Thursday, December 14, 2017

fictional sketches from the dying gaul restaurant & bar

Sunday, very very busy. I see immediately that we are short staffed.   I do my best to get ready.  Three parties of two at the bar come in, one two three, all of them regulars.  Two ladies, also regulars, at the high tables, and then at 6:30, a five top, two four tops, and my brother and his wife coming.  That's when I'm sent some help, in form of a waiter who never works upstairs who offers no help setting up.  S. cannot see very well out of one eye, has had various accidents, a good hearted fellow, struggles to find things like spoons and check presenters in the dark.  He stops and thinks in the middle of the battle, unfamiliar with the procedure of stacking up the dirty plates in imperfect fashion for the busboy to bring them back down to the kitchen later, so that I have to restrain myself from yelling at him, just put them down, anywhere is fine, referring to the milk crates below the liquor well.  He doesn't get the routine, fumbles with bread and butter.  The two servers downstairs are busy.  The walkie talkie telling us to pick up plates of food from the kitchen is ringing off the hook.  Server A wants server S to come back downstairs, but it is very busy up here too.

The busser comes up toward the end of the night, throws a huge pile of dirty dishes and silverware in the heavy plastic grey bus tub, and heads back to the kitchen.  On top of everything, there is a pending visit from a veteran server, the bar guy everyone knows and asks about, the guy who went off to Brazil to World Cup, travelled South America, came back, had a shitty time in DC, moved to Denver, and still they always ask about him.

Monday, big party from the local university, coming in right at opening, prepped with all kinds of back-up, cases of wine, one white, an Alsace pinot blanc, one red, a Cotes du Rhone.   Not many cocktails, but a quick response dance behind the bar.  By seven thirty, the door having been open for two hours, it feels like it might be hours later.  A group of fifty, pleasant, easy-going, local academics.    Aloof.  Eventually, two cases later, their requests slow to a trickle, and a regular comes in and sits down in the middle of them, while the dessert tarts, cut in small rectangles, sit out in trays.

Tuesday, a party of eighteen back in the wine room, tightly packed, at 7.  My help arrives late, about 6.  I do not envy at all what he has to deal with.  I've scrambled to set-up, was there late, to get the wine lined up, plus on top of that, the wine tasting, a grenache gris from the Pays De L'Herault, a 2008, toward the end of it's wine life, and I think most of it will be headed to the kitchen for cooking.  And again, at the end of the night, a lot of glassware, a shared busboy, and another big job of restocking.

The last night, a private party of 16 back in the room, with Chablis and Bordeaux to stock, and on top of that, jazz night with the most popular performers, IFC, World Bank kind of a crowd.  Reservations include three at the bar, leaving four seats to play with.

At the beginning of that final night of the week, the party set-up for, the final countdown to the door opening.  Tying the tie, brushing the teeth, fixing my collar, and as I come out of the restroom, at 5:27, there are people in the bar, six for drinks.  My help, not in work clothes, goes back to the restroom or the office to change into work clothes, now at 5:30.  I look around.  I am tired.  The party is two or three so far, now four.  Okay, I guess it falls on me to actually wait on them, so I go over there, gentlemen, what can I get you.  There are some familiar faces from the academic party.  Okay, two pinot blanc, a belvedere and cranberry, a glass of red rhone.  There are two ladies seated now at the bar, wanting to talk to me, neighborhood, regulars, odd.  And then the party starts to show up at the bar.  My other helper tonight comes, finally, goes back to the office to dress up, comes back behind the bar to eat some bread in the corner and talk with the busboy, and then she is looking at her cell phone, sending a text.  The party of six, seated, is beginning to come up to the bar to ask for more drinks.

Finally, F, who is dressed now, engages.  Are there specials, could someone get the specials? I ask.  (The specials, specialties du chef are printed out on a piece of paper, soup du jour, two entrees, options of vegetable, counts of menu items that could well run-out, the dessert special.) Fire the appetizers, F announces to me, curtly.  I look at him.  He could do it as easily as I could.  Okay...  The six top is coming up to the bar to ask for drinks directly.  They come up amidst the people showing up now for the big party.  I have to ask a woman which party she is with.  What table, F seems unclear.  Table 54!  I exclaim, raising my voice in irritation.  F:  "You don't have to be rude about it."  Sorry...  Yes, I shouldn't have yelled at the poor guy.  But it has been a frustrating week.  5:30 is 5:30.  Two out of four nights left to wonder who will be helping me out, and when, on obviously busy nights, doing set-up by myself, the other two nights either late the night before setting up, lining up the wine for big parties, and things in general, lots to do, lots to fret about.

