This is maybe the weirdest customer I've ever had

I used to tend bar at this burger place called Two8Two on Atlantic avenue in downtown Brooklyn. It was across the street from Brooklyn Detention center, a huge jail that people decided to try and make into the centerpiece of a gentrified neighborhood. At night you could see silhouettes of inmates doing pull ups in their cells. It was a weird joint and the clientele sucked almost as hard as the staff, but now and then they were interesting. Every year there is a street festival on Atlantic called Atlantic Antic. As mentioned, it's a gentrified neighborhood, so people come out like cockroaches to buy snow cones and very boring art from one another in the street before ending up at a very boring restaurant called Two8Two. AA was consistently the busiest day of the year for this restaurant and I could go into detail about what a shit show it was but we all know that story. It was a long frustrating day and by the end of it I was still behind the bar. The sun was going down and the crowd was calling it quits too, but I had a couple of bar flies hanging around. I was filling up a sink with piping hot water to wash my glasses in when a figure cut through the golden light of the glass doorway and ponied up to the bar. It was an old fat man who sat regally with the posture of an aristocrat. He looked somewhere between Captain Kangaroo and Doctor Robotnik. White mad science hair, a big matching mustache, a shirt like an old pair of underwear. In his front pocket he had an old napkin which he looked to have been using as a hanky.

He looked at me and he looked also at the bottle of Stoli Orange behind me at the same time because he had crazy different pointing eyes, and in a spooky Vincent Price voice said "DO YOU REMEMBER ME?"

I responded that no did not remember him and he said "ONE YEAR AGO TODAY I CAME HERE."

I explained to him that I had been working here for only six months and he said "I REMEMBER YOU."

I had had a long day. He talked more. "CAN YOU DO ME A FLAVOR?"

I gave him a menu and he predictably made me read the entire menu with him and he tasted all the beers and finally decided on one. Some of the bar flies were mad because they needed to close their tabs, others were giving me those "what the fuck" eyebrows you see a lot in the service industry. Every time he ordered something he asked me how much money his tab was at. I had to add up the tax with a calculator in front of him in between every item because this place was run by some real winners who thought it was ok to make you perform a full restaurant menu including 30 cocktails without a bar back and instead of a POS you got a pencil and paper with a calculator. Then half of your tip money went to some waiter who watched TV for the entire shift. I worked there for a year for some reason. Anyways the professor had been doing this while eating a burger that was slathered in mayonnaise like a baby seal in so much oil. The shit was getting all over his face and hands and he just sort of covered his whole area with little snot rags of mayonnaise like one of those people that shoves kleenex in their every orifice when they're sick. Right as I was about to throw up he announced that he had finished his meal and was ready to leave. I calculated his check and he pulled a bunch of coins and shit out of his pockets and payed me exactly to the cent without a tip. I saw the "no tip" part of this coming a mile away and I didn't care, I just wanted him to leave. I did not foresee what happened next. He loudly announced "THAT WAS THE BEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD" and reached out with his mayonnaise slicked hand for a good old fashioned parting of ways hand shake between men of honor. As my jaw hit the floor, he stood there blissfully oblivious, staring at me and also at the bottle of Kahlua behind me. I just wanted him to leave. I felt my spine slide out through my pant leg as I reached out and gripped his slimy meathook. He walked out the door and probably Mr. Magooed his way home or something. Everyone was staring at me as I held my own hand away from my self like it was a dirty diaper. I grabbed it with my other hand and thrust it into scalding hot water to be cleansed of all the world's scum.