Pizza Night at the Dresden
0048. a mean girl ordering pizza...
Marty and Elayne’s call time was 9pm at the Dresden. Most nights they were fashionably late. The bar would start to load in sometime just after 8pm anticipating the arrival of this dynamic jazz duo. Marty and Elyane were icons in a slice of the Hollywood realm and had a considerable cult following and fan base throughout the world. It was rare that early, say 7pm, we would develop a large crowd, but on a particular evening that I now recall one half of the seating for the lounge was filled up around that time. There were several large groups gathering to start a marathon night of intoxicants - drinking up early and looking to express their joy of rambunctious behavior. Not unusual, yet not typical at the Dresden.
I was outside speaking with a patron who was burning a cigarette in the back. Lawrence came out. “Johnny, there’s a guy playing the piano.” Lawrence was this beautifully-overly-nice fellow.
“Did you ask him to stop playing the piano?”
Sheepishly Lawrence responded. “Yes.”
“And I’m guessing he didn’t stop when you asked him?”
“No.”
I went inside.
Walking into the back entrance area I could hear tinkering on the piano. As I made my way through to the bar to the piano at the center of the curved dark brown wall I could make out this large framed fellow in a brilliant Lord and Taylor grey shirt. His sleeves were unbuttoned and upturned, long arms, bent at the elbows, with hands dipped, fingering mostly the white keys. It was a random mess of nonsense, the notes he was playing. I don’t know that he thought it sounded good but it was easy to see he thought he looked good on top of that piano bench. I made my way to the access area next to the piano. It was on the same side as the microphone on the stand between Marty’s drum kit and Elayne’s piano. The other side of the piano had a blocked entry due to the sound gear that Elayne would wrangle while playing her tunes. The sound board, an amp, that sort of thing. Instead of entering due to the limited space in that area behind the piano I stood next to the mic and spoke over to this fellow.
“Hey. You can’t be back there” - I was polite.
The tall fellow with his loose sleeves and aspirations of being Elton John for his friends at the bar at the beginning of their drunkenness didn’t stop. He looked over to me while continuing to fumble through his silly clumping on the keyboard and calmly stated, “It’s okay.”
Then I was not quite so polite - “No, it’s not okay. You need to get out of there.”
Still, clunking notes, the Elton of the Dresden looked straight ahead, having somehow dismissed me from the conversation, like I was bothering his performance, said, “No, it’s okay,” almost in exact cadence and tone as he has used the first time he instructed me on the subject.
No longer polite at all I returned some instructions - “No, it’s not okay, you need to leave that area, now.”
Elton stopped playing. And with great pain he said, “What’s the big deal.”
My face went to stone and I simply looked at him. Waiting for him to go back to his table. He sat and just looked back at me.
Some twenty seconds later I responded to his challenge. “What are we in some kind of stare down?” Again we just looked at each other. Eyeball to eyeball with stares which I found silly and dumb, yet my challenger, Elton, I’m pretty sure, in his mind, was winning some odd battle of wit or will. “Okay sport here’s the thing. This is Elayne’s piano. She’s the only one who belongs behind it. You need to get out from behind there.”
“It’s okay. I’m telling you it’s okay.”
“Alright, look dude. When I come back there you are going to leave. And I’m about to come back there.”
I’m pretty sure Elton of the Dresden believed me yet he still had to just push it. He started assailing the white keys again. It sounded terrible. He seemed to satisfy his need for entertainment. He looked ridiculous - not with playing the piano, but rather by creating a moronic conflict.
I just needed to get him off of Elayne’s piano. (technically, the piano was owned by the Dresden, however, Marty and Elayne were very protective of their space. When Elayne came in and she heard someone was playing the piano she would immediately stress that all the other gear got messed with and would take a half an hour to check the gear - putting off the opening of the show. Then, the patrons would get restless at the lack of performance. So it was best that no one go into that area and disturb things).
“Alright,” I said and started making my way into the limited space behind Elayne’s piano.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” and Elton stood his 6’5” frame holding his left hand towards me like a school crossing guard holding a stop sign.
“Fucking move out dude.”
“Okay, okay, okay…” And he slow-danced around me and sauntered back to the booth he and his friends were occupying. I let him sit then made my way over to their table. I put my hands on the table and leaned in so everyone at the booth clearly understood what I was saying.
