The Autograph Hound (17 page)

“The Boss, he say the wine list's yours.” Garcia's shoulders sag.

Zambrozzi scribbles on his memo pad. Without signaling, the cook's helper is by his side. Zambrozzi tells him to take the message to Jan. “Our first step to radical change.”

“The chef no supposed to choose the wines. Even Mario of the Century no choose the wine. They do it by committee.”

“Committees never work. Zambrozzi knows his wine.”

“For five years, an afternoon a month in the backroom of Louis Sherry. All the maître d's from the grade-A restaurants. We scientific. Pad and pencil. Twenty-four numbered glasses at each setting. First we taste. Then we talk. We get good buys.”

“Your Chianti spoils my
farinacci
.”

“What you think of the Moselle?”

“Piss.”

“Those Moselle afternoons were fun,” Garcia says, quietly. “The people no complain.”

“Americans don't know shit about wines. Change or die.”

I think Mr. Zambrozzi's going too far. If he doesn't like America, he can leave. But I'm nonnegotiable, and Zambrozzi's negotiating. I keep quiet.

“Wine's the maître d's department!”

“If you choose the wines, Garcia, I go. I take Victor and Anthony with me.”

“I quit!” says Garcia.

“Good.”

“You'd let me go?”

“You sneak out most of the time anyway,” says Zambrozzi.

“All work and no play make Enrique a dull
hombre
. The customers like me.”

“I watch from the kitchen window, Garcia. Kiss-kiss. Squeeze-squeeze. A maître d's supposed to have the class. He supposed to act like a king, not Sammy Davis, Jr.”

“I get big tips.”

“Zambrozzi gets hard work and no thanks. It's time for a change.”

“Like it or lump it, Chef, Mr. Garcia's a drawing card. Look at the pictures in the window.”

“Shut up, Benny! You gotta earn the right to speak. I need more space to cook great. We move the wine cellar. I want a fresh- and a salt-water tank down there. No more frozen fish. No more sending to the docks in the middle of the day. I want them alive, right under our roof. We don't lose tenderness or time.”

“Won't that be dangerous? Fish bite.”

“Quiet, Benny! There'll be a fish chart. Everything organized. I want a humidity-controlled greenhouse down there. It's possible. Italian foods need lots of herbs and the right earth. We fly soil from the hillsides of Bellagio. The iron, the lizards, the olive humus will be there. The herbs will be
bellissimo
, and right from our own garden. Magazines will photograph. In the afternoons, when things are quiet, the Boss can give the guided tour. We can make a pamphlet. Sell it for a dollar on the history of the Zambrozzi kitchen.”

I wish Zambrozzi'd watched
The Price Is Right
. He'd know to quit while he's ahead.

“Where the Boss raise the money?”

“The Zambrozzi kitchen's the price of one vacation to Palm Beach.”

“The Boss, he a good man. He want to help, but you ask too much.”

“That's not all we want. Look at number eleven. I want the right of first refusal!”

“What?”

“I don't want you coming back here asking me to ruin my cuisine because the customer wants something special.”

“I never do this,” says Garcia.

“What about Tina Turner?”

“That was special.”

Zambrozzi pulls out his pocket diary. “On September 1,1968, you scream at me to brown my dover sole under the grill, I sent the
plat
out under a covered dish to hide my shame. I don't want no more out-of-towners pouring
crème vichyssoise
on their strawberries.
Gesù Cristo
—the humiliation.”

“Look, Mr. Zambrozzi, I no tell the Boss I give you everythin'. He won't think I bargain. I tell him about the equipment, the menu. He be very mad. He swear at me. I say to him I'm repeating your words. I no tell him about first refusal. You must speak for yourself.”

“Unless this settles within twenty-four hours, Zambrozzi leave. No gourmet chef will work here again.”

“We got a good thing, Zambrozzi. Don't mess it up.”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“Don't tell the Boss that. You know his heart. Without you, we no have a chance.”

“Then the Boss meets our demands.”

“You said this was a bargaining table.”

“It is.”

“Where's the bargain? What do
we
get?”

