Chronicles of a Cocktail Waitress Pt. 2

The lights are on. Hip. Other hip. Sway with the left. Arch the back. Draw the right arm over their head. Pull the object of desire (a finished, thumb print pocked cup) closer with the tips of the fingers teasing the rim of the glass that sits on the table. Smile when they catch my eye.

I am as bright and bubbly as their amber colored beer.

I prance, I swish, I brush my butt on his back. Hit the right bosom across his head.

"Whoops. Sorry!" (Not really.)

Whisper secrets into their ears, a sultry: "What can I get for you?" Then, wait. Hover right by their cheek or squat right down to the floor and look up at them from their knees. Implore them with a smile and sometimes a wink: "Is that all?"

Swish back up the aisle. Butt brush again. Hip bounces off their shoulders. All of their heads are right at eye level with my chest.

I pile my tray with drinks, steaming with perspiration, dripping sweat down the sides of the glass. Each drink holding a promise I made to them: "I can get that, no problem."

Back out to the tight rope walk, this time holding 15 pounds of beverages above their heads. A small Clink! as the glasses kiss each other as I pass through the sea of chairs and human heads, looking for a place to set down the cold cups.

They watch me as I pass, eyes follow my movements, some faces eagerly checking my hands for an order they made.

The lights go down. It is dark. Candle light is the only way to see, except for the glow of the stage lights that cast shadows on their eye sockets, making it hard to follow their gaze. I keep my gaze on the slippery, wet glasses as I hand out each drink to the darkened faces.

I bite my lip, furrow my brow, my wrist aches from holding the tray, my hand shakes from the strain of being quiet. I must not disturb the show or the trance the music or poetry can hold on the crowd. I must become a ghost, a ninja, quietly passing by once the show begins, only to return in full splendor once the entertainment ends. In the dark I don't have to smile, saving my energy for the lights to come on again.

In the dark, I diminish, the show holds their attention and I can relax; rubbing my sore back and massaging my arms in preparation for the next round of orders and flirts.

Bathroom Wait

I was waiting in line for the restroom. There was pandemonium going on around me as I waited. Little children were running amok with no pants on, women were washing their faces in the sinks, then hogging the space to look at their non existent pimples in the scratched and tagged mirrors. The bathroom was so crowded, even the baby changing station had a queue of poop-filled, diaper wearing, red faced toddlers, who were screaming in their mother's arms; while the parent with the babe on the changing station shouted into her cell phone as she deftly wiped a urine soaked butt.

I watched the progress of the line for the changing station with envy. My line for the stalls was moving much slower. I looked down the long line of black and white flecked plastic doors which ran the length of the cream colored, highway rest-station powder-room. Three of the doors had an "Out of Order" sign hanging on the front that looked like it was written with crayon, mustard, and the blood of a busted mouth (probably from the fight that broke out over who had to clean the tampon stuffed toilet which was now overflowing water into the drain at the center of the room, and rather than deal with it, an improvised sign was smacked on the front).

I watched as the ladies in front of me dodged the pantless children and, like lithe gazelles, leapt for the sound of a toilet flush. No where in the world is a toilet flush a sacred sound, save for the inside of a packed ladies room. Every time the sanctimonious whooshing sound of soiled water being sucked into a filthy sewage pipe hits the air, it's as if a call to the bladder to begin to relax is sounded. A sigh of relief becomes audible every time another woman can take a step forward to await her fate in whatever stall she may be lucky (or unlucky) enough to get after the toilet has drained, and the lock turned, releasing an unassuming woman from its dark and secretive enclave.

There's a gamble when waiting for your turn in the stall. If all the cards fall the right way, then the toilet seat is clear, the floor is dry, there is toilet paper in the dispenser, your lock clicks into place without hassle, and there is no brick-wall-of-shit smell when you first enter. Unfortunately, any one of those things could go wrong, leaving one with the unpleasant task of having to do her duty in circumstances that make relaxation extremely difficult. Not to mention the pressure from every second spent in the stall is another second some other poor schmuck needs to wait to get in.

