Activity

I eat a piece of vegetarian sausage while I stand in the kitchen drinking my perfect coffee and reading over the hand-sells. I look lean and I wear a digital sport watch on my left wrist so sometimes my guests will ask me if I run. I don’t say No I’m just snorting a lot of coke right now. I say tha…

Do I smell like fries? I ask, trying to act like I am keeping it together, trying to pretend I didn’t just say something incomprehensible. The Restaurant is Zagat-rated and our party spent over four grand on one dinner that involved compotes, reductions, infusions, compound butters, a coulis, a pan…

They’re all finishing their desserts so we’re clearing the last of the plates but they’re still drinking hard. Lushie is on his seventh or eighth whiskey and he’s guzzling the wine too. The goal seems to be not so much pleasure as obliteration. Somebody puts his arm around my waist, a liberty taken…

Back in the room I’m clearing the hors d’oeuvres and getting everybody cleaned up and ready for the salad course when the boss stands and starts telling jokes. The boss is the one DeMarcus spoke to at the beginning about the wine, the one who ordered the vegetables—he’ll be paying the tab and appar…

That was the summer Cal would come over to my apartment after he got off from the bank, before we had to be in at The Restaurant. Those were warm afternoons, my apartment toasting the Texas sun through big old perfect windows. I moved into that place when I saw the money I was making at The Restaur…