3 July 2007
The first year that I was at UCLA I worked the night shift at Sambo’s coffee shop three times a week. Sambo’s was a chain named after the story of Little Black Sambo and the restaurant had, at one time, been decorated with scenes from the story, showing Little Black Sambo losing his pants to the tigers. By the late Sixties the Sambo’s management belatedly realised that the black community found this character offensive and replaced him with an a Little Black Sambo from India. You knew he was Indian because he had a little turban in the new depictions now decorating the restaurant. This, as they discovered, wasn’t considered much of an improvement but, before they had a chance to replace him with a Little WASP Sambo, the chain had all but folded.
My boss talked me into taking the night shift by saying I would get more tips because I would be the only waitress on, and because I would have a chance to study when the place wasn’t busy. Neither of these turned out to be true. At night the place filled up with deadbeats and drunks who never tipped. And they also caused an awful lot of trouble.
I worked night shift with Andres the Mexican chef. He was no more than eighteen I figured, with liquid brown eyes that looked away shyly whenever you met them. He couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak Spanish, so I had to just hope he could decipher my erratic writing on the orders, written in the restaurant code I had to learn before I was allowed to fly solo out there among the customers: CHB for cheeseburger. BL Cak n/c for Blueberry Pancakes, no whipped cream, BC spt, for bad customer, spit in food. (Okay I made that last one up.)
During the rare slack periods, we would entertain each other by picking up items and telling the other their Spanish or English word. I suppose it would be a very efficient way of learning a language if all you needed were nouns like plate, coffee, toast, customer, food and spit.
The drunks and deadbeats flooded in just after two a.m. when the bars closed. They tended to be ugly and fairly vile, and I was young and not unattractive. Their unwelcome and drunken advances made me embarrassed and uncomfortable, but in those days there was no such thing as sexual harassment. Women were, in all circumstances, supposed to find it flattering. Yes, really.
Andres was fairly good at recognising when I was being harassed and was a naturally chivalrous soul. If anyone touched me in any way, Andres would be on the spot in five seconds with his cart and start bussing the table. No matter how much the customer might insist that he hadn’t yet finished even half of his Sambo’s Ranch Breakfast, Andres would continue to bus it all away saying, “Sorry no English! No English!” He was my hero.
And then one night, inexplicably, a whole busload of customers came in at once! There were only the two of us on and it was a nightmare. I ran around like a lunatic, menus tucked under my arm, carrying trays of water to each table and then bringing the coffee pot around before taking so many breakfast orders I was tempted to ask them to order from the lunch menu instead.
In the midst of this, two customers who had been there all night drinking coffee began to assail me every time I went by.
“Miss! Can we have some water?”
I was trying to get coffee, water and food to each table, once slipping on some spilled water I hadn’t had time to clear up and managing to skid on my knees still holding the full tray of waters without losing a single one! But still they assailed me each time I passed.
“Miss! Can we have some water!”
Never “please”. I did notice the distinct lack of “please”.
I kept putting them off, explaining that I had to prioritise the new customers but they never let up.
“Miss! Can we have some water!!” The tone almost threatening now.
I was carrying an empty tray that I’d just used to hand out waters. The spillage from the glasses was still sloshing around on the tray.
“Miss! Can we have some water!!!”
So I gave them water. I tipped the tray over into their glasses, most of it hitting the table.
But I didn’t lose my job over it. Because Andres and I quickly realised that Night Shift was a kind of No Man’s Land. We could get away with almost anything. There was no boss there and by the time he came in the next morning, these guys would most likely be sleeping it off somewhere..
Two guys came in a few nights later. I poured them some coffee and one of them watched me pour it as if I was stripping off. As I walked away I him say to his friend, “Watch me pick up on this chick!” And I heard them make a bet of a dollar that he could pick me up.
When I brought their orders the guy reached out to grab my ass. I instinctively blanched. But then I realised. This is No Man’s Land. So I wheeled around, teeth clenched.
“You touch me, you’ll be singing in a high voice, mister!”
His friend started to laugh at him and he put his hand back where it belonged. I put their food down.
“Looks like you lost your bet,” I said.
