The Last Night
I never did try a new recipe last week. Does it count that I served new and exciting meals ALL weekend and stood on my feet for ten hours yesterday walking back-and-forth, forth-and-back, on tippy-toes, well not really, singing da-DO-DO-DO, da-DA-DA-DA, FA-la-la-la-LA, la-la-la-la?
That’s how you start talking after you’ve spent way too many hours working in a restaurant asking that familiar question about wanting fries with that and “How is everything?” “Is there anything I can get you?” and “Can anyone tell me why the fuck I‘m doing this?”. By the end of the night we were little more than blank stares. Drones, gliding from table to table as our bodies slowed and our minds retired.
The pasted-on smiles had fallen off and all we could think about was when it was going to end. The night was never going to end.
But it did, for someone.
It ended in a way no one saw coming.
…
Last weekend as I was leaving the restaurant, a guy sitting at the bar (who I barely know, but everyone else does) waved me over to him. He gave me one of those handshakes you give the maitre d’ at a fancy restaurant with money folded into your palm to get the best seat in the house.
He was giving me money and with a confused knee-jerk reaction I politely pushed it across the bar back to him. I told him I couldn’t take it and that I hadn’t even waited on him. He told me in a fake angry voice that he did that with everyone - the bartenders, the servers, and I could ask them if I didn’t believe him, and he put the dollar bills back into my reluctant hand.
Once in my car, I glanced down at my fingers wrapped around the green paper. My eyebrows lifted, my eyes grew round - it was 2 - twenty dollar bills! Forty dollars for saying hello and goodbye and I can't take your money? I love this place! Actually, that’s not at all what I was thinking. I was thinking that nothing is free and does he think he’s buying me and what’s going on?
The following evening I had to fill in for someone so I put the dollar bills in my pocket. Sure enough, he came in.
“Just the person I wanted to see.” I said slowly, as he was taking a seat at the bar.
“I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with last night.” he replied suspiciously in his heavy New York, Italian accent.
I pushed the money towards him. "I can't take this. What are you, crazy?"
He got a little louder, a little more insistent “Take the money! I do this for everyone.” Which I now knew was true. He apparently gave huge tips to the bartenders and servers, both male and female and had tipped the bartender $50.00 on a $96.00 bar tab the night before.
I walked away from him and his money and went back to my work hoping he wouldn’t follow. He didn‘t.
When he left that evening he pointed his finger in my direction saying, “I’m mad at you Micki Michelle.” and I thought he seemed like the type that would go home and stew over the fact that I didn’t take his money. He seemed that intense.
The next day, he died from a heart attack.
Fifty years old. Who knew it was going to be his last night.
Had I known you weren’t going to need the money I would’ve kept it.
I think he’d find that funny.
R.I.P. Tommy
That’s how you start talking after you’ve spent way too many hours working in a restaurant asking that familiar question about wanting fries with that and “How is everything?” “Is there anything I can get you?” and “Can anyone tell me why the fuck I‘m doing this?”. By the end of the night we were little more than blank stares. Drones, gliding from table to table as our bodies slowed and our minds retired.
The pasted-on smiles had fallen off and all we could think about was when it was going to end. The night was never going to end.
But it did, for someone.
It ended in a way no one saw coming.
…
Last weekend as I was leaving the restaurant, a guy sitting at the bar (who I barely know, but everyone else does) waved me over to him. He gave me one of those handshakes you give the maitre d’ at a fancy restaurant with money folded into your palm to get the best seat in the house.
He was giving me money and with a confused knee-jerk reaction I politely pushed it across the bar back to him. I told him I couldn’t take it and that I hadn’t even waited on him. He told me in a fake angry voice that he did that with everyone - the bartenders, the servers, and I could ask them if I didn’t believe him, and he put the dollar bills back into my reluctant hand.
Once in my car, I glanced down at my fingers wrapped around the green paper. My eyebrows lifted, my eyes grew round - it was 2 - twenty dollar bills! Forty dollars for saying hello and goodbye and I can't take your money? I love this place! Actually, that’s not at all what I was thinking. I was thinking that nothing is free and does he think he’s buying me and what’s going on?
The following evening I had to fill in for someone so I put the dollar bills in my pocket. Sure enough, he came in.
“Just the person I wanted to see.” I said slowly, as he was taking a seat at the bar.
“I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with last night.” he replied suspiciously in his heavy New York, Italian accent.
I pushed the money towards him. "I can't take this. What are you, crazy?"
He got a little louder, a little more insistent “Take the money! I do this for everyone.” Which I now knew was true. He apparently gave huge tips to the bartenders and servers, both male and female and had tipped the bartender $50.00 on a $96.00 bar tab the night before.
I walked away from him and his money and went back to my work hoping he wouldn’t follow. He didn‘t.
When he left that evening he pointed his finger in my direction saying, “I’m mad at you Micki Michelle.” and I thought he seemed like the type that would go home and stew over the fact that I didn’t take his money. He seemed that intense.
The next day, he died from a heart attack.
Fifty years old. Who knew it was going to be his last night.
Had I known you weren’t going to need the money I would’ve kept it.
I think he’d find that funny.
R.I.P. Tommy
Comments
Good story .