No Justice

No Justice

It is one of Ventura’s two natural-foods restaurants, the Carrot something or other. This one is open after 7:00 p.m., and serves wine. It’s outside of the strip which boasts the cute shops and the angled parking: facing it, across the street, is a Laundromat. It has a deli case, an espresso bar, and tiled tables with plastic chairs. Watercolors adorn the walls and each has a price sticker. I’m the only customer, and so the waiter lounges on a stool at the espresso bar, and chats with the owner. The waiter is an energetic young man with a crew cut, wearing a black tee shirt under his green apron. The owner, who is methodically completing the pre-closing clean-up chores at the sink behind the bar, has graying, curly black hair and he wears glasses. The recorded music possibly dates him: Thelonious Monk; Joe Williams. “Sorry I ducked out to my car for a minute,” the waiter says, “but I had to call Kerry back. She just got home from work, and she buzzed me on the pager.”

“Pager?!” “You don’t hear it. It just vibrates. I’ve had it since I was in high school—I was never at home to get my calls.”

“Pager?!” “Yeah. This one can reach you anywhere in the country. Satellite. She’d been out to the building site. ‘My God, they’ve got the bathrooms stubbed in already?’ Twenty four

hundred square feet now: we decided to go ahead with the sunroom. Dad said we’d probably regret it if we didn’t.” The owner, busily covering plastic containers in the deli case, appears to have heard none of this, yet he mutters, “Twenty four hundred square feet?!” “How was lunch?” The waiter is peering though the glass into the deli case.

“Not too good. Sold four.” “As soon as we get moved in, you guys will have to come out and see our place!” “Yeah. Say, could I get that pager number. You haven’t been home sometimes when I’ve called you, and your machine answers, and it’s a toll call for me.” “I’ll put it on a post-it and stick it on the cash register.” The waiter strips off his apron, dumps a pocketful of bills and change on the bar and counts it. “Umm, not too bad. Eight twenty.” “Eight twenty?!”