A Touch of Thai

We enter the restaurant only barely expecting it to be open.

It is nearly nine o' clock and the lights--cylindrical frosted-glass hanging affairs--have been dimmed considerably. The webpage for the restaurant states that the place closes at ten, but everything seems ready to close now. Rows of glossy tables, looking recently polished, have sauces and napkins neatly stacked on their left sides. All of the chairs are pushed in. There are no people in sight. Fauna, however--of both the living and plastic variety--seems to be everywhere, along with colorful  paintings and posters with advertisements for Thai snacks.

Two prominently placed, carefully hedged spiraling plants attend either side of the cash register, which rests on a green marble desk decorated with a large golden vase in the shape of a Buddha. The Buddha has his head thrown back, appearing to swallow the bouquet of pink blossoms he holds in his mouth. Over the register is a large flat-screen TV playing the "Big Bang Theory" with the sound muted.

We seat ourselves, chatting. Our voices sound very loud in the otherwise quiet place.

An olive-skinned man who appears to be in his mid-thirties emerges from the kitchen. His eyes flash with surprise and irritation when he notices us, but he quickly hides it. He comes to our table unsmiling.

He speaks very quietly, his English slightly clipped. A couple of times, he stops and asks us to repeat ourselves, watching the lips of whomever is speaking carefully. The terms for the various Thai dishes we are ordering roll easily off of his tongue, but his English is strained and his expression while speaking it, uncertain.

After taking our order and forwarding our requests to the kitchen, he moves behind the counter and opens the register, counting money with quick movements, glancing up at us surreptitiously from time to time.

As we eat, a white man with a thick brown beard comes from the kitchen carrying a pen and clipboard. He, like the first man we met, is wearing jeans and a new-looking t-shirt. Unlike our host, the front of the bearded man's shirt is greasy. He seems to have come from washing dishes in the kitchen.

One of my friends makes a silly joke and the others laugh uproariously. The bearded man eyes us with thinly veiled exasperation before disappearing into the office next to the cash register.

One of my companions remarks quietly that it is only 9:30, and the restaurant closes at ten. He doesn't understand the overwhelming sense of unwelcome radiating from our host and the bearded man. I continue writing as my friends talk loudly to one another and laugh.

Our host begins to give us more pointed signs that it is time to go--the lights in the next room turn off, the Coca-Cola machines filled with beer next to the kitchen click off one by one. A third employee, an Asian man in a worn, oil-stained baseball cap, comes out of the kitchen with a plastic bag containing a take-out box. He doesn't bother to look at us, instead plopping down wearily in a seat and taking out his smartphone.

The host takes our cards for the split check and hurriedly rings up our food, returning within moments. It is now 9:45. We begin shoveling food into take-out boxes, tacitly arranging a handsome tip as an apology for showing up at what is apparently an inconveniently late time.

From behind his cash register our host stares at us without shame, waiting for us to go. When we leave, he does not return our "Good night" or "Thank you."

"Why would they be upset about earning an extra $40 tonight?" one of my friends muses once we are outside.

Thinking about the quietness of our waiter's voice, I begin to wonder if it was our boisterousness, rather than our arrival time, which irritated our hosts.