Not only is Drama City the name of the new George Pelecanos book, but it also sums up my weekend.
Drama started on Friday when I was the victim of a shift change: I was scheduled to work a 200 person served dinner. But when I got to the site, it had turned out that I had been switched to another party - still a served dinner - but only for 70 guests. I could live with that.
What I couldn't live with was getting caught in a downpour while trying to unload food from the van into the building. Working in wet clothes is no fun, I can tell you that. Top that off with having to work with a recently divorced woman so bitter that I believe at times she thought I was her ex-husband by the way she was talking to me. She also had a hard time counting - several times throughout the night I asked her how many plates of needed to run to her from the kitchen she gave me the wrong number.
Next day I worked a party in Raleigh. It iwas a fund raiser for an all-girl private school called Saint Mary's. I got put on bar with this African American guy named Kenny who gave me funniest, dirtiest running commentary throughout the night. "Ooh G, look at that girl. Wo, I'd tear that shit up!" he said standing like the pimp he thinks he is. He then preceeded to rate and grade every female that walked by us be it a co-worker or guest of the party. "Look at that old lady wearing fishnet stockings. Holy smokes. She must be 60. What's a 60-year-old lady doing wearing fishnet stockings?" he finished with a question. "But she looked good though."
He confessed toward the end of the shift that he hasn't eating pussy in over a year and a half but that he's starting to get the hankering for a taste of it. I told him years ago, while working as a courier in DC, that a co-worker told me that "black guys don't eat pussy." Indeed it was a black man that told me so. "It's true Greg," he said. "We don't. But I'll take getting my dick sucked all night long! Sure enough," he said. "But sometimes don't you have to give to receive?" I asked.
"Sheeeet," he said. "Not Kenny."
The talk of pussy reminded me of a friend of mine named Doug, who as an undergrad at the University Of Maryland, had earned himself the nickname Muff Man because he loved to eat him some pussy. I shudder to think at wear his mouth has been. I told this this story to Kenny to which he replied, "Yeah, I do hear that the white man loves himself some pussy."
The shift goes from bad to worse when the hour and a half cocktail reception goes past two hours as the hostess bellowed from a sqeaky mic, "Folks, Pl-ease sit down!" Kitchen crew panics as it throws off the cooking of 350 filet mignons. Tragedy strikes again when it is discovered that the diagram that has everybodies designated sections on it has been taped to the wall upside down.
So I was really in section 9, not 6. Confusion ensued. Our VIP party turned into and All You Can Eat at Red Lobster scene with chaos as to who was serving which table. Could it get worse? Yes. Halfway through dessert the hostess anounces that the bar has opened back up. Kenny and I look at each other. "Oh shit!" he said before scrambling for some bags of ice to replenish the ice bowl. Back at the bar I calm the nerves with a double Kettel One and tonic. By the night's end, I would be borderline drunk.
Next day. Sunday. The family is about to head off the the store when a scream came from the passenger side of our parked car. As I walk around I saw Cole's hand closed in the door. I don't know how to react: I'm scare at the site of his hand; I want to open a can of whoop ass on Spencer. Cole turned out to be okay but I still lsot my shit on Spencer.
