Learning Wit from the Local Masters and a Great Comedian

 

            Wit is a survival mechanism for a restaurant server.

Bartenders, waiters and waitress in New Hope and Lambertville develop it over time, since there are so many witty people around to learn from. Serving as a job demands you cater to raunchy strangers and ethereal friends alike, and the power dynamic is almost always on the side of the customer. That’s as it should be.

Still, it doesn’t prevent some patrons and even friends from acting like jerks or idiots when you’re such an easy target behind the bar or on the floor.

Wit is a way to strike back. It is like a whip you can snap at your unruly customers. It does harm only to inflated egos. It allows servers to get on an even footing with customers and permits them to go on doing what they’re doing and blow off steam at their low status.

As I found out, wit is not an easy thing to learn and is sometimes misused.

Once while working at John and Peter’s a drunk flicked a lit cigarette butt at me. It bounced off my chest and onto the floor, doing no harm but pissing me off. I picked up the butt and flicked it back at him, hitting him on the arm. He scowled at me and I scowled at him and he walked away. He didn’t want a piece of this nasty server.

It wasn’t much of a response on my part, and I knew I couldn’t survive as a server by dishing out what I go. I wish I had been able to come up with something witty to say, but I was new on the job, so anger tongue-tied me. That would change as I learned from some of the best in town.

A couple of drunks once accosted my beautiful, humorous and artsy friend Ruth Christopher. They inflicted on her a putrid request as she came to wait on them. Raven-haired and doe-eyed, Ruth was fun-loving and sweet, just so gorgeous, that guys often hit on her. They couldn’t help it.

She knew how to respond to jerks.

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks for a blow job,” that charming slob said, flashing a C-note while nearly falling off his seat.

Ruth didn’t blink.

“Oh, no thanks,” she said sweetly, in a childish sing-song voice. “I don’t need a blow job.”

And she walked away to applause.

The response became a time-honored response to many such jerks from many of the local waitresses. I heard it more than once.

Ruth passed away from an asthma attack nearly twenty years ago. I hope she’s using the riposte in heaven, should she encounter any drunken, horny angels with similar bad manners.

Of course, New Hope is a gay town with many gay servers. Their gayness sometimes makes them targets. The wit of gay men is well-known and an effective way to survive when confronted by the rude or idiotic, I was to learn.

Bobby was a gay legend in town who often worked as a server. He produced a couple of classics incidents worth relating, wisecracks I heard he had come up when dealing with some confused patrons.

“Hello, my name is Bobby. I’ll be your server today. Can I start you out with a drink?”

His customers were two elderly blue-haired ladies out for lunch at the Canal House.

One ordered immediately

“I’ll have a whiskey sour on the rocks.”

“And for you, madam?”

“Hmm, I think I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

“Certainly, a gin and tonic.”

“No, wait. Maybe I’ll have a whisky sour, too.”

“All right. Two whiskey sours for the ladies.”

The lady bit her lip.

“No, now wait. Maybe I will have a gin and tonic.”

“All right, a gin and tonic.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I should have a whiskey sour.”

“Would you like me to come back when you decide?”

“No, make it a gin and tonic.”

“All right. Is that final?”

“Yes, a gin and tonic.”

Bobby high-tailed it out of there before listening to another neurotic response. He put in the drink order and carried the drinks back to the table and set them down in their proper places.

“Oh, I know I said I wanted a gin and tonic, but could you make that into a whiskey sour?”

After all that, Bobby had the perfect response.

“Madam, I’m a fairy, not a magician.”

Shock and awe.

The somewhat decisive-phobic customer said she’d accept her hard-won gin and tonic.

Two gentlemen came out to lunch at the Canal House on another occasion and presented no such neurotic hesitations to Bobby as they ordered.

“I’ll take a shrimp cocktail and a Heineken.”

“I’ll have the same.”

Simple. Direct.

The kitchen made a mistake with the order.

Bobby carried the two shrimp cocktails and two Heinekens to the table and set them down.

Simple. Direct.

He was about to walk away and had turned his back.

“Eh, excuse me.”

He turned around.

“Yes, sir?”

“My shrimp cocktail has five shrimp and his has six. Why is that?”

Bobby picked up shrimp number six and tossed it into the canal.

“There. Now you both have five.”

Wit is good for use as a weapon, but when served up in a restaurant it can be acid-flavored or honeyed in taste and can either make the meal or flavor it with crow. Constant usage, as required behind the bar or on the floor, sharpens it and informs the user when to deploy it as sugar or a bitter poke. You never want it to be too crass.

I practiced and practiced, and thought I had mastered the rules of the game.

On a Saturday day shift at the Lambertville House, the hostess, a middle-aged local woman of heft and a kind heart, came back to my bar looking as though she had seen a ghost.

“A famous customer is coming back next to have a drink with you,” she said with wide eyes.

What was this announcement? And why is it needed?

“Does he have an appointment?”

That nonplussed her. It was cruel to confuse her. I relented from my jerky bartender witty act and softened my attitude.

“Who is it?”

“Danny Kaye. Be very nice to him. I love him. I love him so much.”

I loved Danny Kaye, too, as did most of America. He was a song-and-dance man, as well as a kind and clever comedian, in the movies of the 1930s and 1940s. He lit up the television, too, with his slapstick dance and mugging. He often managed to tug on the heart strings. He was and actor, novelty singer, dancer, quick wit and all-around beloved performer with whom no one had issues.