“You get
me
. You get the old experienced crew and a new improved restaurant. You get more profits.”

“But that's for the future. The Boss, he want to know what I won for him, how I hold down the fort. You tell him I busted balls, okay? You say Enrique Garcia's a mean
honcho
, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Then I must win something to prove it.”

Zambrozzi's silent. He writes a note and gives it to the cook's helper. “I want a hand vote.”

The messenger returns. Garcia reads the note and puts it in his pocket. “All right. Tell Boss you won number twelve.”

“That's me, Mr. Zambrozzi. I'm number twelve. You can't give up number twelve.”

“You broke the picket line, Benny.”

“I need the money.”

“You let me down.”

“I want to be part of this new restaurant.”

“Then why you scab?”

“What about our drinking song? The Big Draw? You're pulling a Garcia.”

“Watch it, Walsh!”

“He's right, Benny. Gandhi says—‘The future depends on what we do in the present.' It's now or never.”

“You and I were buddies, Mr. Zambrozzi. We swapped stories about the great customers you'd cooked for, remember? I wrote them down and filed them. I consider you an autograph.”

“Will you picket until we win?”

“That could be months. I can't wait.”

“That's all I want to know.”

“But, Mr. Zambrozzi … Chef …”

Zambrozzi takes his hat and puts it on. The meeting's over. They whisper together. There's no use pretending I'm not here. Garcia finally turns to me. “Walsh, take pots and pans.”

“What about my old station? You promised.”

“You want overtime?”

The pans have been lying dirty for hours. They're hard to clean. You need nails for scraping the corners. Steel wool pricks your fingers. Steam—thick as cotton candy—tickles my nose. Suds swoosh against the inside and mark it like waves sneaking up on the sand.

On hot days, I'd run into the ocean with my goggles. My toes and fingers sank into the sand. I was solid as a clam. The waves couldn't budge me. The others swam to the raft with the diving board. You could hear them laughing and see them pushing each other off. I'd take a deep breath and duck underwater. There was a nice silence. Everything floated in slow motion together. When I came up for air, the beach looked new.

The others called me “Flounder” and dared me to go into deep water. I didn't even look their way. I'd slide up on the sand and let the sun bake me. When the yelling got loud and I got bored from sitting, I'd go under the waves again and lie quiet in my special place by the shore. Sometimes, the goggles left marks on my forehead. When I came home Mom would try to rub the red lines away with her thumb. “You weren't looking at beach pussy, were you?” She said God would paralyze my face for doing those things. But there was nothing bad in my swimming. I remember it when I want to pass the time. I'm loyal to my good memories.

The pans pile up. No matter how hard you wash, somebody's always shoving more by the sink. If I daydream, I get behind. If I look across at the other washer—McDougal—I see those two black holes, like a bowling ball, in the middle of his face.

“Think this is a bitch, huh? It's better'n seein' the ass end of the Statue of Liberty every four months on that freighter. I'm fuckin' stayin' away from freighters. Mister, let me tell you—stay away from freighters.”

I put more powder in the sink. I rub the dish covers until I can see my T-shirt in them. There's only one trouble with temporary help—they don't concentrate.

“I've got a story to tell, man. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare should send me on tour. The Jimmy McDougal Story—the Syph Saga. I'd do the dockyards, the off-limits bars, the Merchant Marines. Nobody'd prod bar snatch after they heard what I've got to tell 'em.”

I try to think of the summer. And then I think of trees. And that starts me remembering station 4 with the weeping willows and the shrubs that divide the tables. I've dusted those plants since they were first installed. They listen to me. Mom says the secret to caring for plants is talk—there's no use having them if you're not prepared to give them conversation. She's right. Only a few of mine have melted, but that's because they bent too close to the indirect lighting.

“Don't want to talk, huh, kid? Want to see me French-inhale a cigarette? Want to sing?

“A hundred bottles of beer on the wall

A hundred bottles of beer
.

If one of those bottles should happen to fall

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall
.

“C'mon, kid, sing along! It's good for you. You learn this song, junior, you can stay in the saddle an hour without shootin' your wad. I once fucked a broad in Charleston—that greaser couldn't sit for a week.”

