Parking Lot Sake

     On a blistering Tuesday afternoon a man stood out in the parking lot as we were all leaving the office for taco specials down at Macha’s. He held a large white umbrella over a wooden table that came up to his chest.
     I went over with Bryce to see what the small sign hung over the box said. We got close enough to smell a strongly fermented aroma at the same moment the sign spelled down its length “Free Sake.”
     The man smiled as I accidentally met his eyes. He was shorter than even I was.
     He let go of the umbrella and it wiggled the table it was fixed onto. “Would you like some? Yes, please, it is good and free.”
     Normally I was the cautious one, but Bryce said, “Hey, is this legal?”
    Several cups laid on a dark cloth over the table varied between porcelain teacups, small wooden cubes, metallic shot glasses, and red plastic party cups. Slung around the man’s neck was a horn carved from a farm animal. Each held a steaming fragrance of sunlit dalliances out of contractual promises against drinking on company time.
    The man smiled, it was possible, wider than before so that his whole set of slightly stained teeth showed crookedly out of his mouth. “Why yes, I checked. The building belongs to the property owner, but not the parking lot, which belongs to the city. The city requires a permit, which, as you see I have.” He waved his hand off to the side, to a little cat figurine lolling against the umbrella. The small crooked claw propped up a laminated document, signed and sealed by a bureaucratic entity.
   “And they’re okay with this?” I asked.
    Bryce smiled at the worry lines curling tighter around my eyes.
    “She just doesn’t trust good luck,” he laughed.
    “Indeed,” the man replied.
     Bryce shouted through his hands, “Over here! Party for us!” and our coworkers turned from their Camrys, Jettas, and Priuses toward the note of promise in the announcement. A few actually hurried through the rows in smart leather shoes.
        I wanted to know how the man’s smile stayed. Though I looked at him from my peripheral, his serene, but not silly joy remained intact, and I had the impression that he was studying me, too.
     “My name is Kendo. Welcome, welcome. Which one do you want?” He asked the party forming in front of his allegedly licensed booze booth.
      “Do you have anything in a larger container?” The new guy from accounting brought hoots from our party.  
      Late arrivals came breathless and shoved money at Kendo. “No, it’s free,” he insisted. “Take it, take it.”
      He gestured to the sign, which I discovered behind my file notes. I moved out of the crowd under the umbrella into the sun, where I was out of the way.
      Bryce saw me. He strolled over with two of the wood cubes balanced in clawed hands.
      Before he opened his mouth I said, “Yes, I take my work home with me, shut up.”
      He squinted against the midday sun. “You take work home with you? How were you going to enjoy Taco Tuesday?”
      I shrugged and shifted around the weight of my files so that they fell across my hips. “It’s not Taco Tuesday. It’s a teetotaler’s nightmare.”
      We glanced at the spread of coworkers laughing at good fortune, those lagging behind asking those in front frantic questions as they put their wallets away.
     “This is your chance to have fun without being criticized,” Bryce said. He held out one of the cubes. The steam tickled my nostrils.
     I held my sleeve against my nostrils. “It’s not my edict.”
     “Right. Here, I think you’ll want to look at this.”
     “Let go, Bryce, I don’t –”   
      He let go of my shoulder when I stopped and stared. Our floor’s boss, a founding member of the company and the litigation committee head, sat on a concrete stall bar, surrounded by a horde of boisterous college interns, and took two metallic cups down his thick throat.
     I reached for the cup Bryce held out to me. I said, “So this is how today ends. We all get terminated.”
     “I prefer to think about it as going out with a bang,” Bryce said.
      “Attention, attention!” Kenzo shouted through the crowd. “There is a tradition, a mighty cry, when drinking sake. It is traditional. Repeat after me: Ban-zai.”
      Several people murmured.
      “Banzai!” Kenzo raised his drinking horn and shouted to the sky adjoining his umbrella.
      “Banzai!” I said with Bryce and a hundred of my coworkers. Like Kenzo, we raised the sake as in a toast before drawing the cups to our lips in strong celebration.
     Cars shimmered as if by magic. The sky stained white hot, almost bright like the umbrella. I grinned at Bryce, and he shrugged. Neither of us could say whether this was fortuitous or not.
    At least Kenzo seemed to be enjoying us partaking of his vaguely legal spirits.
    I didn’t believe Macha would miss us all that much.