Waiter Rant (26 page)

“I’m sure he does. Is he in the kitchen?”

“Yes, but he’s—”

I walk away from Saroya and stick my head in the kitchen. Armando’s standing next to the stove going over an invoice.

“You need to talk to me?” I ask.

Armando looks up and smiles a terse smile. “Yeah,” he says, “Give me a minute.”

“I’ll be outside.”

As I was waiting one of the other servers, Sara, a tall brunette whose husband just got home from Iraq, sidles up to me. “I heard you guys had a tough night last night.”

“I’ve seen worse,” I chuckle.

“What happened?”

“Too many chiefs,” I reply. “Not enough Indians.”

“Oh.”

“So you ready?” Armando says, exiting the kitchen.

“Yep.”

“Follow me,” Armando says, smiling indulgently. “We’ll talk in the office.”

Part of me bristles at being talked to like a subordinate, but I bite my tongue; I just want to get this over with and clear the air.

We head down to Fluvio’s office. Armando slowly lowers himself into Fluvio’s chair. I move several articles of stained clothing off a folding chair and sit down.

“Listen, Armando,” I start, “about Saroya…”

“Forget about that,” Armando says, waving his hand dismissively. “I want to talk to you about something else.”

“Oh?” I say, surprised.

“I’ve been talking to my cousin and the staff,” Armando says, twisting in Fluvio’s swivel chair and looking up at the ceiling. “And we all agree you need to change how you act around here.”

“How so?”

“Everyone thinks you’re being unfair—that you take all the good tables, that you always get more customers than anyone else.”

“The waiters have been griping about that for years,” I counter. “What’s different now?”

“Listen,” Armando says. “People are saying your attitude sucks. They’re getting tired of it.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. The office reeks of grease and sweat. This wasn’t the conversation I thought I’d be having. Feeling like I’m being ambushed, I reflexively start defending myself. As I’m talking I begin to wonder why I’m even bothering to explain myself to Armando. He’s not my boss. Armando pretends to look interested and nods politely at the appropriate moments, but I can tell he’s not listening. He’s itching to tell me something. Part of me wonders if Fluvio’s somehow recording this conversation. I wouldn’t put it past him. Great. Now
I’m
getting paranoid.

“Well, I’ve talked to my cousin,” Armando says when I finish talking. “And he’s told me that I’m in charge of The Bistro. If you’re not willing to change how you do things, he’s authorized me to let you go.”

I tamp down a sudden surge of anger. Armando’s a nice guy. One day he’ll have a successful restaurant of his own, but right now he’s just playacting being the boss. He still has much to learn. I’m really furious at Fluvio. After six and a half years of working together he should have had the balls to have this conversation with me himself.

“Wow,” I say. For once I’m at a loss for words.

“That’s the way is.”

“So what changes do you have in mind?” I half mumble.

As Armando talks I stare at a spot on the floor and pretend to listen. It’s no coincidence this conversation’s coming three weeks after I reduced my hours at The Bistro. Granted, many of the staff’s gripes are legitimate, but the real impetus behind Fluvio’s actions is his intolerance of anyone he can’t control. That’s why he’s not here.

I could fight this. I’m not technically being fired. If I wait long enough, Fluvio’s craziness and ingratitude will drive the staff back into my corner, and he’ll be forced to depend on me again. But how long will that take and at what cost? I’m worn down by Fluvio’s nonsense, and I don’t have the emotional resources to fend of a mutiny from the staff. I’d win a Pyrrhic victory at best.

Someone once told me, “You’re ready to do something when you’re ready to do it.” A good waiter knows when it’s time to throw in his apron. For me, that time has finally come. I needed this last bit of stupidity from Fluvio to snip the last shackles holding me to this place. I don’t need The Bistro anymore. It was my haven and crucible for six years. Now I don’t need it anymore. I can stand on my own two feet. I’m going to be all right; I’m not afraid. I deserve better than this. I won’t fail. I won’t be destroyed.

It is time for me to go.

