Art was a Big Part of the Experience

by Annette LaSelle

Poring over the jobs posted on the bulletin board in the basement post office of the College of St. Catherine, we three girlfriends were intently narrowing our choices for this year’s lark, which was currently masquerading as a proper summer job. We spent some time with the finalists. The winner was declared when we agreed that this job, of all the offerings posted, had the greatest potential for juiciness and that it was, as an added benefit, the furthest away from home and therefore the least likely to tell tales.

Last summer’s choice had been a beaut. We had gotten ourselves all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to Bad Salzhausen, Germany. There we worked as kitchen/chamber maids at a Kriegsblinden Kurheim for about a month, while we simultaneously hung out with the United States army stationed nearby. We were supposed to have a longer working assignment than a measly month but, since we were supposed to have a working knowledge of German too, Frau Hindenburg decided she had no more need to keep her side of the bargain than we had, apparently, felt the need to keep ours.

We could have pulled it off, as we really did know enough German to fake it, but Jean took an instant dislike to the oh-so-important Frau and refused to speak a solitary word in German. Frau would rattle off Jean’s chores for the day, in German, and Jean would smirk while she was receiving them and when Frau finished, Jean would shrug her shoulders and, in perfect smart ass English, retort, “I can’t understand you”.

So, as punishment for screwing up, we got fired which awarded us a free forty-five days to tour all around Europe doing exactly as we pleased. Well, not exactly as we pleased because thirty days worth of maids’ wages don’t have much stretch. Being of sound mind and duplicitous ways, we invented a tale of woe about working for Simon Legree who threw us out into the snow broke and hungry and using that as fodder, wired home for money through American Express.

That worked admirably because what kind of parents would let their children wander around Europe penniless and forlorn when they really wanted them to be savoring the European experience, or so they said. I think their idea of the European experience meant a lot more museums and cathedrals than it did to us. And, I am quite sure it did not include the hippie march in Amsterdam protesting the police crackdown on flower children sleeping in all the public parks and squares. Only time I was nearly trampled to death (writing that I am certain that the vast majority of the population has never come close to experiencing death by trampling). Running away from the Billy club wielding cops, one of my shoes came off and I was intent on rescuing it before I realized that would be suicidal. It worked out okay though because, before we ever got away, the other shoe fell off and also got lost in the melee saving me from the dilemma of wondering what to do with only one shoe.

The two penalties imposed from our European lark were that a) we came home not only broke but in debt, and had a very hard time scrounging up enough money to keep us in cigarettes much less invest in the stylish new pointed toe shoes that were all the fashion that school year and b) we had been told that whatever summer job came next we needed to be able to assure our parents that we would make enough dough to tide us through the long nine month school year ahead of us.

So, between our junior and senior years at the College of St. Catherine, two girlfriends and I applied for, and got, summer jobs promising lucrative tips working as waitresses/barmaids at Ballard’s Inn on Block Island, Rhode Island. Applicants were required to have prior experience as a waitress in a “fine dining establishment” and to be at least 21 years’ old, the legal age to both drink and serve liquor.

As to those requirements, we met neither. We were all 20 years’ old and none of us had done anything more than set the table in our respective homes. Without a single guilty thought, however, we checked the required boxes attesting to our being at least 21 years’ old and having prior “fine dining” waitress experience. Apparently attending a religious school does not in and of itself create a conscience that sharply gets in the way of intentionally lying on a job application.

Armed with my black and white waitress uniforms and my new “nurse’s” shoes, that were too tight and gave me crippling blisters, a couple of swimsuits and my mesh brush rollers,

I arrived on the island via the Block Island Ferry.  I remember nothing about the ferry ride except that I spent the entire time in a stall in the ladies’ room puking.  I don’t know how I forgot to dutifully pop Dramamine before setting out as I have a long history of turning green and urpy while the boat is still tied up at the dock, long before the rocking and rolling has really begun.

