On Class Vs. Classy

A fat man turns to his companion and belches, wipes his mouth absently on his sleeve while he juggles a martini in and three canapés on a cocktail napkin in one hand and laughs heartily, “Yeah, but you know what the difference is between the members of the Jonathan Club and the members of the California Club? The Jonathan Club—they run Los Angeles; the members of the California Club, well, we own Los Angeles! Bwaah, haw, haw, haw!”
Half-chewed food and gin sprays onto the Oriental rug, which I scurry to clean unobtrusively—successfully, I would guess, as the crowd on neckless men seem to take no notice of me and the men guffaw knowingly at this timeless classic bit of wit—oft repeated, no doubt, but a cherished gem, nonetheless.
I, myself, choked a bit as well on the punch line, though not because I had much appreciation for such highbrow humor. In fact, my sense of humor for the night drained out almost ass quickly as the gin.
Long years I had bounced around the States, resort-hopping in the summer, and following the snowbirds to Tucson or Palm Springs in the winter. The craft I was honing all that time was table and bar service; I strove to be the best damn waiter this world had ever seen, learning a full repertoire of skills and subtle graces that I thought would make me all the more personable and efficient.
A plethora of drink recipes filed away mentally.
Keeping up on current affairs to engage the lonely diner in conversation while up-selling the dessert tray.
Magic tricks and balloon animals for the kiddies.
I made what I thought was good money, all by the sweat of my brow and quickness of service, but in the end I burned out—came to hate “guests”; hate the smell of food which permeated ever fiber of my existence; hate whoring my soul for shabby tips at less than minimum wages—so called “waiter-wages”—but finding no better jobs, especially without a college degree, and as the years slipped by, increasingly without experience beyond the so-called hospitality industry.
You could say I’m bitter.
Then I moved to L.A. and by some happy accident of fate I landed a job at what the maitre-d’ called “the most exclusive private club in Los Angeles—probably the world…” The California Club.
Not just a Millionaires Club, mind you—a Billionaires Club. The province of Big Oil, and Japanese banks, Senators, Governors, and Presidents. Nothing so proletarian as a cheap British Royal, no! These were the men of power and untold wealth who really ran the world.
The men have no necks, and the women have wattles.
Think brandy and cigars.
Despite my eminent qualifications, I didn’t have to interact with the members; rather I was paid a decent hourly wage not to interact with the members, to become invisible—a silent, faceless, tuxedoed, hovering silver tray.
A fly on the wall.
A murmured, demure echo of absently-given calls for drinks.
If I hastened to task, the order was filled; if not, any number of faceless bowties would have eventually brought round a tray of champagne flutes and Perrier’s.
(*Note: as one unenviable exception, there was the
case of Mrs. Mullins—older than God, twice as mean as Old Scratch. She would order a Gibson, and then holler in my face while poking me in the chest with her bony old-lady-finger that I had brought her the wrong drink. I would happily have beat her to death with her own cane, but feared the watching crowd would have turned on me like a pack of jackals.)
Over the past three years I have floated from Club to Club, from the California Club to the Jonathan Beach Club; Hillcrest Country Club to the Regency. At long last, I have settled comfortably into a weekend routine, which shifts between the Hotel Bel-Air and catering for the ubiquitous Wolfgang Puck atop the Kodak Theater at Hollywood and Highland with all the benefits and surprisingly little of the drama which that implies.
Despite assertions to the contrary, they are all pretty much the same.
I pick up pretty plates of food, which were ordered months in advance, and I set them down in front of people mechanically. If they eat it, fine—if not, just as well.
At a signal from the banquet captain, I remove the plate and return with another course, and so it goes ad nauseum.
Depending on their pretension, I provide French Service, English Service, Butler Service, and Double-Butler service, but the subtle nuances of each are usually lost on the crowd, and after two compulsory pre-dinner cocktails, champagne for a toast, two--perhaps three wines at dinner, and the invariable Scotch or brandy (to settle the stomach) I have come to conclude that no one really remembers or cares what side they were served from.
That sort of thing is noticed by the tipping crowd.
Which is not to say that I don’t get tips every now and again. Why I recall one New Year’s Eve after Warren Buffet’s gala event, we each received thirty dollars, cash. And there were 60 waiters, 20 busboys, a couple of dozen bartenders, and probably a score of chefs at that event, not to mention a whole troop of captains and bar backs and dishwashers and the lot. I mean, multiply thirty bucks times, say two hundred people, and that comes out to six thousand dollars! Which is to say, that to a man (I learned after getting home that night and looking him up online) whose personal net worth was more than $36 billion, our collective tip was entirely below his notice.
I reckoned that he could have doled out a fat $1 million to each of us, just as a lark, making us rich beyond our wildest hopes or expectations, and he still would have $35.8 billion to show at the yacht club; still very much a part of the multi-fucking-billionaires club, but hey! Thirty bucks is thirty bucks right? And it was $30 more than I had when I went in to work that night, so who am I to nitpick?
(Probably has $6,000 in loose change between his couch cushions, the bastard…)
Anyway, if it’s one thing that I have learned since I’ve come to hobnob and rub elbows with (after a fashion) the rich and famous from Winfrey to Kerry to Gates to Governator, is that they’re all pretty much like the rest of us. They’re insecure and wear lots of make-up to cover up those insecurities. They stuff themselves into ugly clothes three sizes too small because that’s what they see on TV, and when they drink too much they can act like assholes, just the same as any alky.
I’ve been told by more than one captain that they sometimes see me with a slight smirk on my face, even as I stand at supposed attention, as if I somehow know something that the rest of them don’t know.
I am quick to assure them that such is not the case.
I think that I simply appreciate what we all know, that
in our increasingly class-less society, it is a rare breed indeed who acts classy.