Let Freedom Reign

The very time I stepped into the restaurant, I knew destiny had brought me there. Actually, Ack the ex-husband/best friend had. The place was packed. The decor was audacious. They had torn the ABM machines out of the foyer, half ripped wallpaper off the walls, applied resin on the concrete floors, threw in tables which displayed huge blue numbers printed on white vinyl, slid under clear heavy plastic tablecloths. The flatware was cheap. The china, cheaper. Waiters in cool garb and jeans. Waiters that ran the gamut in race. It was another example of Canada encapsulated. Everyone was represented.

Except one Asian broad.

I went up to the bar and examined the menu again. I'd already examined it, as I had just finished eating, but evidentally wasn't quite sated. At the bar, a mere 15' from Ack, whom at the time was the husband-I-was-trying-to-work-things-out-with, was Crichton. During one of the break-ups that occurred through the course of my marriage, Crichton had been a lover. He was a *wow* lover. He was an amazing cuddler. But he was a Capitalist Scumbag, whom I often felt I had to fuck the sense into. It never worked. So, I digress.

Sitting next to Crichton was Guiseppe. Guiseppe had done one very popular ad campaign for a major credit card years and years ago. I remembered his face. Strange. I have a tendency to forget faces. The first thing Guiseppe did when I first met him was to offer me a cigarette. This was last year, pre-ridiculous Toronto smoking ban. I thanked him, but graciously declined. In truth, I only like smoking my own cigarettes. It's a lung loyalty issue. We had instant rapport. I shared my opinion of the place.

Audacious.
Thrillingly fun.
A great sense of freedom for individual expression.
Remarkably good food.
Very close to home.
Clientele: predominately posers.

5 out of 6 ain't bad.

He offered me a job on the spot. I looked at Crichton. I looked at Ack. As I was trying to work things out with him, I knew Crichton would be too much of a temptation. I regretfully declined, staying at the job I held at the time.

I was working in a restaurant that lay squarely within the protection of a corporate umbrella structure. The Courthouse.This place treated their workers like numbers. The design was to make everyone feel expendable. There were no benefits nor perks offered. You were asked to come to your shift prepared and asked to leave the establishment as soon as you clocked out. No hanging out. No drinking. No debriefs. And then I was hired. And then there were several management alterations. New hires. Fresh meat. Head office elite came in less frequently. Floor managers, subsequently, became a little more liberal.

At that restaurant I had become known as The Union Leader. I spoke for the floor staff. If something was beyond the call of duty, without any sign of recompensement, I effectively halted operations until a contract agreement was established. Management listened to me because they were just as much my friends as the floor staff was. Fatty was technically my boss there. As I knew there was not to be any extra money awarded for any bit of extra work done, the reward was to be in the form of libations. Stella, more specifically. Cold, golden, carbonated nectar running through pristine chilled beer lines. The element of drool engaged. It was the carrot dangled in front of us asses.

I like to work with others. I like to play with others. Magic happens when both mingle. Restaurants are notorious for attracting humans with a crippling greed bent. Or a debilitating drug habit. I am neither greedy nor a drug addict. I believe the Universe provides as long as our motives are pure. And the Universe has been very good to the Comrade. It was at this restaurant that my concept of love and comraderie was born.

Every now and then I get job offers. Once when I was working at the Courthouse I was serving a bunch of salesmen. One of the key directors and a few of his top salesmen asked if I would work for them.

The Comrade: Well, what kind of business is it?
Saleman: It's a lot like trading stocks [expands a bit more, but I forget the rest].
The Comrade: Oh, I'm sorry... I'm not in the business of USURY!
Director: Don't ever say USURY again!
The Comrade: USURER!

The salesman was nice, but I didn't trust the key director guy.

Salesman: Do you like your job?
The Comrade: I love my job.
Salesman: Oh. Well, don't you want more money?
The Comrade: No, not really.
Salesman: Well, what are you working for?
The Comrade: I work for love and comraderie... and beers at the end of the night.
Salesman: [after much deliberation] Hm... Are you guys hiring?

August 14, 2003: The Blackout
The restaurant should have been closed, but it wasn't. They sent nearly everyone home, but asked I stay and do menial work for a bunch of slags from a sister restaurant located just around the corner. These "women" all have breast implants, go out for "dinner" on their nights off with select clientele and high level management; membership has its perky privledges, I suppose. They regularly inhale 8 balls chased with shots of tequilla, usually off each other's synthetic bodies. They would then come into our restaurant, masticating their own lips, rudely ordering the staff around. In my world there is only equality. No one was allowed to treat anyone this way. They honestly thought they had an elevated status. By virtue of balling. I stayed for a spell. I don't mind sucking it up for the team, but this was corporate and all it was was taking advantage of a situation. Taking advantage of me. I waited. When my manager asked me to climb stairs with him, I followed. At the top of the stairs he asked me to carry down some chairs.