First stop was checking in at Ballard’s where I was given directions to the “employee hotel” where all of us 21-year-old–professional-wait-people would be staying.  Walking up the street to the hotel I wondered why on earth a hotel would be devoted to employees who would be staying there for free instead of being rented out to all the summer visitors soon to arrive.   When I found the building and realized it was missing its front door I got a clearer picture.  Calling that hotel a dive would be besmirching dives.  The hallway bathrooms were so disgusting we used them without turning on the lights so that we could imagine them as something other than the slimy, mildewed, filthy places they were.  For all of our disgust, none of us ever cleaned them.  We must have decided that the bathrooms were part of the experience.

Our first night in the employee hotel (that we dubbed Eureka) the three of us, who had joined up over the course of the day, huddled together in a single bed in the furthest bedroom of the two adjoining bedrooms we had commandeered, attempting to remain calm as the obnoxiously drunken cooks, who roomed across the hall, kept hammering on our door, threatening to break it down if we didn’t let them in.  I can’t remember which one of the three of us brought a Swiss Army knife but it was the three of us, and that precious knife, tucked in together that night.

The next day, on the QT, one of the friends sneaked off, found a phone and got a different job back home at a respectable business far away from the lunatic cooks.  She was gone so fast I don’t remember even seeing her on what should have been her first full day of our summer adventure.  So now we were two.

It is that summer lark that cemented my friendship with my best friend, Stevie.  We were the two remaining and that made sense because we were also the two derring do’s. The entire summer was just a rollercoaster.  I know I have never laughed so hard and so long and I know that I have never experienced more bouts of pure panic thinking “now you have gone and done it, girlie.  You have finally bitten off more than you can chew.  You’ll be lucky to get out of this alive.”   If this job had been selected for its potential juiciness we had unwittingly picked the gold standard.

The paid employees at Ballard’s Inn were such nut cases that we hardly blinked an eye at the yacht owner clientele and their debauched ways.  We were actually instructed to make no sign that we doubted it when this or that yacht owner brought in a different blonder, thinner Barbie type every night and introduced each and every one as his wife.  He stopped there, “I would like you to meet my wife”.  Never went so far as to name the “wives”, of course, not because he thought we might be confused by the different names, but more because he had no earthly idea what their names were.

One of the prime examples of the mental stability of the college students that we rubbed shoulders with at this summer job was another 20 year old unqualified waitress living in our employee hotel who painted her apparently not depressing enough already room black.  Ceiling, walls, floor and windows.  She took out all the furniture and slept on a pallet on the floor.  The rest of our ensemble cast all commented on what a cool idea that was because we didn’t want to rile her in any way.  Anyone that unbalanced needed a lot of soothing – not to mention space.

But of the lot of good characters, the best by far was the maitre d’, Art.  We were instructed to call him Arthur out of respect for his position. You know, saying something like that to college kids just invites trouble. Arthur in his threadbare black tux, with his shaved head, huge meaty hands, possibly unable to smile because he certainly never once did the entire summer; ran the place, and you knew it was definitely in your best interest to keep him on your good side.

Loretta, the only waitress on staff who actually fit the stated hiring requirements, had worked at Ballard’s every summer for years and years, told us after a few drinks one night that Art was on parole and in the custody of the owner of Ballard’s.  She made us swear never to repeat the story.  She, in very hushed tones, told us that he had strangled a child to death.  We all believed that.  Arthur, (whom we always referred to as Art out of his earshot simply because we had been instructed not to) we were positive, was perfectly capable of such a black-hearted criminal act.  Of course, none of us knew if the story was true or not, but we certainly acted as though it was.  Every time Art turned his back, someone would mimic a stranglehold and we would all turn blue from trying not to laugh out loud.

With graduation about to finish off our college days, and real jobs staring us in the face, Art, the homicidal maitre d’, comprised a fitting ending to the last of our infamous summer jobs. Although a lot of summers have come and gone, and a lot of summers have come close, I don’t think any have matched the juicy year that Stevie and I showcased as 21-year-old-professional-waitresses at Ballard’s Inn on Block Island.

We continue to look for escapades that could compete however and need to thank the one who proved to us that there is no end to the number of bizarre adventures out there waiting just around the bend.  Just when you think that your life has become nothing but a yawner, along comes Art to prove that really and truly and thankfully, there is no quota on bizarre.  Be sure to stock up.

Filed under Monthly Topic, Stories | Comment (1)