Serving Celebrities: The Complete Collection (14 page)

So here we were again, trying to make our way to Chilmark. Fiona was over it, she was lividly cursing the stoner (pot smoking wanker, I think she called him) and voicing her angry opinion of the American Revolution. We stalked up the street. Another car approached us, Fiona shook her butt at him, but only got a furious horn-honking for it. I followed her obediently, I wanted to suggest that we head back home since it was almost dark now, but I lost my nerve. We stood on the side of the road, as Fiona’s Irish bubbled over.

I suggested, in jest, that if she really wanted to stop someone maybe she should show her tits, rather than wiggle her ass. Fiona had beautiful tits. The book on Fiona was to get her near water and watch her clothes come off. Just a few nights after her arrival on the island some of us guys had suggested that we go to South Beach at night and go swimming. Usually, especially with the Catholic girls, we would spend hours coercing them to drop their knickers and join us in the waves, but Fiona was nude before we could finish the sentence, “Who wants to go...?” I had been skinny dipping with her on South Beach, Lucy Vincent (a swim-suit optional beach) and State Beach. I have watch her run naked down to the water for the last twenty years in my memory (I like to call it my “happy” place). Yes, we had used Fiona to get other girls to go to the beach. “Would you go if Fiona goes, you know how she is?” Usually, no they didn’t. So when the next car approached us and Fiona lifted her t-shirt and bra, to expose her perfect Irish ta-tas, I wasn’t that shocked.

Not as shocked as Fiona was when the car slowed and pulled over to wait for us. I started running but Fiona stood still. “Fi, c’mon,” I yelled. “No.” she answered firmly, “He’s seen my tits.” I turned to her and yelled, “I’ll drop my pants if it will get us out of here. Come on.” I trotted to the waiting car, eventually to be followed by Fiona. I let her climb into the front seat and I jumped in the back (I’m almost sure the driver stopped for her and not for me).

The driver was big guy, tall and stern looking. Fiona introduced us, the guy never took his eyes off the road. I told him where we wanted to go and he said he knew the house and would take us there. The car was quiet until the guy said, “Fiona, you really shouldn’t be flashing cars.” Fiona laughed, a bit embarrassed (not much, just a small
bit
embarrassed), “We really needed a ride. We’ve been out there all day.” The guy reached into his pocket and threw something onto the seat that I couldn’t see. I watched Fiona as she looked down to whatever was just dropped. Fiona laughed, “Uncle Bill, Stan’s in the army.” I looked over the front seat at the identification that the big guy dropped on us.

“He’s not in the army,” I corrected her, “He’s a Massachusetts State Trooper.” Fiona was always baffled by our agencies, “That’s not the militia?” “No,” I said, trying not to scare her. “He’s police man.” Fiona laughed and turned to Stan, “Why didn’t you say so... you’re a Bobby” Stan smiled, “Yeah, I’m a Bobby. No more flashing cars, you’ll get someone killed.” “They’re not that good, “ replied Fiona. “You’re being modest,” added Stan.

Stan let us off at the entrance of the driveway to Ben’s friend’s house. We walked down the dirt driveway and into the back yard. Yep, James Taylor had left a long time ago. There was a small riser where James played, the microphone he sang into was still there, the stool he probably sat on. This was the closest we would get to seeing James Taylor on the Vineyard. Most of the guests had cleared out, but Ben was there, very pissed off that he waited so long for the cute little Irish girl with perfect tits, who showed up late with another dude (even if she keeps calling him “Uncle Bill,” it’s obvious I’m not her uncle) and, oh, did I mention that Ben was very big and very drunk? He was.

The owners of the house, Max and Sarah, it was Sarah’s birthday celebration that James was playing for (“He’s a family friend, you know.” No, I don’t know about having James Taylor as a family friend -- but would love to try, James. If you’re shopping for family friends?) were very kind to us after they heard of our odyssey. Max cooked up some hamburgers and hotdogs for Fi and I. I was so hungry that I had two burgers, two hotdogs and the end of some cold stew (I realized later that the stew was probably the dog’s dish that someone had left on the counter -- but I think I’ve established that I was very hungry). We had a couple of beers and helped Max and Sarah clean up. Fiona went to work on Ben to let us take his car home and return it the next day. Ben wouldn’t have any of it, all he wanted to do was keep repeating that he waited all day for Fiona and he felt that she owed him something.

We tried to find someone else to drive us home but they were all up-island people and the trip to Edgartown and back was going to take about an hour. Finally Max and Sarah gave in... and let Ben drive us home (just to get rid of him, I suspect). I offered to drive back but Ben was pretending that I didn’t exit. Fiona offered, I didn’t even know she could drive. Max agreed to that but when Fiona needed to confirm which side of the road she was supposed to drive on, Max decided to take his keys back.

