Vicarious

“Can I get another martini?” the customer asks in their best impression of a supervillain voice.

Demtri, through remote controlling his AutoServ bot, mechanically nods before shuffling back towards the bar area of S. Rinaldo’s Ristorante to retrieve another martini for his gravelly-voiced guest.

He presses the appropriate button on the DrinkMaster 4000 that can make anything from dry (the driest) martinis to creatine-infused kale power smoothies. He returns with the perfectly prepared martini for the customer in less than forty-two seconds. He was trying to beat his record of twenty-six seconds he had made three weeks prior.

Management of S. Rinaldo simply expected everything—food, beverages, service—to be done in less than ninety seconds. Anything over was liable to get someone wiped from the AutoServ program. For Demetri that meant certain homelessness because he wasn’t qualified for any other jobs outside of service operator. It might just be a job where he presses a few buttons on his computer screen from the comfort of his one bedroom apartment while completely nude, but it paid for all of his bare necessities—food, shelter, the occasional entertainment stream. So, while he would not exactly describe the job of AutoServ mechanical operator as what he wanted to do when he was growing up, he at least made sure to do the obligatory better than the next guy—or gal—so that he wouldn’t get fired. Sometimes, on the rare occasion, he even exceeded expectations based on metrics the restaurant’s management set.

The supervillain customer, however, does not notice how quick Demetri’s service is. To him, he’s just interacting with just another AutoServ bot. Nameless. Faceless. Nothing more than a hunk of metal being beeped and booped around by some pimply teenage nothing living miles away that he’ll never meet because the type of person that can go out and splurge on a martini—of all drinks!--at S. Rinaldo’s is someone with a net worth social circle that simply did not associate with the lowly peons that were service operators.

Demetri draws an entire backstory to the martini customer. He sticks with the theme of supervillain. He makes the customer’s superpower time manipulation. It allows the man to effectively look into the future at all the potential outcomes. It is what made him his fortune. He didn’t get lucky by choosing to invest in all the right companies at all the right times. Rather, he just looked a few years into the future, saw which companies would be the best return on his investment, and then he’d double, triple, quadruple his money year over year.

His ability to look into and manipulate the future is what made him nearly indestructible. Every superhero he faced didn’t stand a chance. He saw everything coming. But what Super Evil Timex didn’t see coming was Rando-Man, the superhero with the power to never know his next move and always behave chaotically. The battle between Super Evil Timex and Rando-Man would be epic. Demetri didn’t quite have the details figured out on how everything would resolve in his imaginary superhero-villain plot before receiving a notification on his screen that another guest needed his assistance.

Table 53.

A lovely couple in their late twenties, maybe early thirties. Sharply dressed. The woman wore makeup in such a way that didn’t look like she was wearing any makeup, which gave her a sophisticated look—like she was about to go to a bookclub after dinner to discuss Dostoevsky or something. The man looked slightly uncomfortable and out-of-place, but that could also be because he had sent a special request to management that he’d like an engagement ring to be placed in a champagne glass and brought out right after they finished their entrees, but before dessert.

Demetri thought the whole scheme a bit cliched, but he supposed that it was just as good as any other way to ask someone to spend the rest of their lives with them.

But it did make Demetri nervous. He worried that the sophisticated woman would not notice the ring sitting in the bottom of the champagne glass. She might chug the glass in one fell swoop, ring and all. Perhaps she could choke on this symbol of the young couple's potential nuptials and die. Then what? Who would take the fall? Who would be held liable? Would everyone realize it was just a sad accident and leave it alone? Probably not. This man would have gone from just about to marry this woman to then having to bury her in the blink of an eye. He would want to blame someone. The restaurant. But then S. Rinaldo’s would blame him. He’d lose his job. He’d lose his health insurance. He’d lose his apartment. All because this man tried to do something terribly cliched, yet romantic, in order to propose to his girlfriend.

Demetri laments that the boyfriend can’t seem to just be direct with his girlfriend by asking her point blank, no gimmicks or dumb cliches, ‘Will you marry me?’

“Are you ready for champagne?” Demetri types out and the AutoServ bot repeats in its mechanical voice.

“Yes, please.”

Demetri directs his AutoServ bot to grab the champagne bottle, pour two glasses, and delicately place the engagement ring into the bottom of one of the glasses.

The couple clinks their respective glasses and laughs at some inside joke that Demetri did not hear. He rolls the AutoServ bot into the corner to wait for any of his guests’ further instruction.

The nervous boyfriend watches his girlfriend start to drink her champagne. He doesn’t touch his. She notices and asks him why he isn’t drinking the champagne he just ordered. He assures her that he will in good time, but he’s letting his food digest first.

“That’s a good idea. I should do that too.”

“No, no, you go ahead and drink your champagne. I know how much you like this vintage.”

“Are you calling me an alcoholic?”

“No, of course not. I would never. I was just saying that I got this for you. I got it so you could enjoy it.”

“Well, I’m not going to enjoy it if you’re not drinking any. Champagne is not one of those drinks that you can drink alone. Otherwise it’s just sad.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” The boyfriend picks up his glass. He tilts it back to indicate that he’s enjoying the champagne.

She follows suit. She takes multiple sips from the glass. He watches as the champagne drains into her mouth and down her throat. He anxiously waits for her to notice the ring sitting at the bottom. But she doesn’t. She’s looking directly at him, enjoying their conversation and the moment.

Look down, he wills. But she doesn’t hear his thoughts.

Finally, with one last definitive gulp of her champagne, the girlfriend swallows the engagement ring. She notices immediately something metallic and strange in her mouth. She resists the urge to spit it out. Her mother always taught her that spitting was uncouth for women—and men, but she especially emphasized that women should never spit anything out. So she grabs her napkin and discreetly pulls the object from out of her mouth. She stares.

When she looks up at her boyfriend, he’s on his knees in the middle of the restaurant, staring up at her. A question mark poised to lunge.

Demetri does not notice any of this. He took a brief ten minute break from his computer workstation to make microwave popcorn and go to the bathroom. He smells the plasticky burnt butter scent while the kernels popped in glorious fashion as he sat on his porcelain to contemplate whether he should add more butter and seasoning to the already buttered-and-seasoned popcorn bag.