I was lucky enough to be in and out of my stall with as little harassment as possible, save for the toilet flushing automatically before I was really finished. Aw well, if that's the worst that'll happen, then I'll consider myself lucky. I stepped out to wash my hands. No one can fault me for leaving anything nasty behind me, there was a little wad of TP left behind, but that was harmless.

I watched the next gazelle leap for my stall in the bathroom mirror I was washing up in front of. She read the "Out of Order" sign on the door next to mine and then pushed my door open. She paused, looking in, and considered her options. She looked back at the mustard and blood spattered sign and then back at my stall. What? Is my stall not good enough for you? I found myself thinking. I left that stall in great condition! I wanted to go over and sell that girl my stall: "Look! I wiped the seat! There's no smell! The lock, locks! That wad of toilet paper was the result of an automated pre-flush! That's not my fault! USE THIS ONE I'M NOT FILTHY!"

Instead, I hogged a sink by looking in the mirror and pretended to pop a pimple that wasn't on my face before I got the hell out of there.

Day-Lay

After giving each other a big hug at the subway, The Musician thanked me again for the wonderful day. I agreed, feeling really excited about life in general. That was exactly what I wanted and needed.

When I got home I got on the phone with my buddy from Chicago.

"So you just left when you were done?"

"...No. He made me dinner and we relaxed a bit. He even walked me to the subway. He was really sweet."

"But, you're not sleeping over?"

"Ha! No! I have to wake up at 5:30am. I wasn't going to sleep over. I couldn't."

"Wow. I've never done that before."

"What? Had sex with someone and then left once it was over?"

"Yeah."

"Really!?"

"Wait... lemme think... yeah, no, never. I always slept over."

"That's because I had a Day-Lay. We were all wrapped up before 9pm. And I had to go."

We chatted for a while longer before I hung up the phone.

Day-Lay [Dey-layeeee.] Verb. An action describing a homerun with a person during "Afternoon Delight" hours. (See: Afternoon Delight for reference.)

I don't think "Good Girls" have Day-Lays. However, I think if a date went really well and all the ingredients add up (work gets cancelled, the day out is beautiful) and there was a 4+ hour discussion involving feminism, philosophy, religion, science, long international flights, point of views on naked neighbors and all happening over the refreshing taste of cold white wine, then... well... Life's a peach. And "Good Girls" who would walk out on that can be so boring.

The Musician

Sitting at a bar with my sister, I survey the room.

Nope. Nope. Uhhhhh... nope. 

I sip at my bourbon and twist my hair between my fingers. I fiddle with the tank top I'm wearing and try not to think about the self doubt that keeps creeping into my subconscious.

Does my hair look okay? Do I look like I have a gut? Am I easy looking? 

I think about all the times I've felt forgotten, and try to ignore those thoughts. What the hell do those thoughts have to do with the eyes of the guys on the bar looking at me now? I feigned disinterest and felt the big smile on my face protect me like a blanket.

I'm here to meet people.

The jazz band strikes up again. The bar fills with swing music. My sister gets up to dance. She loves to dance. I smile. I love to smile.

The singer announces a break for the group. My sister winks at me. "Go talk to them, Natty." She says.  I felt the bourbon filling my head and the self doubt begins to be muffled behind my smile. I think, as I flounce across the room toward the musicians: IDontKnowWhatI'llSayButI'mGonnaFlirtHard.

"Great Set." I begin, locking a pair of blue eyes in the face. I smile. A waiter brings over a steaming plate of food. "I'll let you eat." I say, and turn on my heel to flounce back to my spot.

"Let's get out of here." I say, once back, checking my phone. It's getting late, and I have to be up at 8am to prepare for a callback. My sister groans. She wants to dance. I smile.

We walk toward to exit. The band has started up again. The musician I made eyes with is eyeing me as I walk out. We locked eyes all the way across the bar. On the street I turned around and saw through the window that he was still looking. He waved. I blushed.

My sister and I walked a block. "I don't know what to do, Cait. Was he cute? Should I do something?"

"YES." She demands. She taps her foot, and the orange glow of the street lamp gives her a halo.

"Whuddoaydo?" I ask. I bite my lip. I don't have to smile with my sister. She knows.

