by Chris Kenry
I kept the job for nearly a month, which would try the sanity of any rational being, but then I could take no more. I arrived one Monday morning, slightly hungover from a night of drinking margaritas with Andre, and, after saying some hellos, took my seat at my cubicle. I looked at the screen and my headset, and realized I was going to have to sit there for the next eight hours. I shuddered and felt nauseous. I turned to go to the bathroom, and I truly intended to go and splash some water on my face and then return, but when I reached the bathroom I didn’t stop. I continued on down the hall, then went up the stairs to the lobby, past the guard station, out the front door, and across the huge expanse of parking lot to my car. I knew my leaving like that was terribly irresponsible and would disappoint both Susan and my father, but so be it. I would call Susan and apologize, I thought as I started the ignition, and would find another job before I told my father. It would be that simple. I drove straight to my parents’ house and left Susan a message on her home phone, thanking her for her help and apologizing for my hasty departure. She called back later that day and was nice, in a weary way.
“It happens all the time,” she said, meaning people quitting. “Don’t worry about it. The only problem is, we don’t really have any other unskilled jobs right now.”
I thanked her, said I understood, and hung up, the word unskilled still ringing in my ears.
I had lunch with Andre the next day, since, once again, I had time on my hands. I told him my troubles and asked him what he thought I should do.
“What should you do?” he asked in a tone that implied the answer was obvious. “You get back out there and find another job!”
“It’s not that simple,” I whined. “I can’t do anything.”
“Oh, girl, stop it! You are better than that. Look, I’m not one to blow sunshine up anyone’s ass, but didn’t you give me the same talk once yourself? Remember? There I was toiling away in housewares at Foleys, my many talents going unappreciated, and you said, ‘Look, you’re better than that; there’s an opening at Louis Vuitton. You’d do so much better working there.’ Remember? Well, I followed your advice and look what happened! I wasn’t working there a month when I met Menachem, and where would I be today without him? Oh, I’d probably have made out fine, but life would certainly have been different.”
Menachem was Andre’s now deceased “boyfriend,” whom he had met while working at the aforementioned baggage store. Menachem, an old Jewish widower who had endured two years in Dachau, a forty-year loveless marriage, and a life of hard work spent running a furniture empire and raising two daughters, tottered into Louis Vuitton one morning to find a gift for his granddaughter’s bat mitzvah. He left four hours later with a small clutch purse, a wallet, a key holder, and a date with Andre for the following evening. Menachem was old, but he was at an age when he valued a sense of humor more than physical beauty, which is very rare, especially among gay men, although none of us, Andre included, was ever sure that Menachem was gay. Not that it mattered, as he was surely free from the grasp of sexual desire by then, and so cared little what Andre did with other men, as long as the majority of his time was given to him. They were an odd pair: a small, elderly Jew and a tall, flamboyant young black man, but anyone who spent time around them could tell they loved each other. Somehow they each satisfied the other’s need for attention. They lived together for two years, and in the end, Menachem showed his appreciation by leaving Andre a sizable chunk of his fortune. Andre never revealed the amount, but it was enough to enable him to purchase a loft downtown, drive a nice car, and have a closet full to bursting with clothes.
It was difficult then for me to take advice from Andre because our lives, up until recently, had run on parallel tracks: neither one of us had worked much, both had acquired rich boyfriends early on, and both had been widowed. But there the parallels ceased. Andre had been widowed, but his lover had lavishly provided for him, whereas mine had left me with nothing. Ironically, Andre, who now had no need to work and could thus justify filling his days with shopping and museum visits and long lunches, worked longer and more diligently than he ever had before. I, on the other hand, pouted and bemoaned my misfortune and generally railed at the gods who were punishing me with this unlucky fate. I realized this then, as I sat poking at my food, and decided that maybe I should listen.
“What do you think I should do?” I asked humbly. He thought for a moment.
“Well, there’s always waitressing.”
“But I don’t have any experience.”
“Oh, please, it’s not rocket science. You ever eat in a restaurant?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, my humility ebbing away in response to his patronizing tone.
“Well, then you’re qualified. You just take their order and you bring ’em food. Most of it’s a beauty contest, anyway. If you’re pretty to look at the customers will forgive almost anything. You’d be perfect.”
“Have you ever done it?” I asked.
“Hello,” he said sarcastically. “Like, I still do it. What do you think being a stewardess is? Nothing but high-altitude waitressing.”
“I guess it’s worth a shot.”
“Sure it is! The money’s usually not great at first, because they give all the good shifts and tables to the people who have been there longest, but if you can get in somewhere that’s just opening up, the money can roll on in. Do you want me to help you?”
I thought about it and then nodded slightly.
We finished lunch and then went back to Andre’s loft. He made a few “social” phone calls and found out that a new restaurant was opening next to the capitol building the following week. He then made a few more calls and got me an interview the next day.
“What should I say?” I asked.
“Girl, just go in there wearing some fierce outfit and smile a lot and be Mr. Friendly.”
“But what should I say?”
