Waiter: The Union Restaurant

Sherry got the call. Apparently his wife was looking for him. She was afraid he was eating again, and in fact he was. Sherry reported that he was even now at The Union seated in the dining room finishing off a slice of chocolate cake. Dessert after having a burger and fries. June, on the other end of the phone call, informed Sherry that he had just left The Veranda where he'd had a steak with a baked potatoe and a slice of cheese cake. June would be sending his wife in to get him if we could stall him long enough, without giving him more food. It was then that Juan walked in.

"Damn, that guy's having more sweets? He was just inhaling a sundae over at the ice cream shop."

He was John. He was obese, diabetic and eating himself to death. And he was my boss. John owned The Union Restaurant and The Veranda. I worked as a waiter at both.

The Union was a miserable place to work. It sat in old Sacramento and catered to the tourists that flocked there, hoping to get an authentic Gold Rush era World's Best Granndma t-shirt. Sacramento's first newspaper, the Sacramento Union once resided in this building and our decorating motif consisted of a small collection of antique printing machines and adding machines. Downstairs was a bar with an awesome seventies style disco dance floor made up of sqares that lit up different colors in time to the music. Unfortunatey it was horrbily underused and underappreciated.

We served all you can eat ribs, a wet nap included with each meal where a bath towel soaked in hot soapy water would've been almost enough.

I'd let my friend Jamie stay with me when he was between homes. He was there maybe a week but he was forever appreciative. My girlfriend made a naked dash from her room to the bathroom once while he was washing his hair. He got an eyefull and maybe that explalins his gratitude. But it was me and not her who he hooked up with a job at The Union. I only worked with Jamie for a couple of days as he was moving on to greener pastures.

I worked with a great crew. The waitstaff were the most low key down to earth people. We could talk music and books and shoot the shit between the busy hours and I enjoyed working there despite the diners, who felt oddly compelled to wear shirts bearing the names of cities they been too along with some graphic that fit the cities image. I believe there were five images for all the cities of the world to share. Your city was either a fish city, a theatre city, a tree city, a tall building city or a cowboy city. I'm convinced that places like Seattle build things like the space needle specifially to generate a unique shirt image. And it works, until Vegas opens the Seattle hotel with Space Needle and simulated gloom.

The kitchen staff was mostly mexican including a number of illegals. Joe, a sixty year old Mexican man was my favorite. He'd have a temper tantrum and quit at least once a week. When Joe quit it meant he'd sit and smoke a cigarette outside until someone came on talked to him. We wondered what would happen if we just left him. Once we allowed him to get up to four cigarrettes but I caved an went out to fetch him. I adopted Joe on Fathers day. He felt bad for me having no kids on the good day to have kids so Joe became my kid. He made some hashbrowns for father's day and from then on he'd ask me for money.

"Hola dad. You have a couple of dollar for me, por favor?"

I worked on learning Spanish and the guys were only happy to help.

"Hey Kite!" This was as close to Keith as most of them got. "You now chutda."

"No. What's chutda?"

"Ju know man? Chutda."

"No. What is chutda?"

"Chutda hell up!"

And with this they all burst into laughing and talking in Spanish, except Joe who would say in English "Oh, my papa. He is not smart but he is a good man,"

A new cook named Greg was hired and he fascinated me. Greg was the only moraly consistent man I've ever met. He would do horrible things, but his conscience was clean. He was not going against his morals for he had none. When Greg got a blow job from some homeless punk girl in the basement bar in exchange for some food and drugs he didn't hide it. He came right up and asked me if I wanted to go down and have some too.

"Don't you think that's wrong?"

"What, getting a blow job. Dude, your girfriend doesn't give you blowjobs."

"Not because she's hungry or hooked on drugs."

"Dude, we were just partying. What if I took her out to dinner and she gave me head after?"

"Well, you probably wouldn't offer me some."

"Sure I would man. You're my friend."

The sick part is that he made enough sense that I didn't get his ass fired for making such a vile thing part of my workday. And he caught that I was 'uptight' and so he didn't share any further experiences with me. A few years later a friend of ours died doing heroin with him. Everyone hated him for it. I ran into him and said hello. He asked if I was pissed at him. I told him I wasn't but that I wished he'd quit doing drugs.

"Fuck. I'm glad someone is being reasonable. I risk my life everytime I shoot. Were they going to hate her ass if I died."

"Well they're sad. They want to do something with it. So they hate you."

