I get to work five minutes early, walking through the woods then up past Dumbarton Oaks.  Up early, now I am tired when I find out there is a private party in the back room, wines selected, on top of that the new Alsace pinot blanc for the Tuesday Wine Tasting Night, things to lug up the two flights of stairs from basement cave to the wine bar.  And the bar, as happens when I'm not around,  gone to see mom for a week, is messy, poorly stocked, the beer in confusion, the sink dirty with last night's fruit, the sodas in sloppy disarray, something odd about the rail liquor in the bar bench's rail well.   Disheartening.  Busboy will not be here on time, as always.  And my guy, as always, he too won't be in to help me deal with the customers, coming in from Annapolis, and now close to Thanksgiving, he will be in even later, for which I do not blame him because he will show, he is a good worker, and good moral support.

5:30, door opens, still haven't cut lemon and limes, still looking for a few last stands, regular walks in.  He's back from New York City with restaurant tales.

Then the expected twelve top comes in, ordering cocktails, and then some other regulars, and the handsome couple, a large imposing bearded soft spoken Frenchman with his date, a stylish New York type, blond, spirited, I've got them with a bottle of Chinon, on twenty percent discount, along with seared foie gras and a charcuterie plate.  My friend and coworker arrives, just as things are getting dicey, Old Fashioned, Stoli and soda with lemon and lime, a Tito's martini, shit, no one stocked that, Makers and Ginger, wine shrinking for a second couple arriving, then a few others.  A regular couple, a man with ties to Louisville, comes in with a young woman, but I am too busy to greet him, as I cut an orange.  The Makers and Ginger I make is too strong, the lady asks me to dilute it.  And then old familiar couple comes in to join to birthday party.


At the end of it all, changing back into street clothes on the back landing of the wine room, I lean back like the fallen and, on my back, fall asleep, there with the lights still on, and the old anger of restaurant dreams of unjust shifts.  I wake, it's three thirty five AM, shit, gotta get home, a few final plates to take down to the kitchen.

Earlier, in the unpredictable jumble of walk-in regulars, friends of the man who passed away suddenly.  They have brought me a memento from his house, a tall statue from Africa, dark wooden, a stylized female lifting a drinking vessel.  I put it up on the bar.  I was thinking we might put it here at the restaurant, near the bar, for a way for those who knew him to remember him.  It looks a little unsteady on its base, the statue.  Point them to their table, get some flute glasses ready...  In placing the wooden statue back its bag and into a safe corner, despite my effort to be gentle, falls apart at the top, two pieces detaching from the main structure, the left arm at the shoulder, and also, worse, the head.  A surprise to everyone.  Great.  Sorry.  Just back from the road, feeling a little rattled tonight, the sinking feeling of being pulled down with each arrival, and my coworker tied down by the complications of the familiar group in the back room.  Chaos.


I talk to my Uber driver at the end of the night, now at Four in the morning.   You don't make money at this anymore, he explains.  The impatience of the gig economy.  He finds nice hotels, the bathroom in the lobby, a warm clean place to do your business.  Out at the airport, the company has porto-potty stalls, set up for them, filthy.  Stalls for animal defecation.