Monday, September 15, 2024.

She stormed in like a woman on a mission. Because she was. Mik rarely left her office, but our last waiter quit yesterday, and that meant Mik was stuck waiting tables today. 

Third waiter this year.

Mik was the thirty-something 5’9” Fourth Wall manager with green hair, septum ring, and death’s head moth tattoos and today, she had bigger fish to fry than being short staffed. 

Literally—the Fourth Wall was without a cook and beer-battered haddock portions don’t fry themselves. 

Just before open, Mik called an emergency staff meeting. 

All three of us sat down at the bar: me, Mik, and the new kitchen staff, Jamison. I wouldn’t have hired him—he was underage, still in high school from what I understood. Mik took a chance on him back when she was dating Jamison’s aunt Bug, or something like that. The breakup was messy, but Jamison stayed on.

I didn’t ask too many questions. The kid pushed dirty dishes through the washer and put them away spotless. Good enough for me. 

“We’re short on glassware,” Mik announced. 

Short staffed? No problem. Short-glassed? Now we had a problem. 

“I’ve ordered more, but it’s gonna be a while until it ships with the custom Fourth Wall logo,” Mik sighed. Each glass had to have the Fourth Wall name and logo printed on it, per the owner Todd’s insistence. Todd didn’t come in much, and we all preferred it that way. 

I asked what we were supposed to do until the order came in. Mik slammed a stack of red Solo cups onto the bar. 

“Bought us a case of these from the Piggly Wiggly,” she replied. 

Great. I’d be serving Manhattans and Negronis fit for a frat party. 

The Fourth Wall had a reputation for being clean and affordably upscale—the kind of place people proposed at or took an out-of-town cousin to impress without breaking their bank account. We weren’t a red Solo Cup kind of establishment. 

The glassware had to be somewhere. And I was going to get to the bottom of it before you could say “pong”. 

Mik unlocked the front doors and I began to count glasses behind the bar. By my estimates, just over half the inventory was gone. Glass is bound to break—especially in a busy bar—but we were unusually low for mid-quarter. 

Six weeks ago, Mik ordered a handful of replacement glasses and hired Jamison. Coincidence? Maybe. It wasn’t in my nature to take issue with the kitchen staff, but the timing of his arrival made him my first suspect. 

With no customers yet, I decided to sweep the kitchen for evidence. If the kid was breaking glass like every shift was a Chuppah, there would likely be bits left behind in the corners and underneath the shelves. 

I grabbed a broom. 

Right off, I found a crusty penny behind the door, one shard of glass under the sinks, and some lint in the corner. The kid ran a tight ship. 

“Seen any of the patrons pocketing a glass or two?” I asked Jamison when he returned from the restroom. I chewed the end of my vape pen casually.

“Nope,” he shrugged. “I saw that last waiter drop a bunch though.”

Kevin was that waiter’s name and he wasn’t particularly good at the job. Quit yesterday after a scuffle between two inebriated patrons resulted in him wearing a tray of martinis. I made a mental note to swing by Kevin’s place later on. 

He still owed me a pizza. 

In the meantime, I returned to the bar just as the first patrons blew in. They were regulars. Two women. One man. All appeared to be in their mid-20s. They folded dripping umbrellas and seated themselves at their usual table near the back. 

Mik bopped over to jot down their orders. Obviously, the brunette and the mustachioed man were an item and the curvy woman with pink hair and a large black handbag was the third-wheel. 

Even more obvious was Mik. 

She leaned too close, touched too freely, and laughed too hard. Typical. 

It was shaping up to be a long shift already. I kept one eye on the back table. The pink-haired woman clutched her handbag close. Reached in once for lip gloss, again to check her phone, and a third time to slip in ketchup packets from the table caddy. 

I needed to make sure she didn’t try slipping a pint glass into that bag of hers. 

More patrons began to fill the tables. Each one was a potential suspect. 

Then I noticed the pink-haired woman lift her bag open again. I pretended to wipe the counter for the fifth time that night. It gave me an excuse to lean in for a better look. 

“Brita needs a refill,” Mik barked, popping into my line of vision. She dropped an order pad on the bar. 

I know table numbers and drink names. Unless ‘Brita’ was a new cocktail, Mik was going to have to be more specific. 

“Table 3, IPA.” She sighed. I delivered it in a Solo Cup. 

“We’re not out of pint glasses already?” Mik frowned. I warned her to keep an eye on her new friend Brita. 

She served the cup, leaned in close to whisper something, and then the pink-haired woman nodded. She snatched her bag off the table and followed Mik into the office. 

Finally, Mik was taking my advice. In the meantime I mixed the drinks, closed the tabs, and cleared the tables when I could. 

When it was time for my break, Jamison was still in the back keeping up with impressive efficiency. He’d even fried a batch of clams between loads of dishes. I told him I’d put in a good word with Todd for a raise. 

Right on cue, the back doors swung open and Mik tossed an apron at the pink-haired woman trailing behind her. 

“This is Brita,” she announced. “She’s our new waitress.” Before I could ask questions, Brita was on the floor taking orders from table 7 and Mik was dragging me back to the bar. 

Drinks don’t mix themselves, waitresses don’t train themselves. That shift was a train wreck, and Brita was our flailing caboose. I finally took my break on the back step an hour later, puffing my vape pen and wondering if Brita had any experience with waitressing. Surely Mik didn’t hire her on looks alone, right? 

After close, I stayed behind to recount the glassware. Same number we started with. So Brita was off my list of suspects. For now. She left with that oversized handbag of hers swinging from one shoulder. Whatever she slid into it from table 3, I’ll never know. 

