Ruby Blues

I started working at Ruby Tuesday when I was 16 years old. I started off as a special person greeter, a fancy name for a host. I was the youngest new addition to the Ruby family. My new family was a group of peculiar people. Soon I became one of them.

Night shifts in Ruby’s always held events, but it’s the day shift that brought some of the most interesting characters. There was an old lady who came in every day at 11 o’clock. She lady had to be in her late 50’s to early 60’s. She always wore a grey sweater, black slacks and orthopedic shoes. Her hair was often pinned up in the back, she sometimes she would wear it down, hanging softly past her shoulders. She reminded me of Rose from Titanic, she had a certain gracefulness about her. She sat in the same booth, and would wait if it wasn’t available. She would always order the same thing. First she would order a glass of white wine, she would tell me her order but didn’t want it until she finished her first drink. She would always order the steamed dumplings with extra peanut sauce on the side. Then, she would order another glass of wine to finish her meal. Her total would always come out to $12.75 and she would always tip $2. Her cheap tip never really mattered, because her presence was always welcomed. It was something about her that made the whole restaurant feel at ease. She stayed consistent with her appearance for a year, and then she disappeared. I never knew her name or where she was from. It was as if she were never there.

The customers weren’t the only characters that came in Ruby Tuesday, my co workers were the show stoppers. I worked with all different kinds of people, from different parts of the city. The main attraction was my manager named Allison. Allison was 6’2” with short stubby hair. She had a slight hunch back and always wore high water pants. Allison was a 26-year-old black woman from Denver, Colorado. She believed that she was a white woman, she treated her hair and skin as if she were. When she came to work you could tell that she just washed it and didn’t do anything to it. Some black girls just can’t wash their hair, put their finger through it and go. They need a comb, brush, grease, and sometimes something to hold it down. Allison never got the memo for how to do black hair. We would often remind her of her natural ethnicity but she would only decline the notion. Allison had a boyfriend that she called Dirt. After meeting him I quickly understood the meaning of the nickname. Dirt was a white guy around the same age as Allison. He had a really thick beard that went from his nose to down his neck. Allison was very protective over Dirt and always questioned anything someone said to him. Allison and I never got along. It would be days were we didn’t speak during a whole shift. It was always best that way.

Other than Allison, the people who I worked with were easy to get along with. There was a couple, Inez and Brama. Inez was from El Salvador and Brama was from Nigeria. This couple was proof that there is love for everyone in the world. Inez had a very strong personality and would let you know firsthand of meeting her. She meant well but it often came off the wrong way. For example, Brama is a very big flirt and will openly do so, even if it would piss Inez off. When I first started working there, Brama would make sure that he liked what he saw in me. I never paid attention to this 30 something year old man. Inez on the other hand felt differently. She would never say things directly to me but there was always animosity in the air whenever she came around. Eventually she came around to realize that I had no interest in Brama, it was all in innocent fun.

Working at Ruby Tuesday taught me a lot about the real world and what it can hold. I was introduced to the drug world, strip clubs, alcohol addictions, prostitution, and much more. On my eighteenth birthday my manager Laura, whom I’m much closer to than Allison, told me that she was going to take me to the strip club. An all female strip club at that, and too my surprise the fact that I was old enough to get in the strip club excited me. I was getting to the point in my life where age brought rewards.

Every Friday night a lady, I liked to call New York because she looked like the reality TV star, would come into the bar and always order a Long Island Ice Tea. She always sat in the same seat and always ordered Asian dumplings. (Asian dumplings were a hot menu item apparently)Then at least ten minutes after she sat down a strange man would come sit next to her. After a few drinks they would leave together. An hour would pass and she would come back and do that same thing three times, with three different men. I didn’t understand it then, but my others co workers soon explained to me that she was a prostitute.  I enjoyed being exposed to this world that I knew nothing about.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and there aren’t too many people in the restaurant yet. A guy came in and asked if he could get something to drink. I told him that he could but he had to pay for it. He didn’t respond with a “no thank you” so I made the drink and gave it to him. I went to check on another table, came back to give him his check and he was gone. I looked outside past the patio and there he was talking to his crew. I went outside and asked him why he didn’t pay for his drink. He told me that he didn’t think he had to. I asked him a couple more times, but after the fifth time I gave up in him. I went inside and told Dean, the bartender, what was going on. I went to the kitchen and when I return to the front of the store I saw Dean out front arguing with the man. I guess the conversation got heated because the next thing I knew they were both going at each others throats. I guess the guy wasn’t stronger than Dean because Dean through him through the patio glass door.

I had never seen a real fight before, let alone with someone being thrown out the window. I was in total shock, and I didn’t expect for Dean to do all of that. The guy never paid the tab for the drink, it was only $2 for a soda. He didn’t he press charges either.  He never came back to Ruby Tuesday, and Dean remained working at Ruby’s. It’s like nothing ever happen, they just covered the door with hard plastic and keep moving on with the day.

I loved my times at Ruby Tuesday, it brought and took away some very important people in my life. I met my first long-term boyfriend there. The way that we met was really funny because I didn’t know that he was interested in me. He was Nigerian, but had a Caribbean accent. It was hard for me to understand what he as saying sometimes. So whenever he would talk to me my first response would often be, “Huh? What did you say?” We started talking in January 2008, everyone in the restaurant knew about it. It was no big secret. This relationship was blissful at the beginning but soon the Ruby blues would cause it to have some drama. Relationships in Ruby Tuesday don’t often last long, but some can stand the test of times. This just wasn't one of those relationships.