Winding Down the Day


Stephanie
November 12, 2001

Part 4





I remember one year we all gathered together at the back room of the café to talk, as it had become our custom when all five of us happened to be in town together. That night, however, there was a disturbance out in the main dining room. A man was yelling at Trowa's staff, demanding to speak to the owner. Trowa excused himself from our table to attend to the matter. I remember peeking out from the door to make sure everything was alright. The man was actually a young boy... a gutter punk probably strung out on a multitude of drugs. After the war, there was a lot of that. Poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, they all ran rampant in the first decade following the Eve Wars. Many of the old and young alike had turned to alcohol and drug addiction.

Trowa never turned a hungry mouth away. The streets of New Orleans were ridden with the dispossessed. The buskers playing and singing, the young children tap dancing for small change, the tarot readers, the chess players, the prostitutes, the pimps, the gutter punks, the winos, the tour guides... From the filthy rich to the desolate poor, they roamed the streets together. It was often difficult to tell them apart. And Trowa fed them all: the rich and the poor, whether they paid or not. The rule was that the non-paying customers must stay in the back of the café behind the brick wall of the courtyard, out of the sight of the paying customers. Trowa had the alley way fenced off from public view so that the people could eat in peace without the public gawking at them. They were allowed to eat as much as they wanted, but they must never bother the people paying for service. The young man causing the commotion up front now objected to the rule it seemed.

His head was completely shaven and he wore a beat up brown leather jacket with old Oz insignias up and down the arms. His eyes, like so many of the poor of the city, had deep circles under them and were sunken into his face. His ears were so heavily pierced, it looked as though they were made completely of metal. Needles were sticking out from his nose and cheeks so that he resembled a pin cushion.

He was demanding to the server that he be allowed to sit up front, waving a twenty dollar bill in the air and announcing that he was a paying customer and therefore deserved to sit up front with the rest of the human beings.

He was not a frightening spectacle, so much as a pitiful one, yet still I feared for Trowa when he went out to confront the man. One never knew when a scene could turn violent.

But Trowa... he calmly slipped his arm around the boy's shoulder and talked to him quietly for a moment before walking outside with him. I couldn't hear what he said, but he had obviously calmed the man down. I turned back to the others to make my report.

"'It looks like he has it under control. He's probably taking the kid to the back to get a hot meal now,' I told them."

Wufei just crossed his arms and scowled. "He shouldn't be doing this..." he said in a huff, and not for the first time.

"Ah, come on, Wufei, what do you mean? He's doing a good turn!" Duo countered, also not for the first time. The two of them talked on the topic of Trowa's philanthropy quite a bit. "And really, the guy had a point. If he had the cash, he had every right to be in there eating with the rest of the paying customers. I think we need to stop shielding people from the harsh reality of life already. They're not going to fucking wither if they fall under the shadow of the street folk."

"That's not the point, Duo, and you know it!" Wufei said pointing his tea spoon at Duo. "The people are taking advantage of Trowa's and Catherine's generosity! I don't care what the upper crust thinks of Trowa's back house business, but these people have started to cross lines. At first I thought there was no harm to him giving leftover handouts to the poor, but then they kept coming and bringing their friends. Now they all come for a free handout! And he and Catherine tend to them on their own, always buying quality meat for stews. He gives them the same stuff he gives to the paying customers, and do you know I've sometimes heard them complain? It's free and it's good, yet they still complain! People have learned nothing from the wars we've fought...

"And do you know that Trowa has not raised the prices since he opened the café six years ago?" he went on. "Not a single penny! His own cost goes up, but he will not change with the times. And then he gives his food away for free to those ingrates. You need to talk to him, Quatre. He's going to drive the café into bankruptcy."

"Is that true, Quatre?" Duo turned to me alarmed. "You wouldn't let him go bankrupt, right? I mean, none of us would, but you... You could feed the whole Earth Sphere prime rib for all eternity without going bankrupt..."

"Well, no Duo, I couldn't really do--" I started to tell him I didn't really have the resources to feed the whole Earth Nation, but Wufei interrupted.

"That's not the point, Duo! Trowa is being taken advantage of and it's going to drive him out of business. It needs to stop! Quatre should not have to bale him out, the café does a good business."

"Well, no, no... it's not that bad, Wufei," I informed him. He was really only looking out for Trowa's well being. "Financially, he's not in any real trouble. In fact, he paid off the loan money for the start-up costs last year. He's not making much of a profit, but he's not in debt either. I think he's doing just fine."

