The Bubba Closet

The skin on Peter's face is so red that his blond beard seems albino by comparison, he speaks and his words clungle in a sticky fog of peppermint schnapps...Peter has a 'trick' -he uses schnapps to mask the dozen or so beers he drinks during his day shift as short-order lunch cook at the corner bar where we both work.

"Better than a breath mint", he says.

"Goddmanit Peter, get your drunk ass outta my way...fuck, did you thaw the shrimp like I asked you...what did you do? This fucking prep list isn't finished..."

I'm sick of Peter's crap- he's been working here for twenty years and pretty much has tenure, but he's pissed because he found out the night cooks make a lot more money than he does- he's old, like forty maybe, and he resents having to answer to a punk-ass kid (me). I wouldn't get on his case if he didn't suck at his job...his idea of soup is to drop some grated cheese into warm tomato juice and call it "Cheddar Tomato", something I refuse to serve. I usually throw it away while he watches, hoping he'll get pissed enough to take a swing and get fired. The kitchen would run a lot smoother without him.

Peter addresses me by my last name, continues,"...things haven't always been great between us
but I jush wanta letcha know that I resphect you a lot and I mean that like a Man."

"Whatever dude. What the fuck is this deep fryer? The goddamn La Brea Tar Pit? I can't fry fish in 30 weight motor oil!"

" I was waiting for it to cool down."

I look at the fryer. The oil is black and congealed, doesn't look like it's been used all day. I drop a single frozen french frie into it. It lays inert on the surface, not heavy enough to sink into the solidified grease.

"But seriously", he stumbles up to me, "I've noticed that you've grown over the last couple years, your shoulders are broader. I really respect you as a Man", he repeats, looking me up and down...I am being scoped.
Unpleasant.

Later that night, I'm relating this bizarre encounter to Billy, one of the older cooks that I get along with...Billy explains that in the South there are a lot of rednecks who really are gay, but repress it from themselves...it comes out in weird ways, awkward "fag" jokes and homophobic insults are pretty common, and yeah, they like to get a buzz on and talk about Men being Men, just ignore them and whatever you do, never, ever give them cocaine.
Good advice.

A couple years later, a friend was visiting and he brought his Boss, who was a Closet Bubba- he couldn't watch ten minutes of football without talking about men's asses...I expect this sort of comment from my queer friends, but this guy is "straight" and worse , he's a dentist. A drunk redneck closeted homophobe dentist...I am charging him extra for his weed.

"I don't like having faggots as patients", he informs us between bong hits, "I don't like putting my hands into a mouth that's sucked a cock."

"So I guess you don't like women as patients either", I say.

"Or your mother", adds my friend,getting into the spirit.

Bubba hands me my bong and it stinks. Not in a normal, rank-ass nasty bongwater way, but in a saturated cheap cologne way.
Bubba the Closet Redneck Dentist is wearing so much cologne that it has rubbed off on my bong- the mingled smell of bongwater and cologne is hideous, I gag and set it aside.

I'm getting ready to throw this guy out of my apartment but first I'm taking his money. I think I'll just hit him with a baseball bat, take his wallet, drag him into the alley and leave him for the trannie hookers.

"Dude. You have ruined my bong. Ounces are two twenty. "

A month later he came back- I refused to let him in. A year or two after that he got busted for a dozen felonies, mostly prescription drug stuff, but there was a mail-order bride and a pregnant teen-age patient in the mix...he was gone for a long time but I recently saw his name on a case at the Firm.

Medical Malpractice, of course.