Body Language Drama at 54th Street Bar and Grill

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

(54th street is a chain based in KC, IIRC. They have a couple here in SA).

So there was a body-language drama moment here à 54th St Bar and Grill.

A couple, 40ish, 2 kids (girl and boy, 5 & 7). They’re not talking much, no big deal, the kids are talking plenty.

Phone rings. I happen to be looking at them (I’m facing them in my seat)

Heads jerk: wife’s, husband’s. He looks at phone for 2 rings, she looks at him in a way that you shouldn’t be looked at by your wife (but we all do, regardless), he picks up phone and gets out of booth.

Fake boheme. Guy to guy talk, jocular, in control, but wife’s face tells different story as she stares after her husband: worried, angered. He is meeting somebody “at the lot” (not exact words, close enough) “to discuss”.

Little girl continues to give running commentary about the moment as 4, 5yo’s are wont to do. Little boy, however, notices change in Mommy’s mood and grows quiet. Mommy eventually has to tend to little girl. Mommy only smiles once, at daughter, but it was strained.

Man comes back. Wife and son are studying his face, looking for their individual tells. Says “Are we ready to go? I need to be at the lot.” She stares at him, hoping to get a clue about their call. None forthcoming, at least not vocally, but she breaks off eye contact to get the kids together.

He turns, walks out the door, and they follow 10, 15 seconds later. He leaves behind more than 1/2 a hamburger, she just picked at her salad. They have already paid - it’s the waitress that brought their check that interrupted me from my reverie, into this little drama.

It is obvious there is some long-term stress and issues going on here… watching them was like reading a book. I seriously wanted to tell her not to worry as much as she was, that whatever it is, you and your kids will be OK. But, obviously not my place.

I hope they are OK and that things go well for them at the lot… and if they don’t, they find the strength and courage to make wise decisions in the future.

2

Sounds like some kind of large purchase or real estate investment, based solely on the “lot” talk. Maybe they are building a house?

But you were the only one here who was there. What do you think was happening?

3

I don’t know… that is part of the little vignette… however, there were no expressions of expectation or hope on the adult’s faces. Not a single positive vibe with the exception of the little girl.

Their body language and expressions, to me, foretold of one of those experiences in a marriage where things are strained (I’m thinking financial as he affected a “S Texas small businessman” voice) and the phone call was directly tied to that issue.

As to what it is or its resolution… ?

4

“Oh no, called away from family lunch again.” That would account for all the cues described by the OP.

5

OP would make a great stalker. (That is a compliment.)

6

You are what we call 'round these parts a ‘sticky beak’.*
mmm

*(intended to be amusing, not mean)

7

Husband’s actually having an affair, his mistress is the one on the phone and they were speaking in code. Wife’s stressed out because she’s totally on to that game. Husband thinks he’s totally getting away with it, but he’s stressed out because his mistress is becoming more and more demanding and calling at inconvenient times; he wants to break it off but he’s afraid mistress will spill the beans to his wife if he does. Little girl goes home, places her hands on the TV and whispers “They’re here!” while the little boy paints “REDRUM” on the walls.

8

Lets Write a Story

The lot… car lot? Are things happening at “the lot” that shouldn’t be?

Could be a dealership owner who has been selling cars and not paying the floor planning bank. Yes, it was covered in “Fargo” but it happens a lot. Maybe she knows he’s taken money… and knows they can’t pay it back.
That could be happening tonight, but maybe its happened already. Maybe a silent partner was really floor planning the lot… and now, to make good, Dad is owned by the silent partner, body & soul.

The silent partner makes his money lots of ways… ways that some businesses ask lots of questions about if he tried to launder it. So, being a typical small business owner, he bought into a dealership and offered them rates and terms better than any bank… and the money is clean once the cars are sold.
Silent partner also uses the cars from time to time… the Demos… and sometimes they come back needing body work and with the inside smelling a Lot like bleach.
He laughs and calls it collections & repossessions… but a lot of heavy duffels seem to get loaded into the trunk when they head out looking for cars to repossess… and some times the cars come back with different duffels in the back.

Hey, its all smart business.

The wife, she starts noticing things. She notices her husband gets paid in cash now. She notices that the guy who hated guns she married now has a small 9mm in the pocket of his jacket when he goes to and from work.
She notices when she does laundry that sometimes his clothes smell like burned gun powder… and that he laughs it off unconvincingly saying that “he and the boys went to the range”. In street clothes.

She’s started to find bruises on him when he gets ready for bed… bruises that he says happened with the guys playing a pick-up basket ball game.
There was the cut on his arm that looked a Lot like a knife wound… sewed with thread and covered with first aid kit gauze and tape. He said that it happened at work & luckily the F&I manager was a medic, so he didn’t lave to pay a doctor.

She worries when he goes to work now. She worries lots. She Hates his cellphone. She hates feeling trapped. She hates “the lot” and she’d leave if she thought she could get away… if she thought her kids could get away.
But she can’t. Everybody knows everybody now… and she has this whole new family that she gets really bad vibes from at the pool BBQs… people who know her relatives and where her kids go to school.

She knows he has to go to ‘the lot’. She thinks she knows what will happen if he goes. She knows what will happen if he doesn’t. Half a burger and a salad? As she gathers her kids, she knows that that’s the least of her worries…

9

Give us a hint about who “you” addresses, so people around these parts can start making guesses about what “sticky beak” might mean.

10

The caller was Jesse, telling Walt it was time to come to the junkyard lot where they have the RV parked to make another batch. Skyler hoped he’d given it up, but she knows the phone he just answered is a second burner phone. Your assurances that she and the kids will be OK might not be accurate.

11

Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll Google it for you and provide a link.
mmm

12

If you were at the 54th Street Bar & Grill at The Rim, then I feel somewhat cheated.
There has never been any floor show when I was there, and it could certainly use a little “livening up”. One can only gaze about at the reproduction signs, paintings and assorted tacky bric-a-brac for so long.

Of course, my buddy would claim that I was paying more attention to the systematic consumption of my chicken-fried steak and mashed 'taters than I was to the goings-on around me.
Personally, I think the couple was about to reduce the size of their “family” by one. The little girl was too young to remember her real family before “new mommy” picked her up after school, but the older boy senses that something is going on, maybe something like what happened to his older “brother” just a couple of months ago.

Perhaps his real parents are finally coming to take him back home.

Maybe the angry man that pounded on the front door the other night was calling about his “payment” again.

Maybe somebody somewhere needs a good kidney or two . . . . . . . .