Monkey Suits (2 page)

“It looks better if you hold ze tray like ziss,” a familiar voice came from behind. It was Philipe Berget, co-owner of Fabulous Food and thirty year professional in the order of food service. His gaunt face and pallid complexion was topped by thin yet distinguished gray hair.

Philipe turned the tray up under Lee’s arm, his hand resting on the young man’s shoulder for a moment.

“Oh, yes, of course. Thanks,” Lee stuttered, surprised by Philipe’s politeness. He had acted like a commandant in the training session at the company’s office, and his accent didn’t help. Before Lee had a chance to speak again, Philipe was off to correct another fraction of imperfection in a flower arrangement, then to tell another waiter to adjust a candle at table sixteen that burned askew.

Marcos appeared beside him. “Ready for the onslaught?”

“I guess.”

“Have you worked a big party before?” Marcos asked.

“No.”

“These are easy. Just pretend they’re all naked sitting on the pot. And do everything I say.”

“Right.”

3
“Hey sexy, how ya doin’?”

Brian whisked past Lee, who was retrieving another bottle of wine.

“Okay,” Lee shrugged, turning to watch Brian whisk past him.

By doing so, he broke a cardinal rule at such parties: always watch where you’re going. Guests move quite slowly, especially the women, who were usually bundled into constricting garments that not only impeded walking, but sitting, dancing and digestion.

Lee nearly slammed into what he at first swore was a drag queen he’d seen perform at the Pyramid. She turned out to be an actual woman, and a rather perturbed one at that. He suddenly jolted away to avoid crashing into her, sloshing a dollop of red wine on his white shirt.

“You should be more careful!” the woman snapped, her jewelry distracting Lee from actually making eye contact. Her lengthy fingernails clutched a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Her face, beneath an excessive use of almost appropriately Egyptian eye makeup and base, was a sagging portrait of wrinkles, obviously brought on by the two drugs at either end of her thin arms. Yet, despite the ravages of time and gravity, she managed to display a certain air of grace and grandeur, like a fallen yet still presentable soufflé.

“What do you think you’re doing, running around like that? What kind of people is Philipe hiring these days?” She stormed off before Lee could manage an apology. He looked down as the crimson stain spread over his shirt.

“Don’t you know who that is?” Neil Pynchon, the cardboard-handsome captain, stood next to Lee, who wiped the wine with one hand. Neil didn’t offer his service napkin.

“No, who was it, Osiris’s mother-in-law?”

“That was Trish Fuller. Mrs. Winston Fuller. You do know who that
is?”

“It rings a bell.” Lee shifted his black lapel to hide the spreading stain.

“You better pick somebody lower on the food chain to run into.”

“Can I use your napkin, Neil?” He held out his hand.

“Oh, I need it for dinner. There’s more in the back.” Neil turned away. “You should get some club soda for that stain,” he added.

“Thanks, Neil. I appreciate the help.”

Brian caught up with Lee in the back hall as he frantically wiped his shirt by a sallow portrait of a Colonial heiress.

“The architect must have been deaf when he designed this horror.” Lee tossed away the wet napkin. His shirt was soaking wet, but the bleeding red stain had faded.

“Who?”

“The architect. I wonder if he had any idea how many people would be nightly trashing this place.”

“Are you kidding?” Brian said. “They had all this old money in mind from day one.”

“No doubt.”

“You’re wet.”

“You’re brilliant. I’m gonna dry it off in the bathroom.”

“How ’bout I meet ya in there and give you blow job?” Brian grinned. Working over a year at such parties, weaving through the back walkways and changing clothes in clammy halls, had gradually erased the charm of the immense museum for Brian, and with it any trace of decorum.

“Why don’t you–”

Their jokes were cut off by louder talk further down the back hall. A burly man in kitchen clothes had cornered a young waiter who was backing away from him, edging close to an Early American dresser from President Adams’ home. The thick red rope cordoning it off jiggled precariously. The uniformed guard, a fiftyish Black man, edged closer, concerned more about the fate of the furniture.

“It’s just a piece of bread!” the young guy pleaded.

“You’re too sloppy,” the chubby man barked. “Everybody steals, I know that. You, however, are exceptionally sloppy. Look at those crumbs! Jesus!” Lee and Brian watched as he swatted the side pocket of the young waiter. Imprints of the white dust coated his black jacket, a telltale sign of his snatching sourdough bread.

“That’s Lenny Zehuti,” Brian whispered. “Beware his wrath.”

“Lenny Zawhati?”

Think of him as our Sergeant.”

“I got no choice,” Lenny shook his head at the young waiter.

“It’s not like I stole silverware or anything!”

“Look,” Lenny took him aside, then turned to glare at Lee and Brian. “Don’t you two have tables to attend to?” They retreated to the rest room but peeked from around a corner. Lenny returned his attentions to the quivering young thief. “Go get yer things. The guard’ll escorcha out.”

“But ...”

“Go on.” Lenny nodded to the guard, who mumbled something into his walkie-talkie, which crackled an unintelligible response.

“Did you see that?” Lee whispered in the men’s room as Brian turned the blower down toward Lee’s unbuttoned wet shirt. The black tile rest room was twice the size of Lees’ apartment.