The Comrade: You want me to carry these down?
General Manager: Yes, please.
The Comrade: So, would I be benefiting those slags by bringing down these chairs?
GM: You would be giving more people a place to sit.
The Comrade: So, the more that sit, the greater the benefit to the slags. Correct?
GM: Just bring the chairs down.
The Comrade: No... Fuck you. Fuck this place. I'm out of here.
GM: Yeah? Well, don't hit your ass!

Though I'm not sure, I think he was trying to say, "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."

I was quite friendly with the event's coordinator there. I told her what had happened and she offered to buy me a drink. A complimentary drink, of course. Well, I'm not one to turn down a drink. "Yes, vodka would be lovely!" I think I hung around for 20 minutes before a very frazzled GM came into the bar area and popped; in every sense of the word. I was asked to leave the premises. Effective immediately.

Then I took a sabbatical.

I don't like working. Not really. I do it and I love what I do, but given a choice, I wouldn't work. But I need to eat and so does Chicken, so, after some time, I had a meeting with Guiseppe. He hired me again on the spot. He quickly became Guiseppe, the boss whom I adore.

He has a quiet confidence that gets mistaken for wishy-washy. His "crazy schemes" actually work. He is a maestro. He is generous, gracious, kind, fair, funny as hell, and became quite a good friend in the interim. If one had to work, I reasoned, I couldn't imagine working for a better person.

I have experienced the gamut from hopeless, soul leaching moments to pure perfection while working there.
I have worked with the most surprising, adorable, resilient and tolerant folk.
I have have also worked with the greediest, self-serving, toxic crew as well.
I have fully unleashed 160 decibels of laughter on any given night.
I had begun to fully understand and practice my own personal freedom like never before.
I had never felt more isolated.
I had never felt more accepted and loved.
I have cried over injustices there.
I have often stayed until 7:30am drinking, spewing philosophy, all the while trying to solve the world's problems.
I never took advantage of Guiseppe. I instead was grateful.
I always said, especially to Matty, the boy who once was The Comrade's greatest detractor who then surprisingly became my champion, "This is as good as it gets in this industry."

For over a month now, things have been rather tense at work which dramatically sends work pleasure swan diving into the depths of diaper bins. My work life had become a living hell after I wrote the John Q. post, which got printed at work and read by many of the staff, including the manager whom I devoted a line-plus of description. And I quote myself:

"A few weeks back, a POLICEing MANager (a totally mistrusting, himself distrustful, pig of a man) had hired a guy named Mike... I'm convinced he must have flattered the Police Man to get the job."

I wrote about the inital aftermath. What has transpired over the course of a month has been an emotional lynching of the Comrade by the Police Man's wife, the chef. The Cop, himself made a flat refusal of stepping foot into the place if he knew I was working. Kissy had once said to me, "Gee, I wish you could work every day." Subsequently, Guiseppe was always in when I was scheduled, which pleased me to bits, but in truth, exhausted him.

I learned a while back that the POLICEing MANager, at the height of his professional career, had drunk so much he couldn't see. He got behind the wheel of his Porsche and drove it straight into a pole, slightly crippling himself for a short duration. As he got transported to the hospital, an on-duty officer came to the scene to write his report. Finally, the word schadenfreude could be used.

You see, this man who had operated a number of nightclubs and restaurants was negligent in paying both his staff and his suppliers. What he makes up for in administrative operation ability, he fails miserably in dealing with the day to day business of service. He is caustic, rude, demoralising, and ineffectual. Nothing is ever his fault. When he doesn't know what to do, his instinct is to bark orders at people who invariably know more than him. He deflects. It's how he lives with himself.

Though Guiseppe has chosen to age gracefully, the Police Man still has his hair coiffed every week, has had jaw reconstructive surgury for purely vain reasons, wears sunglasses at night. Chases skirts, which in the past included mine.

The last restaurant the Police Man owned was effectively shut down. All it took was one more scathing restaurant review titled: Dear [Insert Police Man's name], It's Over. The final nail in the coffin.

Some might read this as sad. He tried. He didn't succeed. Give him another chance! He can't be that bad!

