Well, I checked with my lawyers (Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe—same firm
Tom and Ray from Car Talk use) and apparently it’s OK to write an unauthorized
autobiography as long as it’s your own. And so, faithfull reader, it’s time for our humblehero to explain how an ex-paratrooper, motorcyclist, and general adventurer, joined the ranks of the few, the proud, the beautiful, becoming the only man waiting on the open mouthed masses at the Trident. (Well, Clint Eastwood wasn’t impressed, and Alan Bates just took a nap on one of the benches out on the deck, but, a short, self important, “shoulda woulda coulda been” is so common in their world as to be virtually invisible) Where was I? Oh yes, back in 1973 repeating my mantra, “me me me.”
It was a Saturday afternoon, just beginning to slow down at almost five o’clock, and those who could sit for a moment were in varying stages of collapse at the employee table. Nancy MacAllister, decidedly one for dramatic emphasis, was almost lying down when the hostess came by (I think it was the always unruffled Monica, student of Japanese manners and mores, with three feet of straight blonde hair) and apprehensively gave her a little signal that she had yet another foursome. Nancy’s jaw practically fell into her lap (well it would have had she been sitting up) and in a tone of righteous indignation and outrage, cried,
“But it’s five minutes to five!!!! Can’t you give them to somebody else?” Monica gave her a sympathetic shrug, and said, “‘There’s nothing I can I do.” I had come by just in time to witness this exchange and Nancy turned her ice blues to me filled with a look of almost incomparable suffering, exceeded only by the plaintive note in her voice as she said, “Eric, would you take my table for me, pleeeze? I’m sooo tired.” Well, eternal boy scout that I am, I said, “Sure” “You will??? Oh you sweet heart!!! OK”, she said, all awake and excited now, “Here’s how you do it…” And proceeded to hand me a check, explaining about drinks, and sending me off with an encouraging, “Don’t worry, we’ll help you,” roping her room-mate, Ellen and a couple of others into the plot.
So I approach the table (the four-top just to the right of the door to the deck) and try to sound natural as I repeat that famous line, “Hi there, can I get you anything to drink?” I am greeted by a look of slightly bemused suspicion from the men (where indeed was the glamour-puss they were hoping to get a closer look at) while the women seemed relieved that they wouldn’t have to endure watching their husbands reduced to gibbering idiots by some glamously indifferent flower child with no idea of just how quickly fades the bloom of youth. Tentative smiles all around. Drinks are debated, and decided; soto voce instructions about bar order from Nancy hovering behind me, and a slightly bungled exit as I turn and bump right into her on my way to the bar, where Bobby gives me a gimlet eyed look of “what the hell do you think you’re doing?” while Nancy explains and tries to convince him that it’s another one of those great Trident moments when we break the rules because we can and it’s fun.
Bobby doesn’t really buy it, but he goes along, and with a sigh gives me the world weary bartenders crash course on how not to make his life any more unliveable than it already is. Bobby had a touch of Pierre in him. Nancy, of course, would just roll right over anybody who was going to be a stick in the mud and didn’t appreciate just how important it was to have fun at work, and so, blithely ignoring his general disapproval gave me some hurried intructions and sent me back to the table.
By the time I was picking up the food from under the withering gaze of Pierre, pretty much everyone was aware of what we were doing, right on up to Dagny who sized up the situation with a slightly raised eyebrow, and decided to let it run its course. Those of you who remember when Dagny was promoted to floor manager, and watched how gracefully she stepped into her new role, will understand why I have to stop now and explain to those who don’t, and didn’t, just how wonderful she was. That said, it occurs to me that anyone reading this blather about cartoonishly drawn characters from a distant and misty past will have one of about four possible reactions:
1) I don’t know who you’re talking about.
2) I knew her on sight, but not well enough have any particular reaction.
3) Oh, I remember her, all right. Silly bitch. (or bastard) and,
4) She was great; I loved her.
Well, for me it’s number 4. Fer sher. In a just and proper world Dagny would be queen, and we’d all live happily ever after. Dagny had this way about asking me to do something that made me want to do it fast, do it right, and make her happy. And if I had a problem or a question, she’d bend down from that redwood height of hers, fix her calm, penetrating blue-grey eyes on mine and listen, and not just with one ear either—even when she was trying to deal with three or four things at once she had a way slowing down enough for each single thing to make everything seem to go a little faster. She reminds me still of certain officers I served under in the Army, who understood that rank conferred certain automatic rights, but respect is what makes people want to do what they have to do. Perhaps she wore her cloak of authority lightly because she’d come up through the ranks, and perhaps being a woman she knew it was the only way to look good wearing it, but whatever it was, she wore it well. Not everyone does. So I say we kick out our current clown king and put in a real regal queen. But, I digress……
After all the fun was over, and our mischevious little prank had been told and retold to the point that in some versions I may have been dancing on the table by the end of it, I had to get Dagny to sign my timecard. I knew I wasn’t gonna get spanked for being naughty, but I wasn’t exactly looking forward to what I was gonna get. What I didn’t expect was an offer I could hardly refuse. “So, Eric, you think you want to be a waiter?.” “Whew” I whistled under my breath, imitating the sound of the bullet I had just dodged, but then I almost fell over anyway when she said, “I’ll talk to Frank and Lou and see if they’ll go for it.”
Well, that Monday while I was doing the weekly inventory, Frank came up to me with smile and said, “I hear you want to be a waiter. You know you’ll have to wear something a little more dressy than when you’re busing, so go get some duds and we’ll see about giving you a couple of shifts.”
And thus, thanks to two of the unforgetables, Nancy MacAllister, and Dagny McCloskey I became waiter in a fancy joint full of fancy women. Needless to say, I was as happy as the proverbial pig in shit. So here’s to Nancy and Dagny, where ever they may be. And if you know, tell ’em to get in touch.