Characters II: Sam

Before he opened his mouth, I thought, "Colonel Sanders went batty in his potbellied old age and grew delusions of Buffalo Bill grandeur."
Shiny pearl buttons in a starched white shirt with black trim, a silver-tipped bolo tie with an ivory elk tooth at his throat, a gleaming gem at the center of the arcs his arms and belly swing with each click of a snakeskin bootheel, eyes squinting from behind weather-beaten crowfeet as the tip of his brilliant white goatee scrapes across his paunch. But his persona serves as mere accompaniment to the true piece: his mustache. His big, bushy, glowing mustache combed and teased and waxed into a delicate upturn on the left side, but the right side had something bad happen; at some point, the curl collapsed and now hung inverted, cattywompus as his eyebrows.
I was doing okay swallowing my reaction until I heard his voice: the peagravel on blackboard rasp of five decades of two-pack smoking, and my face just about exploded as he spoke.
"I'm Sam, Crazy Sam, have a reservation for us two."
Two? There was someone with this character? Of course. Wow, but of course.
I turned and walked off to seat them while getting my face under control, then ran to the kitchen to explain and recuperate.
I came back for a drink order:
"Bring-uh me one of these-uh, these, this here 'Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout!'"
Okay, Sam has killer taste in beer, so I can hold it in for a minute while I take his partner's drink order.
Okay, I lied, I saw that his partner was a female with long dark hair.
Full blooded Plains Indian: the high cheekbones, pointed chin, dark almond eyes that stare with the depths of the wild, the living stereotype Hollywood has constructed.
Is this Custer's atonement? Wild Bill's final fling? Colonel Sanders seduced by the call of the wild west?
No, she's not a relative, she's sitting bolt upright and guarded but with a completely open and engaged face. They're not a comfortable couple, but not awkward, either.
She's fine with water.
I need to get my head flexible again, so thank goodness for a run to the cooler.
"Ah, theah's Rasputin! Nevah say die, I say consume!"
What is there to do but laugh along? "Indeed, sir, few beer bottles offer a more worthy or fulfilling opponent.
"Any questions on the menu? Set to order?"
"Beef," he says, "tenderloin. The big cut. Extra rare."
"And on the salad?"
His head snaps as if slapped, making me worry for his other, upturned 'stash curl. His eyebrows creep together and scale his forehead. "Salad? Ah do not need uh salad."
"Good man, good man, I like your style.
"And for you, ma'am?"
A gentle and refined, "I'll have the bacon apple salad. I'm somewhat his opposite."
"Indeed."
"Pah! Salad!"
"Ah, but sir, though I am inclined to agree with you as a strict carnivore, if ever a salad deserved credit it would be a bacon salad."
"Pah! Salad is salad."

Every time I come out, I smile. I can't help but love this table.
"You say you know this Rasputin felluh? Send him ovuh heah."
"This cow must be standing out back swishing her tail!"

After entrees, four Rasputins (two put most people to sleep), and dessert, I catch them walking out of the restaurant. Huh?

Sam holds up a crisp fifty, snaps it a couple of times, and stuffs it in my shirt pocket. "Heah, keep the change."
It was a $4 tip, but made in such a grandiose gesture after such a bizarrely pleasant table, it was the best tip of the night.