"Fuck I'm sad too." He said it. But I didn't see it. I was more convinced than ever that Greg didn't felt only the most immediate pleasure and pain. "Hey, you want something to eat. I can make you a veggie sandwich?"

Alex was one of the bus boys and good friend's with John's son. He was living in the bar. He'd go down there at night and turn in for the night on one of the leather couches. He kept clothes and toiletries in the lockers meant for the tourists to stash their maps and sunscreen in. I admired him for pulling it off. He had a pretty sweet set up.

I worked at The Veranda as well, whenever I could. Competititon for The Veranda shits was stiff as it was a pretty nice place. The chef, despit a crank habit, was amazing. he treated his crew wonderfully and they were a small family who took great pride in the food they turned out. I'm sure without the drug habit he'd have been one of the better paid chefs in town. Sitting on the veranda from which the restaraunt got it's name gave you a nice view of old sac, which almost charming from this vantage point. And you could enjoy the music that was often being played in neighboring bars or on the corner. Dixieland jazz, one of the few tourists attractions I will unashamedly admit to enjoying the hell out of.

I took Bryna to dinner there and John's son waited on us. He was sweet and smart. Hoping to some day run his dad's small empire I was guessing. The empire was growing as they're recently bought the ice cream parlor beneath The Veranda and were turning it into a sports bar.

Dean was John's right hand man and handled most of the practical matters of this business. Dean appeared not to have slept in years. He was a hard worker but not the most efficient person and not in the most secure business. Just being around him was exhausting as he struggled to tread water. I knew he had a wife and kid, I felt for the guy.

A man showed up at our place with a jacket that supposedly we had stained by spilling coffee. He had a cleaning bill and wanted forty bucks. I listened to him as Dean stood behind him silently.

"Excuse me." Dean startled the man when his speech was done. "I thought that coat was damaed over at The Veranda. Yeah, remember me? I just heard this story across the street. We have a phone chain down here and every restaurant in Old Sac is waiting for you so you might as well split." And the guy left. Dean was the man of the hour and he must have retold that story a hundred times.

John and Dean called us all together and announced that we would start paying taxes on our tips. The IRS was putting the pressure on. We would record our tips and the company that did our payroll would figure the tax and take it out of our checks. Everyone bitched but me. I simply reported my tips. I'd suddenly started making especially lousy tips. I wasn't the only one with this idea so John started posting our names in the hall with what percentage of our sales we were making in tips. And the rest of the wait staff began reporting their tips.

Week after week John would call us together and announce loudly, "Well it looks like Keith's making less than 5% tips. Not much of a waiter there are you Keith?"

And week after week I'd say, "No John. I guess not." and keep my fucking money.

I decided to quit as I wanted more time to do cool things like running a movie theatre showing nothing buy dude films. Horror, action, low budget sleaze, you know, the good stuff. I gave my notice but Sherry needed a shift covered, so I'd work one day past my notice. One final shift. It was a Saturday afternoon so I'd be the only waiter with Juan as the busser. We were farely busy for just the two of us, when a woman came in compaining that we were catering her party by the river and the food had not shown up. I promised to take care of it and I called John at The Veranda explaining the situation.

"So why are you calling me? Tell Dean."

"Yeah, John, I would have. I don't know where Dean is."

"So just take care of it Keith."

"Look John, I'm the only waiter here, and I've got six tables right now. I have to get back to them. I let you know what's going on, that's all I can do right now."

"God dammit Keith, just take care of it. I don't have time to be..." And with that I hung up the phone and went back to my tables. Juan told me John was on the phone.

"Tell him I can't talk."

"No Keith, I mean John the owner."

"Yeah I know. Tell him I'm too busy to talk."

Juan carried the message and came back nervously. "Keith. He said for you to go home."

This was perfect. This dumb son of a bitch wanted to shoot himself in the foot I was glad to let him. "Listen Juan, until they get someone here who can use the register just ask people what they want, tell the kitchen, and then give it to them. Someone'll here to ring it up soon I'm sure." I felt bad leaving Juan on his own but I was sure he'd be fine.

I called John and told him that he would have to pay me for a full day.

"No. The law allows a shift to be as short as two hours." He told me.

"Yeah John, but my dad's attorney tells me that if you schedule me for eight hours you have to give me twelve hours notice of any change." I highly doubted this was true, but I must have sold it as John paid up.

A few months later he was dead. The tragic rumors were that he'd run up huge debt that his wife knew nothing about until after his death. The restaurants were all sold.

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