Roman

Roman was the first boss I had,
at the relatively tender age of 18,
who was a serious hard ass. No
room for screwing up in his
kitchen. Used to be in the Swiss
Army and his ship was run like
a Swiss watch or not at all. Folks
would line up around the corner
on weekends, waiting two hours
for a plate of Roman's special
Blue Max or Berkeley benedict.
The bowl of hollandaise which
sat right in the middle of the
kitchen was the most sacred
thing in the whole place, never
touched by anyone but Roman.
I was a dishwasher, a nobody;
I was paid under the table in cash
and in lunches, and I was treated
like a member of the team
deserving as much respect as
anyone else in the chain of duties.
A lowly job which Roman
somehow managed to make noble
because of his tough work ethics.
My first day there, I walked from
one side of the kitchen to the other
to get some more bleach; Roman
quickly took me aside and said,
"If you want to be on this team,
great, but there are certain strict
rules to follow. Do not ever waste
a trip to the other side of the kitchen--
I don't care how small it is!-- to do
only one thing." That was all and
I never did it again. Another time
he caught me at the end of the day
eating my enormous free lunch, a
pile of hasbrowns with avocado and
ham, a poached egg--properly
poached of course--and smothered
in Roman's legendary hollandaise;
he said, "I get the impression
you like your job?" All I could
think was, 'Two days of work a
week, and I have more than enough
to pay my bills; what do you think?'
I said, "I do, yes." Roman's grinning
turned severe, "Then I know you'll
do a better job bussing tables next
weekend than you did today."
He promptly walked away. Never
one to mince words, Roman grew
increasingly dramatic each day as
he'd ingested more leftover mimosa
champagne, the cheapest stuff he
could find, but combined with
fresh orange juice--which I had
to squeeze--nobody cared. Once
before he was too sauced I explained
to him that the time had come for me
to leave; my plans were to work on
an Alaskan fishing trawler. Roman
soon had me training my replacement.
By the time I finally had my plans
sorted out, a little bit anyway, I had
decided to move to China. I never
did have the courage to tell Roman
about my change of heart. I could
hear him saying, "If you're going to
stay on this team, you can't trip us
all up by heading off in one
direction only to turn around mid way
and head off to a whole different place."
Roman, if you're still out there
somewhere, or even if you're not, all
I can say is that sometimes, if you're
lucky, the path the heart takes
prevails over solid teamwork.

(2007)