As I started to walk away I heard his friend laughing and the guy saying, “Hey I don’t need that frigid bitch! I buy my chicks a dime a dozen!”
I turned back, finding in myself a voice I’d never heard before. “You gotta buy it honey, ‘cause you can’t get it free!”
I stalked off, victorious. And from that night I resolved not to be the delicate flower that Andres had to protect with his, “No English! No English!”
First, I though, I needed to equip myself with a husband. Not a real one, of course; a fictional one. I decided on a policeman. When I got the predictable, “What are you doing after work?” I would tell them about how my policeman husband was going to be picking me up after his night shift. This usually worked. But it did not deter Randy.
Randy was a regular. He wore sunglasses indoors and had a pockmarked face and greasy hair. He would only ever have coffee and he would hunch over his cup and watch me work. It was extremely unnerving. With Randy I really had to invent a policeman husband who was going to be picking me up after his firearms practice before he went to the gym to do his weight training. But Randy was undeterred.
When I came to fill up his coffee cup he beckoned me closer to his face, but I wasn’t to be beckoned. Finally he put his hand on my arm and said, conspiratorially, “Listen, if you ever decide to go out on your old man, I am the world’s best cunnilingus artist.” This time I didn’t blanch. I laughed.
“You better be good at something, honey, ‘cause you ain’t got the looks!” I pulled my arm away and left him to stew, pointedly bringing him his check even though he hadn’t asked for it.
Randy came to the cash register and paid and, as I gave him his change he moved in closer and said, “Why don’t we play Chair? I squat down and you sit on my face?” I fixed his gaze.
“Why don’t we play Scream. You squat down and I kick you in the balls?”
Now I know there are some strange men out there, but I have never personally met one who finds the idea of being kicked in the balls sexy. Randy went off and never came back to my restaurant again. I had won.
A few years later, I had decided I wanted to be a playwright, which I know was a daft idea, but with a passion only youth can provide, I seized on my dream with both hands.
When a playscript of mine accidentally fell into the hands of the director of the National Playwrights Company in LA, a play reading workshop which was an offshoot of the almost iconic Lee Strasberg Institute, he had no idea why or how he’d got it (and neither had I). He phoned me to ask if it had been sent in support of an application to join the workshop. Now, only established writers were supposed to be able to apply, but I said yes, absolutely, that is why it had been sent. A few weeks later the workshop accepted me, and I found that I was the youngest member of the prestigious group. No one ever realised I didn’t belong there.
None of the members went to the play readings for the plays, I discovered. Anyway, most of them seemed to be written by middle-aged male writers, and were about middle-aged male writers who realised they had betrayed their huge talent for the filthy lucre of Hollywood. No, they were there for the networking. They were there to get work.
One night I was approached by a fairly droopy looking old man. Okay he was only in his fifties, which is the age I am now, but it seemed very old to me when I was twenty-one. He drooled with a dry mouth, the way only horny old men can drool, and told me about how he was a writer and producer of a long-running but crap TV series. I thought, my God, if I were a writer and producer on that series, I’d go to the Bahamas and change my name before setting foot in Hollywood again, but it was obvious I was expected to be awed.
“So, are you an actress?” he asked.
“No I’m a writer,” I replied.
He did that dry drool thing. “Well. I didn’t know they let playwrights be so pretty!”
I smiled sweetly. “I didn’t know they let writers be so old.”
It made him angry and did me no favours, of course, but it was an old habit that I couldn’t break and I realised I didn’t want to. I don’t get hit on much nowadays (though, when I do, it is still drunk men over fifty!). But I learned not to be a pussycat but a firecat. To not be intimidated. To fight fiercely for my integrity. To play by the rules of my own game.
Which is probably why I have been a failure most of my life. But I’ve been a very principled one.
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The first year that I was at UCLA I worked the night shift at Sambo’s coffee shop three times a week. Sambo’s was a chain named after the story of Little Black Sambo and the restaurant had, at one time, been decorated with scenes from the story, showing Little Black Sambo losing his pants to the tigers. By the late Sixties the Sambo’s management belatedly realised that the black community found this character offensive and replaced him with an a Little Black Sambo from India. You knew he was Indian because he had a little turban in the new depictions now decorating the restaurant. This, as they discovered, wasn’t considered much of an improvement but, before they had a chance to replace him with a Little WASP Sambo, the chain had all but folded.