Armando’s still talking, but I can’t hear him. His words are muzzled by a cottony fog of emotion swirling around me. Happiness, relief, anger, and sadness exchange places in my brain so quickly that they blur into a single unquantifiable sensation. There’s nothing to say. I get up from my chair and head toward the door.

“Where you going?” Armando says.

“I’m done here.”

“But—”

“Good-bye, Armando.”

As I walk through the door Armando calls after me, “I know you can’t believe this is happening. But it’s happening. Believe it!”

Shaking my head, I climb up the stairs and walk into the dining room. I grab my coat and keys. I feel like an invisible hand is pressing into my back and guiding me toward the front door. In a state of shock I look down at the wooden floorboards gleaming waxily in the afternoon light. I’ve been here so long that every knot, whorl, and gouge in the wood is as familiar as the landscape of my own face. I must’ve tread across them enough times to span the Pacific—now I can’t believe I’m walking over them for the last time. As I walk past the linen-covered tables I think about the stories each one could tell. Table 3’s where that lady had a stroke. Table 9’s where the alcoholic lady broke down and cried. Table 15’s where that guy proposed to his girlfriend.
Table 17’s where I cut my hand opening wine and bled all over the table. Table 18’s where the guy had a seizure and poleaxed, unconscious, to the floor. I rolled the drunken guy with the hooker at table 19, and Russell Crowe asked me if I was an actor at table 20. Table 22 was where I took care of the Valentine’s Day couple, and table 24’s where I once told an obnoxious man to get the hell out. Tables 25’s where my favorite customers always ate, and table 26 was where that girl and boy decided on New Year’s Eve to try for a baby. I can’t believe I’ll never work these tables again. I owe them, somehow.

Traffic noises float in off the street. The afternoon sun is hitting the main window, rear projecting the restaurant’s stenciled logo against the side wall. As I look at The Bistro’s shadowed name in reverse I remember how the sunlight played through the stained-glass windows of my old seminary chapel. I remember the sound of thirty men tenderly singing to the Virgin Mary. I think of Kevin’s funeral and the last time I saw him alive. I think about Beth tenderly applying makeup to her dead friend’s face. Tears sting my eyes. I feel a tremendous sense of relief, like when a loved one dies after a long illness and you know his suffering is over. Emotions and memories start running through my head like a speeded-up film. I remember a happy Fluvio bringing his son to the restaurant for the first time. I remember kissing my ex-girlfriend in the wine cellar. I remember the brother I lost and the brother I have. I remember my parents when they were young. I remember Amici’s. I think about Caesar. I think about Rizzo. I think about karma. I think about sin and redemption. No matter what I think about The Bistro today, in the long run, it was good for me to be here.

As I travel down the aisle the tears in my eyes refract the light shining through the windows into a gauzy haze. By the time I reach the exit they’re falling off my face and onto the floor. Placing my hand on the glass door I take a deep breath, whisper good-bye, and walk outside. The autumn air is crisp and pure. The
wind’s loudly rustling the leaves of the trees. I remember reading that you can hear God’s voice whispering in the wind. Maybe that’s whose hand I feel on my back. I smile, wipe away my tears, and start walking down the street.

I’m no longer that sad man in the window.

I’
m standing outside Café Gerardi’s enjoying a beautiful spring afternoon. The neighborhood was in the grip of a violent thunderstorm when I showed up for work this morning. Now the air is calm and quiet. The resurgent sun has evaporated all evidence of the rain. I take a deep breath and enjoy the scent of a freshly laundered world.

I absentmindedly reach for a pack of cigarettes. A few confused seconds pass until I remember that I quit smoking. As I pull my hand out of my pocket I smile ruefully to myself. Quitting The Bistro was the best thing I ever did for my health. Not only did I kick cigarettes, but I started to exercise, lowered my alcohol consumption, began sleeping better, and lost ten pounds. I feel like leaving The Bistro has added ten years to my life. All my friends say I look calmer. They’re right.

