Greens
Folks who lived through the ‘80s will remember two things not even P.T. Barnum would have predicted: that cheap vegetables and cheaper wine could be marketed properly and sold at premium prices. Seemingly overnight, there were things called wine coolers and salad bars sold all the unsexy produce, do-it-yourself style. It was as though the very concept of fresh greens offered some salvation Americans had been deprived of—which, of course, it did. Suddenly, everyone was on the verge of a health attack, and we couldn’t get enough of making our own masterpieces, priced by the pound. Who knew iceberg lettuce was the tip of the iceberg, a Choose Your Own Adventure that might lead to more dangerous meals, beginning with Romaine and ending up with varieties that might one day be bad PR for a president? Precious real estate, previously utilized for overstocked cans of protein, was reconfigured in grocery stores across the country, miniature gardens of eating—equal parts display and distraction: this, mid-decade, was where the action was. And this is where M. worked, the first girl to allow me past second base (and the first one with whom I tried, or, further disclosure, had the opportunity to hit or miss with), both of us focused on, in no particular order, preparing for college, having fun, making money, fooling around, checking all the boxes possible before our parents no longer controlled where we went or when we came. A summer featuring the sort of education I daydreamed about all through high school: sneaking out after curfew, borrowing beer from older brothers, thinking deeply about the kinds of drugs one might grow in a backyard garden—no dress rehearsal for the roles we were born to play, suburban seekers parked on unlit streets, fumbling toward something between obligation and release; too scared to go all the way, too dumb to be oblivious, worried about everything except what mattered, too inexperienced to appreciate all we had in our hands and mouths. Everything, when you’re green, seems freely available, but young lovers always pay a price—and it’s not until we’re older that we understand all we give up to get what we want.
Regulars
“That is superlative,” the bar fly who, behind his back, was known only as F-Face said whenever I, his favorite bartender, handed him another martini (extra dry, extra full, he said every time, a mantra, or some type of OCD) and everyone would wince, feeling the full weight of being polite to the public, for pay. As insufferable and embarrassing as he was, our self-loathing was always part of the equation, this being the unalterable calculus of those who serve and are served. In a busy restaurant the bartender is king, more customers meaning more tips, and nothing personal because there’s no time to slow down. At a less popular establishment, like ours, making drinks for regulars is a special kind of torture, wherein you’re held captive for hours at a time—all for the percentage of a tab smaller than what a couple ordering appetizers might accumulate. Scarcely qualified to tap a keg at the frat house, suddenly I was on the clock, a half-assed head shrinker who couldn’t even drink away my indifference. Fuck Face filled space at an otherwise empty bar, the rarest of customers: one a waiter living off tips would do without. There was no topic for which he didn’t have an opinion, no casual side conversation he wasn’t eager to join. We couldn’t wait for the shift to end, for the summer to be over, for another school year to begin, to once more be surrounded by young and interesting people, some of whom we might have sex with. How could we have known this nuisance, who himself must have had co-workers, friends, and family who couldn’t or wouldn’t kill him, was providing a necessary early lesson? Little did we know our lives would soon be filled with officious cranks like him, the ones paid to watch the clock and sign our checks and read our reviews; a ceaseless parade of the same or worse whose asses we’d reliably kiss, only we couldn’t even count on the obligatory twenty percent for our troubles.
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