Something Grand

Both of them are styling in their expensive sweat suits and high top sneakers. Checking me out, just to make sure. One of them wears his hair in braided cornrows. The other wears a high fade, almost a crew cut, with a gold earring and a red bandanna knotted around his neck.
It's 1981 and racism remains the issue in the wild wild West. I know the song blasting from their boom box. It's already an anthem for the new music, what they call "rap". I've been told rap was born in the South Bronx where poverty's so bad no one can afford to buy a new turntable. I guess someone invented this idea of spinning the record backwards by hand, real fast, for a new kind of zipper effect sound. I'm neither for nor against this new music. It's got an edge. The rap itself is tough ghetto-based poetry. What bugs me, I suppose, is that it's so angry and exclusive. White homeboys like myself aren't supposed to get off on it, and I, for one, don't. It's much like the disgust Sinatra must have felt when he first heard Elvis.
It's autumn in Providence, Rhode Island. I'm nineteen years old and the rap number on their boom box is called, White Lines. As in cocaine, I suppose. The group: Grandmaster Flash and his Furious Five. Sugar Hill Gang is the only other rap group I've even heard about. I guess I'm behind the times because I'm a Wop, a Dago, a Guinea, and I dig all the crooners that wove their magic in and out of Sinatraland. I'm also in the minority because I'm not a homo and still think Ella Fitzgerald is way past cool.
To be honest, I fear brothaz like this, and my fear encourages any nascent racism that may be teeming below the surface of my skin. These homeboys have too much time on their hands, no hope, no job prospects, and no money. It ain't their fault, and they're angry. They don't want things to be, or to stay this way. With Reagan as Prez, I can't say I blame them for being so seriously pissed off.
It seems to me that they live just to put the fear of God into a pasta-munching paisano like myself. I was raised in Cranston, off Pontiac Ave, not exactly the sticks and not exactly all white, either, but almost. I live in the city now; share an apartment with a couple of male strip-tease dancers in a three-decker on DePasquale Avenue, on Federal Hill, the Italian section of town. These brothaz are dangerous; they're from South Providence, and it's their duty to hate the Italians. It doesn't matter that I'm open-minded, broke and sympathetic, or that my closest friend, Smoggy Azevedo, is full-blooded Cape Verdean. What matters is that their hate is the flavor of the moment, resists compassion, and rules the street. Their hate is so odious and militant that it makes it hard for me not to fear them, and in fearing them I protect myself by hating them in return.
What a sick fucking cycle it is, if you ask me. Not exactly what's penned between the lines in the Bill of Rights.
It doesn’t' matter that we're the same age, out of work, stuck equally in the rut of high unemployment and a recession. Maybe Ron Raygun can turn things around, like he's promised. These brothaz are wise, though, and like me they remain skeptical.
At the core of their hate is a question: What is my stringy white butt doing in a place like this? This is followed by another question: If I'm here and can't find work, then what kind of prospects do they have?
If I had more courage I'd talk to them, share a few words, try to break the barrier. It will always be up to me to make the first overture in such a situation. History, my gender and my skin color dictate this. In my opinion, it's the issue when you grow up in any city in the United States.
Anyway, I'm at the unemployment office for only one reason: to get a freakin' job. I feel their glaring eyes burn holes in the back of my neck as I pull open the glass door and enter.
The unemployment office is mobbed and noisy. Its walls are the muddy light-brown of chick peas. I haven't eaten anything solid yet, and my Valium and Tylenol breakfast is wreaking havoc in my system. The tinsel-blue cigarette smoke, slatted in morning light through Venetian blinds, nauseates me. I break out in a cold sweat as I get in line.
A young girl shrieks until slapped into silence by her mother, who scolds her with: "What I tell you now, what I tell you."
I try not to stare.
Signs ask to excuse the inconvenience during renovations. Half a dozen willowy Asian men occupy one corner. They're part of the recent Hmong invasion; don't know how the fuck they ended up here, of all places, and what a nightmare it must be for them.