I turn around and look through Café Gerardi’s front window. I have only one customer, a fat, jowly man who comes in every week for a bottle of root beer and a bowl of Zuppa di Pesce. He’s one of those sad types who has problems being around other people but craves human company nonetheless. Every restaurant has one customer like him. I’ve sort of adopted him. It took a month, but now he smiles at me whenever I take his order. You
have to savor life’s small triumphs. Noting that the man is halfway through his meal, I turn my face back toward the sun to soak up some more vitamin D. I have time.

I’ve been working at Café Gerardi’s for almost two months. It’s not the best place I’ve ever worked at, but it isn’t the worst. Since I’m new I get the crappiest shifts, the worst sections, the most problematic customers, and the foulest side work. When I told Beth about my reversal-of-waiter fortune, she laughed her head off and told me it was payback for all the managerial sins I committed at The Bistro. On one level she’s right, but I also like being a simple waiter for a change. I don’t miss arguing with customers who feel entitled or telling the staff to smoke pot on their own time. Even though I’m making half the money I made at The Bistro, I’m happy. I work only four shifts a week. I have more time for the rest of my life.

When I left The Bistro, I decided to take a little vacation from the restaurant business. I needed a break. I was curious to see how average human beings celebrated the holidays. Let me tell you, it was strange returning to the flow of ordinary time. When I spent Christmas Eve with my family for the first time in seven years, I didn’t know what to do with myself. When I was at a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s house, it took a concerted effort not to grab a tray and start serving canapés. It took a month before I stopped dreaming about forgotten appetizers and unrefilled sodas.

It was also strange to eat out like a civilian. At first I got aggravated overhearing patrons giving their server a hard time, but eventually I started to relax and see things through the customer’s eyes. After dining in more than a few excellent restaurants, I was pleased to discover that The Bistro isn’t the entire restaurant world.

Fluvio called me the day after I quit. It was not a good conversation. We didn’t speak to each other again until a few weeks ago. I had to call him to straighten out a problem with my health insurance. That’s when he told me he lost Bistro Duetto. Something went wrong with the lease, and he had to pull out. He told
me he lost a ton of money. Later somebody would tell me that Fluvio’s financials were screwed up from day one and that his crash and burn was inevitable. Personally, I think all the bad karma Fluvio accumulated over the years finally came back to bite him on the ass. Before the call ended he told me he still considered me a friend. That pissed me off. If he were my friend, he’d have called me to see how I was doing at least once. Despite my mini–religious experience after I left The Bistro, I struggled with some powerful feelings of anger and loss. I felt like a wife in a battered relationship who leaves her abuser and is suddenly ashamed that she stuck with her guy so long. It wasn’t until I left The Bistro that I finally grasped that Fluvio cared about only Fluvio. I told him I was sorry he lost the restaurant and hung up. We never talked again.

The original Bistro is still humming right along, and I keep in contact with some of my old coworkers. Beth left a few months after I did, broke up with her boyfriend, and got a job outside of the restaurant business. Now she’s dating a new guy, and she seems very happy. Occasionally we meet up at Café American with Celine, one of the former hostesses, to drink dirty martinis and tell war stories. I’ve also run into a few of my ex-customers. My old favorites, the Meyers, told me The Bistro wasn’t the same without me and they never went back. I was touched to hear that—but I have a sneaking suspicion some of the “friends of the owner” types are ecstatic I left.

Saroya, Armando, and Louis are still working at The Bistro. As the months passed and I got some distance from the restaurant, my anger at them softened. They’re just people working within a dysfunctional environment. The people I miss the most are the bus people and the kitchen staff. They’re the finest people I ever had the honor to work with.

I passed by the restaurant a few weeks ago. Many of the waiters through the window were new faces. I guess Fluvio’s still going through servers at a healthy clip. As I peered through the
plate glass a funny sensation tickled my spine. Seeing The Bistro is like passing my boyhood home after my parents sold it. Sure, the building holds many memories—but I don’t live there anymore.

