Image of a waiter – by Deposit photos
It was my final table of the night. My back was in knots, my feet were throbbing, and I was sweating under my Hawaiian shirt when I opened the black checkbook. Rent was due in a few days, and I needed this tip to be a big one.
There it was. One dirty, rusted penny lay on the book in front of me. The couple I’d waited on at the table hated their service. It was yet another reminder that I was the worst server in the world.
At least it’s only Saturday, I comforted myself. I still have tomorrow’s day shift. Then, I sulked away to get a stiff drink from the bar to end my night.
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I worked at the Bilgewater Grille on the second floor of an old, wooden building on the waterfront in Sausalito’s tourist area. The restaurant overlooked the ferry terminal, and beyond that, the Bay stretched to San Francisco.
Hundreds of tourists offloaded from the ferry every few hours from the city, and I watched them descend the plank. Once on the dock, they’d head into shops in the bayfront town to buy over-priced artwork, kitsch jewelry, and refrigerator magnets of the Golden Gate Bridge.
A gaggle of tourists from De Moines, Omaha, or Reno would appear in Alcatraz and Haight-Ashbury T-shirts. And packs of people from Toronto, Tokyo, or Beijing would snap photos and film with their handheld video cameras. On occasion, a group from San Francisco would decide to leave their neighborhoods in the Marina or the Castro and venture across the water.
After shopping, hunger would strike the tourists, and they would find the Bilgewater. There, they’d spend too much money on plates of Fettuccine Alfredo, fish ’n’ chips, and Cobb salads. While arguments ensued and huge voices laughed under the influence of drinking too many Bud Lights and terrible glasses of chardonnay, their children would run like tiny beasts among the tables.
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I envied these people, and the last thing I wanted to do was be their indentured servant. My life’s goal was not to sling bacon cheeseburgers and garlic fries. But I would have rather been among them than serving them.
That was my problem. I had expectations for myself, and I was far from living up to whatever I thought they were.
Maybe if I were more like Wayne? I asked myself. Wayne always takes home good money. Or one of the other fresh-faced, early twenty-something servers who sashayed from table to table with grace. They like working here, and they think it’s easy money.
But I saw my job as hard money. And I did not sashay.
Instead, I was chaos-in-an-apron. I was a Muppet of a waiter. I was Grover, the furry blue monster, serving giant hamburgers on Sesame Street. Smashing through doorways and colliding with tables. Barely staying upright as I teetered and tottered with enormous trays full of heavy plates covered in chicken parmesan and cheesy bread. Unable to bring glasses of soda and sauvignon blanc to impatient patrons without spilling.
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I’d bungle between tables like a drunken marionette — my legs warbly and my arms all akimbo. And when I’d stumble up to enter my orders at the touch screen computer, I’d have forgotten them on the way there or written them down wrong.
Martinis arrived half-empty. Entrees arrived lukewarm. Checks were incorrect and took a long time to arrive to my poor customers. They deserved better than me and my mayhem.
The other servers smiled and shone like golden cherubs at their tables. Their customers loved them. And on breaks, they’d secretly steal out to smoke weed or snort a line, but always return intact and professional.
I thought, if I got high on this job, I’d end up falling through a window into the Bay and be eaten by a great white shark.
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Sometimes, with my head full of self-deprecating thoughts, I’d slink away during my own break to visit Marlaine at the bar next door.
“What can I get you, Gentry? You get canned yet?” Marlaine would ask. Her blue-gray hair sprayed up several inches over her head.
“Shot of well whiskey to wash away my life,” I’d say.
As she placed a shot in front of me, she’d say, “Your funeral.”
The drink would burn as it went down, and I’d return to the skipping broken record that had become my twenty-nine-year-old existence.
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I wasn’t always that person. Before the Bilgewater, I was an excellent bartender. I’d poured piña coladas and crafted Rainbow Rum Punches in Key West, and I’d made Purple Hooters and vodka and tonics for Nirvana and R.E.M. in Seattle.
My nickname was G-man. People compared me to Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail. And I didn’t mind. I loved it.
The era didn’t last long, but my bartending experiences stayed with me, and I romanticized that time.