"Leave your number in the tip jar!" She suggests, hands on her hips, fingers tapping.

I love her so much I could hug her forever and ever.

I pull out my business card. "Would this work? You think?" I ask. I look at my smile printed on the small piece of paper in my hand. "You gotta pen?"

I walk back into the bar. The hot air of the joint hits my face. The band's playing still. I look at my musician briefly and then toss in my business card. I leave quickly.

Outside, I exhale the bar's air from my lungs. "I did it, Cait!" I make a getaway as I squeal.

"You think he'll call me?" I ask the night sky.

"Maybe." My sister responds. "If he doesn't, you're no worse off than before."

I think of the men who have asked me out and my "No, thank you's" and not so direct "Uh, not now's" and feel guilty. I think of an idea I read in a book L Is For Lion  By Annie Lanzillotto who got it from Soren Kierkegaard: The opposite of freedom isn't slavery: it's guilt. Being trapped in a jail of my own beliefs. Stunning. I listen to my sister's heel tapping the rhythm of our walk home. I try to bat away the self doubt that continues to nibble at my cuticles and make my fingers bleed in protest.

I put my number in the jar. I did that. 

"Let's walk a bit." My sister suggests. I agree. It's late, but those dancing heels of my sister need a place to click, and I felt like smiling in the quiet dark, thinking about the musician playing his tunes with his eyes on me.

Cocktail Waitress Chronicles

The European Proposal


A man I've never seen before hails me over. "Where are you from, beauty?" He asks.

I've played this game before, I think. I smile. "I'm from here." I say.

"From here? From New York?" He repeats, his european accent getting more defined the more I listen. He holds out his hand for mine. I hesitate. He gently takes my hand and begins to kiss up my arm, slowly, planting a soft kiss up, and up and up... "Are you married?" He asks. At this point the men around him are chuckling. Such a fun game for them! I pull my arm away as politely as I know how. I smile a big, fake, Fuck-You smile.

"No. Not married." I say, wishing that the facade I am putting forth would burst, spewing the acid I was holding in my chest all over the smiling faces of the older men who were listening intently to the bobbing of my chest as I breathed.

"Such a shame. A beauty like you... I bet you have men throwing themselves at your feet! Listen, beauty, I would marry you, no? Could I marry you? Would you think about my offer?" The men at the table chuckled again. "How old are you?" He asks.

"I'm 25." I say. "I'm sorry, but I have to get the orders from other tables. It was nice meeting you. I'll be back around to take any drink or food orders you guy may have, okay?"

I turn on my heel and busy myself with collecting other orders.

I feel conflicted about events like these. On the one hand, I am flattered by their advances. When men flirt with me I feel desired, beautiful, wanted. On the other hand, I feel invisible behind my tits and ass, at the mercy of my desire for tips.

I returned to the bar to drop off the orders I've written. "A man just proposed to me." I tell Lilly, my bartender. She looks at me and guffaws.

"Who?" She asks. I discreetly point to the men at the far table. "Gotcha." She says, and rolls her eyes. I smile, feeling each unsaid sarcastic comment rolling between the two of us while Lilly shakes a martini up as if she were gearing up to punch someone in the face.

Thunder

I woke up feeling depressed. I felt like a heavy sack of watery sand was covering me head to toe. I had had a dream about my land lord kicking me out and was struggling to find a place to live. The panic of the nightmare still clung to me as I tried to rub the memory of it out of my eyes.

I struggled out of bed like a pregnant woman. Opening the door to my balcony I looked out at the world which was grey and overcast and showing very likely signs of rain later on. I tried to figure out what to do with my day before work later that evening. I had a couple of things needing my attention since I went to visit family, so I tasked myself with their completion.

It was later in the day that I began to get ready for work and the sky began to rumble.

There is a curious change on earth when the sky rumbles. The birds are hushed. The winds are slowed. The sky turns a dark purple or green or blue and light is dimmed. The streets lamps, in their confusion, think that it is evening at 4pm and come on, shining their ignorant beams on a rapidly emptying street. I was one of the only poor fools who had to go outside in order to get to the train station. As I entered the street, I looked to the west where the dark, ominous clouds were blocking out where the City should be. I looked at my small bright pink umbrella and navy blue rain jacket and prayed that what I had would be enough to keep me from the deluge that was sure to come. I had a 6 minute walk to the subway station.

