Activity

Earlier, I rashly implied that all bartenders are thieves. This is not entirely accurate, though of all restaurant workers, it's the bartender who has the greatest and most varied opportunities for chicanery. The bartenders control the register. They can collude with waiters on dinner checks, they …

I worked at a Mexican restaurant on upper Second Avenue for a while, one of those places on the frat-boy strip with the obligatory margarita sno-cone machine grinding away all night and vomit running ankle-deep in the gutters outside. The place was owned by a very aggressive rat population, fattene…

We were pretty busy initially, and along with the young proteges who held us in something like awe, Sam, Dimitri and I would work all day and late into the night. When the restaurant closed, we'd take over the bar, drinking Cristal --which we'd buy at cost -- and running fat rails of coke from one …

You'd think the union would be happy about this development, or at least curious, with an energetic young organizer in their midst. I scheduled a meeting with the union president, looking forward to commiserating about the Imperialist Jackboot on the Necks of the Workers, and the Struggle Against t…

I was tired, I explained, and in love, I added, hoping to appeal to that romantic Mediterranean nature I'd read and heard about. 'My girlfriend,' I said,

'I don't see her anymore. . and I miss her. . I have,' I added, 'a life . outside of this place.' I went on to describe going home each night …