I had been working at The Green Parrot, an alfresco fine dining establishment located at the Megan’s Point Resort, since arriving on St. Thomas a few months after my 36th birthday in September of 1984. The place seated about sixty people and the owner was a 40 something, semi-neurotic, substance abuser named Tom, who was married to a wealthy woman 20 years his senior. Around the island it was a well accepted fact that she bought it for him so he would have something to do. Although the locals perceived Tom as a gigolo with a drug problem, he did know a thing or two about the business and he had managed to create an excellent restaurant with a great chef, professional staff and a solid following.
Throughout the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, Tom was adamant about how this would be the biggest night of the year and he made it clear we had all better bring our A game. He let us know, in no uncertain terms, that a lot of influential people would be dining that night and he didn’t want any mistakes. Image meant a lot to Tom.
Since I was off on the day before the big night, my girlfriend and I decided to take in a secluded beach for the afternoon. We parked the car about a hundred yards from our destination and started the trek off road to our own little oasis. As I went to jump over a small jetty of rocks that popped up along the way, I slipped and fell on my back hard. I remember hearing a crack as I landed and suddenly it felt like somebody had knocked the wind out me. After I caught my breath I still hurt pretty bad, so we went back to the car and drove to the hospital for an x-ray. Low and behold, I had wound up cracking a couple of ribs. The doctor gave me some pain medication and told me to take it easy for a couple of weeks.
I was still in a lot of pain throughout the next day, but I couldn’t let Tom down, so I took a couple of the pills that the doctor had given me and went off to work about five that afternoon for the big Valentine’s Day celebration. After we set up the dining room with fresh linen, polished silverware and fine crystal, my ribs were starting to hurt pretty bad again and I decided I better take another pain pill before it really got busy. All in all, I felt better than I thought I would and the medication was holding down the pain threshold. If you’ve ever had a rib injury, you know what I mean.
Within the hour, the joint was jumping. All the tables were filled with loving couples and everyone was having a great time. About 8:30 Tom pulled me aside and asked me to take care of table 16, where he had seated the President of the St. Thomas Hotel Association, Dale Shakespeare, and his girlfriend Monique. They were both a couple of local movers and shakers and it was extremely important to Tom that these guests be treated with the utmost of care because Dale was the top dog…the head guy…THE PRESIDENT of The Hotel Association! VERY INFLUENTIAL! By then, my ribs were starting to hurt again so I dropped another pain pill.
Dale ordered a new york strip with peppercorn sauce and Monique went for the surf and turf. I topped off their wine, made sure they had enough bread and took their order to the kitchen. The Head Chef, Eduard, was a hot shot from San Francisco who took his work very seriously, so I stayed close by until their food was prepared because I knew Tom was probably on his case too and Eduard would want me to get their order out to them as soon as it was ready.
The order came out in about ten minutes and I placed the two plates on a tray, picked up a set of folding legs and proceeded to deliver the delicious meals to Dale and Monique. As I approached their table, I set the legs down and placed the tray on top of them. Per dining protocol, I proceeded to serve the lady first. As I picked up the plate of surf and turf and began to place it on the table in front of her, I noticed something didn’t look right out of the corner of my eye. I set Monique’s dinner down on the table and stood there, helpless in my white tuxedo shirt and black slacks, watching in horror as Dale’s plate, which turned out to be a tad off center, slowly lifted one edge of the tray, gently slid off and landed face down on the ground with a loud slapping kind of thud. You cannot imagine the shock to my body as I stared down at the sizzling new york steak, steaming peppercorn sauce and piping hot au graten potatos laying on the ground at the the feet of Mr. Shakespeare. Not to mention the fact that his freshly shined wingtips appeared to have been splashed by one or more of the aforementioned dinner ingredients.
I couldn’t have been more embarrassed if I had been standing there stark naked with a spotlight on me. The place went totally quiet for what seemed to be an eternity and, when I looked up, every eye in the place was focused on me. Off in the distance I could see the silhouette of Tom standing in the doorway of his office. He was shaking so hard it looked like he was standing on a giant vibrator.
It doesn’t really matter what happened next. Suffice to say, I was flabbergasted, Eduard was furious and Tom stomped around for the rest of the night repeatedly yelling out something like “I know it was those damn pain pills” between curses. As for the remaining staff members, they were forced into spending the rest of their night slinking around like little puppies about to get their bottoms spanked. As I recall, it took a week or two, while I walked around on eggshells, before anyone in the place would give me the time of day again. Tom never spoke of the incident after that night, and I can only presume I wasn’t fired because he must have liked me.
On the other hand, Dale and Monique were really cool about the whole thing and they actually left me something like a $20 tip. Nice people. I did, however, have to spend several humiliating minutes, down on my hands and knees, cleaning up the plate of gourmet food that had fallen face down at the feet of my VIP customer while Eduard and the kitchen crew worked feverishly to get a replacement dinner ready. Which, by the way, they managed to do in record time.
The customers? Well, they mostly shrugged off the experience and went back to their own business in less than a minute or two.
Me personally, I refuse to believe the pain pills had anything at all to do with the “droppage”, although I am willing to admit that I certainly wasn’t feeling any pain that particular Valentine’s Day night.
And the rest, as they say, is history