Monkey Suits (6 page)

“Don’t do that!” Lenny bellowed. “Keep movin’! Ya got twenty guys behind ya!” Lee stood up and rushed on to the outstretched hands of a sturdy clean-up worker, Kyle, who silently yanked the plates from each of his hands. He’d never seen a man in a dirty white apron look so angelic. Kyle rarely spoke to waiters, at least not that Lee had seen. Rumor had it he was straight, but as he bent over in front of the slightly stunned Lee to retrieve his fallen flatware, it struck Lee as somehow tragic to think that no male tongue or cock had yet invaded the netherlands of such a terrific butt.

“Keep movin’!” Lenny snarled after him like an inflated bridge troll.

Lee wiped his hands and rushed swiftly back to his table in flight formation. He still had four more trips to clear eight more plates. Fabulous Food technique prohibited the “tacky” use of stacking plates. Although efficient for speed, “cafeteria-style clatter” was tantamount to sacrilege.

Following a dessert of creme brulee (“Fried sugar pus,” a young waiter joked) Brut Classic ‘80, and espresso coffee (served in cups only slightly larger than thimbles), half the wait staff was dismissed to the back region of the Library’s halls, between the kitchen and near the loading dock. They stood, sat on the floor or leaned against walls, wolfing down less elegantly served portions of the same meal on plastic plates.

“Better hurry,” Brian called to Lee as he chewed. “They’re running out of vegetables.”

Lee glanced down at the trays as he poured a cup of tepid soda. A few dozen browned ends of veal and soggy vegetables lay in a messy tray of juice.

“Guess it’s nubbins of baby corn again,” he sighed.

Unable to sit next to Brian, or between Brian and Ed, which is where he would have liked to serve as a sort of wedge, Lee sat on a milk crate in a corner next to Marcos, who finished his meal and sipped a paper cup of coffee.

“So, what’s the story on that dish guy?” Lee asked.

“Which one?” Marcos dabbed a napkin to his mouth.

“I think, Kurt?”

“Oh, Kyle.”

“Yeah.”

“Why, sweetface? Planning a little extra-curricular activity?”

“Never mind my dance card. What’s he like?”

Marcos finished his coffee, stood, and tossed his plastic plate into a trashcan. “He’s exceedingly hot, but I must warn you. His longevity lives up to his nickname.”

“Which is?”

“Speed Stick.”

Most of the guests had departed from Brian’s table. Their scattered napkins circled the table like bent petals. He scanned the other tables, prowling, seeking his little gem for the evening.

A bead-encrusted egg purse sat alone, unprotected, nestled next to a lipstick-stained wineglass. No, he thought. Whoever she is, she’ll be back for it. Whatever the hell they crammed into those things, Brian was not eager to discover. Instead, he downshifted as the ornate napkin holders caught his eye. Looped by a thick red cord, each faux-bronze lion’s head snarled in a frieze, miniatures of the creatures in white guarding the Library’s steps.

What terrific drape sachets these would make
, he thought, allowing a shiver of ex-theatre queen delight to fill him.
Now all we need are some drapes
.

Having slipped his cheap bounty for the night neatly away in his pocket, Brian then decided to grab a few extras as gift-wrappings for Ed. His birthday was coming up soon, wasn’t it?

Oscar Wilde often said that revenge is best served cold. Brian took his revenge at any temperature and by any means available.

8
Cut in pastel construction paper and stapled to the bulletin board of a
tiny classroom, the ancient Hebrew letters took on an endearing nature. Although charmed by their beauty, Lee still couldn’t read them.

Shrunk to child-accessible levels, the room amused the waiters as they poured in and claimed areas for changing. After bumping his leg twice on a shin-high desk, Marcos convinced Lee and the other eight guys to shove the baby furniture to the side. The wide glass windows opened out to the back yard of the Oyster Bay Jewish Center where the night’s Bar-Mitzvah’s outdoor tent stood flapping in the breeze.

“Aren’t there any drapes?” Jack, one of the waiters, complained as he pulled off a sweatshirt.

“We’ve suddenly become Miss Modesty,” Marcos said. “You weren’t at all modest at Boy Bar on Sunday when you were dancing in your jock strap and combat boots.”

“That was different,” Jack shrugged as he squeezed himself into the seat of a tiny desk to unlace his shoes. “I was getting tips.”

“Oh, of course,” Marcos snipped. “Demure except for the dollar.” Since there were few people on the back lawn anyway, they all undressed, until the door opened in a whirl.

“Well, I see you’ve all made yourselves at home.” A woman in a red dress, large gold earrings, and a matching Coty necklace peered in with a satisfactory grin. Her hair glinted like chrome. She glanced at Rick, a tall Italian waiter with hairy legs who stood in the center of the room with his pants off. Refusing to cover himself, he stood defiantly, waiting for the woman to retreat. A flock of teenagers giggled by the door, peeking in.

“Do you need something?” Rick asked. The woman, possibly the mother of the kid getting Bar-Mitzvahed, backed away, her grin faltering. Rick deliberately pulled off his T-shirt, exposing even more of his frame.

“No, no. You all just go ahead and get ready.”

The moment Marcos closed the door, he waved his hand to ward off the cloud of perfume. Rick yanked his jockey shorts down and shook his penis a few times toward the closed door. The men burst into laughter. Rick pulled his shorts up, immediately blushing from his prank. He glanced at Lee, who had nearly gaped at Rick’s little flesh flash.

“Wag that again,” Marcos hooted. “Jack, you’ve got competition.”

