I went into the private dining room and sat down in front of the chef and the general manager. The seat was hot. I had been here before but this time neither of them looked sad at all. This was a mercy killing. The GM in particular royally hated my guts. I could see the glee in her eyes. The chef, who had some empathy, disliked me and it was obvious he had done this many times before. I’ve had to fire people, and after a time, the soul becomes calloused. But it’s an interesting thing because you’re changing the course of the person’s life, usually for the better. Yeah, there’s a reason the person you’re firing is disgruntled or doesn’t care. They should be somewhere else and by giving them the heave ho you’re simply applying the boot to an ass that should have done it themselves long ago.

In this case, however, I screwed up and posted something on instagram I shouldn’t have. I was new to it and had a handful of followers, but this was just a good excuse for the sack. I had raised a stink about us waiters having to go into the basement to do our silverware roll ups. The dust and the long row of boilers down there had caused me some discomfort and I had pestered the management about buying a carbon monoxide detector, also, I had refused to go down there until I knew the air was clean.

There was also the matter of the chef’s wife. She hung around the restaurant quite a bit and the two of us hit it off. I could feel him watching us some nights. We were just buddies but still, you see some slacker type chatting it up with your life partner and the fires of hatred begin to stoke up. You add the stress of service and life and eventually only one thing will help to cool you down.

I went a month without working. I used the time to write a shitty screenplay about a hockey player whose brain damage is so bad, he has to retire and start working in a restaurant kitchen. Hey, maybe there’s still some potential there.

I lived in the Marina and went for long walks with my dog every morning to the beach and then sat at this nice, warm library in my apartment complex to write. Not a bad life. One afternoon, the phone rang, an LA number. I picked it up. It was the director of operations for the Rustic Canyon group.

“Hi Justin. Still unemployed.”

“Yeah.”

“We need a bartender at Rustic Canyon.”

“Ok.”

I had to go through the formality of an interview and so arrived as well dressed as possible. A hot blonde opened the door for me. Floral dress. Heels. The aroma of seduction and sacrifice encircling her, swirling into my sense like an invisible potion. Green eyes like the cauldrons churning in the very stars of the heavens. I followed her to a table where four people awaited me. The current GM, the AGM, the bar manager, and Chef Jeremy Fox.

“So, tell us a little about why you want to work here.”

Once you’ve been fired and you’re desperate, you’ll say anything. Trust me. This was the lowest I’d been for quite some time. Something inside me had changed. I was a grovel, a louse, a man trying to rise from the ashes of his bad choices. What the hell was I even doing in LA in the first place? Boston was great. I had friends, a good job, and I loved the place. LA was this weird spread out abomination where I was certain the eventual apocalypse would start. Parts of it already looked that way. Most of it was ugly, but the beach, ah, the beach, the sun, the light. I soaked it all in and for the second time in my life there would be no snow, no ice, no cold engines, no cold toes, no scraping the windshield, shoveling the walk, or looking out into the nightmare of winter through a frosty pane.

At what cost? We all give something to this place in order to go about our days in the relative solace of the sun and the swaying palms. Maybe LA is hell and we go willingly to our dooms in order to not experience the biting cold. Maybe Dante was wrong and heaven is cold and unwilling whereas hell is warm and inviting. Nothing thrives in the cold, everything proliferates in the heat and swelter.

I said all the right things in front of my board of interviewers. It felt more like a parole hearing. The bar manager distrusted me but a dude over at my former employer vouched in my name. The most interesting part of the “interview” was the chef himself who said very little but perked up when I spoke about having been a former line cook and chef and having to transition to serving while living in New York just to be able to pay my rent. For the rest of the time while I sat, he stared at the table. He and I were the same age. He, the owner and famous chef, and I this lost ship from the northeast with no solid destination.

An odd time in my life for sure. Later that week, part of my bar training was to accompany the other bar manager, The Ranfer, down to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market in the morning. I arrived at Rustic, punched in, he introduced himself, and then we said nothing to one another while he drove. It seemed as if he didn’t want me there, in fact, I caught that same shruggy vibe from the whole staff in general. They all thought I was some sort of spy sent from the director of operations. A rat placed there to snitch them all out. And for what? I have no idea.

At the time, Rustic was way up in Jonathon Gold’s top 101 list. Number five to be exact. We were busy, we made money. I was learning something new and foreign. At the time I barely even drank, which to the others was more reason to not want me there. I had no concept of what a cocktail even was. The Ranfer’s stuff tasted great to me, but mixed drinks weren’t something on my radar. Even back then, Rustic was the only place offering a seasonal drink menu alongside the same ideal for food. As little waste as possible was still a thing.

I worked three days behind the bar and one on the floor. Life got better financially. I remained the same. I took my morning walks with my dog, Clyde, to the pier and along the beach when the cops weren’t looking. I went to my jiu jitsu classes religiously. Every so often I went on a little vacation somewhere. I stopped writing for a long time. It was a time of reflection, a sort of pupae stage for what was coming.

All the while, I thought at any minute I could receive the axe again even though I did nothing to deserve it. Such is the paranoia you live with when you’ve been shitcanned enough times. The final straw, the most memorable blow had been so much on my psyche, especially after coming so far away from home, that it had changed my personality. Also, an adjustment had to be made in order to fit into Los Angeles. People out here were more sensitive, they didn’t work as hard, things were more mellow.

To be continued…