2020-08-04 - Boss, The Bartender Got Shot

The evening shift is just a few minutes away when a tall, Scandinavian bloke turns up. He seems to have a habit of being a bit too early for work rather than too late, a trait which at least some employers would appreciate (while naturally, others might dismiss it as pointless kissing backside). He exchanges black kidskin gloves for a pair of bright blue rubber ditto and heads towards the men's room -- not exactly famous for its high hygiene standards. Strangely enough, this fellow seems to actually look forward to getting at it with soap, water, and elbow grease. He's clearly disturbed.

A perhaps unfamiliar blonde pops out of the office as Ravn is passing from the kitchen with his cleaning implements and damn near bowls him over had she not drawn up short. Well, short is a relative term, she's relatively tall with her long legs clad in a pair of cut off denim shorts that are trimmed high enough to have the pockets hanging out of the bottom hem. It's a terribly professional outfit, paired with a flowered flowy yellow spaghetti strap top, but she's holding a clipboard, so. BAM! Professional.

"Oh! Crappydoodle, sorry about that. Wait, who are you?" Blue grey eyes blink blankly at Ravn.

Blue grey eyes blink back; apparently the two people have at least one thing in common. The man's wearing black from top to toe save but for those blue rubber gloves -- boots, jeans, turtleneck; hard to tell if he's a Steve Jobs fan boy or a Johnny Cash impersonator.

"I'm the bloke who cleans up," he tells her, trying -- and failing -- to suppress a smile at the exclamation, and inadvertedly revealing an accent that isn't British but no doubt aspires to graduate to it some day. "And since you're coming out of that office carrying a clipboard -- I'm going to venture a guess and say that you're my boss? Name is Ravn." Pronounced something along the lines of raown but not quite.

"New guy!" Bennie chirps. She wipes her hand on the butt of her shorts - already clean but a habit - and holds it out for him. "Yeah, we desperately needed a new bar back after the last one stopped showing up on account of the ghosts. NOTthatwehaveghosts." She's quick to tack on to the end. "I guess I'm technically the boss, defacto boss, interim boss until the real boss returns from the...unexpected vacation he took. HI! I'm Bennie. It's not short for anything. But I suspect Rowen isn't short for anything either. Unless maybe...no, I can't think of anything that'd be short for." A micropause, then again, "Hi."

Ravn manages to not laugh out loud at his boss, though he has to bite his lip briefly to achieve those levels of self control. He fails to pull off the rubber glove before shaking her hand -- though at least he's not dipped his hands in any toilets or urinaries yet. "I haven't seen any ghosts so far. Should I expect to see ghosts? Are they at least polite ghosts who flush? I like people who flush very much," he murmurs with a pointed glare at the men's room.

"Right, er. Good to meet you. Vic hired me. I hope she told you!" Ravn picks himself together. "Sorry, it's been a -- day. I mean, for one, Vic got shot. That's not something I've seen a lot."

There is an enthusiastic hand shaking occurring, "No blushing ghosts, but we have a few customers that get bright red. If you've ever met Itzhak, all you have to say is BOOBS and," Bennie whistles. "There he goes." A blink, then a glance down at the bucket and then follows his gaze to the bathrooms. "Oh, not that kind of flushing. Sorry, lotta coffee. But then do ghosts even pee to need flushing? Well, there's that one from the Harry Potter movies, but then she just lives like, in the toilet. So flushing probably isn't optimal for her..." There she goes on a tangent again, and she has to rein herself back.

"Yeah, I totally gave Vic permission to bring you on board. My friend Aidan texted me about you, so I thought, hey why not. But she gave me paperwork for someone named...Raven? Even typoed the name, but that's so Vic." She starts flipping through some papers on the clipboard looking for a 'Rowen' on her schedule. "Yeah, I know, sucks about Vic. Another Rig brought her into the ER, but I was there to transfer her to the gurney. I only run the bar in Easton's absence. I'm an EMT in my other life."

"If she spelled it with four letters she got it right," the Dane observes, smiling in part because of the barrage and in part because he's really not quite up to speed on the social rules for telling your boss that your co-worker capped a guy before lunch. His PhD somewhat failed to cover that option, which really only goes to show that you can't trust academia to prepare you for life. "Right. So you knew that. Is she going to be all right? I was sort of stretching my neck and trying to decide to offer to go along in the ambulance or not but then... Something came up."

The tone of his voice implies that it probably wasn't the need to go have a Frappucino and look at Facebook a bit.

"Oh." Bennie flips again, then takes the pen from the clip of the on the top and makes - not a little check mark - but a smiley face next to his name on the first sheet before handing him an envelope. "Payday! Yeah, Vic'll be just fine. Us Gray Harborinos are strong stock. Sorry you had to witness that though, that's tough, like. The first half dozen times." She's joking, right? Though she wears a broad smile by default, so it's hard to tell. "Hey, aren't you like...burning up in that outfit? I mean. It's, like, summer. If you want I think I have a box of Deuce t-shirts in the office?"

