Call him Ishmael.

Because that is what I called him. It was some years ago, never mind how long, and I had taken employment at a local nightclub. The owner, a short rotund man with little of his hair left, ran the place as if it was his private egomaniacal fiefdom. There was plenty of yelling, plenty of threatening and more than enough underhandedness to go around. Paychecks routinely bounced, certain cocktail waitresses got special treatment and the employee turnover was high, but the owner had a singular undaunted devotion to making the club succeed. And for a period of time it did.

It was during this time that "Ishmael" came to work for us. I sized up the skinny Central American kid with a silver front tooth and shrugged. Back in those days immigration laws weren't what they are today. These days employers are not allowed to knowingly hire illegal aliens; fines are stiff and enforcement actually takes place. It is no longer OK to hire the same employee again and again with different documentation. But then it was common practice to work with the same people at three restaurants with three names. They were the cooks, bussers, waiters, barbacks, bartenders and the janitors, the invisible grease that made the wheels turn. Ishmael was just another in a long line of co-workers who didn't answer to his own name.

Ishmael worked hard, harder than anyone else. He never came in late and was always eager to take on extra work. He was also always asking questions. Like a

Advertisement
sponge, he absorbed everything that I and other bartenders threw his way. He started as our "swamper" - essentially a night janitor - a term that you don't often hear these days. The swamper was typically a broken-down alcoholic who swept and mopped the place after closing time. Not a particularly glamorous job, but in many ways the day-to-day nightclub business is not very glamorous. Pay was often just enough booze to put the swamper to sleep and, occasionally, that would be in the back room or the storage garage. Alcohol can be a cruel mistress.

After it became clearly that paying with booze had its drawbacks, my boss - ever the penny pincher - finally decided to hire someone to do it, so in came Ishmael. For several months he swept and mopped and the club never looked cleaner - no small task when dealing with a drinking clientele. While cleaning Ishmael would also take the time to ask questions about the various bottles of alcohol.

"How does this work?" "What do you use that for?"

When our barback disappeared one night into the parking lot with a group of girls and several bottles of premium tequila we looked around for an immediate replacement. Young Ishmael, an hour early for his shift, was the logical choice. In short order he became the best barback with whom I have ever worked. He brought the same curiosity and hard work to that position.

Eventually when the owner veered from a live music format into LatinÐinfluenced disco format, Ishmael moved up to bartender. As we labored together under the auspices of our ever-more demented boss Ishmael came into his own. He fixed his teeth, bought a car and eventually even acquired another bartending job. Eventually that nightclub sank, sucked down by a combination of ego, greed and mismanagement. I left before the final vortex and can still remember the owner ranting at me like a deranged Gregory Peck strapped helplessly to his own submerging white whale, one that finally took him down.

I hadn't thought of Ishmael in a long time, except on those occasions when my current barback is doing less than a stellar job. But the other day I was dining in a local restaurant when the waiter recognized me.

"You used to work with Gregorio, didn't you?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Vincente?"

I shook my head again.

"Ishmael?"

I knew then he was referring to the same person.

"How is he?" I asked, remembering him fondly.

"He lives in Cancun now," said the waiter. "He works in a club there, owns a couple of houses and is also part owner of a tortilla factory."

It seems that Ishmael had also escaped the final plunge of our Pequod. As I finished my meal, three things occurred to me:

- Pursuing a dream is noble, pursuing an obsession isn't.

- Sometimes the American dream reaches its fruition somewhere in the Americas other than the United States.

- The student does indeed surpass the teacher.

Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.