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Several years later, the world went dark. 9/11 happened two weeks after I returned from traveling in Vietnam. At the same time, San Francisco’s economy crashed. With little light ahead, I formed a band called the Night Watchmen, and I learned quickly that pounding out songs on a piano and singing under the brim of a shoplifted fedora did not pay my bills.
So, I decided I would play Tom Cruise as the G-man once again and get a bartending job. However, I discovered no one was casting that part anymore.
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Before my return-to-bartending dreams were dashed, I went into a local brew pub, full of arrogant pride, and asked if they were looking for bartenders.
The dirty-blond hipster behind the bar said, “We’re not hiring anybody for the bar. But if you work as a server for a while, we might think about it.”
Optimistically, I took the job, hoping I’d be back tending bar soon. The pub gave me a black T-shirt with orange mountains and a fist holding a pint of beer on the front as my uniform. I started slinging clam chowder, club sandwiches, IPAs, and ales, and my optimism faded fast.
Routinely, I would go home with twenty dollars total in tips, and a promotion to bartender was not on the horizon. My band wasn’t pulling in much more than that at our shows in the deep recesses of the Bay Area indie music scene. To save money, I moved into a hippie house on a hill with four other people, and we shared one bathroom.
None of that was sustainable. I was a horrific server, impoverished as a result, and in poor mental health from everything combined. Despite the best interests of my mental state, I quit the pub and started waiting tables at the Bilgewater Grille because I thought I’d make more money.
By the time I’d received the dirty, rusted penny as a tip, I’d worked at the Grille for three months.
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Receiving the penny propelled me to go to a local dive bar called Smitty’s that same Saturday night. It was frequented by sailors and nicknamed Shitty’s because many people ended up in that state when they went there.
When I woke up the next morning, my head felt like it was on fire. Then, over the sounds of Phish pouring from a speaker in the living room, I heard one of my housemates yell, “Hey, Gentry! Don’t you have to work the Sunday brunch shift today, bro?”
Still half-inebriated, I slunk out and into our shared shower. As I stood in the polluted tub, contaminated with a brown ring and numerous partially-used soaps, I tried to scrub off as much of Shitty’s as I could.
After I climbed out of the shower, I put on my mandatory Bilgewater restaurant uniform. I began with a brightly-colored Hawaiian shirt straight from Magnum P.I.’s wardrobe, and I tucked that into khaki pants that were too big for me. I finished off my costume with orthopedic black clown shoes. Then, I left with my head throbbing.
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When I got to work, the Bilgewater was already a wild jungle. Each table appeared to be inhabited by different species. Creatures slurped and slopped and gobbled throughout the restaurant.
At the front, a line of storks and vultures were preening and sticking their beaks out, trying to get seated by the hostess. Inside, there was a table full of monkeys shrieking, led by one angry-looking baboon. A long party table was filled with wildebeests grunting, and a four-top of jackals in college sweatshirts were quaffing yellowish pints. Near them, three warthogs were facedown in troughs of salad that looked like insects.
My manager, Sheila, appeared in the middle of the animalistic melee. A short, wide-shouldered woman with a giant’s voice, Sheila looked up from under my chin and bellowed, “Gentry! You’re late! I’ve got you in section C. You’ve already got a six-top, a three-top, and Mrs. Abilene. Get your apron on.”
“Oh, man. Abilene?” I whined.
“Yeah. Get her some tea,” Sheila said, as she rolled off quickly into the pinball machine of restaurant madness that waited for me.
People eating and drinking at a busy restaurant
Mrs. Abilene was an angry, featherless owl who surveyed the restaurant from the corner, and I hated having to bring her tea. It required a teapot, teacup, saucer, honey, cream, and a series of packaged teas and sugars. She never tipped and sat at her table for hours, sipping with scorn.
By the time I got Abilene’s tea service, the six-top table was ready to devour me. It was a table full of colossal rattlesnakes visiting from Arizona. As I took their order, they slithered and ferociously eyed me, then I raced off to put it in the computer system.
Six orders were a lot for me, and it didn’t help that Wayne wanted to talk.
