Monkey Suits by Jim Provenzano Read Free Book Online

jeweler’s town house, okay, and they hired these carpenters to make a huge hut on the penthouse porch, which was four times the size of my apartment. They had this special holy wine for rabbis only. We goyim couldn’t even touch the bottles, just the cheap stuff for dinner. ’Course all the women sit on their side and the women staff serve them, and all the Moishes are doin’ their thing under the Matsoh Hut, and then,” he grunted a hoarse laugh. “It starts raining, and we’re pouring wine with the rain pouring down even faster, the glasses filling with as much water as wine, and these guys are gabbin’ away in Hebrew while our tuxes are getting completely soaked.”

    “Didn’t they go inside?”

    “No, that’s what they do, stand under a thatched roof. It was wild.” He shook his head. “My jacket was ruined, plus they stiffed us for an extra hour, so a couple of us snuck into the back room of the kitchen wine closet and rubbed our dirty fegelah spit all over their precious vino collection.” Rick finished buttoning his shirt with a haughty satisfaction.

    The room was silent a moment.

    “Are they feeding us?” Lee asked.

    “Probably,” Rick said.

    “I hope it’s not kosher,” the redhead said.

    “You got some-tink against kosh-ah?” Rick packed his street clothes in his bag.

    “Have you ever done a Bar Mitzvah?” Marcos asked Lee.

    “No.”

    “It’s quite a bit different than our Upper East Side cocktail gigs,” he said while adjusting his bow tie. “Sometimes those with the money are not necessarily those with the taste.”

    The chubby redhead looked at Marcos as if slighted. Although a few of the waiters in the room had worked for established Manhattan companies, others less handsome and thin would have had a hard time getting into Fabulous’ restrictive ranks. Marcos considered such trips to Long Island akin to slumming. For the same pay, they were asked to work in a comparatively crass style. What was sacrilege in Manhattan was common practice in “the ’burbs.”

    It was at such parties that Lee began to notice why Fabulous had become so popular with the East Side elite. He’d noticed the proof of a theorem: the worse the food, the more ostentatious the display in serving it.

    “Hot dogs?” Marcos cringed as he spied the trays loaded with what he barely recognized as hors d’oeuvres. He and the other waiters hovered over the counter in the hot crowded kitchen. The garnish for each tray sprouted at all angles, a gaudy combination of purple lettuce, tropical flowers, and paper umbrellas.

    “Mini-dogs,” Sid Klein corrected as he fiddled with rearranging the tiny sausages. A hands-on boss, Sid owned Catered Affairs, a small company that worked many other Bar- and Bat-Mitzvahs in the area. A portly balding man with a bit of a temper, he was nevertheless friendly and made sure all his waiters were paid in cash, including tips.

    “They’re like wiener winks,” Lee said.

    “What?” Marcos asked.

    “Didn’t you ever have wiener winks in high school?”

    “Maybe in the boy’s room.”

    As they entered the hall of the Jewish Center, Lee quickly learned that he had a decision to make; either hold the tray low and let the food disappear under the fitful hands of giggling children, or play the snob and hold the tray high for the adults. He preferred the children, who never asked about the contents, but just consumed. Upon returning to the kitchen for the third time in ten minutes, Sid cried, “Whaddaya doin’? Feedin’ the dogs?”

    “The kids are hungry,” he shrugged while Sid refilled his tray. Lee gazed over the counter at a busy blond cook. His broad face looked Russian or Polish, his body sturdy and robust.

    “Quite a piece of work, huh?” Rick elbowed Lee, who nodded consent. “He just escaped from Estonia.”

    “Really?”

    “Yeah, I talked to him before.” Rick nodded a greeting to the cook, whose face shined from the oven heat. “Slavic.