I repeated myself and he said, “Hang on.”
He went into a room at the back of the kitchen, and I thought for certain he was calling the Millbrae Police Department. When he came out, he held a bill. “Is this yours?”
I looked it over. “Yeah that’s it.”
“The waitress said it was a dine and dash.”
“No. Just a mistake.”
“You plan to pay in full?”
“Yes,” I said.
He shrugged, looking more than a little confused, and rang up the bill on the cash register. I handed him cash and walked toward the door.
“Hey,” he called. I turned around. “Why’d you do it?”
“I told you it was just a mistake. My—”
“No. Why’d you come back to pay?”
He knew I was lying. He knew it had been a dine and dash. “I don’t know,” I said.
But I did know.
I was ten when I accompanied my father to the ACE Hardware store in Millbrae. I don’t recall what he purchased, but I do recall he handed the cashier a ten-dollar bill and she gave him back change for a twenty. I remember thinking we’d hit the mother lode.
“No. That’s not right,” my father said. “I only gave you a ten.” He handed the woman back her ten-dollar bill. She cried.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We lost our nephew in Vietnam. My sister got the word last night.”
My dad expressed his condolences before we walked to the parking lot. “Why are we in that damn war?” he said.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Huh?”
“Why’d you give her back the ten dollars?”
“Never take anything that doesn’t belong to you or that you haven’t earned,” he said, sliding into the car. “You never know who you’re stealing from, and what that money means to them.”
I had forgotten that moment until that summer, when I worked with William.
My Brother’s Place was a strategic choice. To underage drinkers, a bar’s most important attributes are dark lighting and cheap beers. My Brother’s Place had both. The patrons inside were sparse, even for a weeknight, and we hoped the bartender would see our money as no different from anyone else’s. Cap and Mif didn’t get carded because they looked twenty-five. I was eighteen and looked sixteen.
We stepped through the swinging door like we were stepping into a western saloon. Confidence was key. You walked in like you owned the place, like you belonged. You sauntered in, like Todd Pearson, a badass who showed no fear. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting from the bloodred candles on the half-dozen nicked and scarred tables. My Brother’s Place was well worn. I don’t remember the carpet color; I just recall that it crackled beneath your feet when you walked across it. A window faced the sidewalk, but the owner had put black film on the inside. We made our way to the three empty booths with vinyl seats lining the back wall, which was painted a dark gray, or black. I couldn’t tell. Flecks of white showed through where the paint had chipped. I remember thinking the walls looked like outer space.
Three patrons sat on barstools nursing cocktails and watching a black-and-white television mounted over the bar. Each looked older than dirt. The bathroom was in the back, past the bar, along with an office and a storage area. A door led to an alley. I’d learned this when I’d used the bathroom in June, just in case I ever needed a quick escape.
I’m not sure why, but My Brother’s Place had a piano. The lid reflected the red, white, and blue neon Budweiser sign hanging in the window, and tonight, a piano player sat at the keyboard, playing and singing a song I recognized. I figured the guy had to be a customer, that the bar wouldn’t spring for a piano man on a weeknight with so few customers, but he was really good.
Mif and Cap handed me dollar bills. “Vinny B., your turn. Get us a beer,” Cap said.
“What? I’m not buying the beer. I look the youngest of all of us.”
“Exactly. Bull by the horns,” Cap said. “He won’t expect you. If you sit here, he’ll think we’re hiding you and card us all.”
“That’s the stupidest—”
“Do it,” Cap said, and I didn’t have much choice. The longer we delayed, the more suspicious we all looked. Confidence is key, I told myself as I slid from the booth and walked to the bar. I fully expected to get shot down, and I didn’t really care. I had work in the morning. “Three Buds,” I said.
“Got an ID?” The bartender looked midthirties. He wore a light-blue bowling shirt and had long sideburns.