Esprit de l'escalier

“He said he named his son after me. Benjamin. That’s not my name. But he thought it was and I was flattered.”
Guy glanced in the rearview mirror at his passenger.

The snoring man groaned as the car softly bounced pulling into the driveway. Guy carefully gathered the man from the backseat where he slumped forward, snoring loudly as the seatbelt held him in place.
“You should have seen him, he was just about as drunk as you are right now when his wife went into labor,” Guy continued as he got the man to his feet, “when I pulled up to his house, he came bursting out his front door all crazy…totally messed up, pretty much delirious. I had a hard time figuring out what it was he had been drinking ‘cuz he was slurring so bad I started to wonder if he still had a tongue.”
Reaching the front entrance of the apartment complex, Guy propped the man against the side of the building and began his usual game of ‘Guess which Key opens the Door.’
“My friend,” he pointed at the man with one of his handful of keys, “you have too many keys.” He held them up by the light above the door to better examine his options.
“Welp, might as well try them all.” He began shoving each key in the lock, trying it out and giggling it around just to make sure before going on to the next.
“You only have 25,” he grumbled under his breath.
Finally the lock clicked and Guy smiled at his victory. Propping the heavy door open with one foot, he gently pulled his inebriated client inside and continued his story.

“Turns out our buddy ‘Jer’ decided to have a little celebration that night with his pals,” Guy pulled the man’s right arm across his shoulders and began climbing the first flight of stairs to apartment 403. “Kinda like a ‘Woo hoo, I’m havin’ a kid’ type celebration. And…I mean, for pete’s sake he’d already had 2 other parties the weekend before. I know this because I got several calls from people at his party.” Sweat began to gather on his brow as the man’s weight set in. He shifted and heaved him up higher onto his back.
“Anyway,” he said, catching his breath as he used the railing to pull himself up the next flight of stairs. “He’d spent the morning polishing off the half-finished beers left from the party before he thought to call anyone. And that idea didn’t really register until his wife was already feeling contractions and screaming in pain.”

“You were the first name that came to mind,” he said, his eyes were wild, desperate, “she was screaming at me to call someone!” he yelled as if Guy was across a football field instead of sitting in the driver’s seat in front of him. “It was a reflex.”
Jerry’s wife was panting heavily, grabbing blindly at anything she could reach with her sweaty hands. Finding what she had apparently been looking for, she had an alligator’s grip on her husband’s bicep, biting her nails into his arm and stifling a scream of pain as she planted her other hand against the back of Guy’s seat to brace for the next contraction.

“I was flattered that he thought of me at all considering he was drunk the first time we met, and every time after that. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him sober.

“Then again, that’s how I see most people. Completely sauced. It comes with the job I guess.”

I work for Binger Buddies, a designated-driver service. People call on me to safely deposit the inebriated – along with their car – back home after a big night out. We use collapsible scooters small enough to fit into a backseat or trunk to get from one customer pick up to the next.

To most people Jimmy was simply known as That Guy. He found this fact to be especially true in college where the few women he encountered would introduce him as “that guy who introduced them to so-and-so” or “that guy who helped me get my favorite cereal from the top shelf at Safeway.” Ever since this truth became apparent, his friends started calling him Guy.

It’s almost five when his pager goes off at work. Jimmy lets out an exasperated sigh and rolls his eyes.
Although most businesses abandoned pagers in the early 90’s for hand held radios or cell phones, Binger Buddies opted to put their money toward other “more practical” avenues, like key chains.
Jimmy chuckled at the coincidence when his eyes follow the sound of a wad of keys making contact with the hard countertop as a man emptied his pockets looking for change. The familiar oblong shape of the Binger Buddies NO DWI logo key chain swung off the edge of the counter, hanging from the rest of the keys.
The day he finished his designated-driver training, his veteran co-workers wasted no time with the usual initiation rituals most rookies were subjected to like phony service calls or scooter swaps. Instead they decide to load him up with half a shipment of promo key chains, each strapped to the top of a beer bottle with a clever add printed on the side. Then they had him make marketing rounds instead of take calls. In this line of work, this is what is known as “the shaft.”
Although he’d found the strategy tacky, shameless and even cliché in the beginning, Jimmy grew to like the keychain marketing scheme and eventually came to see the brilliance of the idea.
A sturdy metal bottle/can opener that came in all the latest vintage colors like burnt orange, sage, rust and powder blue, the key ornament has their logo on the side in black block lettering along with their toll free number.
Jimmy had often pondered the logic behind the toll free number. First of all, it has more digits than an average phone number. Second, it’s not like a guy who’s completely plastered is going to dial this convenient toll free number and then think to himself while he waits for someone to answer, “Hey, not only are these guys saving my life and the lives of my potential victims, they’re saving me money too!”

Jimmy’s pager continues vibrating violently as he carefully hands a Grande, non-fat, extra hot, decafe, caramel macchiato with whip to a homely looking woman with a teacup poodle in her over-sized straw purse.

Co-workers turn their heads and smirk.
“Hey Jimmy, ‘nother hot date tonight, huh?” His friend, Tobian, elbows him playfully in the ribs before turning on his ‘how may I help you’ smile and taking the next person’s order.
Jimmy returns the gesture with a kick. Tobian’s body jerked as Jimmy’s sneaker made contact, but he manages to hold his stance stiffly behind the register.
The man next in line approached the counter. Tobian shot Jimmy a warning with his eyes. Across the register, the man raised an eyebrow as his gaze dropped to the damp dish towel rolled up and swinging conspicuously like a thick rat tail as Jimmy held it behind his back. Taking in the scene in its entirety, the man grinned knowingly and casually proceeded to order his usual.
Both boys knew what the usual was.
Starbucks is a decent job, but it’s never as eventful as a night of scooting on the town. The people Jimmy serves “the usual” to Friday morning are often the same people he carts home that night, slobbering or puking on the backseat.

Guy checked the time on his pager again. “Crap, I’m gonna be late!” He cursed to himself as he battled with his green apron, pulling it over his head.
“It’s 5, I’m off, gotta go,” he said, darting to the back room.