(The Crossover Episode) | 80s AU

I.

Saturday late night shift was the usual crew. Bobby and Sam on dishwasher duty, Sheila playing hostess, and the Davis twins waiting on the rabble that came in through the heavy front door. The supporting cast, as Leland referred to them.

“You’re late,” Sheila reminded him at the front door. She was a blond with crimped hair and as much patience for Leland as could be mustered for thirty-six-year-old going on thirteen. He came in with swagger, wearing the black beanie and sunglasses as though it wasn’t already sundown and a cheesy grin across his face.

“Sheila babe, you heard the new Springsteen song?” He grinned, sidestepping past her toward the kitchen, pointing a pair of finger guns at her. “Glory days, well, they’ll pass you by,” He sang out, throwing his head back and shimmying around one of the Davis girls carrying a tray of waters.

“You’re such a pill,” She shook her head, and turned back to the old couple waiting behind her. “We’re gonna be slammed tonight, so you better get your shit together!”

Her voice called out after him, rattling the elderly couple at the door. Leland stuck out his tongue and give a wave. He couldn’t be bothered tonight, not with the afternoon he’d had. He’d spent the morning down in the East Village having breakfast with his mother, who’d driven all the way from Edison, New Jersey just to tell him his great aunt had died – Mona, or Myrtle, one of the ones that had looked like death warmed over for the past ten years – and that he’d be getting enough of a windfall to blow on a new car and maybe a place of his own.

His mother had cried into her coffee, as much a mess as Leland had seen in recent memory. She’d had dark circles under her eyes, hadn’t even blown her hair out for the occasion. Of course, he was entirely bored of the conversation up until the moment that she revealed he was getting a fat sum of cash, which meant that he had to put on the face of being inconsolable about poor Myrtle (it was Mona) until his mother was done.

Thankfully she bought it, because she bought everything her son ever wanted her to, including the brunch that they’d had because Leland claimed to have forgotten his wallet.

He’d called up Shauna to tell her that life was going to be all right for a while.

They’d fucked in the back of her punch buggy that afternoon, parked right outside prospect park. Leland hadn’t even told her the best news yet, he’d just showed up at her apartment with a set of flowers and chocolates, telling her how much he’d wanted to see her. Shauna was, unlike other women in his life, the type of girl that would always be there for him. Or rather, the type of girl that was low enough on herself that she’d wait around for Leland to decide if he wanted to be part of her life.

“Vasco, my man!” Leland barged through the double doors into the kitchen, shouting loud enough to cause the salt and pepper haired cook to drop the spatula he was using to scrape up an order of scrambled eggs across the grittle. “Co-mo es-tas my amigo!”

“Bien, y tú? Buenas noches Leland,” Vasco gave a grin and moved to toss his spatula into the wash. He wiped his hands across his messy apron. They rarely were scheduled together, he preferring the earlier shifts and Leland the evenings, but he’d worked a double, Yani’s birthday coming up, and they needed the extra money. “Having a good night?”

“Oh it’s fan-fucking-tastic, boss,” Leland pulled an apron over his head and wiggled past the freezer to Tina Turner belting out what love had to do with it. He turned the knob on the radio located on a table right next to the grills and let the music blast. “You ever have one of those days where you just want to dance, Vas?”

“Hombre, that’s the best way to live life,” He laughed. Leland was the sort of lovable oaf that never gave him much trouble. Save for the times that he asked him what country he came from (for the thirteenth time, his father was from Spain and his mother from Mexico) or would ask him what ‘your people’ would do, forgetting that he’d been in the states for close to twenty-five years.

But, sometimes people like Leland were his coworkers, and he’d smile, and nod, and laugh along with them. It was better than putting up a fight, especially when he just wanted to get paid.

“You’re damn straight. That’s why I love you Vas,” He pulled an order slip down from the line and proceeded to pull out the chop meat for a double cheese burger. He kneeded the meat with salt and pepper. “You don’t care as much as some of the guys around here. You got those acid washed jeans and the socks, the white tee, you don’t care how people see you. And you still look great for a guy your age, you know?”

“Gracias…?” Vasco plated a meal and moved to place it in the window for one of the Davis girls to take. He gave a smile as she approached, and noticed her grimace – only to turn to see Leland hovering close enough over his shoulder to make him flinch. Leland gave a wave and she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I like you dude, better than the rest of the a-holes that I got to deal with. I don’t even know if I want to stay here, not after today. I should think bigger.”

“OK,” Vasco gave a nod and took another order slip from the line.

They settled into a steady rhythm, Leland screaming along to Karma Chameleon when it came on. Or that halfway past midnight, when the college crowd started to stumble in from the street, he swiped a few coors lights for him and Vasco. He chattered about the girls sitting out at in the booths, how college girls weren’t his style.

“Remind me too much of my daughter,” Leland said, scratching at his cap. “Women should be like wine, you know? Age brings a certain class to them. I don’t want to fuck around with someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

“You have a daughter?” Vasco’s voice raised just enough that he could see Leland flinch. Somehow he had never imagined that a boy – man – manboy? Could have had children. “Ehm, I have a few daughters, too.”

“Damaris. My heart and soul. Brains of the family. Little weirdo got herself into NYU.” Leland beamed. “Next time we work together, I’ll get her to come in. She’s into all these stones and energy stuff now. I think it’s because her mother’s got all sorts of bad karma, or whatever. You know, energy? Whatever the fuck those hippies call it.”

“Ah. My daughter Raquel moved up to Washington Heights,” Vasco gave a sigh and shook his head. She’d finished high school and said Bushwick wasn’t where it was at. Not with a father who was hardly home, and a mother who worked her fingers to the bone so that Raquel and her three siblings could have a roof over her head. She wanted her own roof, and she was going to get it. “They do what they want, you know?”

Leland let out a belch to break the silence. “Damn straight.”

Three beers later, when the rush had moved to a lull, and Sheila put in the last order, Leland had an arm around Vasco, laughing about the time he and his ex, Beatrice, had gotten naked after midnight in central park. Well, he had gotten naked and she had screamed at him for being an idiot, before laughing at him and having sex by the row boats. He’d told her he had a surprise, and after making her wait on the dirt path by a set of trees and emerging with a boombox over his head wearing nothing, playing True by Spandau Ballet.

“You ain’t so bad, you know, Vas?” Leland shook the little man’s shoulder.

“You too, Leland,” He replied, patting him on the back.

Leland pulled the apron over his head lazily and tossed it on a rack. “Let’s get out of here, have some fun, huh? Nah, nah, don’t say a word,”

“I have to get home to my wife I –” Leland put a finger on his lips and gave a hush.

“Nooope. We’ve still got two hours of drinking and partying we could do out there and you’re not going to leave me hanging, not tonight. Now want to be startin’ something or you going to do what you always do?”

He’d look back and wonder what it was about Leland’s presence that had him say yes, but, perhaps that was the power of someone like Leland. Part of it was morbid curiosity, to see where a night like this would lead.