Tips

December sixteenth and Broadmore Street bustled with people. Lunchtime meant midday holiday office parties and Christmas shopping on the fly. With limited street parking, most people walked, scurrying to get to their destinations. The December chill had begun to settle in across the city. Two of the three local television stations were predicting snow at today. One predicted up to twelve inches.

Reggie Moore could predict snow better than most. When. How much. Yes, he had watched the weather forecasters and their predictions this morning, but his senses told him more than any meteorological college graduate. He knew the smell of snow - a momentary ultra-fresh but dense and dry wave that rattled at the back of the nose like the first sign of a cold. His wife Anita told him he was full of crap.

“You just have a big nose in the middle of your big face. More space for air,” she would often remind him.

Reggie was certain he smelled the second snowfall of the season. His nose burning as if someone had stuck a cinnamon Alltoid up there and waited for it to melt. It most definitely would snow today. 

As the doorman at Clairmont East, an upscale apartment building nestled in the city’s restaurant and entertainment district, Reggie knew he would need to be even more attuned with the building’s activity. 

He prepped himself for the extra physical and mental strain. Discrete stretching. A silent rehearsal of all of the building’s occupants by apartment. His residents would demand even more of his attuned and predictive abilities and would be willing to handsomely tip Reggie for his Superman agility and courteousness. Finding a lost glove in the back of an Uber or using his connections to arrange for delivery from fine dining establishments in the area added even more reward for his efforts.

It was not only about the money. Reggie prided himself on being God’s servant to all. But he had a family to feed, hockey club dues, a retirement plan to fund. Those who felt compelled to provide monetary offerings for his services were moving one step closer to heaven in Reggie’s opinion. The residents did not see him as a six-foot tall black man, greying hair with a deep tenor voice who in a different setting might scare them enough to quickly scatter in the opposite direction. They knew Reggie and Reggie knew them. He was family. And family takes care of each other.

Jack Fister knew the weather was colder by looking at the small window in his room. When the temperature dropped below freezing, the narrow slot iced over. Frozen frost caused partially by his own breath and his addiction e-cigarettes. Since he could not stop breathing and his e-cigarette was the only thing that kept him from drinking, Jack knew he had to accept the imperfections of his current residence. 

“Imperfections, huh? I can be choosey now?” he thought and chuckled. A year ago, he lived drunk and broke in another city in a house with twelve people. His meager room and attached small bath were his and his alone thanks to a friend of his cousin. 

Jack slowly rose from his late-to-bed sleep to scrape a small hole in the frost so he could check out the weather. Clouds.  All he saw were clouds. Clouds were fine as long as it did not snow because snow was his enemy.

Jack had landed a sweet job at Guy’s Grill on Broadmore, about a twenty-five-minute walk from his building. Guy’s offered middle incomers a chance for a fine meal and the affluent a chance to step down to real home cooking. 

He worked only four evenings a week, but his wages covered his weekly living expenses and his tips converted to an e-cigarette budget and savings for an apartment of his own. Jack learned early on as a server the art of schmoozing for tips. Show respect to the men. Gush on women’s purses and shoes. Tell the ugly they look pretty. Jack was not heartless; he told people what they wanted to hear. And his ability to memorize customer needs from order placement through bill presentation added to his charm. He was a tableside Vaudeville act absent from most mid-market restaurants.

Today was the restaurant’s employee holiday party which meant he would need to be at work an hour early. Jack thought about skipping the party, but he counted on his regular free meal from the restaurant. Plus, one of the employee’s said that Guy usually showed up with something for the employees.

“One time we got a ham. The next year, a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. It’s a crap shoot for sure, but free food and wine and a chance for a little something extra. I go every year,” the employee had proclaimed.

Jack showered and then sat around in his underwear watching part of the NY Cops in Crisis marathon and relaxing with his mint flavored e-cigarette. His stomach’s churning meant lunch had probably come and gone. He coaxed himself to release from the television and get dressed.

He peered out his window again. Snow. Accumulation lined the streets and sidewalks. Big flakes created a near sheet of white in the sky. “Damn it,” Jack scoured flicking the T.V. to the weather station. Four inches by dinner. Up to eight inches by midnight. His prime tipping hours consumed with snow. He could only hope that the foot traffic of the local residents and businessmen would make up for any suburbanites not wanting to trek into the city. 

He hoped the city’s plows were ready since this was only the second snowfall of the season. The city was nearly paralyzed with two inches of snow in early November. Jack had read that the snow plows had not been properly maintained and that someone in the city’s purchasing department forgot to order salt to combat the slipperiness of the frozen precipitation. Jack had been working that night. The snow fell so fast that most of his early-arriving diners skipped coffee and dessert, add on’s that grew his tips. Prime time diners skipped out on their reservations completely.

Days like this made him want to drink again, forget about work. His tips were his way out of the boarding house. Without them, his pay simply kept him there. Knowing moments of weakness would come, he had splurged on one item at the local thrift store that could serve as a deterrent from his potential for a winter downward spiral– snow boots. Worn, but fur-lined with think soles that tackled the snow while keeping his feet warm and dry on his walk to work. For days like this. These moments of self-pity and weakness.  Geared up, he left the building cursing God for not intervening and landing him at a boarding house in the southern U.S.

As flakes flew, Reggie dutifully line up his snow gear – shovels, ice melt, snow scrapers, windshield washer fluid – in his windowed space directly next to the front door. Even though the building paid for a service to clear a hundred feet beyond the perimeter of its walls, Reggie took no chances. A delay in shoveling was never acceptable. Reggie had to handle the snow tasks many times because the seasonal help the contractor sent were lazy and slow, leaving sidewalk patches still covered in snow or even worse, a pile of salt.

By mid-afternoon, Reggie noticed the foot traffic had slowed. He estimated about three inches down. The shoveling company who had left only an hour and a half earlier would need to come back soon or Reggie would get to work.

Building residents poured in much earlier than they would on a typical weekday afternoon. The cabbie dropping offer the Como’s in unit 1604 had heard a city bus full of passengers was stuck at Sixth and Main. Reggie wondered if the city had learned anything from their November snow warm up.

Reggie open the door for Mrs. Winston who refused to let him carry in her Nordstrom shopping bags. Gave him a twenty just for opening the door.

Miss Kathy, the nanny from 625, trudged towards Reggie with the four-year-old twins in tow.

“Reggie, tell these boys there is not enough snow yet to make a snowman,” she desperately pleaded. “It’s naptime.”

Winking at Miss Kathy, Reggie bellied, “Miss Kathy is right. But I hope she has her snowman skills ready for tomorrow.”  Miss Kathy’s employer the Annear’s had already given Reggie cash and a gift certificate to Guy’s down the street as an early Christmas present.

“Take your beautiful wife out for a good dinner. Tell Guy we sent you,” Mr. Annear had told Reggie last Saturday after returning from the theater.

Surveying the street for more residents, Reggie noticed a lanky man in a leather jacket with big furry boots hurrying to make the light at Riverside and Broadmore. He missed it. Slush-spitting cars spewed regurgitated snow directly onto the man’s black pants. Distraught, the man held up his middle finger to the crosswalk meter. Reggie understood frustration, but never vulgarity.

“Really like those boots. Could use a pair of those myself if we get as much snow as they say,” Reggie said as the man approached the building’s awning.

“I hate snow!” was all the man said as he stomped through Reggie’s territory.

Feeling the souls of his boots grip the sidewalk slush, Jack knew tonight was a night where he could slip on more than an icy sidewalk.