”Look guys. I appreciate you coming in to see Marty and Elayne - you are coming in to see Marty and Elayne? Right?” They acknowledged it was a part of the reason they showed up so early was to be sure to get a booth that was close to the band. “Okay. And I appreciate that this tall fellow here is a friend of yours and that you most likely enjoy hanging out with him and want him to share this night at the Dresden with all of you.” And they were kind of listening. “So I’m going to ask you guys to monitor his behavior. He can’t go behind the piano again or he will be asked to leave. So I’m deputizing you guys to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
A smart ass at the table responded. “He’s his own man.”
“Cool. Sometimes when I ask friends to make sure that their friends behave and they don’t do that, sometimes I throw the whole group out.” I eyeballed the smart ass. Then I advised him. “So there is an expectancy for all of you to behave now that you’ve been put on notice.”
Another fellow at the table attempted to salvage the derailed situation - “No, no, it’s okay. We get it. We’ll keep him in check.”
Feeling like I had set the rules I left Elton among his fans so they could police his lack of boundaries.
Per their habit, Marty and Elayne showed up in lovely rock star fashion a bit past 9pm.
They’d been playing for around an hour making the time around 10:20pm. A lovely bar patron came up to me and told me some guy was ramming his chair into the people at her table. In the lounge at the Dresden the chairs had/have casters on them so they move easily. Well, in going over from the dining room side I could see Elton was sitting in a chair rockin’ to the music Marty and Elayne was laying down and racking the back of his chair into any other chair around him. Jutting whimsically and somewhat forcibly, crashing in all directions. The bar was loud. It was a good night. The mood was overall elated. Yet, there’s Elton making his annoying presence known to those nearby.
He kicked back on his chair two times after I asked him to stop. Turned his back to me and rammed my left upper thigh twice. I pushed the chair back to the side of the booth he and his buddies occupied - giving Elton a ride. “Okay guys. I told you if you want to be here you need to be responsible for your friend. He’s causing an obvious problem and you're doing nothing about it?”
The fellow I described as a “Smart-ass” earlier chimed in - “Hey man, he’s not our responsibility.”
“Okay." And I turned to Elton of the Dresden bringing my face close to be sure he heard me over the music - “It’s your last warning.” Elton blankly stared forward. I reinforced my stance, “Do you get it? Next one you're out.” He barely shook his head in acknowledgement.
My buddy Matt worked as the doorman/bouncer. Later, he came to me - “Hey, Johnny, that guy who’s been giving you greif tonight has just ordered a pizza.”
I responded, “So, he can eat his pizza outside.”
Matt just looked at me knowing I wasn’t going to appreciate what he had to say next.
I figured it out and he and I moved to the front door just in time to see Elton of the Dresden come back inside with an extra large boxed pizza in hand. He walked past, giving a smug glance my way and entered back into the bar. I reminded Matt of our strategy, that he hoover some six feet behind so that I could tag out if the encounter we were about to venture into somehow got me angry. (It is never good if the person attempting to manage the conflict gets emotionally sucked into that conflict. So Matt would take over for me if it was one of those rare exceptions that the patron got me going.)
Elton plopped the large box down on the table at the first booth in the bar. It was later in the night and several tables had emptied out. I followed quickly after him. Matt hoovered six feet off to my side. Bonnie, a server, passed me - “Oh my god, really Johnny, the guy brought in a pizza!” as she hurried off to collect a drink order.
Elton moved his hands over the top of the pizza box each hand gently moving to a side. He looked down at the box with a curious zeal, almost like licking his lips in anticipation. Only really it was just a show. It was like he and his friends had watched Mean Girls and headed out to cure their boring entitled lives by causing working class folk to have to deal with their silly bullshit contrivances. He wasn’t hungry. He was just bored and wanted to entertain himself at my expense.
“You can’t eat that in here.”
Elton responded by looking up at me with a twisted glee-laced smile. He looked like a drunk emoji caricature somehow satisfied with the idea that his burlesque was entertaining. He thought he was clever, I thought he was a tool. Worse. A tool with privilege. He seemed like a spoiled wealthy kid who had hit forty-ish and was showing his frat brothers he still had the thing - whatever the thing is was mostly being rude at the expense of others.
I repeated myself. “I’m telling you, you can’t eat that pizza in here!”