Then my stomach rumbled. It seemed as though I might be paying Kevin a visit to redeem that pizza sooner rather than later. I threw on my trench coat and trudged into the rain. 

Before I paid Kevin a visit, I needed to change. So I headed toward my yurt in the back parking lot behind the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley. It was a five-minute walk. I took a hit of my vape pen to help me think. It tasted of grapes and burnt coils.

Outside the yurt, a soft clinking noise caught my attention. I called out, but didn’t see anyone. And then I noticed a discarded can of cheese by the wheel of the dumpster. A thin pink tail poked out the open end. I had to laugh. It was just a rat I called “Nacho” licking cheese. 

I took another drag off my vape, coughed, and made a mental note to replace that coil. Usually Nacho slept under my yurt or in the back corner inside. I didn’t mind. I told him I’d be back later on. Maybe I’d bring him a slice from Kevin’s. Nacho liked cheese.

Kevin answered on my third round of knocking on his apartment door. Maybe I should have texted first, but he might have turned me away and this was a matter of urgency.  

“I’m not going back,” he shouted through a peep hole. 

I told him Mik already hired someone else and I was there for a slice of Papa Gino’s with banana pepper and garlic butter crust. The chain lock clinked and the door cracked open. 

“Of course you are,” he muttered, waving me in. 

Of course I was. I gave him the rub down on the glassware situation. 

“Not my problem,” he shrugged.  

“Heard you might have broken an unusual amount of them,” I dropped casually. 

“The martini glasses that drunk guy smashed all over me? You aren’t seriously going to try to take that out of my paycheck or something are you?” Kevin was starting to raise his voice. Seemed rather defensive for a man with nothing to hide. 

I deescalated the tension—assured him we were good. I just needed to know. He said he didn’t drop any more than the rest of us. We sat in silence for a moment until the pizza delivery finally showed up.

After we each finished off a couple slices I brought my plate to the sink. There, at the bottom of the stainless steel basin by the drain, was a Fourth Wall pint glass with what looked to be the curdled remnants of chocolate milk in it. At first, I wondered if he might have a whole cabinet stocked with them. Kevin caught me staring. 

“Pretty cool, huh? I found it on eBay, in case you’re wondering,” he explained. Said some user named Casanova06 was selling them and that’s all he knew. I thanked him for the information, and for the pizza. 

Back inside my yurt, I decided to follow the lead given to me by Kevin. Sure enough, Casanova06 had plenty of Fourth Wall merchandise for sale. I sent them a message pretending to be interested and asked where they got them. 

Blocked.

The lead seemed like a dead-end so I decided I’d better get some sleep on my air mattress. Nacho was still nibbling pizza crusts underneath the yurt.  

The next night at the fourth wall went more smoothly. Brita clocked in ten minutes early and got to work memorizing table numbers with a pad of pink sticky notes she pulled from her bag. Jamison strolled in a few minutes later and squeezed in his Blue Jonesport backpack on the kitchen coat rack next to Brita’s obscenely large black tote. 

I wiped down the bar, primed the soda guns, and set the TVs on whatever sports were live. Nothing seemed amiss, unless you count the big stack of red Solo cups looming under the bar. 

Brita was a train wreck in hoop earrings. She tried to track orders with more of those pink sticky notes and worse, she managed to drop four glasses before the night was over. Mik finally left her office to help close. More like she hovered around Brita the way a bee hovers at a picnic. 

Mik was showing Brita how to count the tips when Jamison pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen shouldering his backpack. Mik asked something about cleaning out the fryer baskets and Jamison swung around fast. Too fast. His backpack clinked and all four of us stopped mid-task.

“What was that?” I asked. 

“Just some pens,” he replied, hurrying toward the front door. 

“Sounded like glass to me,” Mik remarked. She swung around the counter and took a step toward the kid. 

“It wasn’t my idea!” Jamison thrust his bag at Mik, who opened it and set half a dozen Fourth Wall glasses in a line on the bar.

“It was supposed to be a harmless prank. The bar has a budget for replacing them anyway,” he rambled. 

Just then a pounding on the front door interrupted our interrogation. Mik stomped to the door. 

“We’re closed!” She yelled before glancing through the window to see who was there. 

Standing on the stoop was a stocky woman in cargo jeans with a buzz cut and a flannel coat. 

“We’re definitely closed,” Mik muttered, recognizing the woman instantly and unlocking the bolt. “What do you want, Bug?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“I’m here to pick up my nephew,” Bug replied, stepping inside around her ex-girlfriend. “Ready to go?” Bug looked at Jamison, then at the array of glasses on the bar and the empty Jonesport backpack laying next to them. 

“Oh hell no,” she said, turning on one heel to bolt outside. 

“Why, Bug?” Mik whined. Bug didn’t respond. Just stormed out with Jamison slinking behind her dragging his empty backpack.

“I’m still getting my last paycheck, right?” Jamison asked sheepishly with one foot still inside.

“Yes,” groaned Mik.

“Casanova, I presume?” I asked, continuing to wipe down the bar stools.

“She likes to think so,” Mik answered dryly. Then she turned to Brita. “How would you like to work in the kitchen?” She asked with a grin. 

“Can’t be worse than waiting tables,” Brita shrugged. The glasses clinked as Mik stacked them together.  

“Are you going to press charges?” Brita asked, casually returning to her count at the register. 

“Nah,” she sighed, “after everything I put Bug through, I probably deserved that.” Then she padded into the kitchen, swinging doors whomping quietly behind her. 

It wasn’t my business what went on between them. I was just happy to see another mystery solved.