| |
(Note: This is a fictional variant of the events described in
'Wine & Cigarettes.')
I began visiting the restaurant when wine there was cheap. There, in that banal atmosphere of muzak and trivial banter, I found the perfect backdrop for my polemical writing: a sort of curtain of litany behind the godlike pronouncements I found the need to produce at the time.
To my chagrin, however, the price of wine at the establishment more than doubled in the space of a few weeks. I was forced by dint of limited finances to cut my consumption -- or, rather, my purchase -- from two glasses to one. Only the cordiality of the waitresses and manager, who did not seem to care how long I stayed with one glass of wine, caused me to keep coming back.
I had become what is called a Regular Customer. To those who labor in a restaurant at the intersection of major roads, such a one becomes welcome. In such a place the vast majority of faces one sees are strangers, those passing through, never to be seen again. Most are indifferent to anything but getting their order filled and being once more "on their way". Thus the Regular Customer is a beacon in a sea of indifference; the employees pamper him in the name of all that is stable, enduring, unchanging. It is understandable, that the look in the eye, and the "How are you tonight?" (when that phrase is not empty rhetoric) mean everything to such people as these waitresses.
These waitresses! Who labors harder for so little? Usually they are women driven to that 'occupation' by grim necessity. Those who work at night often sacrifice the needs of family for economic ones. The nature of the work is particularly ungratifying.
I have been treated like a king by women who, indifferent to the profit-status of the restaurant, sought in some obscure way to recreate a semblance of the personal which they were forced to miss in their evening lives. Thus my work was allowed to proceed unhindered in an atmosphere of benevolent interest.
However, a single glass of wine, I found, was scarcely enough to sustain me over the course of an evening's work with its many cigarettes. To purchase another glass at the inflated price was, however, unthinkable. I found that I could procure, in a liquor store, four liters of wine for a song. Thus did I augment, by stealth, my supply of wine in the restaurant.
Before leaving the house each evening I would fill a vitamin bottle with my own supply of wine. This could be easily secreted in the pocket of a vest or coat. Then, when writing became intense and the glass became exhausted too quickly, I would surreptitiously augment the glass with my own private supply. In such wise was I assured of an adequate amount of wine for an evening's writing.
The reader should note: I was always utterly careful in this pouring process. I would casually place the glass on the seat beside me, all the while staring straight ahead with a look of the most profound thought on my countenance. Then, when no one (even another customer) was looking, I would quickly pour beside me the wine from my private stock into the glass. Raising the glass to the table completed the process of exchange.
I admit -- I was acting in an illegal -- or at least a questionable -- manner. It would not do for the management to find out about my activities. It would constitute (so I thought) a sort of violation of trust.
One particular difficulty in this process of exchange was in assuring that the glass so refilled did not appear to contain quantitatively more wine than it had before. This was difficult, and, in the cases of careful observation, it had to be effected in several separate stages. I became, let it be said, a master at the art of knowing exactly when the glass needed more wine, wherein the change became least detectable.
Every criminal, however, becomes careless in the wake of repeated successes. One begins to stretch the limits one has set for oneself; one almost invites, challenges, detection.
And so, bored by a succession of evenings of scant creativity, I sought amusement in that kind of trivial endeavor. I lowered the critical level of the wine in the glass each evening; at the same time I became bold in pouring larger and larger quantities of wine into the glass.
And so it was, that one evening I actually drained the glass of wine; further, I allowed the waitress to see this act. I then refilled the glass completely (undetected): I was, indeed, bored and in search of adventure.
The waitress -- a favorite of mine who often waited on me -- came by. She saw the glass, filled, that a moment before had been empty. For a moment she stood aghast. Her mind (so I guessed) raced over the possibilities of that change having occurred. I gazed up at her, smiling stupidly, with the secret trepidation of one who expects the worst.
"A miracle!" she cried. "Your glass was empty; now it is full! My Lord, My Lord!"
She fell on her knees and grasped my unwilling hand in prayerful obsequiousness. I was alarmed, shocked –- and slightly disgusted. Yet -- dare I confess? -- I could not bring myself to reveal the Truth! I allowed that act of contrition, of worship -- why? I do not know. Perhaps out of surprise, perhaps due to sage calculation, perhaps out of cowardice -- at any rate, I suffered her fawning, finally murmuring
"You may rise, my dear."
I shall not attempt to describe the look she finally deigned to fasten on me. Suffice it to say, that my guilt lasted a good long time -- even up to the present moment of writing. What I could not acknowledge then, I have been unable all the more to reveal since. Suffice it to say, that at that restaurant I am treated with a respect transcending that accorded to Regular Customers -- a respect which includes free wine in unlimited quantities (I am still trying to figure out the rationale behind this). I do not know whether my work has suffered as a result; regardless, I may have to seek out a new restaurant in any case. The hurriedly whispered confessions made in passing, relating to real or imagined sins, are almost more than I can bear.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
