They came to my “office”. It was moderately late — I had just finished a Wine Tasting that can only be described as a complete “camel fuck”. I was in no mood to talk to my brethren at Grapes and sought the anonymity of Ash Creek Saloon. Just stay away from me… I am not a mean person (although I admit that I know at least one person who would argue that point)… tonight I just want to be left alone.
Then “they” came in: four wait staff from the banquet staff of the Norwalk Inn… their gig finished, they were looking to un-wind.
I well recognized the attire: black vests, white formal shirts (don’t ask me why; but I find women wearing white pleated dress shirts to be incredibly sexy), black slacks & comfortable black shoes.
Yep. I don’t have to plow the depths of my memory to remember the years I wore “black & white” at the Inn at Longshore in Westport… all those nights or doubleshifted Saturdays when I mixed drinks, poured wine and served up beer deep into the night.
And if it had been a particularly fruitful night (meaning I got tipped big), Steve, Lindy, Robert or Denise & I would repair to the Mansion Clam House for “last call” to un-wind… to recount the glories of the evening — to share a host of laughs, and sometimes to voice hurt and trouble.
On those late evenings nothing seemed closer. The previous 8 – 16 hours joining us… and everything we shared over cold beer and whisky was cast through the prism of our common experience. The laughter was more intense, the melancholy was more pointed.
There was a part of being there because we needed the money. I don’t know people who choose to wait staff. And there was a part of being there because we felt “whole” being with folks traveling on a similar path.
And I glance down the bar at the foursome from the Norwalk Inn and I reflect on how ashamed I was when I first tended bar part time… here, I owned my own business, not being able to fully make it and having to tend bar? When I think about how before each wedding I would look at the card table with the names and table assignments praying that I wouldn’t see a name that I knew. Yes, it took me quite awhile to shed my embarrassment.
But I did.
I was a damned good bartender.
But it was the time that I shared with Lindy, Steve, Denise & Robert (and a few others) that gave positive definition to what was largely a bleak chapter in my life. So, I look to my left again… see part of the Norwalk Inn’s staff, see the bottles of Heineken and the celebratory shots lined up. I hear the good natured ribbing, the laughter that is spilled and think back to my days in “black & white”.
I think back to Lindy, who has provided me with more annecdotes than just about anyone who I have ever known… To Steve, a person I worked with for 7 years without a single cross word ever taking place between us… To Denise, a close friend who was sexy beyond belief in a formal shirt… And to amazing Robert who defies a brief description…
I don’t miss the forced late nights. I miss the people. I miss those shared bright moments on a twisted path between sun and shadow.