The hackles rise on my neck. I know it sounds racist, but Asian refugees look alike to me, in rummage-sale double knits, rayon shirts, vinyl shoes, chain-smoking Winstons and chatting excitedly in what could be Vietnamese, or some dialect no one west of Europe has ever even heard of.
The poor bastards. A lot of good my pity's gonna do them.
A girl with corn-colored hair and bad acne, looking about fifteen, I mean real white trash, pushes a baby stroller. Like me, she has a black eye. Unlike me, she wears a tattoo of a Pegasus on her right arm.
Phones ring constantly. A table saw whines behind a partition and I can see sawdust rising into the striated cigarette smoke. A radio plays crackling pop music from WPRO. The smell of sawdust blends with the reek of sweating bodies and cigarette smoke. Someone's name is shouted repeatedly. Indignant bodies inch forward. I inch along with them as the glass doors swing open, letting in a burst of fresh air and a few other sullen candidates who step into line behind me.
Jobless people enter; hopeless people depart, still jobless. It's a swirling and chaotic mass of humanity, a circus of people elbowing each other to grab forms, a chair, or a place in line. Each time the door opens, music from the boom box outside deafens the room. It's a reminder, I suppose. The brothaz are telling us: We know you're in there, and we want no part of your sick game.
Time goes by, and I'm glad I've given myself the whole day. Ever since my watch was stolen, I never know the time. I look at the clock on the wall. An elderly woman approaches me and asks if it's my first visit here. It is. She tells me I must fill out a registration card. This means giving up my place in line.
I hurry over to a crowded counter and wedge myself between other candidates and use a stub pencil without an eraser to write basic information about myself. I track down the elderly woman and give my card to her. She looks surprised to see me there. Cold sweats come and go, and the Valium keeps me dazed as I sulk back to the end of the line. Everything begins to smell like hot roasted peanuts.
My name is Domenic Marcucelli. I was named after Joe DiMaggio's brother, who played for the Boston Red Sox. Don't ask me why. I guess the Yankee Clipper, or Joltin' Joe, along with his brother, Dom, was a real hero to Italian Americans like my Dad, and my grandfather. I wouldn't know, really. I was the kid in high school who sang in the chorus so he could be around all the girls. I never cared much for baseball, especially on TV. It's like watching golf or tennis, puts me right to sleep.
Though I'm proud of my ethnic heritage, I want to change my name once I have an agent. I can sing like Perry Como, but I'm not sure there's much of a demand for that these days, nor am I sure I have enough talent. Since I'm a big fan of film and television, I'm also unsure talent is necessary.
Let me put it this way. I've got the ambitiousness of Sylvester Stallone, the energy of Robert DeNiro, the sensitive intelligence of Marlon Brando, and the charisma, charm and saucy good looks of Al Pacino. Hey, what else do I need to make it as a goombah actor?
I'm gonna be the next big Italian pretty-boy star. You think I'm kidding? Look at me, paying my dues. I ain't kidding. You'll see.
Marcucelli was my grandfather's handle on my father's side. He stepped off a boat drunk from northern Italy, and stayed that way. He packed fish, but didn't do much else to help raise a son and two daughters, a tiny family by Italian standards of that day.
My father, they tell me, was a great man. He was in the military most of his adult life until he died during a second hitch overseas in the Vietnam War. Though I love him, worship the ground he walked on, I never really knew him. He died in '68, when I was five. My mother, on the other hand, should achieve some kind of sainthood. She never finished high school. She and my two aunts pretty much raised my sister and me. She worked in Fall River for years, operating a loom in a textile mill.
My older sister's the smart one in the family. I gotta give her credit. She joined the Navy, and is learning to become an electronics specialist. At least I know my old man's smiling down on her from heaven. She writes to me often from different ports. The Navy sounds exotic, in a way, but also a pain in the ass. Not exactly this choirboy's cup of tea.
I'm the baby in the family, and my sister says I'm spoiled. I have my mother's blond hair, in long fine tresses. I have deep hawkish brown eyes, inherited, I guess, from my father.
Oh, yes, I'm so Frankie-and-Annette pretty, too. Girls tell me all the time they just love my cute little ass.
