Bootstrap: Soft Opening; a novel

Little Histories, Profiles and Untold Stories from the Restaurant Industry.

In Loving Memory of Jimmy Robinson

New Year’s Day 2013

When I press my thumb to Jimmy’s wrist, the body is still warm, but I can’t find a pulse. It’s the eye that terrifies me. How it looks at nothing. Five minutes ago, I was sure my life could get no worse.

I should have been bracing myself for this inevitability. Jimmy was old enough to expire at any moment, for sure, but he was vital for a guy in his sixties. Just last week he was bulldogging a hole in a brick wall, cradling the rotary hammer like Schwarzenegger spraying the forest with a machine gun. He was slugging beers and twisting smokes. Tickling his girl’s ass and telling jokes. Shit, he was the loon who traipsed through Hurricane Sandy with a blind white rat in his black leather satchel.

When I arrived at the restaurant, I had assumed he was sleeping off his debauchery, so I went to the kitchen, filled a five-quart Cambro with ice cold water. Then I leaned my phone against a bottle of Jim Beam and pressed record. But someone had flipped the breaker on Jimmy’s nervous system and as the water pressure dented his cheeks, the ice cubes skittered off his face without eliciting a blink or twitch. No comedic groan or guffaw, just slow thoughtless drips in the aftermath and his pasty silver curls clinging to his gray skin.

Now his body lays prone and peaceful on the banquette at table 67. A supine cadaver mummifying in black jeans, a white tee and a Versace leather crew jacket. One thing about death, it confirms a person’s destiny. Even in the eyes of the faithless.

I’m on the spectrum with faith. I’m not sure where Jimmy is currently. The only existential certainty here is that, from now on, he will always be seated at the party table. No matter how many people come to dine here, I will never be able to unsee him as he is now: tucked in the corner behind the grand padauk and ash tabletop–a woodwork he and I built together at Bully’s shop.

There are things I would have liked to say to him. To let him know how sorry I am; to explain how opening restaurants makes people insane, that the industry can send owners over the edge. Like Dorian, the Brooklyn pioneer who sparked the comfort food renaissance. The genius who reimagined mac and cheese in the aughts and found a way to make short rib—a cheap cut—more delectable than rib eye.

Dorian used to drop by my bar, The Double, to chop it up, have some drink, and share industry gossip. Then, one night, he drove back to his childhood home, parked his red Saab in the driveway and left his brains in the back seat. How could a guy that successful shoot himself? Everyone at the memorial in Williamsburg was asking the same question. And they all knew the answer. It’s the nature of the business.

I want to tell Jimmy about that. I want him to know I’m sorry for losing my temper. For blaming him, for cutting him out. For firing him. Clearly, it wasn’t worth it.

Now I don’t know who to call. I don’t know why I’m the person who has to clean up this mess. I have an email address for Linda, Jimmy’s ex-wife, but that seems too ineffectual. I search the room for his phone. Maybe I can unlock it? Then a glint of orange catches my eye. Four empty pill bottles stand uncapped and neatly placed on the wait station shelf. The plastic cylinders catch the long light of the morning sun, their vacancy emphasized by the powdery residue left behind.

Fuck.

I call 911. I recount the events. The person on the other end wants to know if the victim is still breathing. I’m not sure. His face is like rubber. I lower my head to it, but I don’t feel any warm air. Or maybe I do. My mind is racing for alternate realities, rewinding time, imagining a fantasy world where it might be undone.

“I can’t tell,” I say. The operator lets me know an ambulance is already on the way. And cops? Will there be an investigation? I can’t really afford to have the cops sniffing around here. The landlord can kick me out for any illegal activity–it’s in the lease. Jimmy is not supposed to be sleeping here. His drugs aren’t supposed to be done here. Suicide is a crime.

I’ve got Band-aids on my swollen head, and there are scratches all over my arms from falling down a flight of stairs last night. The embarrassment still stings. I’m not feeling very credible right now. Like I could get sucked into the clutches of the law just for being on the scene. What if someone insinuates that I murdered him? Is there a motive? Sure, there is. What have I touched? Who is my alibi? The only person I can think of is my daughter, Ali. How will she reconcile herself with a father who has failed her?

I lift his arm. It is heavy, not yet stiff. A teardrop falls and lands on our laced fingers. His mouth hangs open, tongue pale and flaccid. And there on his face is the blush of livor mortis- the subcutaneous pooling blood.

I’m sorry, Jimmy. I’m sorry if I had anything to do with your decision. But you are an asshole for doing this, for doing it here. The only considerate thing you did was not leave a note.

Instinctively, I snap a photo of the four empty bottles. I don’t read the scripts. I’m sure it was a good trip, Jimmy. Were you back at The Fillmore? Did you fall in love again with Maggie? Did you have a last chat with Hendrix before it all went dark? Did you get to listen, one more time, to the greatest guitar solo of all time? I hope you did, pal.

Yes, I wanted you gone. But not like this. You should have learned. History does not stop for you or for anyone. And as insignificant as my life is, in the scheme of things—in the scheme of Brooklyn restaurants—it won’t matter to anyone if this restaurant ever opens, but I can’t stop for you Jimmy.

This concludes the first chapter of Soft Opening, a novel by Sam Barron. Next month, we'll be back with an inspirational profile of Dio, the refrigeration guru and literal coolest guy in Brooklyn.

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Here’s what’s happening this month at my diner in Brooklyn. →