Night Shift

ELIZABETH BEAMAN NIGHT SHIFT

It’s Wednesday at the Starlight. I’m working the night shift. I hear the cooks Nik and Georg talking in the kitchen, Greek and English. It’s too early for the drunks who come in after the bars close. The restaurant’s empty except for Officer Dave, wearing his uniform like a second skin and hunched over his free cup at the counter.

“Hey, Liesl. How about one for the road?” He grabs his cap off the counter.

“Sure. I’ll put it in a paper cup.”

“Why don’t you bring it out to the cruiser and give me a proper goodbye?” His dark eyebrows rise, suggestively.

I give him a look. He knows I’m married.

“Can’t blame me for trying.” He puts on his hat and grabs the coffee. The glass doors shudder behind him.

I’m fresh meat – nineteen, married only five months when Bob was drafted. I’m here to be with him during his last three months stateside. I took leave from my job in Austin, packed the car, drove up to Virginia, Newport News, where he’s in helicopter training for ‘Nam. Rented a cheap furnished apartment, tough to do on ninety dollars a month base pay; the job I get at the Starlight pays three dollars a night, plus tips and meals. The drunks never tip. I’m in it for the meals. This is 1967, and the town’s full of draftees’ wives like me.

“That cop leave?” Nik brings out my dinner.

“Wow, Nik. Lobster?”

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“You deserve better.” He returns to the kitchen to let me eat.

Red light pulses through the front windows from the neon star in the parking lot. The sign below it reads: “Op n 24 H urs.” The interior of the restaurant is a cave of dark paneling, dotted with brown oilcloth-covered tables. The kitchen, closed off by swinging porthole doors, shines twin beacons of light through the dusty air of the dining area. I’m sitting at the counter next to the cash register and can see Nik and Georg moving around in the kitchen through the portholes, Georg shaking a meat cleaver to emphasize a point he’s making.

Just after four, Officer Dave returns for another coffee. It’s his right according to the unwritten law of all-night restaurants. It’s been a slow night. “Leaving on a Jet Plane” plays on the radio.

I’m standing at the far end of the counter telling Nik about my new ironing board. “I left mine in Austin, so Bob’s been using the post laundry. Now, I’ll do his fatigues and save money.”

“Where’d you buy it? My wife complains our old one’s no good.”

“I didn’t. My neighbor Maureen said some neighbors moved out, guy’s deployed, and they left things behind. She said we should get ‘em; the landlord would take it all to the dump.” Maureen’s like everyone in our apartment complex, no money, always working the angles.

“How did she know it was okay?”

“She said she talked to the wife – they’re gone for good.”

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Sunday night, I wasn’t working. Bob was at the barracks. Maureen and I walked over to the back door of the Browns’ old apartment. It was snowing. We carried flashlights and a crowbar.

Maureen jimmied open the painted window. It creaked and moaned, then made a loud crack as it flew open. I looked side to side, but saw no one.

I pushed Maureen through the window and she helped me wriggle in after. The kitchen, where we landed, opened onto the living room. We didn’t need our flashlights. A streetlamp shone through the panes of the front windows, reflecting off the snow swirling outside and drifting under the front door. And there in the middle of the living room, framed by the light, was the ironing board, set up, and a basket piled with linens.

“Hey, I could use the ironing board,” I said.

“Sure. I’ll take the basket.” Maureen checked upstairs. Didn’t find anything.

I folded up the board, carried it out; Maureen took the basket and locked the door behind us, and we sneaked away through the snow with our loot.

Bob, preoccupied when I told him, just said okay. The landlord would never know.

Officer Dave waves his cup at me. I grab the pot, walk down to his end of the counter, and give him a refill.

“What’s this about an ironing board?”

I’m not sure how much he’s heard, but I’m saved from having to explain by a group of late-nighters swinging through the doors, burly men, high-heeled women with big hair, low necklines.

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“Later. I’ve got customers.”

Three in the afternoon, I’m at the apartment, and Maureen comes over to borrow our phone. My mother pays for the connection so we can keep in touch. But it’s Maureen who uses it most. She makes long distance calls, says she’ll pay for them, but never has in the two months I’ve known her.

Today, before she makes her call, Maureen tells me, “The Browns came back for their stuff. They claim money was taken.”

“What? I thought you said they weren’t coming back. Did you see any money?”

She smirks and shakes her head no. “The landlord filed a report with the police.”

I feel a pit grow in my stomach. While she’s on the phone, I move the ironing board upstairs, out of sight. Maureen hangs up. “Listen, I’m sorry. We made a mistake. There’s nothing we can do now.”

I rub my forehead and sigh. “I think I’ll lie down; I’m getting a headache. Don’t forget about those phone charges, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I get paid Monday.” Maureen works part-time at a bakery. “I’ll bring the money over,” she says, running out the door.

Saturday morning at the Starlight, a party of twelve arrives, drunker than snot. They can’t decide what they want.

“Let me start y’all with some appetizers.” I bring them a round of drinks; pry the rest of the order out of them.

Officer Dave waves me over. “When you gonna tell

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me about that ironing board?”

“Can’t talk now.” I leave for the kitchen to put in the order. Officer Dave’s gone when I come out.

When I get off at six, I drive carefully on slick roads back to our apartment, wondering what to do about the ironing board. I hear a siren; look in the rearview to see lights flashing. It’s Officer Dave. He comes alongside my car as I roll down the window, leans in, and clamps his hand on the steering wheel. His breath smells of coffee.

“There you are, missy. You ready to talk about that ironing board?”

“What?”

“There’s been a report. A break-in over at the Hampton Apartments. Isn’t that where you live?”

“Yes.”

“Well, maybe you and I got some visiting to do. How about we go over to your place?”

“My husband’s home.” He’s not, but I know what Officer Dave has in mind.

“Okay. Rain check.” He lets go of the steering wheel, walks back to the cruiser.

My legs shake, causing me to jump the accelerator, skid out. But I see him, in the rearview, make a U-turn, go the other way.

When I get home, I’m surprised to see Bob.

“I got my orders. I leave for ‘Nam, Friday.”

“Oh, honey.”

“Where you going when Bob leaves?” Georg asks. I’m in the kitchen with Nik and Georg. “Back to Austin. Don’t tell that cop, okay?”

The front door gives a jingle and I go to see who it is.

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“Hello, Liesl. You been avoiding me?” It’s Officer Dave.

“I’ve been working day shift. Training a new waitress for nights.” I nod over at a gaunt woman, not fresh meat, bussing a table.

“When we getting together for that talk?”

“Yeah – how about tomorrow? See you tomorrow.” The car’s packed, and I don’t want him to see. I keep an eye out all the way home, no Officer Dave.

One last night together, Bob and I make sad love. Next morning, I drive him to Fort Eustis with his duffel bag, his orders, his neatly-pressed uniform.

“Write,” I tell him.

“I will.”

“Write,” I say again.

It feels like death watching him queue up at the gate. He doesn’t look back. After he disappears up the ramp, I wave through the windows of the terminal, pretending I see him in a porthole of the transport. I watch it rev up, taxi off.

In a fog, I stumble to the car and head up the peninsula. But I’m crying too hard to stay on the expressway. Have to exit, park on a side street, calm down. A cruiser comes up the street. It looks like Officer Dave, but it passes without stopping. I realize I better get out of there. So, I do, driving non-stop all the way to Tennessee before I quit worrying about Officer Dave and remember Maureen never paid for those calls.

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ROUNDABOUT

Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le compliqué.

The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route. —

GEORGE SAND