By Joshua Ryan
Chapter 22: There Are Many Interesting Jobs in Food Services
Terry was the busboy who trained me to be like him. The biggest things I had to learn were:
- ALWAYS keep your boots clean and your shirt buttoned all the way up. That’s how people can tell you’re a servant at the King George Hotel.
- Keep your eyes on the floor and your dunce cap firmly on your head.
- Be invisible. You are nothing, get used to it.
- Wait till the guest is finished with a dish, then snatch it fast.
- Say Sir at the start and finish of anything you need to say to a freeman.
- Waiters are freemen. Always obey the waiter.
- Speak only when spoken to. If you start talking, you will be punished.
- If you take a tip, you will be punished.
- If you violate any rule, you will be punished.
- If anybody thinks you violated a rule, you will be punished.
- Any food remaining on a plate and any liquor remaining in a glass will be reported to Ned, the boss slap in the kitchen, for recycling to the basement.
And number 12: Be grateful that you’ve got this job. A lot of slappies don’t have it so good.
I was the oldest busboy; old Cedric had been returned to the Coop. Jared had been sent to the Floors crew, where he adapted somewhat better. The busboys I lived with were young queens who chattered and gossiped and griped to each other every minute they weren’t in the dining rooms. The gay guests got the worst of the chatter–behind their backs, of course. When I was a guest in the Oak Room, I noticed one of the busboys, a little blond slap whose shirt said that “Roy” was wondering how he might serve me. I’d smile at him, and he’d smile back in a shy little way. Now I learned that he was the biggest bitch of them all, constantly ridiculing gays like I’d been, calculating their age, noticing “all thee white roots in they hair, mon,” mimicking their speech, and planning how to grab the food they were savoring before they knew they were “finished with that, sir.” Roy and his friends paid no attention to me. I was beneath their notice. As for the waiters, all the busboys were on another planet from them, unless we screwed up. Get one of their commands wrong, and you’d be dragged into the nearest corner of the kitchen and have your face slapped red.
My new barracks was as bad as the kitchen. The nights were full of sex squirms and hissy fits. But that wasn’t as bad as just being in the Oak Room, or the breakfast room where I’d greeted the morning sun and marveled at the selection of cheese and sausage. I was always inches away from the beautiful chairs I’d relaxed on, the beautiful food that had once been mine to order. Now all I had to hope was that the next trip back and forth to the kitchen would happen without my making a noise or dropping something. Busboys were silent, unobtrusive, and fast—or they were taken aside for a few good slaps or a nice punch in the gut. About the only times I was noticed were when a drunk wanted to get funny about my “Servant in Training” cap, or when a gay guy wondered to his boyfriend if “we’re gonna get Roy or Omar today,” then observed with disgust that their busboy was “just some old guy”—me.
OK, there were exceptions. I just don’t like to remember them. For instance, some guest from Muncie or Portland or Kansas City would start asking questions. “So, what’s your name, boy?” I couldn’t say, “It’s on my fuckin shirt–can’t you read?” I couldn’t even be disrespectful enough to point to the place on my shirt. I had to say, “Sir, my name is Tommy, sir.” Then he’d want to know where did I come from and did I enjoy my work and when was I gonna get out of “the corps” or whatever they wanted to call being a slap boy. I’d give him answers that were as short as possible—“Sir the U.S. sir. Sir yes sir. Sir probably never sir.” Then a waiter would walk up, give me a stern look, like I was responsible for starting all this useless conversation, and say something like, “I’m sorry sir; this boy is needed in the kitchen.” And I was gone. Those were the only times I thanked God for waiters, who were mainly there to smack my ass. But usually they’d smack it anyway.
A couple of times it got pretty serious. Once there was a gay couple or a couple of gays of some kind and one of them said, “Oh my God! That busboy looks like Mr. Lansing!”
“You’re crazy!”
“I don’t mean it IS Mr. Lansing, silly. He just looks like him! You’ll see. Boy! Cmere boy!”
I came. “Sir yes sir?”
“Stand still. My friend wants to take a look at you.”
They were about my age, but their clothes made them look much younger. Tried to, anyway. One was blond and one was not. The one who wasn’t blond put on his glasses and looked me up and down. I knew who he was. He was De Vito from Accounting. He used to come to my office a lot. His friend was Thompson from Marketing. He’d been a pain in the ass. I’d see both of them at meetings. They were jerks who threw a 5 to 10 p.m. cocktail party every Friday after work.