My boss talked me into taking the night shift by saying I would get more tips because I would be the only waitress on, and because I would have a chance to study when the place wasn’t busy. Neither of these turned out to be true. At night the place filled up with deadbeats and drunks who never tipped. And they also caused an awful lot of trouble.
I worked night shift with Andres the Mexican chef. He was no more than eighteen I figured, with liquid brown eyes that looked away shyly whenever you met them. He couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak Spanish, so I had to just hope he could decipher my erratic writing on the orders, written in the restaurant code I had to learn before I was allowed to fly solo out there among the customers: CHB for cheeseburger. BL Cak n/c for Blueberry Pancakes, no whipped cream, BC spt, for bad customer, spit in food. (Okay I made that last one up.)
During the rare slack periods, we would entertain each other by picking up items and telling the other their Spanish or English word. I suppose it would be a very efficient way of learning a language if all you needed were nouns like plate, coffee, toast, customer, food and spit.
The drunks and deadbeats flooded in just after two a.m. when the bars closed. They tended to be ugly and fairly vile, and I was young and not unattractive. Their unwelcome and drunken advances made me embarrassed and uncomfortable, but in those days there was no such thing as sexual harassment. Women were, in all circumstances, supposed to find it flattering. Yes, really.
Andres was fairly good at recognising when I was being harassed and was a naturally chivalrous soul. If anyone touched me in any way, Andres would be on the spot in five seconds with his cart and start bussing the table. No matter how much the customer might insist that he hadn’t yet finished even half of his Sambo’s Ranch Breakfast, Andres would continue to bus it all away saying, “Sorry no English! No English!” He was my hero.
And then one night, inexplicably, a whole busload of customers came in at once! There were only the two of us on and it was a nightmare. I ran around like a lunatic, menus tucked under my arm, carrying trays of water to each table and then bringing the coffee pot around before taking so many breakfast orders I was tempted to ask them to order from the lunch menu instead.
In the midst of this, two customers who had been there all night drinking coffee began to assail me every time I went by.
“Miss! Can we have some water?”
I was trying to get coffee, water and food to each table, once slipping on some spilled water I hadn’t had time to clear up and managing to skid on my knees still holding the full tray of waters without losing a single one! But still they assailed me each time I passed.
“Miss! Can we have some water!”
Never “please”. I did notice the distinct lack of “please”.
I kept putting them off, explaining that I had to prioritise the new customers but they never let up.
“Miss! Can we have some water!!” The tone almost threatening now.
I was carrying an empty tray that I’d just used to hand out waters. The spillage from the glasses was still sloshing around on the tray.
“Miss! Can we have some water!!!”
So I gave them water. I tipped the tray over into their glasses, most of it hitting the table.
But I didn’t lose my job over it. Because Andres and I quickly realised that Night Shift was a kind of No Man’s Land. We could get away with almost anything. There was no boss there and by the time he came in the next morning, these guys would most likely be sleeping it off somewhere..
Two guys came in a few nights later. I poured them some coffee and one of them watched me pour it as if I was stripping off. As I walked away I him say to his friend, “Watch me pick up on this chick!” And I heard them make a bet of a dollar that he could pick me up.
When I brought their orders the guy reached out to grab my ass. I instinctively blanched. But then I realised. This is No Man’s Land. So I wheeled around, teeth clenched.
“You touch me, you’ll be singing in a high voice, mister!”
His friend started to laugh at him and he put his hand back where it belonged. I put their food down.
“Looks like you lost your bet,” I said.
As I started to walk away I heard his friend laughing and the guy saying, “Hey I don’t need that frigid bitch! I buy my chicks a dime a dozen!”
I turned back, finding in myself a voice I’d never heard before. “You gotta buy it honey, ‘cause you can’t get it free!”
I stalked off, victorious. And from that night I resolved not to be the delicate flower that Andres had to protect with his, “No English! No English!”
