a few years ago, sal had to leave the old location after having a disagreement with his landlord - a vietnamese woman named lu who also did my mother's manicures. sal moved 4 or five blocks away to a strip mall. i think he bought an old donut place. lu opened her own italian food restaurant at the old dairy queen; apparently to spite sal, since we begged her to open a vietnamese restaurant. lu's restaurant lasted exactly one week; she closed it down and left never to be seen again. sal's restaurant has been thriving. the young albanian woman who has been with him since the beginning is still there. on saturday i went there with some friends for dinner. sal's place is b.y.o.b, so i brought chianti. while there, we noticed someone new working there: a woman in her mid-fifties who shuffled around quietly bussing the tables. i and another friend thought we recognized her, but couldn't quite place her. after getting a really good look, i realized she was the crazy woman from old granbury road. my grandparents remember when old granbury road was the only main road in and out of fort worth. part of it, the crazy ladies part, is not far from the old dairy queen. i lived near there for years. the crazy lady lived in a house with a fenced backyard that faced old granbury. she covered the side of her fence facing the road with religious sayings, some of them with swear words. someone built her a scaffold on the other side of the fence so she could stand on it and shout at the cars going by. once, as i was driving by, she was standing on the side of the road waving her ass at the passing cars, slapping it and pointing at it (telling us to kiss her ass, i assume.) i never got an exact diagnosis, but she's schizophrenic or something. i used to have a schizophrenic woman living two houses down from me; she would take a hose to passing cars. anyway, the grandbury road woman looked good. she was clean and well groomed and seemed to be doing her job well. we talked to sal briefly; he said somebody in her family had finally forced her to take her medication. i don't know if he hired her out of altruism or as a favor to someone, but there she was. when we finished, we asked her for to-go boxes. she came back with a group of boxes and left. we found that all of the tops were larger than the bottom. we called her back and asked for new tops. my friend showed her the mismatching pieces and said, "i'm having a little trouble coping with it." she smiled and said, "story of my life." she got us new tops. |
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