“Don’t take out yer weapons if you’re not gonna use ’em,” Jack countered.

Rick, whose wavy hair had a habit of curling at an angle opposite the way he combed it, buttoned his shirt. “Don’t you hate it?” he said to his co-workers. “They always do that. Come barging in like we’re not even human.”

“At least we have solid ground to change on.” A chubby redhead wrapped his cummerbund around his waist. “I been to outdoor weddings where the bride’s father wouldn’t let us in his house, not even the servant’s quarters. ’Fraid we’d piss on the rug. Hadda change in the kitchen tent. Plus, it rained that morning. Got mud all over my pants. Looked like a barnyard cow.”

“Well, at least we’re indoors,” Lee said.

“At least it’s not Orthodox,” Rick said as he zipped his pants. “I worked a holiday, what was it? Zooka, Sooka, I forget.”

“Sukkot,” Marcos corrected.

“What-evah,” Rick continued. “Part of the thing was, they hadda eat outdoors under a thatched roof. Now, this party was at this millionaire jeweler’s town house, okay, and they hired these carpenters to make a huge hut on the penthouse porch, which was four times the size of my apartment. They had this special holy wine for rabbis only. We goyim couldn’t even touch the bottles, just the cheap stuff for dinner. ’Course all the women sit on their side and the women staff serve them, and all the Moishes are doin’ their thing under the Matsoh Hut, and then,” he grunted a hoarse laugh. “It starts raining, and we’re pouring wine with the rain pouring down even faster, the glasses filling with as much water as wine, and these guys are gabbin’ away in Hebrew while our tuxes are getting completely soaked.”

“Didn’t they go inside?”

“No, that’s what they do, stand under a thatched roof. It was wild.” He shook his head. “My jacket was ruined, plus they stiffed us for an extra hour, so a couple of us snuck into the back room of the kitchen wine closet and rubbed our dirty fegelah spit all over their precious vino collection.” Rick finished buttoning his shirt with a haughty satisfaction.

The room was silent a moment.

“Are they feeding us?” Lee asked.

“Probably,” Rick said.

“I hope it’s not kosher,” the redhead said.

“You got some-tink against kosh-ah?” Rick packed his street clothes in his bag.

“Have you ever done a Bar Mitzvah?” Marcos asked Lee.

“No.”

“It’s quite a bit different than our Upper East Side cocktail gigs,” he said while adjusting his bow tie. “Sometimes those with the money are not necessarily those with the taste.”

The chubby redhead looked at Marcos as if slighted. Although a few of the waiters in the room had worked for established Manhattan companies, others less handsome and thin would have had a hard time getting into Fabulous’ restrictive ranks. Marcos considered such trips to Long Island akin to slumming. For the same pay, they were asked to work in a comparatively crass style. What was sacrilege in Manhattan was common practice in “the ’burbs.”

It was at such parties that Lee began to notice why Fabulous had become so popular with the East Side elite. He’d noticed the proof of a theorem: the worse the food, the more ostentatious the display in serving it.

“Hot dogs?” Marcos cringed as he spied the trays loaded with what he barely recognized as hors d’oeuvres. He and the other waiters hovered over the counter in the hot crowded kitchen. The garnish for each tray sprouted at all angles, a gaudy combination of purple lettuce, tropical flowers, and paper umbrellas.

“Mini-dogs,” Sid Klein corrected as he fiddled with rearranging the tiny sausages. A hands-on boss, Sid owned Catered Affairs, a small company that worked many other Bar- and Bat-Mitzvahs in the area. A portly balding man with a bit of a temper, he was nevertheless friendly and made sure all his waiters were paid in cash, including tips.

“They’re like wiener winks,” Lee said.

“What?” Marcos asked.

“Didn’t you ever have wiener winks in high school?”

“Maybe in the boy’s room.”

As they entered the hall of the Jewish Center, Lee quickly learned that he had a decision to make; either hold the tray low and let the food disappear under the fitful hands of giggling children, or play the snob and hold the tray high for the adults. He preferred the children, who never asked about the contents, but just consumed. Upon returning to the kitchen for the third time in ten minutes, Sid cried, “Whaddaya doin’? Feedin’ the dogs?”

“The kids are hungry,” he shrugged while Sid refilled his tray. Lee gazed over the counter at a busy blond cook. His broad face looked Russian or Polish, his body sturdy and robust.

“Quite a piece of work, huh?” Rick elbowed Lee, who nodded consent. “He just escaped from Estonia.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I talked to him before.” Rick nodded a greeting to the cook, whose face shined from the oven heat. “Slavic. Just saying it gets me hard. Makes ya wish ya’d taken another language in college.” Rick patted Lee’s butt, took a tray and left.

“Okay, boys. Let’s go.” Sid clapped his hands, pushing a full tray at Lee. “Now get some adults this time. They’re the ones payin’ for the food.”

“Right.” Once again entering the hall, he was immediately surrounded by hands and faces, each grabbing at his tray. To overcome a sudden claustrophobic panic, he merely stood, awaiting their approach. He gazed over to a far hall. A large tree of life, sculpted in metal, filled an entire wall, its branches reaching out and up. Names on small brass plaques marked the generations of benefactors. He felt a twinge of envy, seeing this clear symbol of community. What sort of family tree did he have? Parents in Indiana, a brother in LA, a few cousins, aunts and uncles sprinkled throughout Wisconsin. Where was his family? Just the mention of the word by sanctimonious TV politicians often brought a surge of confusion and resentment. The term had so often been used as a weapon, poised against him and his kind, the un-family.