9. Gandalf and the Gladiator
You wanna know the closest thing to seeing a zombie in real life? Set up an 8am bar meeting and watch us crawl in, either hungover or still sleepy from closing the night before. Bartenders are built to be night owls, fueled by Red Bulls and tequila. Our feet drag along the floor as we clutch our two lifelines, a cold brew most likely spiked with bourbon and our closest coworkers so we can talk shit under our breath.
I sat with Dominic. To his left was Damien. That third-wheel feeling crept back in before I saw Benny arrive. He waved to me as he took a spot between two other bartenders to my right, Greg and Hudson.
Of course, out of everyone in the group, there’s always gotta be one morning person. This one happens to be our token lesbian bartender, Alex, who enters with a pep in her step as she takes a seat between Cyrus and Scone. She engages in a light banter with Denver, our bar manager.
“Good morning everyone!” Denver greets the staff. “How we doing?”
Alex is the only one to respond, a cheery little voice that has the same melodic cadence as metal being dragged against concrete…or maybe I’m just too tired to be that energetic. I had closed the night before and went out for a post-work drink with Dominic. Everyone else nodded their heads while I studied my coffee, wishing I should have added more bourbon. My only hope for this morning was that he doesn’t do the call-out like entertainers at the start of their set when they don’t get a proper greeting. The kind of call-out that usually begins with…
“Aww, c’mon, you can do better than that. I said GOOD MORNING!” Denver shouts, shaking me from my thoughts.
We replied in a chorus of grunts. “What’s good about it?” Hudson adds.
Hudson is one of the oldest, grumpiest bartenders in town. In my first week of barbacking, he saw me and rolled his eyes. “Great, they stuck me with a newbie on Memorial Day.” He grunted then rolled up his sleeves. “Welp, I don’t tip you to stand there and look pretty.”
What changed his tune happened five minutes later. We were hit with a flood of people that took over his section. Overwhelmed between serving the new guests and babysitting me, he was unable to make drinks; so I stepped in.
“Oh good, you’re not entirely useless. I need 3 bloodys, two old-fashioneds, two beers, and a Tom Collins.”
Some bartender’s love languages or expressions of gratitude can be rather enigmatic. They don’t seem to compliment you outright. They would rather give you a roundabout way of saying “good job.” When we finished, he tipped me $300. “That’s for being the most okay at your job.”
In the writing world, this would be called a “show, don’t tell” situation. Maybe they are channeling Björk in her song “Come to Me”:
Don’t make me say it, it would burst the bubble, break the charm.
“I’m sure you all know why we are all here. It’s time to talk about Pride…”
I watched as the bartenders shuffle in their seats. None of this surprises them. How many times have they heard this speech?
Also, holy shit, has it really been two months since I’ve started?
San Diego Pride is one of the last big Pride events in Southern California during the Summer season. It usually takes place the week before San Diego Comic-Con. With COVID restrictions fading away, it was forecasted that this year was bound to be unhinged. I may be biased, but it’s my favorite, second to Long Beach Pride, where I can watch a good lesbian fight. There is truly no visual quite like watching a drag queen and three leather-clad bears try their hardest to keep Sam from throwing the last punch because she saw her ex-girlfriend, Nat, with Sam’s best friend.
“…but before I do,” Denver continues, “I have something else to address. It has come to my attention there is a bit of bullying happening between the bartenders and their barbacks.”
Scone, without hesitation, interrupts Denver. “Pablo,” he begins with his Essex accent, “if this is for what I said to you on Sunday, I’m sorry.”
The incident he’s referencing happened towards the end of his shift last week. Scone can be a bit of a short-fuse. He approached me while I was in the middle of washing dishes. “Pablo, you also gotta wipe down the fucking counters, mate. People don’t tip me for your dishwork when there’s nowhere for them to fucking sit!”
On a very busy shift, the barback must juggle the priority between several demands. All occurring simultaneously. Your job is to discern which of the several urgent items on your to-do list takes ultimate priority. Is it cutting limes and restocking garnish trays because they are running dangerously low? Or is it cleaning some glasses? Nope, this time, it’s cleaning the counter. Much like working with Damien, the moment you fix one issue, three more pop up, like some weird wack-a-mole situation.
All eyes landed on me, the new guy. I could hear Damien grunting under his breath two chairs away from me. I smiled and waved off his apology. “You’re fine, Scone.” Because I knew Scone was not the reason why this was being addressed. This is what I get for opening my big mouth.
Last night, Nick joined Dominic and I, carrying a round of shots in his hand. One round of shots became three before Nick asked how we were adjusting to life at Home.
“Has Damien always been asshole-in-residence, or does it eventually fade away?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
It irked me that I had to bring it up, but why can’t I shake this off? Like my Scientific Method, I wanted to find a way to break past this hazing and get to work. Not that I’m expecting us to be besties or go halvesies on a time-share, I’m just tired of feeling like what I’m doing will never be good enough.
Whenever I work a shift with Damien, I think about the movie “D3: The Mighty Ducks.” The Olympic-winning team earn scholarships to a prep school to continue their Flying-V legacy. Only problem is, Bombay is no longer their coach; instead, they have former NHL coach Ted Orion.