First, I though, I needed to equip myself with a husband. Not a real one, of course; a fictional one. I decided on a policeman. When I got the predictable, “What are you doing after work?” I would tell them about how my policeman husband was going to be picking me up after his night shift. This usually worked. But it did not deter Randy.
Randy was a regular. He wore sunglasses indoors and had a pockmarked face and greasy hair. He would only ever have coffee and he would hunch over his cup and watch me work. It was extremely unnerving. With Randy I really had to invent a policeman husband who was going to be picking me up after his firearms practice before he went to the gym to do his weight training. But Randy was undeterred.
When I came to fill up his coffee cup he beckoned me closer to his face, but I wasn’t to be beckoned. Finally he put his hand on my arm and said, conspiratorially, “Listen, if you ever decide to go out on your old man, I am the world’s best cunnilingus artist.” This time I didn’t blanch. I laughed.
“You better be good at something, honey, ‘cause you ain’t got the looks!” I pulled my arm away and left him to stew, pointedly bringing him his check even though he hadn’t asked for it.
Randy came to the cash register and paid and, as I gave him his change he moved in closer and said, “Why don’t we play Chair? I squat down and you sit on my face?” I fixed his gaze.
“Why don’t we play Scream. You squat down and I kick you in the balls?”
Now I know there are some strange men out there, but I have never personally met one who finds the idea of being kicked in the balls sexy. Randy went off and never came back to my restaurant again. I had won.
A few years later, I had decided I wanted to be a playwright, which I know was a daft idea, but with a passion only youth can provide, I seized on my dream with both hands.
When a playscript of mine accidentally fell into the hands of the director of the National Playwrights Company in LA, a play reading workshop which was an offshoot of the almost iconic Lee Strasberg Institute, he had no idea why or how he’d got it (and neither had I). He phoned me to ask if it had been sent in support of an application to join the workshop. Now, only established writers were supposed to be able to apply, but I said yes, absolutely, that is why it had been sent. A few weeks later the workshop accepted me, and I found that I was the youngest member of the prestigious group. No one ever realised I didn’t belong there.
None of the members went to the play readings for the plays, I discovered. Anyway, most of them seemed to be written by middle-aged male writers, and were about middle-aged male writers who realised they had betrayed their huge talent for the filthy lucre of Hollywood. No, they were there for the networking. They were there to get work.
One night I was approached by a fairly droopy looking old man. Okay he was only in his fifties, which is the age I am now, but it seemed very old to me when I was twenty-one. He drooled with a dry mouth, the way only horny old men can drool, and told me about how he was a writer and producer of a long-running but crap TV series. I thought, my God, if I were a writer and producer on that series, I’d go to the Bahamas and change my name before setting foot in Hollywood again, but it was obvious I was expected to be awed.
“So, are you an actress?” he asked.
“No I’m a writer,” I replied.
He did that dry drool thing. “Well. I didn’t know they let playwrights be so pretty!”
I smiled sweetly. “I didn’t know they let writers be so old.”
It made him angry and did me no favours, of course, but it was an old habit that I couldn’t break and I realised I didn’t want to. I don’t get hit on much nowadays (though, when I do, it is still drunk men over fifty!). But I learned not to be a pussycat but a firecat. To not be intimidated. To fight fiercely for my integrity. To play by the rules of my own game.
Which is probably why I have been a failure most of my life. But I’ve been a very principled one.
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3 comments:
Hi Donna
I'm really enjoying reading this and finding aout all about you! Esecpially enjoying the aprts about your grandma and your time as waitress (can't quite belive the restaurant's name!!)...and lovely pictures - esp like the one of you with Susan T. I'll read more and keep reading as you put 'em up. Not usre how these blog or post things work, as I am a technophobe so just in case it's not obvious, this is from Vicki, a fellow madwoman!
Hi. I understand your succesful failure in my own life also to Playing by the integrity of my own rules/game. Loser-ing because I choose not to compete. Not taking shit from anyone after awhile just leads me to solitude as i am quite positive on my own terms.
P.S. I remember Sambos, but I was a kid who innocently liked the cartoon. I think my Grandma liked it {the old logo} that way also.We did not know any harm was being offered by either images til way later in life.
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