I move ahead mechanically. A headache pierces a small area above my eye. The Valium is keeping me numb. I overhear a black woman say, as if she's underwater, "When this renovation is done there won't be no more standing in lines. That's right. We'll be sitting at computahz. Won't be no smoking allowed neithah. Have to smoke outside."
Computers won't answer the question of what to name myself once I begin to make it. An actor needs a slick snappy handle, like Dirk Bogarde, or Steve McQueen.
Nearly two hours have passed. I'm glazed in a cold pale sweat. My name is called, at last. I'm led to a desk, away from the commotion, but still able to view it from a safe distance. I'm handed three identical application forms, with carbon paper attached, each one a different color. I list the few jobs I've held, all of them in restaurant lounges where, thanks to Reagan changing the laws, I'm now too young to frequent legally. I make it appear I've left each job on good terms for higher pay, which is, in fact, the truth.
After completing the forms, I look around and see a rather obese middle-aged woman seated a few desks away. She makes her chair look small, and wears a black cardigan over thick shoulders and a loose black dress. Black is a chic color these days. I guess women wear it to help them look slimmer.
The woman's stomach bulges over the top of her girdle like a bubble in an inner tube. She fans her breast and sighs. A maroon purse sits on her lap. Her large silver earrings are shaped like spearmint leaves. A brassy tint in her hair makes me suspect she's wearing a wig.
Not wanting to stare too long, I try to place my attention elsewhere. It seems she wants people to gawk at her. And she's such a good study for an actor: all that rage pent-up inside of her. I tap my knuckles against the desk and fight off a head-rush and a touch of vertigo. I wait. The obese woman begins to shout, exploding, waving her hands frantically.
"You assholes! You stupid fuckin' assholes."
Whoa, Nellie. Her white orthopedic shoes slide across linoleum. Sweat, in runnels, creases her doughy cheeks.
"I been sitting here all day like I got nothing better to do."
I observe the others watching her. Now this is theatre, a real movie, and I should be taking notes. Do they feel the same sense of horror that I do?
Her sighs and sputters knife through the din.
"You here me," she cries, "I been here every day this month. Every friggin' day. First you tell me yes, then you tell me no. Yes, no. Yes, no. I've had it up to here with your bullshit. Now get on the phone and call those people and tell them if they need a secretary they got one. Tell them I can work. Call them. Tell them."
A mousy state employee appears. There's a white phone receiver, one of those bulky new cordless ones with an antenna, wedged beneath his chin. He thumbs through manila file folders, while at the same time shouting into the phone receiver and keeping a watchful eye on the loud and angry woman.
The woman's head bobs, and her eyes roll. It occurs to me that she's on some form of medication. Just like me. I like her now. We're in this together, legally medicated and out of work.
Her arms snap up and down, as if of their own free will, the loose flesh wiggling. She sucks her lower lip, vacuuming phlegm that suggests froth from a rabid dog. Her eyes are glassy, and lines of sweat continue to crack the pancake make-up on her face. Whatever dope she's taken, it sure has kicked in, big-time.
Another state employee appears. He, too, is mousy, in a ridiculous scarlet tie and white shirt. He's followed by a hefty armed security guard. The employee with the phone receiver defends himself, crying, "I'm doing the best I can."
"It's all right," says red tie to his colleague. Without hesitation, he approaches the woman, and tries to console her. He places a hand on each of her shoulders, spreads his legs wide and faces her. "We'll take care of you," he says, "don't you worry. Everything's gonna be all right."
"You fucker. Get away from me."
The armed security guard steps in. "Now just calm down, Ma'm." This rent-a-cop made the All-Testosterone team in high school. He moves like a robot. He's a captivating study of awkward ill-suited militarism. A honky from way back. "I said just cool it," he adds. "Nobody's gonna hurt you. Just stay nice and calm."
"I'm sick of this bullshit. Get away from me."
A second security guard arrives. Keystone cop is the first thing that comes to mind. Both guards, with the help of red tie, coax the huge lady from her little chair. She writhes and mutters and spits and hisses with all the fury of a cyclone. They try to shuffle her along, but it's like guiding a piano through the sea of shocked and curious job seekers.
