Monthly Archives: January 2005

I had been working at the bar for about a year when my boss finally had the confidence to leave me alone during the day shift.

During times like these I slowly began to develop my personal theory that the bar had taken on a human-like Jekyll and Hyde persona — some nights it was clogged with sweaty overconfident and testosteroneous frat boys and dozens of young girls vying for their attention. Other times it was boring as watching paint dry, and on these nights I hated working because the early morning hours would drone on and I knew I’d be leaving with very little money in my pocket.

I came to dread going to work each night, and on the drive I tried my best to prepare myself for whatever kind of night it might be. Each night it was a guessing game — “Will we be busy or will I have to pay my electricity bill late again? Will we get slammed at 1 a.m.?”

My favorite times to work were the day shifts, when I would open all the windows and turn on all the fans and let the breeze clear the bar of the Houston heat and the smell of smoke that saturated every wooden or cloth surface. I found these days to be the most predictable, and between the busy-work — cleaning lamps and glass shelves — and the pleasant and often philosophical conversations with my daytime regulars, my six-hour shift always passed by quickly.

My boss was obsessive compulsive and also extremely controlling, which is a nauseating combination. He’d hover behind the bar, his massive six-foot-five body taking up the precious little space in which I had to navigate, and instruct me over and over again on how to pour a pint of Guinness just right so that there was exactly a half-inch of foam left floating on the top of the beer.

Inexplicably, once he felt confident in me, he would also leave me alone for hours on end without any supervision, any money in the drawer, any keys to the back-up liquor closet or any help in the event that I needed it.

Normally, this was not a problem. Even when I was busy and working all by myself, I was happy that he wasn’t around to criticize me for not saying thank you after a customer left me a fifty-cent tip on a round of five drinks.

I usually worked the Sunday day shift. Often, Midtown types would come in after brunching, already slightly tipsy and loud, and demand from me the most complicated and poofy drinks on our menu. Also on Sundays, Doug, the customer who rode his bike from the zoo, where he worked, to the bar, where he practically lived, would visit me, along with Larry, Richard and Kevin. Collectively, they called themselves “Team Martini.”

Part of the charm of the bar was its rustic feel. The owner’s wife and sister-in-law were South American, and the bar was decorated with lamps made from dried gourds and Day of the Dead masks. The phone that hung behind the register was an old Princess-style model with an actual brass bell ringer inside, the receiver held together with black electrical tape. All of our drinks, most of which contained rum or tequila, were made by hand, and I spent countless hours in my time there mashing fruit with a muddler and pestle.

One day, I got to work just in time to greet my boss as he was walking out the door. He explained that he had just come in to unlock the place for me and that he was going out to run errands and wouldn’t be back for a while. I was pleased.

When it was slow, I passed the time by doing dishes or cleaning. I walked in the bar and began the task of setting everything up. I opened the heavy wooden shutters on the back patio, and slid the windows to the main part of the bar open.

There were no customers yet, so I filled the well with ice and put menus and ashtrays on every table.

Then, I moved through the bar systematically, turning on all the lights and fans. It was early in the day, but the Houston heat was already making me sweat.

We had recently began serving food at the bar, and had compiled a small but extensive menu of tapas. As a result, the already small kitchen, if you could call it that, was getting more and more cramped with the items used to prepare this new food. All the surfaces in the kitchen were stainless steel, and hordes of stuff, from pots and pans to gallons of olive oil, were stored both above and below the shelves.

If the bar was hot, the kitchen was like a Roman sweat bath. It got so humid in there the drops of water on the freshly washed glassed had difficulty drying. So, like in the rest of the bar, we had a motley collection of huge, old Westinghouse fans that blew from both above and below to dry and cool the racks of glasses.

I stood on a milk crate to turn on the fan above my head. I then had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl under the stainless steel counter suspended from the wall to plug in the other fan. I wiggled under there, balanced on the balls of my feet with my knees tucked to my chest, and used my left hand to hold on to the leg of the counter while I stretched my right hand as far as it could go under the table to plug in the fan.

And then time stood still.

I am vaguely aware of the noise that emanated from my body. It was definitely a cry of pain, but primal, deep and guttural, like no noise I have ever made before or since. It was almost like a roar.

I am keenly aware of what was going through my mind. My first thought was “I am being electrocuted.”

I sat there, huddled under the counter for what felt like a full minute, my left hand firmly gripping the stainless steel leg, my right hand still holding the plug, which was now engaged in the socket, completing the circuit that was allowing 110 volts of electricity to surge through my body.

It’s a funny thing about being electrocuted. Your lose control of your body, but your brain is still fully functional, and, devoid of other sensory information, your thoughts are extremely clear. So while your synapses are so stunned by the electricity they can’t obey your brain’s order to “Move your hand,” you are able to think in detail about what exactly is happening to you.

For what felt like an eternity, and which I’m sure was at least 60 seconds, I sat there, unable to react physically but thinking all the while to myself, “I am here, alone, and I am being electrocuted. Nobody is here to help me, and it could be a number of hours before anybody comes in to find my body. This is how I am going to die, alone in the kitchen of the Volcano.”

Finally, my body caught up with my brain, and simultaneously, I let go of the socket and fell back onto my back on the kitchen floor. I laid there for a few seconds, trying to catch my breath and slow my heart, repeating over and over again, “Jesus Christ. Jesus.”

I lay there a few seconds more, then turned my head to the left and looked out the door of the kitchen to see Larry, standing on the other side of the bar, watching me silently with his mouth slightly open.

I jumped to my feet, brushed myself off and ran out to the bar awkwardly.

“Hi, New,” Larry said flatly. New was the nickname he had given me when I first started working there, and he continued to call me that even after I held the most seniority at the bar.

“Larry,” I breathed with a sign of relief. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”