Max was all over the road, crossing the yellow line, just missing trees and still I’m sure he was driving better than Fiona. Fiona and I sat in the front seat of Ben’s El Camino. Fiona clutching my leg like the last kipper on Saint Stephens Day. Ben was hunched over the wheel muttering vows of punishment if Fiona didn’t pay him back for whatever she owed. I thought we were going die -- the most poetic way of ending this Jell-O-shot puking day. Then I realized that there were red and blue flashing lights behind us. Okay, a night in jail for my life -- sounds fair to me.

Fiona leaned across me and said, “It’s the coppers, let’s make a run for it,” Then she smiled at me and reported, “I always wanted to say that.” Ben looked up baffled, shouting, “Shit, oh shit! I hope they don’t think I’m drunk.” In my opinion, if they don’t think he’s drunk it’s time to turn in that badge. Fortunately, Ben didn’t take Fiona’s advice and pulled over to the side of the road. I had decided that I wasn’t going to tell the cop that I was a bartender, I think that would be kind of a red flag. The cop car pulled up behind us and the cop got out.

As he made his way to Ben’s driver’s window, Fiona whispered, “It’s the tit-peeker.” Sure enough, it was Stan the Statie dressed in his fancy Bobby clothes, as Fiona called them. “What’s up, Ben?” asked Stan. Ben climbed out of the car and smiled at the State Trooper. There’s like four state troopers on Martha’s Vineyard and we keep running into the same one. Stan peered in at us from Ben’s window, “How was the party?” “We missed James Taylor,” Fiona answered. “I’m sorry,” said Stan. We sat in the car as Ben and Stan had some discussion. It was obvious that they knew each other and this was probably a common event. Finally, Ben got into Stan’s car. Stan came over to the window and looked in on us. “It seems that Ben is too tired to drive,” he explained. “So I’m going to give you two a ride back to Edgartown and then I’m going to give Ben a ride home and he can get his truck tomorrow.” Both Fiona and I nodded in agreement, that sounded like an awesome idea.

Stan turned the truck off and threw the keys under the front seat. Fiona got back into Stan’s front seat and I got into the back with the brooding Ben. We were going home. “You have a very fancy automobile here -- is that a real gun?” said Fiona, as we pulled away. “It does the job,” was Stan’s answer.

We arrived in front of my house just as Aiden, Ronan, Gavin and Seamus decided to River Dance in women’s underwear on their balcony. Stan kindly let us out of the car as he called the Edgartown Police about my Irish neighbors, who never recognized the car as the bobbies.

“Whose your friend?” Aiden yelled, from the balcony. But I was too tired to answer. I walked to my house. I could hear Ben yelling to Fiona that she owed him. I turned around in time to see Fiona flip him the European-two-finger-fuck-you sign. “Yeah, peace to you too, babe,” yelled, the in-custody-Ben, “You owe me.” I nodded to Stan the Statie my thanks. I thought I would never see him again, until a few weeks later when I slipped into Fiona’s living room looking for a bottle cap opener to use on a gift six pack of Corona, that some moron gave me with no concern about how I would open the bottles. Stan the Statie was sitting on the couch with Fiona, I guess he came back for another peek. Fiona just laughed and said that they were going out for a meal -- my only suggestion for Stan, is to get her near water.

I dropped into my bed. It was so good to be home, to be in bed, I closed my eyes. a short time later, someone crawled in beside me. I could feel her perfect young breasts press against my back. “I just wanted to hear James Taylor in person,” she said, sadly. I rolled over and looked at beautiful Fiona, so young, so much fun, so free -- I wished I could’ve gave her James Taylor. Softly, I began to sing, “
In my mind I’ve gone to Carolina, Can’t you see the sun shine, can’t you feel the moonshining... I’ve gone to Carolina in my mind.
” Fiona closed her eyes and smiled. It was a bit later, during my soulful rendition of
You’ve Got a Friend
that I had the thought, “I wonder if there are anymore Jell-O-shots left next door?”

Flea Drops In

W
hen you work in the hotel and restaurant business you always want it to be busy. If it’s busy, the shift goes much faster. If it’s busy, you make more money. If it’s busy, there’s a lot less screwing around by the staff. At The Sunset Marquis it was pretty easy to judge if you were going to be busy or not -- all you had to do was check the room list. It was a list put out by the front desk, detailing how many rooms would be rented that day and by the look of it, we were in for a slow night.

