BART

Bertie disappeared into the kitchen for a bit and returned with a beverage tray full of ramekins of salsa.  She must have had 20 of those black litle bowls filled with the red sauce that everyone loved to scoop their fried tortilla chips in.  I stood at the entrance of the galley and watched Bertie accost her daughter Brenda who was talking to a customer at the bar which was in direct eye shot from the galley.   While Bertie gingerly held her tray in one hand, she whispered in Brenda's  ear.  Brenda was about 24, attractive with long curly brown hair, big green eyes and the same D cups her mother had.  They parted ways and Bertie began to ascend the steps to the window, and from my vantage point she seemed to be passing out some of those small bowls to my entire section of customers.  Then, as she grew near to the biggoted customer, she turned and looked my way.  I gathered that she was confirming that he was the perpetrator of hate speech, so  I nodded to her.

Brenda walked over to me and said, "This is gonna' be fun," and then she walked to the window.

The stunt was beautifully choreographed, and it appeared that the loving ladies had done this before.

As Bertie leaned over the asshole red-neck, Brenda came up behind her and bumped the tray.  And she bumped her with some force. Bertie even stumbled and looked like she would fall as Salsa flew everywhere. Most of it landed on Mr. Red-Neck, but Bertie was smart enough to get a little on her shirt and arm too. He was red from head to crotch in salsa roja, and his face was rather red too, but I think that was from anger and humiliation.   Salso was in his hair, and on the side of his face. His white shirt was blotched with clumps of clingy tomatoes and even his Khaki crotch showed remnants of salsa stains.  I laughed outloud, and felt justified, but his words still lingered in my mind, and I couldn't quite shake them.  This wasn't vengeance; it was justice, and it felt damn good.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity around table 103, and the guy bamged his hands on the table and protested loudly.  Even though he wasn't particularly large -- in fact, he wasn't bad looking at all  -- he resembled Baby Huey with his face all scrunched up.  I could plainly hear, "Stupid Bitch, I've got an interview in 30 minutes, " which made the scene even more delicious.  Although I couldn't hear Bertie or Brenda's verbage, I knew that they were apologizing profusely to make this accident look real.  A bus boy appeared with a few towels, and the dining room manager, Russell -- who would eventually admit to me on one drunk night in the future that he was a closet case  -- approached the table.  Brenda and Bertie were obviously  explaining the circumstances to Russell, and then he motioned them away.  I went to the bar and asked for a pitcher of seltzer water. Yeah, I needed a pitcher.  There was a lot of salsa on Mr. Meany.  Of course, I wasn't trying to help him.  The Bible says when you are nice to your enemies it is like heaping hot coals on their heads.  I was heaping coals.   After the bartendress gave it to me with a puzzled look, I approached the red- with-salsa red-neck's window table.  He was not happy.

"Are fags and old blind ladies all you can find to work here?" He asked Russ belligerently.  Every eye on the place was on him.  People even stood up from their meals to watch this spectacle.  Some people were laughing.  Well, it was a hilarious site.  He had one big blotch hanging on his cheek that he had somehow missed with the towel.  As he talked, it slid slowly down his face.

I interrupted before Russ had a chance to respond, "Here is some seltzer water.  It should help you get some of the stains out, sir," I said and began to hand him a bar towel and the pitcher of seltzer.  Quite unexpectedly, I felt someone behind me, and the water pitcher was pushed UP out of my hand ....................And Mr. Redneck got a baptism in seltzer.  He even spit seltzer out of his mouth cuz it was still open from his bitching Russell out.  Well, the asshole got really mad then, and he stood up. A hand reached out and gently pushed me to my left, and suddenly the cute waiter from Acapulco's -- who I'd almost forgotten, was in front of the steaming red-neck.

"You deserve it, asshole.  I heard what you said to him," he said to the red-neck.

"Why do you care? Is he your boyfriend?" the redneck bowed up, and I was beginning to think we were going to see a fight so I moved a little bit more to the left to let these two gentlemen face each other.  After all, I didn't really know Mr. Acapulco, and I had no idea why he was eating in the restaurant today....what a strange coincidence........................

"Yeah, he is, asshole," and he turned his face slightly to look at me, then shrugged questioningly,  " And, I've seen you wagging your little dick at me at the rest stop on 70, so you need to keep your mouth shut and quit calling people fags," senor Acapulco's was not backing down, and he'd just hatched an egg that the red-neck's female companion could not ignore.  He had his finger up in the air pointing down at the red neck and he looked as mean as a cobra, but a very, very pretty cobra..................

"You told me you went there to beat fags," she exclaimed.

Russell tapped me on the shoulder and mouthed to me as he pointed at Acapulco, "He's your boyfriend?" 

"Hell NO!  I just met him last night," I whispered roughly.

"Your pussy ass boyfriend goes there to suck fags because he is a fag," Acapulco just HAD to clear things up for her (( and everyone in the restaurant, too.))  I heard a few old Holiness women gasp.  A lady at the corner window seat covered her child's ears with both hands, but she was still mesmerized by the scene.  I bet this is still in her story repertoire.

Russell was a nice guy, but he was not one for confrontations.   He slid into the background and quietly faded away as life unfolded for these ignorant people.  He did manage to eke out, "Lunch is on us, today," before he completely left the scene, then he went to the kitchen and reappeared with a tray of  free sopapillas that he passed out to the interested onlookers............?  Hell, he might as well have passed out popcorn because this had turned into a show.  (( I was beginning to notice that these people in Hot Springs were full of drama.  Gay, Straights, bi's...It didn't matter. They were all nutty as fruitcakes.))

"You're gonna' tip him.  Get your wallet out," the cute waiter said as he inched closer to the red -- well, I guess he was a pink neck, now.  Acapulco put a stern hand on the area between the red neck's shoulder and neck and squeezed hard.  The bigot winced.

To my surprise, the closeted bigot reached for his wallet and opened it.  He threw a dollar on the table.

"He's worth a hell of a lot more than that.  You're making me mad," I could tell Acapulco  was squeezing harder because Mr. Meany gritted his teeth in pain.

Well, I guess the pink-neck was getting a little frightened because Acapulco was not backing down one iota,  so he just took out a wad of bills from his wallet and threw them on the table and stormed out of the restaurant.  His white trash chick snatched her purse, flung its strap over her shoulder,  stood up, looked at Acapulco and said, "Thanks," as she started to storm down the steps.  She had a big ass, too and it was a good thing, cuz she slipped on a blob of salsa and busted that butt right there on those tile steps.  She was so mad that she picked herself up immediately and hurried after her boyfriend, but she had a big juicy red stain right between her cheeks that made her look like she had bleeding hemorrhoids as she walked off.  I felt sorry for the poor girl because I knew that she thought this guy was the best she could do; it's too bad that he really wanted a dick......I told you that bisexuality ran rampant down here, but these women just won't believe it.  If I had found out that my boyfriend was doing some weiner wagging at a rest area, he'd be single in a second, but I knew that this chick would let her boyfriend explain his way out of it, and she would appear to believe his story, but every time he was away from her, she'd worry that he was at a rest stop on a wild weiner safari...................

"Will you get me some lunch now? " Acapulco said with a grin on his face and a slight chuckle.

"After you tell me your name, I'll gladly get you anything you want, " I smiled back.

"It took all of this for you to finally decide to talk to me?..............  My name is Bart."