Wufei shook his head in disapproval. "Trowa needs to think more about his own needs. He could have a whole chain of restaurants by now if he wanted them. He could at least hire more people to help with the maintenance of the day-to-day work here. He always looks tired. He's too thin. He--"

"Yeah, he always looks tired and too thin, Wufei!" Duo agreed with him. "Since the first day we met him, he looked like he could use a year's membership to a spa. You want him to buy a chain of cafes now? He'll waste away to nothing if--"

"He's happy," Heero had finally spoken up. I was a little relieved. Wufei and Duo both meant well, but sometimes their arguing could make one weary. Heero would have none of it though. I can't believe I missed how in love he was with Trowa before that moment. "If he wants to spend his time feeding the entire city paté and caviar from his own wallet, I'm not going to stop him." He then narrowed his eyes at both Duo and Wufei and stared at them with his intense gaze. "He's happy. Leave it at that."

"Well yeah man, that's what I was saying!" Duo smiled smugly at Wufei. "He's happy and he's doing a good thing."

"You know," I said, deciding to change the topic and entertain them in Trowa's absence, "it's not just the poor he feeds for free. Monsieur Genet often gets away without paying his bill."

"The French Senator?" Heero asked.

"Um-hum," I nodded. "He comes in here quite a bit. He claims New Orleans is 'the only good French town left in all of the United States,'" I quoted verbatim, having heard the speech of the old buffoon a few dozen times over the years. "He runs the poor servers ragged and then complains about the food. Trowa and Catherine are used to him now though. They just smile, nod, and tell him the food is on the house."

"Hn..." Heero smiled in conspiracy with me. "I know of Monsieur Genet from working in Relena's Cabinet. At the World Nation Senate he's always in disagreement with everything until he's asked to submit his own opinions. Then he has none."

"You know," I said, "I hear 'Genet' is not his real name, or that he's even a real Frenchman. Do you know anything on that, Heero?"

Heero nodded and moved his chair closer to the table. "He's not really French, but he brags to the council that he is a descendant of the French author Jean Genet."

"Jean Genet? Get out,"Duo laughed. "The Thief's Journal, Jean Genet? The born of a prostitute, gutter snipe, champion of the criminal element and underclass, Jean Genet?"

Heero nodded again.

Duo propped his feet up on the table and fiddle with a deck of cards that were had been laid out. "He doesn't have a clue, does he?"

Heero merely shook his head. "He thinks it sounds more distinguished while it gains him the vote of the commoner. One of the other Senators researched into Monsieur Genet's family history. His father and mother were both Slavic. They moved to France while he was still a child. He later changed the his name to Genet after his parents died."

"And what was their family name before?" Wufei asked.

"Ottilia," Heero replied.

"That doesn't sound so bad." Duo said. "I wonder why they changed it."

Heero leaned in closer to the table. There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes. "It means 'cabbage,'" he said, and then he sat back in his seat and folded his arms.

Duo laughed out loud and was nearly rolling on the floor. "Oh that's poetic justice!"

Even Wufei was laughing at Monsieur Genet's darkest secret. "Perhaps this is why he's such a bitter man,"he said. "Still, he should not get away without paying his bill. Trowa should--"

"Leave things as they are," Trowa completed for him as he strode back in the room. "The man lives with enough shame in his life."

"Hn. Not enough if he hasn't learned to pay his bills yet," Wufei snorted. "I think the Senator has more than enough money to pay for his soup and coffee." He paused for a moment and looked directly at Trowa. "Especially at these prices. Don't you agree? Or maybe it's time for him to sit out back with the rest of the non- paying 'customers.'"

"Oh now you're talking, Wufei!" Duo sprang out of his chair and put his arm around Trowa. "What do ya think? Next time he comes in we tell him," Duo dropped his tone to that of a serious nature. "'Monsieur Cabbage, we know you are a proud man. Therefore, we would not think of forcing you to sit with the paying customers. We know you would be much more comfortable sitting out back with your own kin. Monsieur Cabbage, your great ancestor Jean would be so proud!'" Duo put both hands on Trowa's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "I only ask that you let me be the one to tell him," he said, dramatically crossing his right hand over his chest. Duo really liked to push the drama when he could. "You know I live for my art."

Trowa pushed Duo aside and sat down at the table. "No," he said, and then poured himself some coffee from the pot on the table. He drank it down straight and then took out a pair of playing cards. "I'll deal," he said. And that was that.