One of the security guards takes a solid elbow in the head. Will their guns come out? Everybody stops to watch. They shove and drive the woman around makeshift partitions, a table saw, benches, piles of lumber and gypsum board. Slipping and sliding, they cross a linoleum floor covered with sawdust.
They pass astonished construction workers in hard hats and finally get her into an elevator. Baffled silence follows her departure.
A man appears in front of me, mumbles "Crazy day" as he snaps up my three application forms. He wears spectacles and a beaver-colored toupee. Eyeing the forms, he asks, "What can I do for you? You haven't selected a job numbah."
He drills an unlit Chesterfield into his mouth. "I need a numbah from you," he says, in a vintage Back Bay accent. "The numbah for the job you're gonna interview for." The Chesterfield dances with each word. "You should have a job numbah if you want me to see ya. Why can't you follow instructions? This'd go a whole lot smoother with a job numbah."
I hadn't heard anything about job numbers, but trying to explain this doesn't seem worth the hassle. "Sorry, it's my first time here," I say, without any local accent, at all. An actor needs to control his speech, word by word. "No offense, but I've been trying to avoid this place, if you know what I mean."
The man sees I'm no fool, and exhales impatiently through his nose. Lights his Chesterfield with a stick match that he strikes against his desktop. His words and demeanor soften a bit, though I get the feeling he's still trying to challenge me because, even though I speak well, I'm still an upstart white boy not in college or the military. It's as if he's trying to provoke a loss of composure and satisfy a suspicion that I'm a hotheaded juvenile delinquent.
I don't snap. The Valium, coupled with fatigue, is keeping me quietly detached and indifferent.
"Looks like you've got restaurant experience. I'd say you really don't need us. You need to knock on some doors. You know, if you want a restaurant career, we've got Johnson and Wales College right here, downtown."
I loosen up, a bit. "Actually, I wanna be an actor."
His eyes bloom. "An act-ah? No kiddin'."
Why do I open my big mouth? "Yeah, movies, plays, TV, that sort of thing."
He drags on his cigarette and levels a long thoughtful stare. "Acting isn't exactly something I know much about. There's always Rhode Island College. Maybe get yourself a scholarship. I here they gotta first-rate theatre program there."
I envy the obese woman's ability to vent frustration. As someone who wants to act, I will learn the same fearlessness, and release my emotions at will. Even if it means getting wheeled out the back door like an unwanted kitchen appliance.
"What happened to your eye, by the way?"
I mumble, "I box, a little. I'm in a club." My sudden laugh shows little humility. "Sparring partner got the best of me. It's a long story. But I got in a few good licks."
The man rises, studying my face. "So you're not only a love-ah, but you're a fight-ah, too."
"Something like that."
"That is one serious shine-ah," he adds, cracking me up with his thick accent.
I've won him over. I sense it, intuitively. He'll at least set me up with an interview. It's a small victory, worth the wait.
"Domenic Marcucelli," he says, reading my name. "Funny, you don't look that Swedish." He chuckles at his own bad joke. "Okay, Domenic, lemme see what I've got."
He opens a thick three-ring binder on his desk, mumbling, "Restaurants, hmmm, let me see, restaurants."
He thumbs through stiff pages and without looking up, advises: "Next time, Domenic, when you come here, if you must, and for your sake, I hope you won't have to, make sure you check the listings on the job board ovah they-ah. You wanna write down no more than three job numbahz and bring them to your interview-ah. I really shouldn't be doin' this for you. The job board saves a lot of time. Of course, when we go computah that will all change. For the bettah, I hope."
I hadn't seen nor had I been directed to any job board. What kind of Mickey Mouse operation was this, anyway? Was I to understand that this man was doing me a favor? If this was preferential treatment, what did the common form of assistance amount to?
"Can't wait 'til we get computahz in here."
I work up a smile. My heart is racing.
"Boxin', huh? Not a good habit to get into, even if you are an act-ah. Hey, what you think of that kid, Vinnie Pazienza? Ain't he somethin'?"
"He's the best."
"Wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley," the man replies, without looking up. He jots down an address and a name for a job on an index card. He rises ceremoniously and hands it to me. "This oughta bring somethin'."
It's for an interview at the I-HOP on Thayer Street, on the East Side, College Hill, the other side of the tracks, so to speak. Home to Brown University, and Rhode Island School of Design, and a whole bunch of rich college kids, mostly from out of state.
"I'll give it a try."
The man, still standing, seems satisfied with his effort to assist me. We shake hands stiffly. "No broken bones?" he asks.
"Just a concussion. I guess I had it coming."
He nods vaguely, not really listening. He surveys a line of resentful faces. His toupee seems to have shifted since we began our interview. He looks toward the clock, exhales and croaks out indifferently, "All right, who's next? I'm ready for anothah."
I assume I'm finished. Walking out, I avoid the vacant and rueful eyes of candidates still in line. Few of the faces are white. I can't do anything for them. I hate myself for being there, seeing first-hand what they must endure.
I hear every face in that line tell me just how level the playing field can be. It must depress them, especially the new immigrants, to see homegrown product like me seeking a decent gig.
The Asian men are still smoking in the same corner. I look at them more closely. Are they Cambodian or Vietnamese? I feel the familiar lump in my throat that comes whenever I think of my father. I swoon a bit, with a dizzying storm of conflicting emotions. To help myself feel better, I remind myself to go to church on Sunday and pray my ass off, begging God my sister won't need to suffer a similar fate.
I hate wars. I hate those vague words: the national interest. And I hate politics. When I step outdoors into the city, job prospect in hand, I offer a peace sign to the black guys still styling in their sweat suits, with their boom box.
They both scowl and look away in disgust. I accept this as sufficient acknowledgement.

********

The muzak version of Mrs. Robinson -- an over-played ditty if ever there was one -- tinkles from speakers recessed into a swirled stucco ceiling. As an actor wannabe, I'm a Dustin Hoffman fan. I'm also bored by any film or music connected to hippies and college kids from the sixties and seventies. That generation protested the Vietnam War, spit on the soldiers when they came back home.
My father, like so many of his friends, couldn't afford to go to college and smoke dope and drop out. He enlisted and died to make his immigrant father proud, to serve his country, to make it easier and better for me.
I may be taking Valium, but I don't smoke weed, and have no interest in LSD. Hell, I'm a boxer. The body's a temple. It's an actor's musical instrument. It shouldn't be messed with.
Frankly, I don't think Betamax is gonna make it. The compact disc is here to stay, and so are computers.
For me, Kirk Douglas rules. So does George C. Scott. Put those two together and you've got my tough old-school father, down to Scott's gravelly voice, and the same kind of dimple that Douglas has in his chin. Most of my friends don't get my fascination with such flicks, and actors, not to mention the Rat Pack, swing music, or big band crooners, in general. But this is my personal taste and shouldn't require explanation. I, for one, don't enjoy electric guitar, or anemic blokes from England with wavy hair.
Dimly lit, the restaurant is empty at such a late afternoon hour, mid-week. A waitress, thick through the hips, hands me a one-page menu coated with a sticky laminate. Her starchy orange uniform adds pounds to her already heavy frame. She wears chocolate brown nylon stockings, and white orthopedic shoes that remind me of the woman at unemployment office.
What did they do with her? Toss her out on the street?
Low pockets in the waitress's matching brown apron hold pad and pencil and tips. Her hair in a bun, she doesn't smile. The orange and brown motif reminds me of Halloween candy. I don't smile either.
"Pretty quiet," is my attempt to spark conversation. I tell her I’m there for the cooking job, and she frowns and troops off with the menu.
The thought of a paper hat, hair net, time card and portion control makes me want to exit, stage left. Reminding myself I need a job, I walk to a table and have a seat.
Syrup bottles. The table surfaced in a veneer simulation of wood grain. Pear-shaped candles made of mottled red glass wrapped in white nylon netting. One candle per table, along with waterproof place mats the color of mustard. Yellow curtains drawn over the windows. Burgundy carpeting. A round ashtray made of brown glass. A brown pall over everything.