He died in 1987, just short of a decade after I met him.

Here’s Danny!

He was older when he made his appearance at the Lambertville House, in his early sixties, I think, but he still had that unmistakable joy and kindness etched over his being. He had blond wavy hair and was not a big man. Although he was moving in a somewhat tentative way, not at all like the humorous comedic whirlwind he had been in the movies, he still had his dancer’s grace.

And with him was one of the most beautiful young women I have ever seen.

With fine blond hair and large blue eyes, she had a shyness and charm that was unintentional, like a fawn. She seemed not to know how gorgeous she was. I looked at Danny Kaye in his sixties and her in her early twenties and I longed with all my heart to be a Hollywood movie star. My god, what a beauty she was, unassuming and not at all arrogant, and I immediately pegged her as an up-and-coming starlet.

“May we sit?” Danny Kaye asked as I gawked. He waved his hand at the barstools.

“Oh, course, Mr. Kaye. It’s a pleasure. What can I get you?”

I stared again at the young beauty, as out-of-control as an adolescent. I could not help it. I hoped she was his daughter or a friend, although I still don’t know what their relationship was to this day. Danny Kaye was married and she was as light as air and at least forty years younger than he was.

He kindly pulled out the barstool for her, and her delicate exquisiteness settled onto the seat like an angel into a painting. Mr. Kaye sat beside her with some difficulty.

“What would you like, dear?” he asked her.

“Oh, I don’t know. Just a chardonnay.”

It was almost as though she was apologizing for asking. So she was sweet, too. She blinked at me as though I might hurt her for asking for the white wine, so I turned to the wonderful comedian.

“And you, Mr. Kaye?”

“I will have a Bloody Mary, but make it very, very mild. Just very, very mild, with almost no spice. Just very mild. I would like it very, very mild, you see? Can you do that for me? I have such a very, very sensitive stomach. Please, very, very mild.”

“Yes, sir. A Bloody Mary, sir, very mild, and a chardonnay for the young lady.”

I almost bite my tongue for using the word “young,” in case he was sensitive to the age difference.

I stole a sidelong glance at her before moving off to make the drinks, again playing the idiot schoolboy. My heart was palpitating from the adrenaline she inspired in me.

Per Danny Kaye’s instructions, I made his Bloody Mary very, very mild, using only tomato juice and vodka and garnished it with a celery stick. I didn’t even squeeze a lemon in it. It was very, very mild. I poured her cold chardonnay, thinking I was pouring the wine for a woman who would one day be a screen goddess, unless she fell madly in love with me and decided to stay in New Hope.

I gave them their drinks and stepped back while Danny Kaye hesitated before trying my very, very, very mild Bloody Mary.

“Did you make it very, very mild? I have a very sensitive stomach, you see. I need it to be very, very mild.”

Why was he treating me like an idiot? I had made the damn drink very, very, very mild. He made me feel dumb, which I deserved, I suppose. I was still a little too sensitive to my low station in life, though, somewhat insecure and an emotional bumbler.

“Yes, sir. It’s very, very mild.”

Finally trusting me, he sipped on it through the straw and sighed and smiled.

“A-aah, perfect. Wonderful. You have the hands of a surgeon, sir.”

Still a little miffed at being treated like an idiot, which I was, I made the worst joke I have ever made, to Danny Kaye no less, a great comedian. I would like to nominate it now as the world’s worst joke ever.

“Well, that’s funny,” I said. “That’s the job I had before this one.”

To my surprise, he took me seriously. A grave look of concern passed over him. He was impressed and troubled that I had once been a surgeon and had lost my position. How had this foul change of fortunes come about? He wanted to know.

“My goodness, what happened?”

“Well, I forgot to sharpen the axe for a patient and he complained.”

Danny Kaye understood immediately what a lunkhead I was being. His look of concern changed to one of droll indifference.

“You see, everybody wants to be a comedian,” he said, turning to the beauty beside him and rolling his eyes.

I understood my faux pas. I was embarrassed that I had attempted such a despicable trick on one of the most popular and beloved comedians of all time: I hadn’t learned my lessons in wit well. I winced and turned away. I liked and respected the man and I had played that goofy joke on him.

“I’ll let you enjoy your drinks.”

Danny Kaye was keen to my distress. He saw how repentant and sorry I was. I was blushing with embarrassment at my idiotic attempt to be witty.

“No, no, stay a moment and talk to us. Stay. What is your name?”

I was not used to such kindness behind the bar, and often felt more like a target. We chit-chatted for a while, with me much relieved at his forgiveness. Danny Kaye was as kind and funny as always as we talked, including me in the badinage. I don’t recall what we spoke about, but it was just small talk and nothing of importance. I didn’t dare try to display my “wit” again. I could see he was having trouble relating to the young beauty beside him and perhaps needed me to make the situation more comfortable, which is something a good bartender will do. I obliged him with volumes of non-toxic small talk about the towns of Lambertville and New Hope and what he might want to see and do while here.

He and his lovely date departed and the Saturday rush began.

So that was the day Danny Kaye acted as a straight man and foil and teacher for me to sharpen and refine my wit.

I’m just sorry I had to be such a jackass while learning the lesson.