The night he was rushed to the hospital, after having toxic levels of alcohol coursing through his system, the officer who took the report went on to continue his shift that evening. He had pulled over another reckless driver along the side of a downtown highway. When a kid learns how to throw a baseball, one of the things the kid should remember is to keep an eye on the target. When a person is driving and not looking ahead at the road, but instead looking at a car that has been pulled over, the car too veers in that direction. That evening, while the Police Man was reclined in recovery, nestled in a private room in a downtown hospital, the reporting officer was hit by an oncoming vehicle and subsequently killed.

Every report that was made that evening died with him.

Lucky?
Lucky to have a woman who defends him constantly, though he cheats on her with abandon.
The most lucky to have Guiseppe as a long-time friend.
Lucky to be living with what he's done, never once reflecting. All he could say when he read what I wrote was, "What did I ever do to her?"

It's got nothing to do with me.
That's something he'd never understand.

He has parasitically attached himself with his giant probuscus onto my dear Guiseppe, offering him a piece of potential peace. Both Guiseppe and the Police Man are in their early 50's. Guiseppe is tired. He's been leading different incarnations of a similar theme in dining experience for 25 years. He wants to step back. He hates managing. He's a dreamer who builds his dreams. He's a mental architect who actualises. He is not afraid of falling down. He embraces failure.

He now has the perfect partner for this set-up.

I got a phone call the other day. Guiseppe wanted to go out for lunch with me. En route, midway, we were moving at a crawl. He turned his torso towards me.

Guiseppe: I might as well tell you now.
The Comrade: What? Are you firing me?
Guiseppe: Firing is such a harsh word. I'm going to have to let you go.
The Comrade: Seriously?... SERIOUSLY?!

This man is 98% comedy, 2% drama. The 2% was engaged.

I asked if I'd be getting a watch.
I did not get a watch.

It's not that I slacked. Ever.
I was given some of the greatest responsibility there, which I treated preciously.
Both Guiseppe and his darling wife, my great supporter Marilyn, had named me The Ambassador.
I effected change in the most positive ways.
With the crew, I instilled comraderie and deep devotion to the place and to each other.
I am happy with the work that I did.

The formula for getting fired: Work harder and longer than anyone else + speak truths + write about it + leave a paper trail + add barely literate readers who are characters within a body of text = Termination

Freedom of speech? As Guiseppe once said, wrote and I placed on the cappuccino maker, "No Freedom Left".

Insubordination.

In:
1. To put into or onto: encapsulate.
2. To cover or provide with: enrobe.
3. To cause to be: endear.
4. Thoroughly. Used often as an intensive: entangle.

Subordinate:
1. Belonging to a lower or inferior class or rank; secondary.
2. Subject to the authority or control of another.

Throughout my working life I have been fired too many times to count, for this reason. It's been a while, though.

Guiseppe's not worried about me. Not in a work sense. I could get a job anywhere in the city. I know this. I'm that good. The problem is finding the right place. He thinks I'm too good for the business. I told him, "No, I'm just good enough for it." For a while, for a precious while, Guiseppe's place was perfect. But he's trying to get out. The Police Man is stepping in, more and more. I cannot work for anyone I do not have respect for. I would have merely suffered the Police Man only in allegiance to Guiseppe. In the long run, I would not have been happy. Guiseppe knew this.

Am I sorry about what happened? No. Did I apologise? No, because it would have been a lie.

I believe in Universal causality. I believe this was meant to be. Had that post not been printed and subsequently read by the wrong eyes, even though there is no such thing as an accident or a mistake in the grand scheme of things, I still believe that something far worse would have happened. Either I would have eventually stood on a hyperbolic podium and launched anti-authority diatribe, or a piece of my soul would go missing. The latter would be the most tragic.

Restaurants are notoriously transient waystations. I never treated it that way. Was I doing something important? I think in a small scale, I was. That I intrinsically know how to interact with people is a gift. That I mandated giving people the best time they could have while in the place is the thing that makes me just good enough to practice my profession. That I've been able to touch people's lives is an honour that I handle with kid gloves.

There was a fella that used to work with us who once said, "This restaurant is a place for lost souls." When I first started, my marriage was crumbling. I was a bit of an emotional wreck. This place helped me heal. This place brought me magical moments that I will never forget. When at one time I was loathed for my ability, the one who had the most distain for me turned out to be the greatest surprise and delight of all. Matty. He just gave his notice. His time, too, has come. When I thanked him just recently for defending me, he said, "You earned it, love."

This soul is no longer lost. This soul has healed. This soul is excitedly starting a new beginning.

The last thing I said to Guiseppe, while hugging him was, "Thanks for letting her go."