Dateline: 1984. New American cuisine spreads throughout NYC like mold on cheese. Chefs and Owners walk away from stodgy old-world ways of running a restaurant and re-imagine dining-out as an art form. Food is elevated from something we eat to something we worship. Free-range chickens are given yoga lessons. Pigs are sung lullabies before the slaughter. Specials read like one-act plays. It’s all in the presentation, a facade loaded with imagination, but at its base, cold and pretentious. A massive paradigm shift in hospitality may be underway, but for this working waiter, nothing has changed, not really...

JACK’S

~ 1984 ~

Chucky Hoggsett grabs his hips and sticks out his chin. It’s his way of signaling that he’s about to say something important. I stand before Chucky, ready for work, ready to be trained, ready for anything.

Chucky says: “I don’t care where you’ve worked before. This is my restaurant. Okay I don’t own it, but I feel like I do. In other words, I love my job. That wasn’t a dense platitude. It was a warning. That being said, welcome. Main dining room is upstairs. It has a spectacular view of Lexington Avenue. Downstairs is Jack’s cocktail lounge. The lounge was designed as an homage to summers spent in New England. Take note of the wainscoting. It was imported from Martha’s Vineyard, and was personally distressed by Jack’s wife, Carla June. You will be required to impart that information to guests whenever possible. The food is Spa Food: fresh, healthy, quirky and inventive. You will be trailing Margaret. That’s all you need to know for now. Head upstairs. We are about to huddle up. You know what a ‘huddle up’ is, of course.”

The “huddle-up” – a phrase invented by a college educated restaurant manager – is designed to trick the wait staff into thinking they’re playing on a team, possibly the Milwaukee Rams. I’ve never heard of it.

“Of course,” I say, “I’ve ‘huddled’ many a time.”

“Good,” – Chucky hands me a handout – “read this.”

I read:

HUDDLE UP

Monday, April 9^th, 1984

Charles “Chucky” Hoggsett III, General Manager, presiding.

Expected Attendees:

1. Palmer (front waiter)
2. Blaine (back waiter)
3. Margaret (front waiter)
4. Billy (back waiter)
5. Skippy (Busser)
6. H. DeWitt (chef)

AGENDA

1. Greetings [Chucky]
2. Specials [Chef]
3. Jackie O’s Lighter [?]
4. Drinking on the job [Palmer]
5. Proper behavior at a wine tasting [Palmer]
6. Introduce new waiter [?]

The staff wait in the upstairs dining room, toward the back, near the bathrooms. Margaret, at the table against the furthest wall, chain smokes, smelling her fingers. Across from her, Blaine sleeps soundlessly, arms and legs crossed, eyes and mouth open. Skippy, next to Margaret, fidgets like a cornered squirrel. Chef DeWitt, gangly, basketball-tall, milk-chocolate complexion, short black pebbly hair, leans against the wainscoting, reading the New York Times, occasionally lowering the paper to look about the room with contempt. Palmer slouches on table 30, feet on a chair, sipping wine from a coffee cup.

I take the seat next to Palmer; he’s vaguely handsome, but incredibly sexy. He gives me the once over, then turns away, bored. Chucky hands out his handouts and re-attaches his hands to his hips, ready to pontificate. Palmer crumples the handout and stuffs it in his pocket.

“Excuse me?” says Chucky.

“I’ll read it later,” says Palmer

“Get your feet off the chair,” says Chucky.

“Make me.”

Palmer’s insubordination ruffles Chucky, and the air in the room turns suddenly acidic. Billy glides in from the wait station, breaking the tension. He sits on the other side of Palmer, forcing Palmer to lift his legs off the chair.

Chucky smiles at Billy – one has no choice – takes a deep breath, and begins huddling.

“Okay, now that we’re all present, I require your full attention.”

Billy performs a miniature grand jeté from a seated position. “I’m ready,” he says.

Palmer to Billy, “Where have you been, Nijinsky?”

“I’m not late.”

“Not talking about now. Where’ve you been the last three weeks?”

Billy lifts his head, points at his nose, “What do you think?” he says. “The bandages came off today.”

Margaret chimes in, “Bandages? Are you cutting yourself again?”

Billy says, “No. It’s my nose. My new nose. It was unveiled this afternoon. What do you think?”

Chucky stamps his right foot; the shoe is a Gucci knock-off and makes no sound. “Hello? Huddle-Up?” he squawks.

Palmer keeps right on talking at Billy, “You had a nose job?”

“Not the whole nose. They just took off the bump. I told you a dozen times.”

“I liked that bump,” says Palmer, “It was a boat rudder but it was loaded with character. Now all you’ve got is a bright red ski slope.”

“Ignore him,” says Margaret, “your new nose is glorious.”

“Thank you.”

“You should’ve kept the rudder,” says Palmer.

“Come on, guys–!” This time they can all hear his Gucci stomp.

Chef DeWitt lowers his newspaper, leans forward, “LISTEN. THE. FUCK. UP. ASSHOLES.”

In the ensuing fraught silence, Margaret lights another cigarette; Skippy knocks over a chair with a spastic foot; Blaine wakes up, then goes back to sleep; Billy rubs his nose where the bump used to be; Palmer sips his wine; and Chef DeWitt nods to Chucky to continue.

