On New Year's Day this year, me and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones met at a local bar to play a boardgame together that we all wanted to play, since if we didn't do it then when the restaurant was closed, we would never be able to, since otherwise one of us was always working, and we'd never be able to be off, all three of us at the same time so we could all play a boardgame together.
And, the one local brewery that would have been the best venue was closed -- it's quiet and with nice lighting -- and so I asked ahead of time at the one local bar with musical acts if it was cool if we met to play a boardgame in there in a booth since everything else would be closed that day, and the one (taller) (bearded) (hairy-chested) (tattooed) (white) bartender said it was cool, people play cards in there all the time, and then when we met again there that day in the late afternoon, I checked again, and the bartender on shift at that time said it was fine, and we all got drinks and coffee and sat down to play the boardgame in a booth at the far edge of the bar.
Only, after like forty minutes, the opening act that's usually an acoustic singer-songwriter turned out to be this jazz trio, and -- and I've never seen this before! -- the entire bar got all perfectly quiet whenever the music started, like we were all at some mega-serious upscale jazz bar, instead of a raucous bar with constant musical acts.
Like, it was just a bad time to be chatting and playing a boardgame, although no-one had ever clued us in that there was a chance that we might be encountering something like that.
And, when the head of the jazz trio was introducing a song -- he was this (old) (white) man, with glasses and wrinkles, who was talking in a highly complimentary but also mildly "I'm up here and they're down there" way about how good these two (young) musicians were who were on stage with him -- he paused after his commentary, and I look up, and he's getting ready to play, but he's just shooting us this incredibly direct and mean glare that just reeks of disdain, since he's waiting for us to stop talking so he can begin playing his (quiet) number, and the way we're sitting, only I can see it and my (Thai) coworkers have their backs to him and so they can't see it, and it's just this very nasty glance from an old man, since we're interfering with what he's doing and especially from all the attention being on him, it's more about that than about anything with the music, although he would say it's about the music, I'm sure.
And, later, I'm taking a piss in the bathroom and looking up at the monthly music calendar above the urinal, and what do I see, but I see his name, and it's a music performance professor whose daughter I used to tutor like a decade-and-a-half ago in the city that I used to live in, and who I met once or twice but who I didn't recognize now at all, since he had been relatively affable when I had met him, but now he was old, and I had encountered him and a deep-seated nasty side of him in a space where he was accustomed to reign imperiously.
So, I didn't say anything to my (Thai) coworkers, although the next time that I worked with my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker, I mentioned to her that I had a secret to tell her, and I told her the secret of how I knew the old man on-stage, although he didn't recognize me and I chose not to say hello to him and unveil who I was.
"Why say hi?", she was like. "That is fifteen years ago, that is a long time."
. . .
(I wonder if he was always like this and I just wasn't in a situation to see that side of him, or if his character changed. I've noticed that a lot of the people I know in tenured jobs have acquired progressively worse character over the years, so maybe that happened with him, too.)
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