Squeaking thunk-thunk of swinging doors as the waitress enters and exits the kitchen. The doors have portal windows. Hard white light splashes across the burgundy carpeting each time the doors swing open and shut. I get a brief glimpse of stacked plates, steam tables, pots and pans hanging from ceiling racks. Seen one kitchen, seen them all.
The waitress returns with an application form. She tells me, briskly, the manager will be out in a minute. She walks to the front of the dining area and stands close to windows that face the street. Using daylight to help her see, she begins polishing flatware. She's a stocky servant maid, and I feel sorry for her, even though she's treated me like I'm a nuisance.
I decide that muzak is a tensionless melody designed to soften the edges and power of the collective mind. I ask myself what such an intrusion does to people forced to hear it all day long. After a while, they must stop hearing, and listening. An actor can't do that.
Actors want to go deaf from the sound of applause.
People will have to know about me, and experience my fire, my gifts. Only then will I feel any sense of self-worth. I've got a huge ego, but that, too, is useful for an actor.
I lean forward and complete another version of my work history. I tinker with a packet of sugar. On the packet, which I almost accidentally tear open, there is a color photo of a clipper ship. I live less than an hour from the sea and view it mostly on packets of sugar. I guess I'm a real city boy.
A clipper ship is something grand, though. It's there to entice me, spur me on, decorating a packet of sugar. I've grown up near some of the country's oldest commercial fishing centers, yet I've never set foot on a fishing boat, or a sailboat, let alone a majestic clipper ship. Once, when I was seven, my mother, my sister and I walked the deck of the USS Massachusetts, in Fall River. We cried together, thinking of Dad.
Maybe I love the idea of ships because they'll take me places. Yet I've never even seen the Mayflower, though it's less than three hours away by car. This seems to me unfair. Unfriendly waitresses, muzak, simulated wood grain -- there are too many of these life components to be at odds with. I tell myself that as an actor I should use these. They spark fury and ire.
When I'm acting, I should imagine myself on board a ship, exploring exotic ports. Like a romantic adventurer in a sexy tale worthy of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Heck, my problem is that I'm a dreamer more than I'm a doer. An actor needs to be both, in equal parts, not unlike the analogy from the man in the employment office: a lover and a fighter.
I worry about making a good impression. Yet I'm pretty certain I don't really want the job I'm applying for. I can do better, but I may have to compromise until this recession blows over. I feel foolish and exhale mournfully while watching the cook, who is dressed in white from head to toe. He speaks abruptly to the waitress.
Having finished with her, he moves toward me. He's a slight man with oily ginger-colored skin. From South America, or maybe the Middle East, I'm not sure. His slender arms are tattooed beneath thick curls of black hair. The tattoos have melted and look like contusions not much larger than the one swelling my left eye.
Heavy veins rib his neck. His white T-shirt clings to a compact chest. He smokes a Merit cigarette, offers one, which I refuse.
He sits down and immediately screens my application. After a while, a look of concern darkens his brow. He clears his throat. He's serious and intense and beady-eyed, comically so, and this makes me laugh a little, inside of myself.
"Ahgs? You cook ahgs?"
Startled by his accent, loving it, puzzled by it, wanting to mimic it, I frown and ask a tad too sarcastically, "Excuse me, did you say, eggs?"
"Yes, ahgs. I say, ahgs."
He scratches the fine black hair below his throat. Then he points, looking over his shoulder, toward a rectangular opening in the wall where the wait staff can drop their dupes and pick up food orders. There are four orange heat lamps, a bell, a dupe stick, and a stack of gray cardboard trays that hold eggs.
I want to laugh, partly out of nervousness, I suppose, and partly because I find the man so amusing. "Yeah," I tell him, "I can cook eggs. I made all kinds of egg dishes working at Davio’s, you know, downtown. I whip up a mean omelet."
"No ahmlet," says the cook. He waves my application, unimpressed. He rubs out his cigarette and stands up. "Ahgs. No ahmlet. Just ahgs."
"Eggs, okay. I understand. What else?"
"Ahgsperience, yes, but you no cook ahgs."