A five top reservation winds up being a disorganized party of two.  One a great friend of the chef, whose wine we are obliged to comp, even if she wants to be seated both at the bar and at a table.  "We Love You," she sings out, to the musicians.  I am, after all that, not in a chatty mood, the whole night.  Particularly after not finding much help to begin with, my support staff milling about, wanting to chat.

At the end of the night, helper number 2, A. starts poking me...  She helped me out Monday night. But she is obviously siding with the kid tonight.  I am the bartender, after all.  I should not necessarily expect any help to be on time to help me out right at 5:30 when the door opens.  And then she gets psychological with me.  T, if you're not happy with your life, it is your own responsibility to change it.  Are you seeing a therapist still?  What you get out of life is what you put into it.  If you do not give love out, you will not receive any in return.  Life is a mirror of what you give out...  She continues to look at me out of the corner of her eye.  I don't really need this at the end of the night.  I find this all somehow insulting, particularly after the friendship and engagement I've given here at the old Gaul in the last fourteen years, opening the world of French wine to people young and old, which she has dismissed, quickly, in her little diatribe, as "giving out free drinks."  And what am I left to do, but sort of nod politely.  Okay, thank you.  There is no way to win any argument with her and her made-up Russian mind, anyway.  No point contradicting her, as she will counter with another observation, as she is hitting me now with them, one after another.  Her mind is made up.  I'm the bad guy, and this view she is spreading.  You would be happier if you ate more carbs and sugar, she tells me.  She shares chocolate dessert with the busboy.

There she is, eyeing me, as if she's not watching, but wanting to watch.  I feel the presence of creepy, a spy, interrogating, to get information.  Earlier, the other manager, a long standing friend in all this, has asked me if I want to participate in Secret Santa this year.  I demure, explain that I, like Keith Richards, don't like to schedule anything before 3PM.  Are you going to come to the staff holiday party?  Again, there is the attempt to ascertain if there is loyalty on my part, necessary to my good terms with the rest of the front of the house staff, as well as go to any particular event.  It feels like A. is party to the intelligence gathering.

There is something about it that takes no consideration into the artistic spirit, the whole sense of creativity and the spirit of entertainment as such.  She watches me out of the corner of her eye, surreptitiously, as if wanting something out of me, as if I were to finally confess something, as if I were to break down, and I do not like this look, this studying of me.  Before you accuse me, better look at your self... as the song says.  "Russians are slaves," I remember my old friend Pani Korbonska telling me in confidence.  Maybe I am sensitive, I don't know.  Maybe I am bitter, from life experience.  I don't know.  But I don't think I've done anything terribly wrong here at work, in fact, a fair amount of good, though that is always tainted by the bullshit that will always happen in barrooms where people are freed up by the drink to talk a bit of bullshit, the bullshit that can not and should not be avoided.

Kerouac was a bit extra happy when he brought the scroll in to Bob Giroux, and Giroux and his office could not have helped but look at him like he was a bit of a madman, rejecting him and his crazy-looking manuscript, and then, seeing all this in his own eyes, Kerouac picked up the scroll (one would imagine), looked at them (one would imagine), and declared, "you have offended the holy spirit," and walked out.

At some point the boss comes by, asks me if everything was okay.  I'd seen him talking to the kid earlier from a distance.   It appears word has gotten around about my snapping.  Who he listens to sometimes mystifies me, but he seems an even judge, so I do not worry too much.  He has a good sense of workplace psychology, probably from his training in Switzerland.  He approaches me later, as the night calms down, as the dust settles. "How you doing?"  "Yeah, the last few nights have been hard."  He listens, but there is an expression of some surprise, incredulous, as if no extra effort had been required, as if not big deal dealing with this particular mountains.  "Busy is good," he replies.  "Yeah."  I don't expect much out of him.  He's good when you go on a hike with him, but otherwise, do your job as a professional, fine.   Yes, busy is good.  It's not necessary at all for him to be there when the door opens, and he works hard enough, but sometimes I wish he was there.  To see.  Because then I think he could be a better judge about who is being professional and who is being less so.  Gallic, he appears unable to acknowledge to me the intensity and the massive amount of energy, physical, social, intellectual, mental, to the doing of my job, to the commuting, to dealing with the shards of life left behind by the weekly effort...

I am tired.  I find the movements of people not pleased with their seating on Jazz Night irritating, tiresome.  I've worked pretty hard for four straight nights.  Yes, the visit from old Jay back from Colorado, staying late to talk over a beer at the end of the first night of the workweek later than needed be, particularly after the frustration of help unaccustomed to the bar, did not help.  Nor did the cold.  When you're tired, talking with people at the bar, chitchat, particularly when the holidays are looming, is a bit hard.

I get back from it all, quite irritated and down.  Who knows, maybe A is right.  Maybe I really am unhappy, a kind of Scrooge...

Maybe she has a point.

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