“Thank you, Chef” says Chucky. “Okay, servers, welcome to Monday. Chef, will you walk us through the specials? I ask that you be as brief as possible, as we have several severely important issues to attend to.”

DeWitt looks at us like we were spoiled rich kids in need of comeuppance.

“First and foremost,” he says, “I will not be hurried.” He refers to notes written on the palm of his long, feminine hand. “Tonight’s amuse bouche is cold puree of summer cauliflower, suffused with orange rind, kissed with cilantro, topped with pinpoints of fermented wasabi.”

“Sounds gay,” says Palmer.

“Palmer!” yells Chucky.

“Do we get to taste it?” asks Margaret.

“I didn’t make enough.”

The room groans.

“Settle down, servers.”

Palmer says, “Don’t call me a ‘server.’ It’s too close to ‘servant.”

“Palmer, cease and desist,” says Chucky, his face an angry red apple. “Please continue, Chef.”

“We have two appetizers. First is bone marrow, freed from the bone, whipped with goose foie gras, formed into a quenelle, then panko-coated and poached in red wine suffused with persimmon, cooled, then laid atop the slightly charred crust of bread baked from wheat harvested from a small farm ten-miles outside Andorra La Vella, France.”

Palmer likes to brag that he’s been around the world twice; he says, “Actually, Andorra La Vella is in Spain.”

DeWitt, not to be one-upped, says, “It’s in France.”

“Spain,” says Palmer.

“France, you fucker,” says DeWitt.

Skippy raises his hand. “Actually, it straddles both France and Spain.”

Chucky pipes in, “You see? It’s both, dammit!”

Margaret says, “Can we taste it?”

“Too expensive,” says DeWitt.

“How can I sell it if I haven’t tried it?” says Palmer.

“You’re supposed to be an actor. Act like you tasted it,” says Chucky.

DeWitt has had enough; he bellows, “APPETIZER TWO…is whole baby Brussels Sprouts, sprinkled with dried pulverized fennel, wrapped in pancetta, baked en papilotte with a slab of herb infused butter I, myself, churned this morning.”

Palmer can’t resist. He says, “This butter you churned this morning. Does she have a name?”

“Palmer, shut up!” says Chucky.

“When we unionize I’m going to report you for that outburst,” says Palmer.

Chef DeWitt SLAPS his open hand on the table like he’s killing a mosquito.

“ENTREES! Trois Petit Poussin–”

Blaine wakes up, sputters, “What’s that? What’s that?”

“Three little chickens,” Palmer says, “Go back to sleep. Continue, Chef.”

DeWitt continues with teeth clenched, “Three little chickens, I mean, Trois Petit Poussin boned and stuffed with Andalucian blood sausage, red cabbage and mango, pan-seared then oven-roasted, and served over a cloud of maize, creamed with buttermilk and garlic. We’re also offering Vermont-maple-syrup-glazed braised organic pork chops, stuffed with mashed black-eyed peas folded with crispy caramelized shallots, and topped with a poached quail egg. And finally, tonight’s dessert special is Chocolate Pasta.”

Palmer says, “Again? That shit never sells. And it looks like a bowl of dead worms.”

Chucky jumps on him, “Palmer. I’ve had it. Just for that, you’re training the new server. What’s your name?”

“Ted,” I say.

“I hate training.”

“I don’t care.”

Palmer lights a cigarette with a hefty solid gold lighter. Chucky notices the lighter, and sits, almost in awe, “Where did you get that lighter?”

“My boyfriend.”

Chucky recovers, “Oh? So it’s merely a coincidence that Jackie-O’s secretary called and said she thinks Mrs. “O” may have left her $2000 gold Cartier lighter here last night.”

“I waited on Jackie “O” at the opera club,” I say, announcing my presence.

“No one cares,” says Palmer.

My feelings would have been hurt, except an hour later, Palmer and I are best friends. I didn’t ask to be his best friend, but he insisted. He’s tired of being the alpha-asshole and needs a co-conspirator. I don’t mind. I’ve been through the friendship-as-fast-as-a-comet cycle before; it normally lasts a year, or until one or both of the participants died. We stand in the doorway of the employee entrance, in our waiter’s togs, smoking. Vicky Valorie, hostess and professional actress with one credit to her name – three lines as an ornery secretary on an episode of Benson – pops up behind us. Tonight, she dons a one-piece imitation leopard leotard-dress.

Palmer says, “You look like a stuffed animal.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“Piss off. You have Gael Greene.”

“Fuck. What table?”

“Shes at a bar table.”

“Not my section. Tell Billy.”

“Billy is in the bathroom, crying. Chucky says you have to take her.”

“You take her,” Palmer says to me. “She’ll be your first table.”

I’m not scared or even nervous. Ms. Greene’s not a problem; her friends are.

I say, “I know Gael Greene. I waited on her at Chez Pascal. I’ll do it, but shouldn’t someone who knows the menu wait on her? I mean she is a food critic for New York Magazine.”

“She’s not here to write us up,” says Vicky.

“She’s here to fuck the chef,” says Palmer.

Vicky adds, “Her sideline is writing pornography. DeWitt is her next book.”

Palmer says, “Push the chocolate pasta. Tell her it’s the same color as his dick.”