“Whatever they want to hear, girl. Lie, lie, lie.” And he shook his head from side to side as he said this. “They can’t nail you for perjury. Tell them you’re from Texas or somewhere stupid and obscure like that, so they won’t call to check references. Then tell them the names of some of the restaurants you’ve worked at. Just make them up, something French maybe, or Italian, you know those names better than most people—just make it sound authentic. Also, tell them they’ve all closed—the restaurants, I mean. They’re not in business anymore.”
“This isn’t going to work,” I said, shaking my head.
“Girl! Don’t be all meek! You need this job. You’ve got to make it work! It’s all theater to get your foot in the door.”
Reluctantly I went to the interview, which was with a wizened woman of indeterminate age called Madge, and her partner, Cecil, who had drooping shoulders and an equally drooping mustache. The restaurant was to be called Palladio’s and would serve “upscale Italian food with an emphasis on impeccable service.” I smiled and nodded as Madge spoke, trying to formulate a strategy. Earlier that day I had gone to a tanning booth and done a grueling chest workout, which I showcased by wearing a tight white turtleneck. I smiled unrelentingly.
“Tell us a little about your work history,” Madge said, as she looked over my application.
Having rehearsed a few simple scenarios, I felt fairly confident, but nevertheless, nerves took over once I started talking, and I told a long rambling yarn about my most recent restaurant job. I told all about the happy days I’d spent working at La Maison de Poisson in Dallas, and about the owners, Marcel and his wife Michelle, and how they had sold the restaurant and moved back to Provence to while away their golden years. I should have stopped then but I didn’t, and before I knew it I was out of control, telling stories of my last visit to France and how I’d stayed and worked on their vineyard and how they love me like a son because their own son, Jacques, was killed in a rodeo accident back in Dallas.
“Can you be here tomorrow at nine for training?” Madge interrupted.
“Uh, sure!
You bet!” I said, and heaved a sigh.
“Good, we’ll see you then.”
I started training that Wednesday, and the restaurant opened on Friday of that same week. Predictably, it did not go well, and my service was anything but impeccable. Madge had done lots of advance advertising, so the first night we opened was a madhouse. I had seven tables in my section and, in some way, managed to screw up every order. I served dessert to a bewildered table of ladies who had yet to order dinner, and served dinner again to people who had already eaten. I stabbed myself with a corkscrew and bled all over another table, and I sloshed a drink in the lap of an unamused businessman. But that was just what happened to the tables I served. There were several in my section that I managed to overlook completely, and then grew paranoid thinking they were staring at me because I was doing such a bad job instead of just trying to catch my attention. I remember at one point droopy Cecil leaned over the bar conspiratorially and whispered, “You been smokin’ weed?”
Had I smoked all the weed in Humboldt County I could not have done worse. We all did poorly that night, but I was by far the worst, and in our meeting at the end of the shift I was held up more than once as a scandalous example. And yet I found that Andre was right: I was good-looking, and that fact made people much more indulgent and forgiving. I just sat there in the break room, exhausted, grinning penitently when another example of my poor service was given, and everyone smiled over at me tenderly, as if I were a naughty puppy they didn’t have the heart to spank with the paper. Further proof of Andre’s theory was that in spite of my lousy service, my tips were quite good, out of pity, I’m sure, but also because I took the time to stop and speak to people and tell them some anecdote about Marcel and Michelle (who had now become quite real in my mind).
As cute as I was, or imagined myself to be, and as nice as Madge was, I was not cute enough nor was she foolish enough to allow me a repeat performance of my opening night, and the next week I discovered that I was scheduled only lunches. This was unfortunate, because few people bothered to trek up the hill from the offices downtown, and those thrifty Scots who did enjoyed a ridiculously cheap lunch menu. My tips grew smaller and smaller, which did not help my finances. Everything I made at that point went to Citibank or Discover or Wells Fargo or American Express. I was assured, however, that the tips would improve when I got back on the dinner shift, which meant I had to prove myself worthy of being scheduled for the dinner shift. That wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon, as my serving skills seemed to get worse instead of better over time. Each day was nothing more than another opportunity to accidentally smack someone in the head with the water pitcher as I pulled it back from refilling their glass, or to forget to give my orders to the kitchen, forcing a red-faced Madge to comp at least one meal every shift I worked. I was a mess, and I cursed Andre hourly for leading me to believe that it would all be so easy.
After the third week of this bedlam, Madge asked to speak with me after my shift. She waited until everyone had left and then sneaked behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau and two glasses.
“They have this wine in Provence?” she asked, pouring me a large glassful.
I nodded, and launched into another tale. “It was the favorite wine of Marcel’s first wife, Margot. She was in the resistance movement during the war, but was killed when she was caught trying to smuggle some files stolen from the Vichy government.” (I’d stayed up late the night before watching the History Channel). “She was Marcel’s first love, and the mother of his eldest daughter, Maria.”
“Of course she was.” Madge sighed, and took a big gulp of her wine. “Jack, Jack, Jack. Such a cutie.”
I gave her my best Aw, shucks grin.
“I hate to have to do this,” she said, “but I won’t beat around the bush. We’re going to have to let you go.”
I panicked, thinking of my conversation earlier that day with Dwayne from Wells Fargo Bank, who suggested I get the money I owed on my Wells Fargo MasterCard by selling my plasma.
