He came down the stairs with no shirt. "Sir, this is a business," the night-audit guy said. In reply to that he spat, "I do what the fuck I want!"

   6:20am.  "Ma'am, I don't mean to scare you," he had a frantic look about him as he leaned over the desk into my face, "but there's a black guy out there in the parking lot who is scaring me." The sun hasn't even come up yet . I just fucking got to work and I'm tryin to read my news.
     I looked at him with a blank stare trying to figure out why this guy didn't just hit him. I couldn't see this construction worker takin any shit from a nigger or asking anyone to solve his problems for him. I led the way to the door like I had a knife and a purpose cuz I wasn't takin any shit this early in the morning either. I flung the door open and stood in the doorway, construction worker by my side as he pointed at the man in the parking lot in the pre-dawn. Mutherfuhkers get outta my goddam parking lot with yer shit-startin. I'm not afraid of jail and I gotta bad mouth. I stared at the black guy and all the construction workers circling him until I figured out that they weren't circling him to jump him.
     "I think he's got a gun in his pocket," construction worker still standing beside me said. "I think he's gonna rob you."
'White guys' started to smile. I turned to the guy beside me still with no emotion, "You fuckin with me?"
     "Yeah."
     I had to try really goddam hard to smile slightly and pretend that the joke was funny. I wanted to hit him so fucking hard repeatedly so that his crew all saw it. Spike his head onto a staff and hoist it into the sharp pre-dawn air. He was to be the example for what busty front-desk clerk will and will not dick with. I don't think your jokes are funny.
     The colored boy on the crew was being hazed. They told the waitress at Perkins that he beats his wife but he seemed like the most decent of them all.