The people around me were scurrying. When do New Yorkers ever scurry unless they have the impending threat of torrential downpour? New Yorkers hurry to be sure, but scurrying is an event only for summer thunderstorms. My depression became curiosity the farther I went from home. It felt like each step swept away another person into a doorway and hushed another bird. I rounded a corner and was the only person on the street. I walked like I was in a dream, but all my senses were alert. I kept looking at the sky to try and determine when the rain would come.

My mind went back to a memory of India. It was 2008 and I was in the summer of my Junior Year. I was touring a Nrityagram (dancing village) in the rural outskirts of Bangalore. The tour guide was walking us back to a dancing stage that was covered in fine green grass and surrounded by swaying trees. It was monsoon season, so at any moment the sky could open up and we could all be covered by water. The guide was explaining how the sacred the stage was when, as if a button was pushed, there was a hush on our group of two dozen people. Indians and Americans alike were silenced by what felt like a finger going up our spines. I remember the hair on the back of my neck rising. "It's going to rain! Run to the tarp!" Someone yelled, and like a group of antelope we all ran like hell to a blue tarp a few hundred feet away. I looked to my left and saw the rain, like a thin vail of white silk, coming toward us. I could taste the mist that proceeded it as I inhaled, galloping for the safety of the tarp. I remember laughing at how silly life can be when the rain comes hard and leaves all to the mercy of the water.

I was back on that empty street in New York. There was no wind, but the trees were dropping seeds. BANG! PLOP! SPLASH! SPLAT! I kept thinking the sounds were an early sign of falling blobs of rain, but on every BING! I inspected the windshield of the cars and saw no water. I pulled my pink umbrella out of my bag when I felt the finger go up my spine. My senses were on edge. I felt alert. Then, like the sound of a bag of marbles falling to the ground, the rain came. I whipped my umbrella up as fast as I could, feeling the thunder boom and the weight of the humidity that had pushed me into my bed that morning manifest itself into rain drops pounding on my temporary pink nylon roof.

I laughed. I laughed hard. I don't know what was funny. The few humans still on the street scurried from their hiding places like roaches and ran for better shelter. I felt better, more awake, my dreary mood washing off of me and soaking my jeans. I slowed my pace and took an extra few minutes to get anywhere, chuckling as I did at how quickly the sky can change life and mood.

CO2

I was flying over the swath of orange lights that, unlike sunlight, define where people aren't and are. I looked at the scope of humanity stretched out underneath my plane's wing. Parking Lot, I thought. Mall. Water. Not water. Road. Cars. Bridge. The sky we were cutting through on our way to LaGuardia was smokey in the orange glow of the city. The city was exhaling.

I thought about all of the people down there breathing out. Then I exhaled. There are SO MANY people exhaling! They're all just... expelling CO2 and not even thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. All those tonnes of gas coming out of all those millions of lungs. Each breath another reminder of how alive and how unaware of how alive each person is as they do something, whatever that is, down there on earth. I was the CO2 fairy coming in for a landing.

The woman sharing my seat row huffed and shuffled her papers around when the overhead told us all that the electronics and tray tables need to be stowed and put away. I pulled myself away from my window and looked at her for a minute. She was so busy. So busy with her stuff. She probably didn't even have time to realize she was breathing. Like I was. I was breathing. I held my breath. Now I'm not. 

I looked back at the lights below, twinkling in their false sunlight, each orb a reminder that the darkness is vanquishable. I saw cars streaming like fish in a tunnel as they rode, carrying their breathing adults and children to wherever they need to go at 11:30pm. Did anyone down there look up to see my red blinking lights and loud jets passing 7 thousand feet over their heads? Maybe.