"Yes, I can cook eggs."
"You no cook ahgs."
Now, completely lost, I feel once again my ability to remain composed is being put to a severe test. I remind myself that one purpose of an actor's mask, not unlike Jack Webb's LAPD, is to serve and protect.
I put on the mask and watch the cook pace back and forth. He pauses, glares at me and says, "Ahgsperience I say." He emphasizes the word I and points to his chest, repeating himself, "Ahgsperience, I say."
My voice leaps, with perhaps too much intensity, "But I got experience."
The cook points to his chest again. "I say. I say."
He paces twice, arms behind his back, deep in thought. He sits and slaps his hands together. We face each other. The muzak comes back, but I don't recognize the tune.
"You cook craps?" he asks, far too seriously. "You make craps with ahgs. Not too bad."
I hold myself back. This is like a skit from Saturday Night Live. I want to laugh. This guy is a riot. I want to scream. A riot, yes, but he hardly speaks the language and he wields all this power over me.
Moping, craving more Valium to send this entire scenario into a dive, I watch the cook cup his hands together as if molding clay. He pantomimes rolling dough across the table. He folds the dough, forming it into a tube.
"Craps," he explains. "You make craps?"
John Belushi couldn't do it any better. I hold back the urge to laugh, seeing the cook through a gluey cobweb of needling light. I exhale and perspire and grind my teeth, fighting off surges of heat that boil into my face. The Valium is definitely wearing off, and there's no question I still have a concussion.
"Yes, of course," I answer, working up a false smile. "Crepes."
I'm exhausted, having bitten off more than I can chew for one day. I need rest. I remember a stripper at Grady's Palace East, flashes of light, my sparring partner's glove drilling me.
"I can cook crepes. I can even make Crepe Divan, as a special, you know, with broccoli and chunks of chicken."
The cook hangs on my every word. Then he explodes, "Craps," he shouts, pounding the table. "Craps. No cheeken. No cheeken."
My scratchy eyes begin to moisten. I have definitely uttered the wrong syllables. I glance toward the waitress, hoping she's my friend. I let my eyes get weepier still, pleading to her for help.
She notices, but continues to do her work, and drops a spoon to the carpet. She hurriedly picks it up and polishes it as if nothing has happened.
The cook sees this act. His stare suddenly zeros in on the waitress. I stand when he stands, and needing to get out of there, I ask, "Should I call you?"
The veins in his neck begin to swell. They look like eels. He keeps his eyes fixed on the waitress. A soundless tension brews between them. The muzak comes back again, louder than ever, Crystal Blue Persuasion, and all I want to do is sail away on a clipper ship, through the glass doors, making my grand exit.
"Should I call you?" I ask again.
"Go," says the cook, waving me away. "Go." He points at the waitress, and then the floor, shouting, "Spoon. Spoon."
The waitress stops working and lifts a plastic tray full of utensils. She gives him the evil eye, sucks in a huge breath and then, letting it out at once, dumps the tray. Knives, forks and spoons fall to the carpet.
"I keel you," shouts the cook. "Keel you!"
The waitress bursts into a sob, covers her face and bolts in mortal terror toward the kitchen. The whole mess is none of my business. I hope there's a rear exit out of the kitchen, and the waitress can keep running, get to her car and lock herself inside.
I zoom toward the glass doors. Once outside, I pull in a long deep breath that sends me reeling.
I collapse against a parking meter. After a minute, hearing only my breath and pounding heart, I begin to regain focus. I'm struck first by the harshness of daylight, and the absence of muzak. I watch cars and students pass by along Thayer Street. There's a pharmacy nearby, but I lack enough money to buy aspirin. I'll have to fight this steady pounding in my head.
It's a steep trudge down College Hill. I cross Kennedy Plaza, and then the Downcity blocks and then Route 95 over to Federal Hill. And to help myself feel better, I sing all the while: first, some Bing Crosby and Dean Martin, then some Mario Lanza and Sammy Davis Jr. I croon and croon my Sinatraland soundtrack to blurry visions of stardom and something grand.
Mama likes to say nothing good comes easy. So right she is.

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