Unlike Bombay, Orion is incredibly strict. Charlie, Joshua Jackson’s character, acts out, alienates himself from both the team, and his mom, which prompts Bombay to come back for a tét-a-tét. He takes Charlie out to the ice rink, where they see Orion dancing with a young lady in a wheelchair. Bombay tells Charlie that Orion had to drop out of coaching to care for his paraplegic daughter in Dallas following an accident. Their new coach is cruel because he sets high expectations for himself.
In spite of how tired I am of 90's tropes and how problematic this can be in today’s age, this moment resonated with me growing up. Without knowing the full story, I became aware that there are always two sides to every origin story. I think the reason why I kept persisting was that I’m waiting for that Bombay-Revelation moment. And asking Nick last night was my way of finding that one missing element.
“He can be very tough and strict, but Adam trained him to be like exactly that.” Nick replied. “I think he is just helping you better understand the bar so you can be a stronger bartender later.”
On the other hand, Rupaul also theorized that we allow our inner-saboteur to get in the way of our success, another one of my hidden talents. Perhaps I’m overthinking a possible situation, one that can be easily resolved by not making it into a big deal and doing my fucking job for once.
“I know some of you have some rather strong personalities,” Denver continued, “but if I hear another complaint that you are bullying, hazing, then we will do a little role reversal.”
“Tell ’em to grow a pair.” Hudson added.
“Not how this works, Tony.” Denver said to Hudson. “What’ll happen is you will be their barback for the day. Or however long it takes for you to learn your lesson.”
Damien let out a more audible grunt as Denver continued the Pride meeting. I don’t remember much, as I was preoccupied with the possibility that my moment of honesty only made my situation more difficult.
After the meeting, I went back home, opened the door to my bathroom, and turned on the shower. My writer brain was spiraling, doing its very best to decipher the events over the past 12 hours. I was angry. Is this betrayal? Maybe I shouldn’t trust anyone willing to listen? Or, again, I am just am I turning any and every situation into a writing opportunity? A bad habit I picked up in high school in order to process being some sheltered, closeted outcast?
On the other hand, was this a good thing? Like, does Damien need to be put in his place? If I’m honest, they would just cut me loose. He’s been here for sixteen years and I for a mere two months. And if I’m the vocal pariah, then guess who’s first to go?
As the water and bubbles flowed, I told myself that this was not how this story is/was going to end. I was going to wash this man right out of my bald ass scalp and come out with a fresh perspective. I committed to a year, after all. So once I stepped out, I found the say-something shirt that would get me through today’s shift with Damien.
If Joan Rivers were standing outside the bar and asked me who I’m wearing, I would tell her I’m wearing Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper couture. It was my dodgeball team shirt we designed for the Sin City games last year. Three bright purple dolphins playing with a dodgeball in the ocean. On the back, my name “Diablo” with my dodgeball number 19 written in her signature font. I wore it because it made me homesick for my best friends back home in LA.
I also wore it because I knew Damien wouldn’t like it.
“Pedro, we need more share plates and forks.”
He saw the shirt and was trying to push my buttons. I was in the middle of changing the sink water in the dish pit. Much like the bathroom, the steam rose from the sinks as they began to fill.
“It’s Pablo.”
“What?”
If there’s one name I dislike more in the world, it’s being misnamed as Pedro. I’ll explain later, I promise, but right now, this was not the move…and he knew it. “My name is Pablo. Not Pedro.”
“Well, the moment you live up to the name, Pablo, then I’ll call you that. Because you sure as hell ain’t living up to Diablo.”
“And you think you can act like a dick because your name is Damien Del Diablo?” I asked, recalling his last name on the tickets.
“Yup, I’m part-demon, remember?”
He plunged his hand into the sink. The water flowing from the spigot was piping hot. His gaze did not break from mine as he let his hand remain in there for a couple seconds. “Your turn.”
“I’ll get the share plates.”
I went into work with the intention of just doing my job to the best of my ability, no more Scientific Method, just honest hard work. I went to the back to check on his food by reading tickets, restocking liquors, running food, cleaning bar counters. I made sure to be two steps ahead of him.
My eyes kept peering over in the parking lot, where a beat-up Crown Royal Victorian car was parked. You couldn’t really see the inside with all the random papers and junk covering the rearview window.
Then two guests arrived and sat at a table in front of the bar, 119. One was a woman with disheveled hair. She looked like the kind of woman with hoarding tendencies, the kind who owns 30 cats of which 10 are still alive. She sat down at a table, wearing a sash that read “Happy Birthday!” She was beaming from ear to ear to be in a space like this.
The only way I can describe her husband is that he looked like gay Gandalf who was taking a break from Middle-Earth drama, stopped in San Diego for a quick bite before he goes on a drug bender at Coachella. His clothes were flowy, as if stitched together by whatever fabric was on sale at Jo-Ann’s.
It didn’t matter what I thought about their appearance, they were still here to have a good time. And my job is to help facilitate that. So, while returning from the liquor room, I wished the lady a happy birthday.
“I wanted to take my wife out on a proper birthday dinner.” He said to me. “Now, where’re your bathrooms? We drove from Tuscon!”
I directed him to where the urinals were located. The woman looked up at me, still beaming.
“I’m so happy,” she lisped through her four good teeth. “You wanna know what I would like for my birthday?”
“What?” I asked.
“I want him to take me home!”
She extended her index finger out. It was not pointing to her server, but to Damien, her bartender. I came up with a brilliant plan, one that was sure to make Damien end all hazings between us once and for all.
(to be continued)