“You smell like booze,” Wayne said. “And you look like ass.”
“Awesome. Thanks. I’m busy here,” I tried to remember my order and type on the screen as he looked over my shoulder.
“Screw you, Bronson,” Wayne sniped and sashayed away.
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I was finally ready for the three-top, and I was sure they’d be upset that I’d left them waiting so long. When I got to the table, I was relieved. Two handsome men and an older, sweet-looking woman who, thankfully, looked human.
“Hi. So sorry for keeping you waiting,” I said.
“Oh, it’s okay. It’s a busy day,” one of the men said. “My boyfriend and I decided to bring my grandma out for brunch. We’re from The City.”
He had short brown hair, and the other man had shaggier blond hair. Both were fashionable San Franciscans who looked relaxed, happy, and not irritated by my erratic service.
Grandma grinned at me and pulled her white cardigan sweater around herself. “It’s a bit cold in here,” she said.
“I’m very sorry about that,” I said, apologizing again.
“Oh, it’s okay, young man,” she cooed.
“What can I get you started with to drink?” I asked.
They were patient and lovely and made me feel I could take a breath as I took their drink orders. Two Bloody Marys and one mimosa. Get everything to them quickly, I told my mushy brain.
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I rushed over and input their drinks into the computer to be sent to the back service bar, then I brought Mrs. Abilene a piece of tiramisu, and was able to get a plate of calamari to the rattlesnakes. I may not have been graceful, but I was flowing.
At the service bar, I picked up the drinks for Grandma, Grandson, and Grandson’s boyfriend. I took time to carefully place the mimosas and the two Bloody Marys on my tray next to three glasses of ice water. Then, I moved out to the floor.
The restaurant was full. Jam-packed. It was noon, and sunlight was burning through the windows. Dave Matthews was playing on the overhead speakers, and servers moved and bobbed between each other and their tables. I moved between it all with them.
My right hand balanced the tray of drinks on my right shoulder, and I walked down a short flight of steps toward the table. Grandma and the two men glowed angelically in the Sausalito sun. Just feet away from me.
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That’s when the tray tipped. Forward. I felt it slip, and gravity took over. No. Oh, my god. No. Red and orange and ice poured down Grandma’s back and all over her pure, white cardigan sweater.
Two full glasses of spicy tomato juice, vodka, celery, olives, limes, and beans, along with a flute of orange juice and sparkling wine. Before I could stop it, ice water followed, running like a freezing cold waterfall on Grandma.
The stain that covered her sweater was a murder scene.
“I…am…so…” I stammered but didn’t get to the word sorry.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” Grandson said.
He had already frantically gotten up and was wiping away what fluid he could. And Grandson’s boyfriend was taking off Grandma’s soaked sweater one arm at a time as it dripped.
“Let me help,” I said. And I took the wet, stained sweater under my left arm. It squished.
“You can throw it away,” Grandson said bluntly.
I rushed off to throw away Grandma’s destroyed clothing in the trash. As I did, the restaurant continued storming around me. A hurricane of food and drinks and music and talking and laughter and servers. I threw the cardigan in the trash, and I quickly returned to the table.
When I got back, they were gone. Ghosts. Phantoms. All that remained was carnage. Tipped glassware and ice cubes and blood-red liquid surrounded by pools of orange, all drying on a white tablecloth under the sun.
As I cleared the table, I waited for a guillotine to land on my neck. The restaurant had to fire me. This was unconscionable.
But nothing happened. And I told no one. I stayed silent, finished my shift, pocketed my measly tips, punched the clock, and left. Then, I went to Smitty’s.
The next day, I called Sheila and quit. She said they would miss me at the Bilgewater Grille, but I didn’t believe her.
My disastrous months waiting on tables were over. I had ended the nightmare.
The murder of Grandma’s white cardigan sweater was never discovered, but it haunts me. It should haunt me.
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I am a chaotic Muppet when I carry a tray. A goofy disaster when I wear a restaurant apron. A ridiculous monster when I try to remember orders. I am the worst server in the world. And even one dirty, rusted penny is too much of a tip for me.