I thought about the research I had done today while sitting at Chicago's Midway Airport, killing time for my connecting flight. Eczema has no cure. How strange and unnerving. No one really knows what causes it. Do waiters on Cruise ships have a fun time? Is 6 months at sea worth the 60 hours a week of work? All signs are pointing to yes. What the hell does the word "Za" mean? I even mourned the death of my book series I just finished. Where can I find the next Graphic Novel to read?

I picked at my cuticles, thinking about the blonde who had sat next to me when I flew from Columbus, OH to Chicago earlier today. Her left thumb was red, picked apart by her teeth. I looked my my own fingers critically and wondered if anyone who knew me would think I was picking at my cuticles any more or less than before.

I stretched in my airline seat, feeling really tired. My grandparents drove me the 4 and a half hours from Bloomington, Indiana to Columbus, OH today. My tail bone felt sore. Almost home. I breathed out, the chemical consisting of 2 small atoms of Oxygen bonded to a Carbon atom expelled from my lungs, fogging the window pane, hitting the atmosphere, and adding to the vast amount of exhaled days and dreams and moments in the lives of all the millions of people doing the same and forgetting that I was even doing it along with all of them as I concentrated on the plane landing.

Identity Crisis

I saw a play tonight in Bloomington, Indiana with my grandparents.

We sat in the center of the audience of a room that could hold maybe 60 people.

It was a solo show called "Underneath the Lintel" by Glen Berger (who has subsequently written the book for Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark) about a man researching his way around the world and out of his mundane life in an effort to catch up with the myth of the Wandering Jew. The show was fantastic. I left the theatre with a sense of awe. My grandparents did, too.

A phrase kept resonating in my brain: "I was here." In the show, the actor winds up writing that sentence all over the walls of the room. I was HERE! I found it ironic that I was wishing I could write my own signature on places I've been while in a place I am rarely in.

Let's rewind ten days: I audition for two different Improv theaters and get rejected from both. I feel like I was punched in the gut and, as a result, have been running from dealing with the extreme sense of identity crisis I feel stalking around in my head like a rat in an attic. What the effin hell am I DOING? What AM I!?

I want SO MUCH. I want love! I want marriage! I want to direct! I want to write! I want to travel! I want to teach! I want a life well lived! I want people to see me and think: She's great, I want to get to know her and hear her stories and learn from her because she's lived a life I want to lead. I want to inspire!

...And I thought  that was through the path of getting on a house team. But, as fate would have it: it is not.

I am HERE, goddamn it! Here in this sodden, slippery, worry-soaked crossroad that is my life! I could have chosen another life...

...Like my cousins. They're my age. One cousin is all of ten days older than me and is due to have a baby in October. The other cousin (14 month older than me) has a 1 and a 3 year old. They're both moving in to the stage of their lives in which they focus on nothing but wiping poopy butts, drying tear soaked eyes, and shuffling, bleary eyed, through sleepless nights to attend to nightmares and wrongfully tucked in toddlers. I got a good dose of that life the last few days and felt a flash of fear rip through my uterus. Not now. I am just passing through. I was there...

I thought that was what adults did, not twenty-somethings, and realized with horror that somewhere along the way the children I grew up with were adults.

I am HERE. I am at the wood and stone threshold of adulthood and, well, I'm not ready to step inside yet. If I was I would have married my ex boyfriend from college and would be popping out mini-me's, too.

What do I do? I can agree with myself as to what I am not, which is a mother, a professional improviser and a married woman. So what am I? What can I do? The answer screams back at me: SO MUCH! EVERYTHING! The world is my oyster and I am the pearl!

I am HERE, at the Thought-I-Knew-It-All-But-Don't intersection of Freak Out Avenue and Don't Look Back Yet Street.

I watched tonight, as the character in "Underneath the Lintel" wound up pursuing his crazy passion and, in doing so, losing his job and shedding his mundane life. Watching, I felt restless. I need to get up and go and be and I don't know how to get the courage to do so because as easy as it is to state what I am NOT it is harder to actualize what I think I am! Ah!

I am HERE at 25. And I'm sick of feeling so confused and worried about what to do next when I get back to New York City tomorrow. And the next day. And next month, and the next five years and, hell, the next 25 years! I keep telling myself to take it all day at a time. Breathe. Another opportunity is right around the corner.