A guy I deal with on a regular basis is calling out my name during jazz night.    He is beckoning for the third time to get drinks for a couple he's just met.  The couple has been in since early, enjoying happy hour, and the guy has already had his second cognac.  "Ted, Ted, back these guys up.  This guy's Navy," K announces in his merriment in the midst of another jazz night, frenetic gypsy jazz keeping me on the edge of mental balance.  On into the night, the pace rises.  My coworker needs an amaretto on the rocks, meaning I need to run downstairs to find a bottle of it.  Dirty dinner plates are handed to me, to stack on milk crates beneath the bar, scraped, silver ware into little plastic buckets.  Now comes dessert phase, the busboy distracted, making cappuccino.  More of K's friends show up.  My efforts to slow down Navy guy have been lost in the melee.  "Ted, get these guys an escargot, and then a salmon."  "Who's check on they on?"  "Put the drinks on our check, and put their food on their own."  Yeah yeah yeah, he goes back to his hosting.  "Ted, get these ladies some champagne," K says, glomming on to two women quietly enjoying grad school talk over a cheese plate.  "K, why don't you open your own restaurant," I mutter.  Finally, as things calm, near getting the band fed, Navy guy is leaning over his table, hand up agains the tryptic oil painting of piglets in a child's restaurant scene.  "You better get that guy a bucket," a clearer minded customer suggests, having sat at the bar for a late dinner with a woman whose Mondays are free from the kids.

Tuesday night, I go in, in gear, ready for Free Wine Tasting night.  I stocked the bar pretty well, after last night's roughness, but I'm in right on time, having walked through the woods to work in the cold, bringing up the case of the Languedoc white we're tasting with Oscar the importer.  My coworker Joe, rarely on time, comes up the stairs talking on the phone with the waiter who's stuck in France, his green card denied.  He walks around the dining room, not doing much of anything.  I've got the majority of the case of wine chilled in the sink. Stock the mineral water, get the fruit tray out, assess what else I need to grab in the way of miscellaneous stuff.   The busboy is never on time.  "Hey, you want to say hi..." I hear as I'm putting things in order.  I wave him off.  I got stuff to do.

We sit and eat, I come back up, tie my tie, brush and floss, get things into place, glasses out for the tasting.  A moment break from early customers so I go grab a few more sodas to even their ranks ready to go, down to the basement.  "Here are the specials," the downstairs waiter says, handing me a scrap of paper.

I come back up.  Joe is talking now to a former regular who's slipped in early.  She's in town for job interviews.  Joe's talking about his upcoming trip.   I kneel to put the sodas away in an orderly way.  I clean out the fruit containers and get ready to cut the lemons and the lime we'll need tonight, one for lemon twists.  "Hey, man, you get the specials?"  Yeah, I tucked the piece of paper right at the edge of the Campari bar matt at the bar opening.  Joe picks it up and looks at it.  "What's with the rack of lamb?"  I don't know, I haven't looked at it yet, the piece of paper I grabbed in my organizing and preparations.  Joe chuckles, as if to suggest irresponsibility on someone's part.


Wednesday Jazz, the forecast is for big snow.  I end up hanging out late with K's buddy, who was kind enough to say, "Hey, I really appreciate you telling K earlier he's too much sometimes.  He starts buying everyone drinks, and then he wants to split the tab…"  ("Are joo keeding me…" my coworker says to me when she sees them arrive, early.)  We end up having a few glasses of wine at the end of the night after everyone else's has left, listening to David Bowie and looking out the bar's windows down on the street below and the great snow shawling down at an angle, a background of snow dust in the air beneath street lamps.  I'm not at all sure I handled it well, but I tried to explain things to K as he held his first glass of wine with bright expectancy, already starting on his jibber jabber running commentary on the night.  I finally get something to eat.  A lunch size serving of dug leg isn't quite enough.  At 9:20 I was told the kitchen was closing at 9:30.  I ordered hastily, getting the band's food order in, also getting another order in right at closing, and I regret it as the last bite disappears.

The next day I wake up with a headache, feeling slightly guilty for forgetting to put the last espresso on a check.