Assisi & Brannan #1: The Night Before

If there’s one thing I learned last night it’s that I shouldn’t moonlight anymore. Sam takes one look at my face and tells me I need more sleep. It’s that obvious. A new mother and a senior citizen are not that different—they both need more sleep. Me? I’m neither. I just need more hours to shut down.

There’s also another very practical reason: I don’t have the energy to do my day job. More on that later.

Last night I drove Andrea and her girlfriends to the city.  By the time they sat down for dinner they had hit three bars. I get it. Andrea, a really spectacular woman, was in Balenciaga. She dressed around her bag which she had told me cost $5000. WTF? I mean really, WhyTF would you spend so much on a bag? Even on sale? The rest of the gear was straight off a Paris runway. Feathered collar on a cropped jacket, skin-tight pants of a sheer gossamer material and six-inch heels.  I was envious. She looked great. I didn’t in my uniform.I get it when you are middle-aged you need to book from the family.

She had four friends with her who had more brand names on their persons than I could count on my hands and feet.  Andrea had done well choosing her company.  Not one could I label as spectacular.

I took the Hummer into San Francisco because that was what Andrea ordered. She usually books the limo but sometimes goes for the ATV look.

“It’s okay, Garnet,” Sam says watching me panic.

So I’m here waiting with the Hummer parked on California while the women are chowing down $30 plates of succulent scallops and sole inside Boulevard. I’m almost done texting Sam about where I am when a man as tall as he is wide comes at me cursing. 

“Get the fucking Hummer off my spot!”

I’m 5′ 4″ in my socks in a Halloween uniform that Sam got from a store in the Mission. My nails are cracked and my hair feels dry, but I’m not taking crap from an extra-wide, has-been receiver.
“I don’t see your name on the pavement,” I retort, immediately regretting what I’ve said. Fear prickles down my spine.

“What did you say, you little bitch?” he snarls. Hot, stale breath wafts to me.

I hate bullies and my head now hurts.

“I was here first,” I say. What are you going to do? I ask wordlessly.

“You don’t park here. You park there!” I didn’t look where he pointed. It was night and dark and a part of the city I didn’t know.

“Sam told me to park here,” I said.

He paused mid-sentence through his profanity.

“Sam. Sam Grier? You know him?”

That constriction in my chest eased. My stomach fluttered. My hands were damp.

“Sam’s my partner.” I swallow.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We are buddies.”

I spent the next hour talking to Square Man, aka Joe “Fusilli” Marino, about his job, his boss, and his family. My headache deepened to shards of agony.

I took Andrea and her friends home at midnight. They were drunk and happy.

I’m a wreck.

“I quit” I texted Sam.

© Jocelyn Uma 2014. All Rights Reserved.