Kenny Lee, Bartender

Things did not end well at the luxury bunker.

You know that book, Lord of the Flies?

Well, I don't.

Ms. Dakelman assigned it to us in tenth grade, but I didn't read it. And she totally busted me on it, too. "Kenny, what do you think is the theme of Lord of the Flies?" From the way she asked the question, it was pretty obvious that she knew I had no idea. So instead of trying bullshit my way out of it, I answered in a deep, dramatic voice.

"Only the strongest fly can be Lord of the Flies!"

Huge laugh from the class. Totally worth the F. Which, let's be honest, I was going to get no matter what. Because I sure as hell wasn't going to waste my teenage years fucking reading.

Anyway, people who did read the book tell me it was like that.

It all started with chocolate. Specifically, those little chocolate squares that the Housekeeping put on peoples' pillows every night at turndown. Why that's even a thing, I don't know. But one day, out of the blue, Housekeeping announced that they would no longer be giving out regular chocolate anymore; instead, they'd be giving out white chocolate.

Dun dun duuuunnnnnn!

No, really. Dun dun dun. A lot of people were seriously pissed off. Because, according to the self-declared experts on chocolate in our midst (and believe me, we had self-declared experts on pretty much everything in our midst) — white chocolate isn't actually chocolate at all!

You should have heard everybody bitching and moaning.

"What is this: a luxury bunker or Treblinka?"

"They shouldn't call it white chocolate! They should call it white lie!"

"Jesus Christ! Why not just take a shit on my pillow?"

Jean Stein, the head of Housekeeping, tried to calm everybody down. She explained that due to a pre-Apocalypse requisition error, not enough chocolate was ordered, and they had simply run out. Then she pointed out that white chocolate's main ingredient is cocoa butter, which comes from the cocoa bean, so it's pretty much the same thing.

Right?

Fuck to the no! That just made everybody even madder!

"Quit trying to put milk chocolate lipstick on a white chocolate pig!"

"The road to hell is paved with cocoa butter!"

"That's like saying that Eminem is the same thing as a Chrysler Sebring because they both come from Detroit!"

That last one was my favorite because it made everybody shut up for a few seconds while they tried to make sense out of the analogy. Cocoa bean is to Detroit as Chocolate is to Eminem. Or something.

Like I said, I failed English.

But yeah, the whole thing was nuts. In fairness, though, they were going kind of stir-crazy. They'd been there for who-knows-how-many months, out of touch with the world, bored, restless and sick of each other. They were especially sick of that "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" song that DJ Epiq-1 kept playing, even though the irony had worn pretty fucking thin.

So I guess it wasn't that surprising that they overreacted.

Ultimately, though, there was nothing they could do. If they're out of chocolate, they're out of chocolate. The whole thing would have blown over, but then a rumor started going around and it swept through our little underground community faster than HPV.

The rumor was this: contrary to the official line we were given, they weren't out of chocolate! No, sir! In fact, while most people had to choke down white "choco-shit," as it had become known, there was an elite, privileged few who were still getting the real thing!

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!

Everybody went batshit! It was all anyone wanted to talk about! Who gets the chocolate? And why? And how do we even find out? Who is making these decisions? Everyone was suspicious and on edge. And, of course, everybody complained to me.

Like this one lady, Felicia, goes: "You know who I hear is getting it? Bowman! Can you believe that? Fucking Bowman! I mean, can you explain why that disgusting, ass-grabbing misogynist is worthy... but not me?"

Which was funny, because not twenty minutes earlier, Bowman had complained because he had heard that Felicia was getting the real chocolate. "Can you believe that shit? How many guys do you think that cock-teasing butterface had to blow to make that happen?"

There were two things pretty much everyone agreed on. They weren't getting the good stuff. But someone they hated was.

I asked Frat Guy: "It's just a square of chocolate. Why is it such a big deal?"

"It's the fucking principle, dude! We're supposed to all be in this together, right?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, aren't you pissed they stopped giving you chocolate?"

"I'm 'the help.' They never started giving me chocolate."

"Well. That's different." Then he went back to complaining.

Things got so bad that Robert himself called a meeting. He was trying to reassure everybody that there was no Secret Chocolate Cabal, but it majorly backfired. Because no one had ever mentioned a cabal. So why was Robert talking about a cabal? Unless there was a cabal!

When you say the word "cabal" enough, it loses all meaning. Cabal cabal cabal cabal cabal. See?

Sorry. Where was I?

Right. OK. So it wasn't going great for Robert even before he keeled over and died. And then he keeled over and died. Heart attack. The least surprising heart attack in history. He was obese, stressed out, drinking heavily and trying to keep up with Svetlana, a super-hot Belarusian half his age and a quarter his weight.

Even he didn't seem particularly shocked. He clutched his chest, then sort of shrugged and said, "Well, there you go." Then he hit the floor.

There was a silence.

Someone muttered, "The conch shatters." Whatever that meant.

Usually, I just stay in the background and let other people figure things out, but I sensed that Robert's death might be an opportunity to maybe reunite everybody.

So I proposed that we hold a wake for Robert.

In hindsight, getting a whole bunch of people with raw nerves together in one room and giving them copious quantities of alcohol — Amaretto Sours, actually, in honor of the deceased — may not have been the best idea. But it started off great. Or at least as great as something can be when there's a dead body on a slab of ice in the middle of the room. People were drinking and laughing and swapping stories about the good old days.

"Hey, remember when we didn't sleep for three straight days trying to computer shit computer shit?"

"Yeah! And what about the time that Robert totally reamed Paul because computer shit computer shit?"

Whatever. I didn't know what they were talking about.

Then Svetlana came in. Everyone stared. She was wearing a tight black minidress, a look someone in the crowd cattily referred to as "funereal whore." Her eyes were red from crying. Or cocaine. Or maybe both.

The crowd parted as she walked towards Robert's body. She looked at him sadly, leaned over and gently stroked his face. It was very touching. And maybe a little arousing for those of us who were in a position to see down the front of her dress.

She whispered something to him in Belarusian. And then she surprised everybody by throwing herself on his body and wailing, Old-World-Italian-Widow style. We had no idea that her feelings for him ran that deep. Come to think of it, we had no idea she had feelings at all.

People tried to lead her away, but she grabbed on to Robert and when they tried to pry her off, she shrieked and fought and then Robert's body fell to the ground! Everybody gasped when they heard their dead boss's head crack on the dance floor. And they gasped again when they saw what had fallen out of Robert's pocket.

Chocolate squares.

After that, all hell broke loose. Felicia shouted that Robert had been hoarding chocolate all along! Bowman shouted that Svetlana planted the chocolate on Robert! Then it was just a free-for-all. Punching, kicking, beer bottles flying.

DJ Epiq-1 started playing "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" yet again. But I have to admit, in this context, the irony kind of worked.

I saw Svetlana stab someone in the neck with a shiv! Which made me wonder when, exactly, Svetlana had taken the time to make a shiv?

But there was no time to think about that. In the time-honored tradition of bartenders, I jumped behind the bar, took cover and waited for the storm to pass.

When it finally quieted down, I peeked over the bar. There was blood and bodies. Some people were running away, some limping away, some crawling, pursued by more shiv-wielding Belarusians. These ladies really came to play.

Svetlana caught my eye and I ducked back down. She said, "Is OK now." I stood up and she gave me a smile as she bit into a square of chocolate. "Is OK. You go." She handed me a key card and kissed me on the cheek.

I got the fuck out of there of as fast as I could. I can't say that I know for sure what happened. But I can tell you this: I know who the strongest fly is. And it ain't no lord.