During this one slow night, we had a Food and Beverage Manager, I’ll call him Jeeves. Jeeves was from, what we suspected, a very wealthy family. He normally wore Armani suits. One of the waiters, Charles, suggested that each suit ran about a grand or more. We all assumed that Charles knew what he was talking about -- he was gay. The rest of the staff all wore the uniforms that we were supplied by the hotel, even the front desk, who were assigned much cheaper suits than Jeeves’ Armani. But it was obvious that Jeeves like the better things in life.

Jeeves was also a sommelier, a master of wine. Occasionally, he would ask some of us to help him load cases of wine into his car so that he could take them home and taste them, then render his choices to the hotel’s wine list. This would be Jeeves’ eventual demise, when the hotel changed management they realized that Jeeves had transported most of the hotel’s wine cellar to his apartment and the new General Manager felt that the hotel’s wine cellar should be on the hotel’s actual property. Years after, whenever we would load up a car with liquor, wine and utensils to cart up to a party in one of the villas, someone would always quip, “I haven’t seen a car loaded with that much liquor since Mr. Jeeves was here.” (usually, it was me).

Before Mr. Jeeves was eighty-sixed, he would occasionally show up in the kitchen to check if everything was running smoothly and to make sure the cooks were not ruining his dinner. He wasn’t much of a leader of men, but if Jeeves had one talent, it was arriving just at the moment that his staff had crossed the line from good clean fun to seeing if you threw an uncooked chicken breast at the ceiling, whether it would stick (nope).

Sometimes we would be blessed with some small diversion; people swimming naked in the one of the pools, a large party in the dining room or a celebrity eruption of some kind. A few times we had a visit from Ben Gazzara; who would come into the kitchen, order dinner and then wait with us as it was being prepared (I would offer to deliver it to his suite, but he always refused). The chef, Jean-Pierre, and I, would then toss questions at him about working with John Cassavettes (One of my favorite directors) and the films that he worked on. Gazzara was always cool and answered as many questions as we could think of and told us stories about working on the
Killing of a Chinese Bookie
,
Husbands
and
Opening Night
. It was always entertaining when Mr. Gazzara dropped in.

On this night, it’s deathly slow. The hotel is under twenty percent occupancy. I’m just hanging out in the kitchen, I’m the room service waiter. The waitress tonight in the dining room is Michelle, a very attractive woman, blond and beautiful, she has shown us that she has a crazy side and likes to do things that disgust the Mexican dishwashers and cooks. Michelle would drink down a glass of milk real fast and then let out a loud burp, totally grossing out the Mexicans -- leaving them to comment, “Michelle, el porko.”

Michelle comes into the kitchen and tells us that some of the Red Hot Chili Peppers are in the bar getting hammered. Jean-Pierre tells her to bring in a few and he’ll make us all tamales. Michelle tells him that she would like to roll some of them up in something -- “Michelle el porko.” Jean-Pierre is finishing cooking up a steak -- he sprays it with a butter-garlic sauce, out of ketchup container-looking thing, that you find at a hamburger stand. He misses the steak, with some of the sauce, it sizzles and steams on the grill. Jean-Pierre tries again but this time he holds the bottle near his groin and pretends to piss, as the stream of sauce sizzles and smokes on the grill.

Now I have to step up and take another bottle and do the same, competing with Jean-Pierre in trying to spray the furthest. The Mexican dishwashers and Florio, the room service cashier, giggle at us. Michelle takes a third bottle, turning away from the grill, she bends over at the waist, aims the bottle between her legs and squirts onto the grill, directly over the steak, still cooking -- “Michelle el porko.” Everyone is laughing as the three of us piss on the grill. This is when Mr. Jeeves stepped into the kitchen’s doorway.

“What are you people doing?” he asked, loudly. We all stopped and turned, caught. I suddenly realized that the steak must be his dinner. We just stood looking at Jeeves standing in the doorway of the kitchen, behind him the hotel’s pool sat, serenely undisturbed. The Mexicans stopped laughing and began to desperately look for dishes to wash, Florio slipped away and hid in her small office. The three of us looked to each other for some bit of a reason of what we were doing, but we had nothing....

Behind Jeeves, a body dropped into the pool with a shriek. Water flew up from the placid pool and a wave drenched Mr. Jeeves, who was ducking from whatever it was. We stood there frozen, what just happened? Flea, the bass player for the Chili Peppers, emerged from under the water and swam to the edge of the pool. We gathered around the soaking Mr. Jeeves, in a beautiful but very wet Armani suit (that Charles said they cost at least a thousand bucks). Flea pulled himself up, and out of the water. I noticed people on the hotel’s roof -- three stories above, cheering his plunge. I’m sure it was a long drop down the three floors of the hotel but Mr. Flea had to propel himself away from the building to clear the ten feet of patio between the hotel and the pool. Pretty gutsy jump, if you ask me... and it couldn’t have been any better timed.