Flirtbird and the Black Thong

The Taquito Tuesday thing took off like a rocket down at the Oceanic Brew Pub. It was, from the perspective of the kitchen, an ass buster, one sheet pan of those little rolled tacos after another going into the oven. Fortunately—for the owners, Roy and Rafaela—they had hired Hobgood, a guy who had spent 40 years of his 57 years on Earth working in kitchens. The orders kept coming in, and Hobgood, working like a devil, kept putting them out.

"We're talkin' Taquitos, Hobsie. A double order!" Rafaela shouted through the service window.

"Comin' up, Rafe. Comin' up." Hobgood called out to her as he slid another sheet pan out of the oven.  "I love this guy," Rafaela said to Roy.

Roy might have said the same thing of him if Hobgood were a woman, and if the woman of his dreams hadn't just professed her love for the old boy.

"I could just go in there and hug him," Rafaela said, knowing full well that she was pissing Roy off.

"Cool down, hot stuff," Roy said to Rafaela through the service window. "The guy's old enough to be your father." 

"Hey Hobsie," Rafaela called back into the kitchen, "You're rockin' it back there. I'm gonna call you," giving Roy a side eye, "my snuggle bunny from now on."

"Fuck me in the ass," Roy mumbled as he strode away. He pushed through the winging door out of the kitchen and made his way to the dining room, to read the collective mood of his customers, and through the window, Hobgood gave Rafaela a thumbs up as he set up three more plates of taquitos.

Flirtbird

Rafaela was jazzed. Money was surging through the door like an incoming tide.

The idea of the Taquitos—Hobgood's' idea—was genius. They came pre-made and frozen, 60 to a box. They were reasonably priced and easy to heat up for serving, for shoveling them out to the crowd, out of the kitchen to the hungry hordes. A relentless flow of money. A good thing for Rafaela, since she'd forked over a good part of her nest egg to become a partner with Roy. Though Roy was persistent, in love in his own way. So she developed a tactic. When he was seeing especially hot and bothered, she would flirt outrageously with customers in he dining room, and even make a show of it with old broken-down Hobgood Rivard, who was an especially good choice of flirt partners. He seemed so innocent, so old, so bereft of any carnal interest in her, or any other woman, for that matter. She'd throw a flirtbird his way, he'd just grin, blush and go about his job

Find Her an Empty Lap, Fellas

The first Taquito Tuesday at the Oceanic Brew Pub took off; the taquitos were selling like hotcakes. Hobgood Rivard, the new hire cook, kept up with the rush by working like the devil, sheet pans full of the little rolled Mexican treats going in and out of the oven with a machine-like precision. Roy Leahy, the co-owner of the place, had joined Hobgood in the kitchen to make sure things went smoothly. Rafaela, the other co-owner, held down the dining room, toting trays of stouts and ales and plates piled high with guacamole, salsa and streaming hot taquitos for the hungry (and thirsty) crowd, while Brenda, the bartender, took care of the bar.

Hobgood checked out the crowd as he set an order in the service window and saw Rafaela pulling yet another of her flirtbird moves at table six, a free-standing six-seater with six pretty boy fops gathered seated all around. Rafalea stood too close to the prettiest of the guys and placed a hand on his shoulder and threw back her head and laughed at something he said, while the Larry Lenihan Trio, led by Larry on his alto saxophone held down the small stage beside the hall that led back to the bathroom, toodling into Thelonious Monk's "Well, You Needn't."

"Hey, Roy," Hobgood called back to the boss. "Come here and check out Rafaela."

Roy took a sheet pan of hot taquitos out of the oven and laid them on the prep table and came over to the service window in time ot catch his business partner tousling the loose curls of her customer while the man's friends laughed.

"Jesus H. Christ," Roy said. "Why doesn't she just sit down on the guy's lap?"

"Or," Hobgood said, wondering if this wasn't maybe going a little too far, "maybe she could slip yesterday's thong into his shirt pocket."

There was a split second before Roy reacted. This gave Hobgood a momentary worry. He'd only worked here at the Oceanic for three weeks now, and he wasn't sure he'd sized up the Roy/Rafaela dynamic. He was sure that Roy had the hots for the girl, and he was sure she was holding him off. But a gentle gang up on Rafaela's shenanigans with Roy had worked to keep things loose, so far.

Roy's hard, cold look relaxed as he caught the gist of the joke. Laughed at the thought of Rafaela's thong nestled into Mr. Cute's shirt pocket. He burst out laughing at the image of Rafaela smiling as she tucked the little spider web of a garment in a pocket next to her flirt partner's heart. Hobgood grinned. "She is," Roy said, "Shameless."

The Black Thong

When the supper rush eased up, Roy stepped out of the kitchen to go out into the dining room to glad- hand and hobnob, and help out Rafaela with the serving. This as the piano—in a break between numbers by the Lenihan trio—tinkled into Duke Ellington's "Flirtbird," from the Duke's Anatomy of a Murder (Columbia Records, 1959). Saxophonist Lenihan was familiar with the tune—though he couldn't put a name to it—and he stepped back up and toodled into a bird-like take on the melody, as the ghost of Juanita Diaz-Johnson, mother of Rafaela, stepped in with a eased into a relaxed accompaniment mode, as knowing whispers in the crowd of diners told the uninformed just who the transparent entity was sitting on the bench at the old upright piano that had been with the Johnson-Diaz family for decades. Opinion on this was divided. Some said it, the beautiful, full-figured middle-aged pianist was a hologram; others said it was a ghost.

The crowd noise ebbed and the band played on. The music was transfixing. When Juanita brought the tune to a close with a delicate glissando,, Larry told his audience that he and boys were going on a short break (to smoke cigarettes in the back alley, he didn't say). But before he could get to the door, Juanita, still holding down the piano chair, bounced into "Lulu's Back in Town,"  inspired by her daughter's highjinks with the guys in the dining room. Larry froze with his hand on the knob of the back door. "I'll be right out, guys, he told his bandmates."

He U-turned and retook the stage. If ever there was a song that needed vocals to work, it was "Lulu... " He stepped back up on the higher level. Juanita, reclining in a long black evening gown, her dark hair pinned up high, smiled at him, and Larry sang:

"Gotta get a half a buck somewhere,
Gotta shine my shoes and slick my hair, 
Gotta get myself a boutonniere,
"'Cause Rafe's back in town.

Rafaela recognized one of Mama's favorite songs, and she spied her—Juanita Diaz-Johnson, at the height of her feminine allure— smiling across the dining room at her frisky daughter, thinking "Some things never change."

And Larry, in his smooth tenor voice, went on:

"You can tell all my pets, 
All my Brew Pub Coquettes,
Mr. Larry regrets,
That he won't be around... "

Larry, since he couldn't recall the rest of the lyrics, exited, stage left, and strode down the hallway to the alley, thinking about the hug Rafaela had given him when he showed up earlier that night. Him and Rafe? He wished. He was old enough to be her father. He fished in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and found, behind the pack, a tiny, delicate spiderweb of black thong that he'd never seen before.

"Oh shit," he said, thinking about his earlier hug from Rafe; but really it was Juanita who put it there. Juanita, who liked the way Larry Lenihan played the saxophone.

More from The Oceanic Brew Pub Chroniciles: Dance Dance Dance; I Wish I Were In Love Again; Hello Angelina; Billie Holiday Blues.

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