Craven's Eighteenth

    "It was like a rock upon a pillow", he said as Felicia awakened sitting aside him, with her hair relaxed, permed, or containing some chemical substance which was used to straighten and lengthen curls. He wondered about the reason that the lye substance didn't eke upon his shoulder where she was resting her head.
    "You missed it!!!  You missed the entire show!! Now you'll pretend that you're interested and start asking me questions about it!!"
    They were walking together now, hand-in-hand, seeming as whimsical as always yet skeptical as they departed from the theatre.
      "Don't start talking about that restaurant again because only you like those taverns that seem more suitable for drunkards and Southern riff raff!!"
    She was talking about Outback or the Australian themed restaurant where everyone now had started complaining about the quality of service and character of its wait staff personnel.  He had recently dined there alone and as always had appreciated its food and cuisine yet dreaded its prices for beer, wine, and liquor. The spirits that he believed enchanted a meal for more hearty consumption. There were other spirits, too.  Like voices from his past, which included, Doug Ninow, a trainer and human resources specialist, from The Hartford in Tampa, Florida, who remarked or commented,

"That was the absolute worse service that you have ever had at that restaurant!!"

Possibly referring to the Outback restaurant located upon Brandon Blvd near Providence Road in Brandon, Florida.

"You know that the restaurant chain is a franchise and that its fare is equivalent to fast food!!"

"Your dark-haired, black-haired or brunette straight-haired female server was crazy!!!"

"She deliberately mis-served and underserved and deceived you!!"

"Not only was the service awful and slow, she committed the cardinal sin of table service dining!!"

"She forgot to acquire and deliver the silverware!!"

"She acquired your alcoholic beverage and appetizer order yet did not set the table with silverware!!"

"She really should be fired for that!!"

"That's the reason that you have to be experienced, knowledgeable, and sophisticated about the customs and rituals of the world because people are so deceptive and misleading!!"

"They will embarass and humiliate you every time!!"

"And everything has meaning and significance so you must think upon a certain level!!"

"They would never disgrace me or Byron within that manner because we are old pros when the subject is food, eating, or dining!!"

Possibly referring Byron Cohen, a claims adjuster also at The Hartford

"A crazy female server would never disrespect or disgrace two gay men!!"

"Australian people must really hate you since you received that bad service at Outback!!"

"Maybe it was because you conveyed that dreadful book, THE WRITING SAMPLER, onto the premises!!"

"Oh, by the way, Australians would never read or buy your book!!"

"I would never eat there, again!!"

"Seriously, the server dug within her ass and touched your food!!"

Then JIll Bargonetti, once from Bronx High School of Science in New York City, continues,

"You see!! You see!! You see!!  People are shit and are always anticipating an opportunity to derelict and deprive you, especially Southern people or Southerners!!"

"If I were you, I would never eat at that restaurant again!!"

"If you ask for two shots of Drambuie, and the stupid woman conveys maybe a shot and a quarter because you don't really know what two shots really appear like within a sifter glass or because you don't aggressively notice these things, it's because the server is corrupt, crazy, or incompetent!!"

"All you do is allow ignorant and hateful Southern people to laugh at and ridicule you!!"

"You made a fine decision not to include any gratuity with the check!!"

Beaten again by a hostile and untenable world, he thought, like the virulence and vitriosity sometimes administered by Donnie, once of Summer Bay Resorts Getaways in Pinellas Park, Florida or Maritza, once of FIS or Fidelity National Information Services formerly Certegy, Inc. formerly Equifax, Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, or with the Italian baseball bats used by Mr. Tony of U.S. Auto Exchange in Brandon, Florida .  It was typical of their type of misunderstanding to be abrasive, caustic, and cruel like Kristina Johnson, once of Coventry Health Care Systems, Inc. and First Health Group Corp. in Tampa, Florida, as she seemed to agree,

"Do you know where I am, now, because of you?!!"

"I'll betcha I'd smack a small tiny loins black man as would my mother and her mother before her!!"

"We're trying to destroy the undesireable black men for the sake of our racism!!"

"I would never become involved with a black man or any man who didn't seem large and full!!"

"That means, you should be dead or in prison!!"

    He continued walking with Felicia until they arrived together at a strip mall location where he remembered seeing Lance and Jim, two sales floor managers at Trident International Marketing, in addition to Tina, one of the Operation Managers, and also possibly Phillip, a telemarketer at Trident, although their presence there was like a ton of bricks that weighed heavily within his mind. Women normally had their penchant for doing that too, as Lance explained about his mother,

"She believes and taught me to believe that all writers are too stupid or incapable like deaf mutes to communicate otherwise, so they rely upon the printed word!!"

"I just don't want or like you at Trident!!"

His Cousin Verniece of Chicago, Illinois also preferred to directly express her opinions,

"Maybe you can devise a method to require white folks to like us, God knows, we couldn't since about umpteen years ago!!"

"And just because I was pretending to talk like Mr. Ed from that television show, doesn't mean that I was not an intelligent and quick-minded black woman!!"

"I don't like you because you don't have any respect for anything!!"

    For a moment, she seemed like DeAndrea Jenkins, that hateful, evil little woman from Medco, Inc. and Kelly Services, Inc. also in Tampa, Florida who would not allow him to ignore the severity of her animosity like a third world she-man and dragon queen as he resisted the urge to curse this place and refer to all criticism from black folks as, "the reverse white racist mentalities of nig-----s".  Felicia was laughing hysterically now, yet especially at him, as if she perceived some twisted irony about his situation, before remarking or commenting,

"Maybe that's what I am to be seen with and consorting with you!!"