“Nah. I don’t see it,” De Vito said. “Despite his age, this one’s sort of a hunk.”
They giggled and leered.
“But it’s funny to think about,” Thompson said. “I wish dear old Lansing was actually down here in a slappie suit, pouring water in my glass. Hey boy, more water here.”
“Sir yes sir.”
“And make it snappy. I got something in my throat.”
Their glasses were almost full, but I rushed to take care of them.
“Wish it was that boy’s pee-pee in your throat?” De Vito said in the kind of voice you could hear a mile away.
“A slappie dick?” Thompson said, in the same kind of voice. “Only thing worse would be Lansing’s old dried up dong!”
The people at the other tables were looking embarrassed. I didn’t have the luxury. I had to make sure the glasses got an eighth of an inch more water in them.
“What happened to old Lansing, anyway?” De Vito asked.
“Probably serving a life sentence as a slappie,” Thompson said. “Wouldn’t that be funny! Hey boy, don’t slop it over the side like that!”
“Sir, no sir,” I said, “very sorry sir,” hurrying to wipe his glass. While you’re doing that, it isn’t easy for your hands to keep from causing a lot more damage, but they understand that they need to be careful, because they’re only a moment away from 40 years of pulling weeds in a field.
There was another one of these exceptions—very different, but humiliating in its own way. One day an Indian gentleman came in. I say he was Indian, but you can’t tell whether somebody on St. Bevons is actually from someplace else, unless you hear him talk, and maybe not even then. This guy had an Oxbridge accent, but his clothes didn’t match the stereotype. Anyone could tell they were expensive, but there was nothing either uptight or tweedy about them. They were loose and stylish, exactly the right fit to make a 40-year-old man look 15 years younger. Not like he was goin out clubbin—his clothes were sensuously elegant but polite and serious, the clothes of an aristocrat who belongs wherever he goes, except that the place needs to be of the highest quality. And that’s what his voice was like as he greeted the maître d’ and was shown to his table.
“Thank you, Henry. I appreciate your reserving this one for me. You know it is my favorite.”
“We are always pleased to accommodate you, sir. Welcome back.”
“Thank you. It HAS been a while, hasn’t it?
“Yes sir. It is very good to see you. Boy! Water here!”
I was the nearest boy; I went for the pitcher. A waiter glided to the table, and when I returned, waiter and guest were discussing the Oak Room’s floral arrangements. “Yes,” said the guest, in his deep, cultivated voice, “the old-rose varieties are always my favorites. I am glad they are still in use. But tell me, when did you get this boy?”
I was turning to leave, but he raised his hand. “Stay. Recent acquisition?”
Oak Room waiters are never at a loss with guests. “Fairly recent, sir. He has just got out of his Servant in Training cap. I believe you’ll find him satisfactory. Please tell me instantly if anything is lacking.”
“Certainly,” said the guest. “Anything new must be carefully assessed.” He leaned back in his chair, one hand resting on the table before him, the other lying negligently in his lap. “I have been trying to guess its origin.”
“Sir?”
“What country does this slappie come from? Not a native boy, I think.”
“No sir. Might be an American. I haven’t asked.”
“Rather . . . mature for the role, don’t you think?”
“If you think so, sir.” I knew from their outbursts in the kitchen that nothing irritated an employee of the King George more than a guest who thought he knew better than the staff. “But they are all pretty much the same, sir.”
“That is true. Are there any special courses today?”
The waiter gave me the signal to get lost, which I was happy to do.
Back in the barracks, it wasn’t an easy night. There were only double bunks in the Foodie pen, and since I was just a boot I was put in an upper bunk. That night, the bunk was shaking–the 18-year-old beneath me was making love to whoever. Every jerk was another reason why I had to figure how to get out of this place—the barracks, the hotel, the island, my whole existence as a lifetime servant. I had to start thinking about that again. The visit from the Prince of India—or was it the Prince of Oxford?—proved that I couldn’t be Tommy at Your Service for the next 40 years. Not, that is, if I could still remember that I had once been a prince myself. But how could I escape? Along with every bit of dignity and pride, I’d lost my ability to make any real money, and my collar had been re-set to a 200-foot radius. Sometimes my crotch got on fire, and I hurried to my bunk to squeeze it out, but mostly I was dead from the waist down. When I thought about suicide, it seemed like I’d already done it. Which was true. Thomas Lansing had killed himself when he got on that plane for St. Bevons.
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