I sing my own songs to myself—“Over the Rainbow,” “Everything's Coming Up Roses,” “He's Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

McDougal's splashing the water while he sings. He doesn't care if he soaks me. He's down to sixty-nine bottles of beer on the wall. He sings the chorus again.

“Sixty-nine bottles of beer, kid. Don't you get it?”

“No.”

“Not eighty-two bottles, not seventy-five, but sixty-nine. The daily double.”

“Is your water cold?”

“Hot as a pistol. Sixty fucking nine, kid! Cheez.”

“I can't get the grease off without hot water.”

“Don't talk to me about hot. Spent three weeks at a time in the boiler room. Grease like you never seen. You could fry an egg on the floor. Drank three hundred and ninety-four bottles of beer in the run from Charleston to Panama City. Drunk for thirteen days straight. James Michael McDougal of Eugene, Oregon, was drunk and dirty … Ooooooheeeee!

“Fifty-five bottles of beer on the wall

Fifty-five bottles of beer.

If one of those bottles should happen to fall

Fifty-four bottles of beer on the wall.…”

“You missed a few bottles of beer on the wall.”

“I did not.”

“You were in the sixties, now you're nearly in the forties.”

“You're crazy.”

“I've been listening …”

“You callin' me a liar? If you don't know what sixty-nine bottles of beer on the wall means, how do you know I missed any? Want a piece of advice, kid? Don't ship out. Stay off the poop deck. On board, dumb-dumbs like you could be killed for less. Once the chef called the bosun a faggot. The next day they found half a chef stuffed through the porthole.”

“I'm sorry. I can't talk and wash. I'm getting overtime.”

“You think I took this job for money? Buddy, you got another think comin'. I signed on to bust some Commie chops. If enough of us guys work cheap, those protestin' pinkos will be out on their ass. We'll take over the joint.”

“I've worked here eight years.”

“You're not temporary?”

“I've got two days to go.”

“So, you're temporary.”

“The Homestead's really going to be better once this strike's settled.”

“It's rotten with the pink, man. Once they get their hands on it—they'll share the profits. No tips. Nothin'. I'm telling you this place's washed up.”

“Restaurants are a good living.”

“Are you kidding? A man of my experience? I got seniority. I could be stashin' it away. If I could find somebody to write my story, I'd make a million. You don't write, do you?”

“I collect signatures.”

“Forgery?”

“Autographs.”

“Ever try anything longer?”

“Sometimes.”

“I got a story, kid—murder, rape, pure love, laughter. Cinemascope's too small for what's happened to me. I'm forty-two, and I look sixty-five. That comes from fast livin', kid. My story's just catchin' up with me. It keeps gettin' bigger every day. Yesterday, this college punk at Temporary (I could tell he'd never worked a day in his life—his hands were smooth, his shoes weren't scuffed) asks me what kind of a job I want. He says to me, ‘Mr. McDougal, what kind of a job do you want?' And you know what I said—right off the top of my head—I says, ‘Give me a nose job.' The punk blushed—candy-ass. A knee-slapper, huh? I wrote it down, somethin' funny between the dramatic parts. Imagine the suspense. The doctors versus Jimmy McDougal. For twelve years (we'd show this with a calendar and the pages of each year being ripped away) the doctors watch my nose drop off. Each year it gets a little less. But this don't stop me from a career of crime and wanton lust. They never used to notice me. I had to wait days for medical treatment in the hospitals before my nose started to disappear. Then, everybody at the clinic wanted to see me. I was the main event. I can scare the shit out of people, now. That's how the movie ends.”

“That's it? That's the end? Who goes to movies to be depressed?”

“It's got everything, man. It's arty, too. The meaning's left up to the audience, know what I mean? Do I get my face fixed or what? You have to guess.”

Little Richard used to be a dishwasher in Macon, Georgia. He invented “wop-bop-aloo-bam-balopbam-boom” to stop guys like McDougal from bugging him. But after standing over The Homestead sink, who has the energy? Only Little Richard.