I hope she's joking. She probably isn't. Ravn tucks the envelope into his pocket, still not entirely certain about whether Americans expect you to open the envelope and look, or indeed not; back home, looking would imply that you think the boss is trying to cheat you so he errs on the side of caution. "I'm starting to get the feeling there's a lot going on in this town," he agrees and for a moment he's got that native look; the I have seen shit look. That was fast.

Onwards, to a safer topic! The Dane glances down at himself. "I'm kind of used to it," he admits. "Although, I might go shop for some t-shirts or something now that I've decided to stay around for a while. I'm thinking about getting a boat, putting it at quay down here in the Bay -- and maybe, you know, get off Aidan's couch before his girlfriend comes home and thinks she's wandered into a college dorm. Right -- er, I actually didn't get to ask Vic about that. Is there some kind of dress code? No one's complained that I've heard but..."

Bennie reaches out to try and pluck at the man's turtled neck, the personal bubble not existing for the blonde. "Gosh, you've gotta be sweaty in there. It must be really, really hot where you're from for you to find G-H chilly enough to wear this." Her nose wrinkles as she leans in close to try and examine the fabric. "Oh, no dress code. I mean. Safety first or whatever, I'm sure there is some rule about closed toed shoes." Her face screws up as she looks down to her own sandals. "Eh." She shrugs dismissively.

Ravn can't help another chuckle. "Actually, the opposite. I'm from a country that's sitting just above freezing, and drizzling most of the time -- maybe that's why I love the heat. Right. So, anything I can do to help out now that Vic is going to be gone for a bit? I mean, there's a reason she hasn't let me near the bar, I should probably mention that. If it has a named label on I can find it but I don't know a thing about mixing drinks."

Bennie's smile turns to the thousand watt level as he laughs, the sound contagious as she gives a little titter of her own, if a bit sheepish. "We have other bartenders that can fill in, we keep a preeeeetty hearty staff to account for all the...mishaps. So just keep the bar stocked and the glasses clean, and we'll be golden. But if you really want to learn to bartend, I can lend you my 'Bartending For Dummies' book so we can eventually get you promoted!"

"Can't hurt to get better at what I'm doing," the Dane replies; Bennie's smile in turn is contagious as well, and a crooked ditto takes up residence on his face. "That said, Vic did hire me to clean things, not to haul drinks, so please don't think I'm complaining. I may be plotting the murder of a few male patrons with very bad aim but to be fair, it's been like that in the mens' room anywhere I've worked. Some guys seriously need -- you know, I saw that in a bar once, they'd put a sticker of a fly at the bottom of the urinal. Apparently guys aim for it and they made a lot less of a mess. I'm half thinking of going looking for fly stickers because some of those folks, I'm telling you, I wonder how they ever manage to keep their shoes dry."

"Payday!" Bennie chirps to one of the waitresses as she passes, handing over an envelope and likewise checking the woman off her list with a little scribbled heart before her attention returns to Ravn. "You don't seem like you have a complaining bone in your body, but don't worry, I know you'll stay in line." She ticks him a quick wink.

"Right?! Firehose syndrome. They get a coupla beers in them and it's like they can't keep a grip on the ole water pressure and the thing just goes all..." Yes, she's demonstrating with a swirl of her hand where words fail her. "You do a noble and brave job, sir."

The man who's tasked with cleaning up after the fire squad bursts into a short laugh. "Right? Right? Fly stickers it is."

Then he shakes his head. "I can complain all right, just got to give me something to complain about. Vic didn't tell me I'd be doing anything else than what I'm doing, and I kind of like cleaning things, actually. I know, I know. Crazy Danish people. But tell me if there's anything I can do to help out while she's gone, okay? If she hadn't done... the thing she did... I mean, who knows who might have ended up on the floor. It was bad enough as is, and at least she did stop that guy before he started shooting up everyone else. I kind of feel I owe her one."

There's an exaggerated grimace when Ravn mentions Vic again, and what she did to potentially protect others. "Don't worry, I'm sure when she gets back, she'll have no trouble turning you into her little beotch if you want to make it up to her. Until then, we have a beer delivery scheduled in about thirty, if you want to help haul and set up the kegs, I know the other girls will really appreciate it. For now, I'll let you get back to your work. I've gotta get out these paychecks and then sit my little hiney down and have a tall one. I am exhausted."

Ravn laughs again and nods. "Sure thing. And yeah, I figured." He doesn't seem to mind the idea of being bossed around; then again, a man who does probably does not take a job like that unless he's desperate, and while the Dane certainly doesn't look like a million bucks, he also does not look -- well, desperate. "I'll go show off my superior physique and impress them all with my masculine prowess."

He's probably joking. He is on the slender side. The Hulk he is not. But quite cheerful, and maybe that's the important thing.