Merritt Tierce - Love Me Back

She rolled her eyes at that but he meant it, a little. He never would take money from people, would act like he was unable to lift his fingers from the keys to receive it but they would set it on the music stand anyway; sometimes Hank Earl gave him nothing for Cielito Lindo, sometimes a tenner he’d stuff in the snifter with a Thankee, Billy, thankee. Once he stiff-legged it up to the dais, a man who knew his size to be potentially lethal if he stumbled and corrected that with slower movements rather than less drink. He had his glass of chardonnay in one hand and set it on the edge of the piano top by the music stand. Though it wasn’t Jimmy’s piano he didn’t need to see it treated like that, it was enough that the full-size quilted cover had been misplaced or stolen and the keys, especially in the oppressive mug of the summer months, had a film of filmy kitchen air on them. He was playing some Nina Simone right then, Mississippi Goddam, and he cut down to just that frenetic train-ride bass line so he could pick up the glass with his right hand, saying Yes sir what can I do you for, Mr. Jackson? to Hank Earl, who said Nothing nothing I just want — just here — give you some — preciate you you know — while he steadied himself against the piano to pull his money clip from inside his jacket and then tried to dislodge some bills from it. The bills looked new and stuck together and to save face he decided to make it appear as though he had always intended to give the piano man all of them and he dropped the entire clip in the snifter. There that’s for you, that’s for you, you’re the best, tell me your name again? It’s Jimmy! Jimmy LaRosa! But I can’t take that, don’t give me your money, I play for the music, the music and you, they already pay me! Take it back! he yelled over the music and Chef’s call for Hands! And Somebody get me Art! and the expo’s order to dale gas a la treinta y cinco and the ever-ascending elevator of sound, the heavy machine parts of three eight-hundred-degree broilers and the popping of four fryers and forty clattering pans and pots and bowls and six clicking-airlock slamming walk-in doors and a couple of microwave timer bells and hundreds of Saturday-night conversations all trying to make the restaurant go, go, get to a good time. Nah, nah! said Hank Earl, reaching for the glass of chardonnay Jimmy was holding suspended in air like a single-use flashbulb. Just as he found the stem of the glass, just as he was feeling up the stem like a blind man, like alcohol had risen six feet three inches in his body to leave only his forehead dry, a tide coming in to wash away sight, just as he was getting a better grip on the bowl of the glass before he could shift his weight back upright, a busser knocked a plate off the service station and the ceramic shattered on the kitchen’s tile floor and Hank Earl’s sixty-six-year-old hand jerked away from him like a dead chicken and sloshed the chardonnay onto Jimmy’s lapel. Jimmy kept playing with his left, had never quit playing, even knew where he was in the unplayed vocal (Tennessee). Whoa sir! he said, You okay there? and that’s when Marie came out of the dishroom with a stack of clean salad bowls and set them down in the first wrong place on the dessert line to come over and take the glass from Jimmy and lead the big man back to his booth, holding the tablecloth out of the way while he sat down. She returned with a linen and dabbed Jimmy’s lapel and soaked up the pool of wine that had collected in the depression of the leather piano bench against Jimmy’s thigh. The track lights in the kitchen prismed off all the stainless steel behind him, twinkling the three fake diamond solitaires in Marie’s left ear. No one ever had reason to be that close to him while he played. Jimmy had taken up Nina’s melody right when the glass had been removed from his hand and now Marie said This is a show tune but the show hasn’t been written for it yet, right Jimmy? What a fucking clown that guy! I’m sorry! Don’t worry about it, sweetheart, he said, don’t worry about it.

Suck it is Danny’s favorite phrase, which he employs as a general greeting. Sometimes he inflects it as a question: Suck it? Directed at a female, it might often be appended: Suck it, sista. This is only for staff members, of course; our patrons will more likely get an egregiously enthusiastic What’s up, my brother? accompanied by a handshake/backslap combination. (If you’re one of his friends you might receive a more sincere What’s up, my fucking brother?) Egregious enthusiasm is Danny’s trademark — he can transmit his buzz and momentum to anyone at will. This is called charisma. His charisma — any charisma, I suppose — is entirely performance, yet in being never more nor less than a performer he somehow remains endearingly genuine. He might embrace a beautiful woman, kiss her on both cheeks, escort her to the bar — What do you like, sister, what do you want? Cosmo? Martini? Chardonnay? Tequila? Tongue kiss? That’s what I thought — Ethan, get my lover here a glass of Mer Soleil, thank you brother — Good to see you, love — and as soon as he spins around to answer your question mutter Dirty whore, suck it.

Almost every question must be brought to Danny, because it’s his restaurant. These people want a booth instead of a table, ask Danny. You want Friday off this week, ask Danny. The guy said his steak looked more medium than rare and he wants a different one, better check with Danny. Music’s too loud, lights are too low, the room’s too cold, tell Danny. You want to go to Silver City, ask Danny — he’s king there and she’ll fuck you for real in a back room at his word. You want tickets to the game or an eight o’clock reservation at Tei Tei, which doesn’t take eight o’clocks — Danny will work it out for you. You need a bump, ask Danny — but not until after service, he never starts till almost everybody’s out of the building.

Most nights he gets it from the undocumented Mexican and Salvadoran bussers and dishwashers. The Mexicans are usually from Guanajuato, some from Yucatán — the Yucas have a reputation for being lazy, the Guanajuatans for being easygoing and hardworking. Sometimes on his day off Danny comes up to the restaurant, ostensibly to check on us and grace the regulars with his presence like a politician, but he’s also there to pick something up. He’ll say to me Pablo working? Get me sixty? and I’ll say Okay boss. I pick up a stack of dirty plates and silverware and head into the dish room, where I unload them and then hold up three fingers for only Pablo, who is polishing Bordeaux glasses, to see. He nods with his eyes. A few minutes later I’ll come back to wash my hands or run some stock out to the line and he’ll discreetly slip me a tiny square package, three twenty-bags wrapped up tight in a piece of paper towel. I’ll wait for Danny to come find me, or sometimes he’ll ask me to put it under a Le Volte bottle. The Le Volte is a Chianti in the uppermost corner of the French/Italian wine bin wall; I’m too short to reach it, so I have to climb up on a chair without being seen. If he pays me I pass the three twenty-dollar bills along to Pablo — back in the spring he used to ask me to front it for him and bring it to him somewhere, like the W or the alley behind the Fitz. I rarely have money I don’t need to spend immediately on something or other, so sometimes I had to borrow from someone else to get it for him. The first few times he gave me extra cash when he paid me back, which I think was supposed to seal me into the whole thing, but since I quit using I’ve just been asking the bussers for it. They know it’s for him, and somehow he knows I don’t want to front it anymore, so he settles up with them when he’s back in the restaurant. I hate this arrangement, because I’m both too timid and too interested in protecting my income to beg off, and the bussers are barely making a living as it is. They live in one-bedroom apartments with five other people and share broken-down cars and every one of them has a morning job in a different restaurant.