Elton gave a consummated smirk and with almost a show-biz flare flipped the top of the box open. It was very precise. His long thumbs on both sides moved in tandem with a flick of the wrist and that top swiftly landed with the brown cardboard box side up on the table in a split second. Elton echoed his smugness to me in a moment which indicated he was about to dive his hands into the open box and grab a large pizza slice.
“I’m telling you, you can’t eat that in here!”
Elton looked directly at me, smiled a F.U. smile then, with both hands, heartily, reached into the box grabbing the perfect slice. With both hands he slowly lifted the piece of pizza. Straight up. His long arms holding it there to demonstrate further that he intended to shovel it directly into his mouth. Holding it face high at near full arm extension. He seemed to adore that piece of pizza. Then he turned his head and looked at me. He feigned a laugh and, giddy with the masterbative exhibit he was displaying, he jostled his head as though to say - “Look, see..?”. Still displaying the pizza above the box at an arm's reach infront of his face he forced a knowing look at me with a head nod. He widened his eyes in exaggeration then slowly rolled them over to the pizza, then, rolled them back at me with a side waggle to his head - his eyes flared open indicating that YES IN FACT he was about to eat the pizza. Looking between me and the pizza he very slowly started moving the piece in a straight line to his opened mouth - challenging me as to “What are you going to do about it?” Or, “You can’t stop me!” Living his teenage bliss at being a bully at forty-two. Just like the best of the mean girls.
The pizza had moved maybe a foot of the distance to his mouth and I noticed he tilted his head to split his vision so he could look at me and almost see the pizza at the same time. Not sure how he did it while keeping his mouth open, yet he sort of smiled a tremendous, satisfied smile. It must have just permeated through his pores how delighted he was with his gross childishness.
I calmly watched as the pizza slowly glided to the irksome gape open below his nose. There was no need for me to tap out with my buddy Matt, the doorman/bouncer, for Elton had not caused the tension in me which I suspect he thought he was creating - though he was so self-involved I don’t think he noticed how ineffectual his efforts had been. Or, perhaps he felt the final blow to my ego would happen on the first bite of his pizza.
His hands continued, slow and deliberate, floating that piece of pizza to his mouth. A very beautiful impulse jumped into my head and so I found my hand slowly reaching out to stop that piece of pizza from making it to Elton’s unobstructed aperture (at this point I’m pretty sure he was licking the air with his tongue). It felt a little bit like a loosely structured ballet. His hand moving the pizza inward, my hand reaching outward to prevent it reaching its destination. I grabbed the pizza with my open hand. Full grab! Still above the box. Maybe a foot away from Elton’s face. His mouth still opened in anticipation of a full bite. I could feel the ooze and slather of cheese and pepperoni on my palm. Expressionless, I looked him in the eyes as my fingers slowly wrapped around the piece of pizza, Elton’s hands remained holding it a good foot in front of him. He was stunned by my actions. His face turned to me but his eyes moved to watch what my hand would do to his pizza next. He was no longer moving it towards himself and so I squeezed like a slow cranking vice on that piece of pizza. I turned it into a cheese/dough glob within my hand. The expression on Elton’s face did not change. He remained shocked that I would touch his food - stupefied! I squeezed. Pizza goo moved through my closing fingers like Play Dough through a Fun Factory Squeeze Machine! I clutched until no more pizza ooze sifted through my knuckles. Then I dropped the mangled pizza wad on top of the remaining pizza in the box, closed the lid over that ball, mashed the lid to flatten what was inside the box, and then calmly stated. “Now you can eat your pizza outside if you want.” I picked up the box and gently nudged its side into Elton’s chest for him to take. Matt and I got him up and out of that booth, and in the kindest terms we could muster we got him outside of the bar. I’m not sure if he ever finished his pizza.
Additional information: You can find out more about the author at JohnReneaud.com
As the house manager of the Dresden John performed with Marty and Elayne singing a three to four song set with them live three nights a week at midnight. John would do standards like Night and Day, and Summertime, and That’s Life , however as a rocker with blues tendencies Elayne would request that John perform bluesy tunes like Ray Charles’ Unchain My heart, or Louis Jordan’s Let the Good Times Roll, along with others - The Work Song, Hey Bartender, I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water, and Mose Allison’s Your Mind is On Vacation, along with a raucous version of Money (That’s What I Want).
Click here to listing to John's version of Fly Me To The Moon