“If this is about Senator Paine’s wife,” I said, reassuringly, “my mother has a dry cleaner who can work miracles and I’m sure he can get—”
“Jack.”
“—the stain out.”
“Jack, it’s not that. Actually I hadn’t heard about that until right now.” She groaned, closing her eyes and massaging them with her fingers.
“Look,” she continued, “let’s put the cards on the table. You’re smart, you’re good-looking, and God knows you can tell a good story, but in the twenty-five years I’ve been in this business I’ve never come across a crappier waiter. Cecil and I both knew you’d never done this before when we hired you, but we took a gamble anyway. No offense, but it hasn’t worked out.”
“Look.” I was frantic. “I know I can learn. I’m getting better ev—”
“Jack!” she interrupted, sternly this time. “You are not cut out to wait tables. It’s not the end of the world. You should almost take it as a compliment. You don’t want to end up a bitter old crabby alcoholic like me, do you? You’re young; move on. You’ll find something else.”
We finished the bottle of wine and talked for an hour, watching the tepid November sun pass over the dome of the capitol building. The evening waiters started coming in to prepare for the dinner shift, and I said good-bye to Madge, promising to come back and visit, but vowing privately that I never would. I stepped out into the cold evening, depressed by the thought of having to start all over again. December loomed on the horizon, which meant Christmas, and I had no money. Now I had no job. What would I tell my dad? What would I tell Dwayne?
6
S.I.L.V.E.R.
Job hunting, for the unskilled and uninitiated, can be a dismal, disconcerting task. I had been pampered and coddled for so long that actually having to go out and look for work, let alone do it, was like returning to Earth and trying to walk after I’d spent years floating weightless in outer space. I knew I had to do it, knew I could do it, but part of me kept fighting it. Not knowing how to start, I first drove around looking for help wanted signs in store windows. While that might work for high school students, it didn’t take me long to figure out it was not an effective plan of action for me unless I wanted a retail or food job paying six dollars an hour, with no insurance. Insurance was the latest thing, my father had been harping on the importance of: “What happens if you break a leg or get multiple sclerosis? Who’s gonna pay for that?” Next I started looking in the newspapers, scanning the Sunday employment section, circling all the jobs that looked promising enough to pursue on Monday morning. While that kept me busy on Monday, and sometimes on Tuesday, by Wednesday everything had dried up and I found myself again with time on my hands. Time on my hands and no money.
It’s odd, but when you’re qualified for nothing, you can imagine yourself doing just about anything. I would read job titles and descriptions in the paper and romantically slip myself into some interesting and colorful occupation like milkman, or a chimney sweep. I guess it’s a sign of my lack of confidence that I never even thought seriously of doing anything with my degree. Granted, art history is not the most useful degree to have when looking for work (ranking right up there with Latin and philosophy), but I never even entertained the possibility of getting a job at a museum or a gallery, which is surprising, because I certainly spent enough time in them then.
When most people are between jobs, either they put all of their energy into looking for a new one, writing and rewriting resumes, networking, interviewing, etc., or they spend a lot of time on the sofa in the living room with the drapes drawn, eating cartons of snack cakes and watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. I would surely have headed down this latter path into the land of afternoon-TV zombies, except for the fact that my father was then doing most of his work from home and he never would have tolerated it. That being the case, I did two things: I worked out and I went to museums.
I worked out because, well, that’s just what fags
do. We are beauty and body obsessed, and hell, I’m no exception. I figured if the rest of my life was sliding downhill I might as well look good going down. So to speak. My attraction to museums was more individual. I loved museums because they appeared to me then like well-lit oases of order and organization, in which everyone spoke in hushed, reverent tones. So different from the mess that was my life.
After I got fired from the restaurant, I spent most of my days at one or both of these two places. Neither of my parents knew of my dismissal, so I had to get out and make it appear that I was doing something. My dad was furious when he discovered I’d quit the temporary job, so I knew he’d be less than thrilled to discover I’d now been fired. To avoid his wrath I decided not to mention it until I’d found another job. Then I’d probably tell him I’d quit because something better had come along.
Until then, I got up each morning and got ready for work, as usual. I ironed my work shirt in the kitchen while my father ate his breakfast and read The Wall Street Journal. I gulped down my own breakfast, making it seem I was full of purpose and in a hurry, and out the door I went. The problem was that I would get to my car and have no idea where to go.
That particular December day I worked out at the gym first and then went to the art museum. Before its last remodeling, the Denver Art Museum was especially well suited to hiding out. Each floor had a series of independent halls and rooms in which there were countless little niches and partitioned areas containing books and videos on different subjects. I could go into one of these niches and go undetected by the other museum patrons. There I could delve into a book on da Vinci, watch videos on the lost wax method of bronze casting or Amish quilting techniques, and be completely transported away. I could read up on Chinese-export porcelain and Peruvian inlaid furniture, or the history of artistic representation of the Virgin Mary. Some days I just sat for hours watching Andy Warhol movies. The time-wasting possibilities were varied and seemingly infinite, and, since I was expanding my trove of esoteric knowledge, it was hardly a waste of time!