl. Watch your temper,” the boss said. “Pick this up.” All three men stared at me, spectators watching fish in an aquarium.
Really? They don’t have a clue what I’m saying. I guess I’ll have to make myself crystal clear.
“I quit,” I said. “Pick it up yourself.” I took a pile of coasters from on top of the bar and threw them over the granite. They landed under the bar stools and across the linoleum. Then, I strode to the bar’s swinging door, pushed it open, and slammed it back so hard that it clunked on the cupboard behind me. I paced across the room toward the exit.
“I’ll pick up my last check tomorrow,” I said, twisting back toward them and winking before leaving the building.