Read Online The Autograph Hound by John Lahr - Free Book Online

no.”
    â€œ Idiota . You make trouble. You fuck up.”
    â€œI scrape the plates. I pour the water. I bring the butter. I know my job better than any chart.”
    â€œI could pick up the phone and get ten busboys.”
    â€œCustomers send you pictures. They do it in confidence. You put them in the window. Or behind the bar.”
    â€œI want to say yes, Walsh, I want to lock up each night like Soulé—without one complaint. Last night I say to my best customer, ‘Mrs. Paley, how you like the dinner?’ She says, ‘Everything was cold except the champagne.’ I got my honor, Walsh.”
    â€œA few autographs don’t hurt anybody.”
    â€œPeople speak to me last night. They’re disgusted.”
    â€œThere’s nothing dirty about my signatures. At least, I don’t collect disgusting pictures. I’ve nothing to hide under my desk.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œCombing the stripper’s cunt at your Knights of Columbus dinner. Your name on your hat.”
    Garcia gets red as rhubarb. “That’s it!”
    â€œI’ll say. Nobody could miss you. The scandal would ruin The Homestead.”
    â€œWalsh, I’m giving you till Friday.”
    â€œYou’re not firing me?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt’s the new diplomacy. Yes means no.”
    â€œNo,” says Garcia.
    â€œThen I’m staying?”
    Garcia stands up. I try to stand, but the chair sticks to my hips. He puts on his Stetson. He goes to the blackboard. He writes—FIRED. The chalk breaks. The scratch makes my mouth taste of brass.
    Garcia walks out.
    â€œPuerto Ricans should be rounded up, put on Ellis Island, and burned! Goodbye cuchifritos! Adiós West Side Story! So long cha-cha-cha!”
    I really give him an earful.
    Zambrozzi calls me over to his table. “Garcia let you go?”
    â€œWrote it on the blackboard like I was part of next week’s menu.”
    â€œHe tell me to stop tonight’s ossobuco . A chef’s fame is in plat du jour .”
    â€œHe’s ruining the kitchen.”
    â€œIn Italia, he scrub floors.”
    â€œIt’s America. He’s got unity of command. He could fire you, too.”
    Zambrozzi laughs. “Don’t worry about Garcia. Take today off, Benny. Get some autographs. Spend some of that money. I tell him you sick. He don’t argue. I won’t cook his meals.”
    â€œI keep track of things about The Homestead other people forget. I don’t want to leave, Mr. Zambrozzi.”
    â€œWhen the boys come back, we gonna have a talk, we gonna settle this.”
    â€œI’m not in your section.”
    â€œLeave it to me.”
    Zambrozzi puts his arm on my shoulder and walks me toward the pantry. He hums our drinking song. He stops to watch the pasta being made. A cook’s helper spreads flour in a wide circle on the table. He breaks an egg with one hand in the middle of the circle. It’s beautiful—a yellow sun surrounded by white stars. Then he whips the egg with a fork. All the flour comes together in the yolk. Not a speck’s left on the table. Nothing’s lost. Everything sticks together in a white lump. The flour’s part of the egg and the egg’s part of the flour. Suddenly, the pasta’s there.
    â€œCooking’s like life,” says Zambrozzi. “You have to have the right ingredients and the know-how.” He thinks for a second. “Write that down,” he says.
    I put it in my pad, but I disagree. Cooking’s not like life. If you get a bad meal, you don’t have to eat it.
    There are many penny arcades around Broadway, but the best are on 42nd Street. I go only on special occasions. It costs more to play Fascination than the other games, but the prizes are bigger. There are movie houses on both sides of the arcades. They used to be theaters. The Earl Carroll Vanities, the George White Scandals—all those good times and great