When I’m not working at Gerardi’s, I spend the rest of my time writing. At first I found it difficult to write every day. After a few months I got so engrossed in the actual process of writing that the six hours I set aside would often slip by like six minutes. I’ve discovered I get anxious when I skip writing for more than a day. There’s something narcotizing about the struggle to put words down on paper. It’s addictive.

I keep notepads all over the house to capture ideas before they slip out of my head. Once I woke up and wrote down a snippet of dialogue I heard in a dream because I liked how it sounded. People I meet on the street transform into characters. Articles in the newspapers become plotlines. Sunsets challenge me to describe them. An author friend of mine told me I was experiencing the symptoms of turning into a writer. I think he’s right. Writing has been changing me—and for the better.

I look back inside the window. My customer’s done eating his soup. I walk back inside, clear the table, and present the man with the bill. The man gives me a nice tip, smiles, and leaves. Gerardi’s is now empty, so I grab a newspaper and park myself at a back table. I look at the clock and realize I’ve got an hour until I can go home.

As I read the paper I contemplate that waiting tables has become much easier since I left The Bistro. The customers don’t annoy me the way they used to. Remember the three reasons why people become waiters? Now that I’m a waiter trying to become something
else
, I feel like my life has direction. The chip I was carrying on my shoulder fell off. My sense of hospitality has returned. I no longer feel like a loser. Those horrible dreams about wasted talent have disappeared. For the first time in a long time, I’m at peace with myself. That’s why my friends say I look more relaxed. Hey. I haven’t crop-dusted a table in months.

The front door chimes. I look up. A tall, beautiful red-haired
woman is standing in the doorway. I get up from my seat to greet her. The waiter smile on my face is the real deal.

“Can I still get lunch?” she asks.

“Of course, miss,” I say brightly. My eyes flick down to examine her hands. No wedding ring. “Sit anywhere you like.”

The woman takes a seat by the window. After bringing her a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, I rattle off the short list of lunch specials. Sadly, the woman picks the worst dish of the bunch.

“I wouldn’t get that, miss,” I say.

“Why not?” she asks.

“It’s just not good.”

“I thought you guys were supposed to say everything is good,” the woman giggles.

“Only the dishonest ones.”

“And you’re an honest waiter?”

“Now I am.”

“You weren’t always?”

“No.”

“Ever spit in anyone’s food?”

I laugh. “Not yet.”

“I waited tables for years,” the woman says, lowering her voice to a confidential whisper. “I did it all the time.”

“I can certainly sympathize with the motivation.”

“What do you do when you’re not waiting tables?” the redhead asks.

“I’m a writer.”

“Really?” she says, her green eyes evincing increased interest. “Are you writing a book now?”

“Yep.”

“Very cool. What’s it about?”

“The restaurant business.”

There’s a long pause. She’s staring at me. My goodness, I think she likes me.

“I get off shift in an hour,” I say brazenly. “Maybe we can meet for a drink and compare notes. Waiter to waiter?”

“Research for your book?”

“You could say that.”

The woman purses her lips thoughtfully. After a long pause she says, “I have a meeting in an hour. I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Of course, miss,” I say, snapping back into server mode.

“But thanks for asking.”

“My pleasure.”

“So what is good here?” she asks, returning her attention to the menu. I tell her the tuna’s excellent. She orders it, eats it, and asks for her check.

“Sorry I couldn’t take you up on that drink,” she says, stuffing some bills into the check holder. “Maybe a rain check?”

“Of course, miss,” I reply, thinking she’s politely shining me off.

“My name’s Rachel, by the way,” the redhead says, extending an elegantly manicured hand.

“I’m Steve,” I say, taking it.

“Nice to meet you, Steve,” she says. “Good luck with the book.”

“Thank you, Rachel.”

I escort her to the door, say good-bye, and watch her walk away. Just as she turns the corner and slips out of sight, the relief waiter comes in. I can go home. I head back into the dining room, pick up the billfold off the table, and peek inside. There, tucked next to my 25 percent tip, is a piece of paper with the redhead’s phone number scribbled on it.

Sometimes I love this job.