Thank goodness in the New Millennium—which really isn’t all that new anymore—it
was possible for thirty-something businessman, wearing after-five attire, to
sit in a bar late at night and have a drink without being eyed, and raked over
by suspicious minds. Well, almost
possible, anyway, but “shame, shame, shame,” as Gomer Pyle used to say, on
their potty minds. My friend, DJ was business professional, whose job as a
stock broker required a lot of socializing. And that’s what he’d been doing,
on a Thursday night in Bellevue, Washington, Seattle’s sophisticated neighbor.
Earlier in the evening, one of his clients, a gallery owner and artist
in his own right, had an art showing. DJ had attended, done the wine-and-cheese
thing, and trolled for new clients—unsuccessfully, as it turned out, and left
around 11:00 p.m. Along with some of the art lovers he’d gone to kill the
effects of the wine with a cup of coffee at a swanky restaurant and lounge called Benjie's,
but they’d left, he was blissfully alone, enjoying the ambiance and the
relative quiet.
Benjie’s was located in the penthouse of a bank building. Its décor was
chrome and black leather with recessed lighting and wide floor-to-ceiling
windows. Even if blurred by Puget Sound
rain, they framed the city lights and eliminated most of the street noise. Another part of
the architecture was the bar, which was designed to let people watch the chefs
at work. Benjie’s specialty was omelets for the light-night, crowd. DJ was a
regular because he liked to sit at the bar and listen to snatches of the cook’s
conversations, and watch their economy of movements as they prepared the orders
coming in.
That Thursday night DJ heard enough of the waiter’s whispered
conversations to know that there was tension in the air. Apparently, Vinnie,
the head chef, had been cooking steadily since 10:00 a.m. that morning—nearly
12 hours standing at the hot stoves. While
he flipped eggs and cheese in a small pan, it was obvious the long day was
taking its toll. Tufts of bleached blond hair stuck out from under his tall,
white hat. The hat, itself, was decidedly askew. His apron was fresh, but his
face glistened with steam and sweat. His slightly hunched posture looked so
tense, DJ later told me his own neck and shoulders began to ache, sort of a
kitchen couvade.
Three of the waiters on duty, two men and a woman, all young and collegiate-looking, seemed just a little anxious, but one, a man named Kirt,
was apparently oblivious to the tension. He was also oblivious to the fact that he was giving Vinnie extra
aggravation. DJ was familiar with Kirt; he had a
bubbly personality and treated every patron as if they were a welcomed regular. However, he stopped and talked too
much—annoying under the best of circumstances and a powder keg under the
worst. And that night, circumstances
were at their worst. Vinnie snatched the order slips out of Kirt’s hand, and barked out his name when the
orders were ready for pick up. Unfortunately, due to his chatting, Kirt didn’t always hear his call,
and his name seemed to be called four times more often than those of his fellow
waiters. It was a situation ripe for
potential.
“Kirt, please." Vinnie slapped yet another dish on the bar
between the kitchen and the lounge.
Kirt was at the far end of the room, taking another order and didn’t
hear.
“Kirt, order up,” Vinnie called again.
That time Kirt heard, but a man at a window table detained him.
“Kirt! Get your ass in here!” The over-heated cook roared.
Kirt’s fellow waiters stepped aside to clear a path, and Kirt responded
immediately, practically speed walking through the archway into the
kitchen. Just before loading his arms
from wrist to elbow with assorted-sized plates, he gave another order to
Vinnie.
“Tell them there’s none left,” Vinnie snapped, as he looked at the new
request.
“Tell them yourself,” Kirt snapped back.
With a lot of unnecessary clatter, Vinnie slammed his way through a
refrigerator and several cupboards.
After gathering his ingredients, he mixed, poured, and stirred in a series
of small, round-bottomed sauce pans. DJ said he never saw him leave the stove
for a minute, but suddenly the unmistakable odor of burning food began to waft
ever-so-gently toward the bar. That was
evidently Vinnie’s own particular boiling point. With a magnificent and enviable windup, he
snatched the offending pan off the stove and heaved it and its contents against
a far wall. The pan ricocheted back, left
a black mark on the white paint, and dropped conveniently into a nearby garbage
can with a cacophony that stopped the diner’s conversations. A sunshine yellow assault of eggs, milk and various-colored peppers flew up in a
leap Nureyev would have envied. A confetti of ingredients splattered the walls
and appliances in a six-foot radius, but most of it hit the wall near the black
mark. Like a slow-motion action
sequence, the goo slid slowly and inexorably toward the floor, leaving cheery
streaks of yellow dotted with red and green.
For a moment the room was so quiet even the distant sounds of
freeway traffic could be heard. Then conversations resumed as the waiters and remaining
kitchen staff raced to the scene like reporters to the site of a disaster. The wall’s egg-tempura vanished under an
assault of paper towels. While some
hands wiped the appliances down, others patted Vinnie soothingly, talking softly
in attempts to diffuse the situation.
“That was the last order, Vinnie.”
“You’ve had a really long day.”
“Go home; we’ll take care of things.”
Impervious to it all, Vinnie pushed everybody aside and stormed out
through the lounge, his apron strings floating behind him.
It was over in a flash. The majority of the diners probably weren’t even aware of the great drama
that had just taken place. DJ was just lucky enough to have seen it all from start to finish. And what a
great ending since he didn’t particularly like omelets.
SO---funny or unkind to laugh?
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