Regardless of the futility of the color, he looked professional and commandeering. As he stood close to the hostess stand in front of the entrance, the lavender light of the setting sun peeped in with every shift of the mahogany front doors. It saturated the wonderful floors and turned them a sinister black with shadow. This is the violet hour, thought Carlos to himself as he continued to show his perfectly white, broad teeth. This is the hour in which I make my sales. The drone of the machine dining room was muted in Carlos’ mind. His eyelids produced a thin slit in order to focus on all of his customers dining on all of their favorite foods. This is how it should be in the violet hour.
As if in a tunnel, he rounded the dining room in a thorough donut shape and made his way back to the hostess stand. He walked with the ease of a manager, the ease of a proprietor with a functioning, lucrative business; his hands perched folded on his lower back and his nose slightly elevated. With an intense whoosh the racket of the room came back to his ears with extra verve and someone tapped him on the back and asked, “Carlos… I fucked up. Can you come void this chicken parm for me? Lady says she ordered a veal parm – I dunno. I swear to god I heard her say ‘chicken parmesean.’”
It was Devin. One of his best servers, but he had bad nights, he got too busy, just like all of them. He, with an almost inorganic hand, waved his swipe card in the slot beneath the computer screen and voided the chicken parmesean. His response? “Don’t let it happen again.”
“Yes, sir.”
He saw Ray – his manager – expediently work at the exhibition kitchen: a perfect sight of spotless stainless steel and millinered in white kitchen staff – hiding their pomodoro stains. Meals flew out onto the expedition area, a quick dust of green parsley to put off the overpowering red of the eggplant parmesean, and out it went, to table twenty-three, to table sixty-five, to table one-oh-one. Then the quick wipe down of the perfectly manicured steel, and the next order ensued. Yes, this is my restaurant.
This was when the bartenders were most busy. Orders came through little black sachets, connected into the entire computer system. Their noises were endless: the err err err of the printer, and then a low-pitched beep, and then the heavy no-slip shoes of a bartender scampering over to fullfil his duty. One of the bartenders, dressed in all black, mixed the cocktail, poured the wine, blended the specialty drink in a nuance of oranges, pinks, whites, and yellows and carefully pushed the drink out into the well. A server braced it and carried it away, it contents to be enjoyed by a patron. Like a beautiful machine at my disposal, mused Carlos. But it was when they were this busy that Carlos might take a check – written by whom, no one knows – slip into th bar area and cash it out without the greedy little eyes of the bartenders. A tiny clink of the coin drawer as he opened the bill drawer with it would be the only sign of any foul play.
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