“Yeah, it happens.” Brian leaned against the wall, glancing down at Lee’s bare stomach.

“But he just fired him.”

Brian sipped the glass he’d hidden from Lenny and handed it to Lee. “Drink me.” Lee gulped it down, then noticed the vodka.

“Shit! Was there -?” He grinned.

“Not to worry.” Brian set the glass atop a urinal.

“But I could end up like that guy.”

“Look, he was a mess anyhow. Made even me look good.” Brian reached his hand to rub Lee’s belly. His stomach muscles contracted at the touch.

A toilet flushed behind them. Brian pulled back. Lee hurriedly buttoned his shirt as a white-haired gentleman exited the stall and washed his hands, glancing at them through the mirror. The gentleman happened to be the CFO of Brian’s bank, a fact that, had he known it, would not have particularly impressed Brian, since he had less than a hundred dollars in it. The man left.

“C’mon, I’ve got a dizzy rookie like you at my table.” They once again adjusted their ties.

“What if I do something like that?”

Brian led him out the door before remarking with the elan of a cat burglar. “Just don’t get caught.”

The two would mention the firing throughout the night. The news would spread quickly, for the efficiency of the homosexual tongue frequently rivals the AP wire. Each of forty-three waiters would have their own version of the event by evening’s end. But rather than act on it, as any concerned group of employees might, they merely whispered and commented among themselves while waiting in line for their next tray to be garnished. The murmuring would amount to just that. No one needed to lose his job by protesting, at least not until he got a modeling shoot or another showcase. Besides, one less employee meant a better chance for oneself, didn’t it?

4
The moment the last guest left the Temple,
Philipe called a brief meeting, glancing at the doors to ensure that there were no outside eavesdroppers. Two waiters closed them silently, leaving the small herd in the vast tomb of a tomb. Philipe stood on a small milk crate, waiting for the workers to assemble. With the timeworn mausoleum behind him, Lee noticed how Philipe strangely resembled Boris Karloff’s Ardeth Bey in
The Mummy
.

Philipe raised a hand. A dozen obedient “shhhh”s stilled the group.

“We had an unfortunate incident ziss evening. One of our workers was dizmissed. I do not like to take ziss kind of disciplinary action, howev-ah, ziss employee was reprimanded several times before. We state the rules and remind all of you. No eating food until we let you go on your break. No drinking of alcohol. Understood?”

Heads nodded. The silence breathed consent in the flavor of fear.

“Good. Now go und shenge quickly and come beck to finish ze break down.”

A crack of a grin escaped Philipe’s composure as a few waiters mimicked his accented instruction, “Shenge, shenge,” before trooping off quietly.

By deploying the elements of strict control, treachery and abuse, all with a slight sliver of humor, Fabulous Food, the SS of catering companies, and the best in New York, possibly the entire East Coast, did so with the efficiency of an ant colony. A party that may have taken months of planning, days of cooking and hours of setting up could be completely disassembled in less than two hours.

Potware, samovars and serving trays, thirty round tables, half a dozen squares, three hundred chairs, nine hundred fifty plates and espresso cups, fourteen hundred glasses (water, wine, red wine, champagne), and two thousand pieces of silverware were scraped, rinsed, stacked, boxed, and packed back into trucks and returned to the rental company, which washed, maintained and stored the equipment in a vast Brooklyn warehouse.

Fifty pounds of leftover food and untold gallons of half-drunk liquids were variously scraped, wrapped, poured, and dumped into drains and dumpsters. This night it wasn’t accomplished in record time, but to Philipe, Lenny and their many underlings, things were running smoothly.

Some changed into street clothes. Others merely draped their jackets at various points, working in rolled-up shirts and suspenders. The other bartenders packed and crated the remaining alcohol under watchful supervision. Marcos Tierra, true to Fabulous Food’s less than subtle racial hierarchy, acted as loading dock go-between and supervised the transfer of chairs and tables from white waiters to Latino rental company workers.

In the same men’s room again, Brian and Lee poured an awkward plastic tub of leftover liquids into a toilet. Lemon peels, cigarette butts and bits of cork cascaded over the crimson spillage like sacrificial guttings.

“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” Lee winced as he kicked the flush handle.

“Ya got a weak stomach.” Brian let the last drops fall into the swirling water. “C’mon. We’re done.” Lee noticed his stomach doing a few odd things as he carried the plastic tub. Perhaps it was the combination of wine, veal, espresso and three lumps of sorbet that did it.

As all traces of the party were swept from Dendur, those who chose not to stay late stripped off their tuxes and redressed in the Arms and Armor Room. Closed for years, forever in a state of renovation, many pieces remained, including, encased in a glass cube, a 14th-century full body of armor sitting atop a fiberglass horse. The young men disrobed at its feet, doing bad impersonations of Philipe’s accent; “Shenge, shenge.”

Lee finished dressing as he watched Brian kiss the back of an almost naked blond man. He’d been introduced to Ed, Brian’s new boyfriend, but hardly included in Brian’s new circle of friends. Actually, he’d rarely met any of Brian’s friends during the past summer since he’d met him. Now he had been dispensed to the sidelines. His gaze was interrupted by a familiar voice.