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Geriatric Conversations

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Conversations

Published: 07 April 2012

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**Note. Absent from blog past few weeks, other things have taken priority. And attempts at blogging last weekend, an hour and a half, were lost due to an ill placed keystroke. Discouraging to say the least. So this reconstitutes - slightly, the non-events of the past month.

The restaurant plods dully on.

J. has finally finished my phones, he's done a good job. I was worried they would never be done, work is precarious, I'm not sure he would have found me if I'd disappeared.

M and Z argue about who has more experience in the restaurant industry, each claims 30+ years, neither of them can be told what to do. There are various discussions about arthritis, rheumatism, insomnia, other ailments. Oddly enough, when things need to get done neither of them, despite their years of experience, is around. They scurry from the kitchen like frightened rats, preferring to hide in the front and polish glasses, cutlery, nothing that involves stretching, lifting, climbing stairs, or even the clearing or setting tables. They're of limited value, but I'm, we're, G and I,  sympathetic, one day that could be us...

Z, slow, far too gregarious, greets and meets every customer, asks their name, introduces them, asks about them, their children, grandchildren, shuffles cutlery, candles, napkins, obsequious. The nephew does an excellent impersonation. And all this "attention" makes him as well slow, too slow, a quick and lucrative 3 person night is now divided amongst 4 and runs half as smooth. The nephew is loud and long with his complaints, he doesn't understand that he's not the person to be talking, half his night, easily, is spent texting upon his cell phone...

There are complaints about M - customers called, the stench of liquor was too heavy on his breath. The owner wants to fire him, so do the others, I understand, there's better waiters by far, he fucks up orders, brings the wrong bills to tables, forgets to ring things in, forgets, sometimes, even where he is and what he's supposed to be doing, but I kind of like him, he's the epitome of the older drunken waiter, timid about the kitchen, gregarious and loquacious with the tables, too loud about not really needing the job ("then why are you here???" I want to shout, he's endearing in an odd sort of way. The Nephew hates him, wants to replace him, both of them, M and Z, sees them as useless and for some reason his imagination has elevated the Talking Waiter to the status of Godliness. The Talking waiter was as well useless, but in the Nephew's eyes far more entertaining.

The conversations, though, are another story. I've heard them all, heard them all on the first day we worked together, still he repeats them daily in case I wasn't paying attention:

"So I was in Italy and going to cross the border and...'Spiechen Zie Deutch?' he said to me, which is high German for 'how do you speak such good German', so I replied 'Auch toch niederhelmen', which means 'I lived in Germany', ....so we went for a drink, I ordered...."

They're absolutely grueling. All of them involve running into, by accident or contrivance, an old friend in a foreign country, crossing a border and having a drink. He tells them first in German, translating variously into English or Italian, depending on who he's speaking to, he has the knack of remembering every non-event in his life and stretching them into the longest and most pointless stories, made even longer with the retelling and translations.

The Nephew observes: "He is the typical Alcoholiste, every story involves rum and coke..."

Another regular table that know him, no one's asked but he's inspired to tell another story...The nephew simply swears in disgust and walks away, he continues unperturbed...

"Old friends, old old friends, reminds me of..."

***

In an effort to raise the caliber of conversation I solicit the opinion of the Nephew on a recent high rollers remarkable streak of wins in Atlantic City, 4, 5, 6 million dollar nights playing blackjack. "Drunk ass, he's lucky" is the Nephew's assessment, me, I'm not convinced. I'm thinking he has a system. For me it's proof that there's a crack in every system through which the light shines, if only you can find it...Think the Leonard Cohen song. And, sure enough, an article in the Atlantic confirms it. It doesn't change his opinion, but it does change the conversation, now the Nephew's on about the Oxygen in Vegas, pumped into rooms to keep patrons awake so they gamble more, this leads to the theory that the gas masks on airplanes don't feed you oxygen, they tranquilize you so you don't panic and have a good last few moments on earth, maybe something fun like Nitrous Oxide, a laugh filled party before the plane crashes into the earth. Although the G force would kill you first, and when I question this (there are no G forces in free fall, save the big one upon landing) he thinks about it and recants, a rare moment of lucidity...from here to discussion of the new Star Wars Porn Parody, he's ordered a copy, 3 discs, looks good...I have nothing to contribute.

***

Reservations don't show up. Wrong names, parties, written at the wrong times. The owner is infuriated, he blames the new waiters, they're not so good at taking reservations, skip irrelevant details like the name of the party, date and time, number of people, irrelevant things that infuriate everyone. Their spelling is atrocious. We have a party, similar last name, 2 different times, quantities of people, same night. They don't show. The owner is quick to blame M, his Nephew, doesn't recognize that the handwriting is his own, somehow it's someone else's fault...

***
3 women, one younger, tall, slim, 20 something, cute in that way I would have overlooked at the same age but somehow more attractive now that I'm older. The other 2, one perhaps her mother, grandmother?, the other, who knows. The owner talks with them...
...to me: "What do you think?"
..."Cute" I concur, she is, after a fashion.
"I'll set you up. That young one is her daughter..."
"NOOOOOOOO!"
I don't get this, his setting me up with women I have no interest in whatsoever, always older, plump, they look always like they could be my mother. Maybe it makes him feel more attractive? Or we're equals in some perverse way, in age at least, only I could never hope to have a woman as beautiful as his wife. I don't get his reasoning, only that I have such withering contempt and disinterest, dissociation from our customers that there's no one here he could introduce me to that would be of interest, usually he intuits this...

***

Departure is appraised at 3, maybe 4 weeks. I still haven't told the owner. I don't look forward to it. He's making longer plans, May, June, July. I go along, I hope not to be there. The Ex, whose abode I occupy, has suddenly taken exception to my departure, more obstacles, drama. I have perhaps 5 weeks of prospecting, if I'm lucky. With slight success I could return after the summer, when my daughter has returned to Qatar, September and October if the weather holds. No success and it will be time for a job in a hurry. The staff all expect my leaving, sad, in a way, I'll miss them all, my routine and family for the past 2 and half years. But too much my routine, not enough of my own life, days off spent with boy, never a chance to put brush to canvas, read a book, it's time to move on. I haven't told the owner. His madness is contagious, in a sense I'm furious at having been so deprived of any chance of life these past couple of years, in another way I'm sympathetic, he just doesn't get it, the feudal Italian system of government. Finances are tight, planning for failure and the hurdles that await upon my return, there's an abundance of things that need to be done before my departure, a couple of short kids manuscripts I hope to have out (to publishers for rejection), longer projects that I hold little hope of completing, art projects, cleaning, cats, and now the added worry of finding a new place on a tight budget...

Time passes.

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment"
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson