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“Why haven’t you let them know you sign yet?” she asks.
“Because if I do they won’t act normal,” I tell her. “They think they can get away with whatever they want because no one knows what they’re saying, so we’re going to play a bit of poker. I hold my cards really close to the chest and when they least expect it I take them for all they’ve got.”
“Smart girl you got here,” Andy said placing the last draft on the tray.
“Sam said she was bright, but I wasn’t expecting this,” Maura said giving her a pat on the shoulder, her act of total approval.
I took the drinks over holding them up as I said what they were, acting as though the hand movements were distracting me and covering for the fact that I was understanding everything they said. I gave them a while to finish the drinks before I went back over this time catching a quieter conversation regarding myself that the two men in the center were conducting down near the table. When I saw them talking about sex, followed by my name spelled out, and a few signs even I didn’t know for certain but could hazard a good guess weren’t along the lines ofmarriage and babies, I thought I’d throw up. Somehow I held it together and waited for the right moment.
It came a couple hours later, most of the club was cleared out, a few stragglers remained here and there, but the fathers were holding center court. They were all well inebriated, and I had already cut their drinks down, but when Kat came onto the stage dressed in a school girl uniform they started getting bolder in their conversations.
Now I’ve heard a lot of things over the past five years, but I’ll be damned if I ever heard a conversation like the one taking place. These men were sick. When Kat took her top off it got worse and then I saw my name being thrown into the mix and the next few comments firmed my commitment to stay single. The ones that followed them had me wishing I was more inclined to other lifestyles because I seriously was about to give up on men completely.
And then there was the kicker, a string of signs that shouldneverhave been strewn together, but they had been, and I was livid.
“Oh,hellno,” I say surprising myself as well as several of the other workers who were hanging out around the bar as the crowd dispersed, by the vehemence in my voice. It was one thing for them to joke around about the waitresses or comment on the dancers’ looks but this was too much. There was no way I’d sit, or stand, around while they pervertedly signed amongst themselves about all the vile, repulsive, amoral, asinine things they wanted to do to me.
No way in hell.
Maura watched on approvingly as I marched over to the table and waited until they all looked up at me. Once I had their attentions, I let them have it, telling them with words as well as signing exactly what I thought of them.
“Usually if I saw someone talking like you all have been, I’d ask if they kissed their mothers or children with their mouths but this,this, is even worse. You’re supposed to befathers. The hands that you’re using to tell each other how you’d like to degrade me, or the others are the same hands that hold yourchildren, tuck them into bed with, and help them communicate to the world with, and you’re using them likethis? What kind of low-life cretins are you?”
I heard a low intake of breath coming from the bar, but it didn’t stop me, if they’d been talking this way about me after only knowing me for a couple of hours, I’d hate to know what they’d said about some of the other girls.
“What would you do if someone was talking about your daughter or your wife like that? If someone signed or said they’d like to tie her up andforceher to do whatever you wanted? Huh? What? Nothing to say for yourselves? No? Then get the hell out of here anddo notcome back. At least the other patrons here still show a small amount of respect to those of us doing what we do, and in some of the cases the only thing they can do to supporttheirchildren,” I say stopping when my disgust for them overwhelms my other senses and I simply cannot stand to look at them any longer.
I didn’t see their expressions after I finished but Maura told me that they paid their tab leaving asizeabletip for me, like over a thousand-dollar tip for me, but I knew I couldn’t touch that money.
“Give it to the local women’s shelter or something,” I told her. “I don’t wantanythingthat came from them.”
“That bad?” Maura asked.
“No, worse—much,muchworse,” I said, knowing it’d be a night I wouldn’t soon forget.
Chapter 3
Iwas right, I didn’t forget about that group of fathers, and it turns out they didn’t forget about me either because a couple months afterwards I was heading home from my part-time accounting position when someone bumped into me. Like most, the first glance didn’t send any recognition through them, and why should it? I was dressed in a pair of soft black dress-pants paired with a white buttoned-down top and a light purple cardigan vest. A far cry from my itty-bitty skirts and barely-there tops and let’s be honest they were never really looking at my face.
So imagine my surprise to hear a voice say, “Excuse me.” A voice that a couple months before had ordered most of the drinks at the club, and then imagine his surprise and horror to realize it was me. Right there on the crowded sidewalk his jaw dropped open, no sounds came out except for a staccato of “uh, uh, uh,” and I couldn’t hide a small victorious smile that popped onto my face. I also couldn’t hide my complete lack of respect for the, and I’ll use this wordveryloosely, man, and as such decided to get away as quickly as possible.
I launched myself into the midst of the pedestrians crossing the street and prayed he’d lose sight of me, but you guessed it, no luck. He grabbed my arm and I had to physically restrain myselffrom forcefully removing it but the look of disgust I shot him and then down to where his hand was, convinced him to drop his grip on me. He held up his hands, took a step backwards away from the throngs of people walking about, and put more space between us.
“Ame,” he said, and I hated the sound of it coming from him.
“Don’t,” I stated a bit harshly but the memories from that night had haunted my dreams for weeks and I didn’t want them to begin again.
“I wanted to apologize, for running into you and also for what happened in the club. You were right, we were completely out of line.”
“So big of you to admit it, but you all weren’t simply out of line, you were completely repulsive. You’re all just lucky I don’t know your wives or else they’d knowexactlyhow unsuited you all are at being fathers.”
“I…we…everyone there that night, are extremely sorry for our behavior, we didn’t think anyone would understand what we were saying, and we took it too far,” he said awkwardly.
“You honestly think it makes it better that you all thought no one would understand? Guess what? It doesn’t, and you all were at the too far mile marker well before you walked in there that night. I know you’ve run off several waitresses in the past with your vulgarity, even though theydidn’tknow what you were saying.”
“Forget it,” he said throwing his hands up in the air huffily. “You obviously aren’t going to accept the apology so there’s no point in wasting my breath.”
“Forget it? You want me to forget it? Do you honestly think I can forget that you and your buddies said you wanted to tie me up…”
