The Brazilian’s approach was simple, but extremely effective – take one check and use that baby over and over until it’s falling apart in your sweaty money-soaked palms. To sweeten the odds, he refused to work any shifts except the lunch buffet, so his orders were pretty uniform. But if push came to shove, he wasn’t afraid to stick the square peg in the round hole…
“(ahem)..uh…sir? I think you gave us the wrong bill. This says iced tea, but we had two margaritas.”
He’d examine the check with marked concentration, then bashfully concede,
“Oops! (shrug) Well…today ju lucky day, baby. Margarita, iced tea, same price, o.k.? ” (wink)
Why punch a gift horse in the mouth?
He had an uncanny knack for overcoming objections and applying his magic ticket to just about any group of items. Sometimes he’d use the same check for weeks at a time, regarding the really old ones with an almost superstitious affection. His pet phrase, “I don’t work for tips”, became the credo for all enlightened waiters and bartenders at the Ol’ Bourbon Street restaurant, and he wasn’t kidding. The Brazilian cared about one thing and one thing only – whacking as many buffets as humanly possible in a 6 hour shift - service be damned. He’d let his customers rot on the vine, and even though I knew they’d done nothing to deserve it, I derived a good deal of perverse pleasure out of watching them turn beet red, twitching and squirming to catch his attention as he flirted with the new hostess or smoked cigarettes and fingered his giant wad of bills out in front of the restaurant. Even ass-kissing waiters indulge a certain quiet sadism at a customer’s mistreatment, and I was no different.
In truth, to most waiters, the customer is guilty until proven innocent. If he conducts himself correctly, tips generously, and quickly vacates the table after consuming his food at a reasonably fast and undemanding pace, well between the hours of opening and closing, only then is he regarded as an exception to the unpleasant stereotype, and once the check is paid, his unique case is quickly forgotten.
The Brazilian was waging his own personal assault on the US economy. Sometimes, after an obscenely profitable shift or when he was feeling morally challenged, he would wax defiantly…
“Ju know, Cheep, when United States coming to Brazil, they fucking us beeg time. They stealing our resource y corroopting to the government. So, when I coming United States, I fucking them, too…ju know?”
It seemed fair enough.
Back home he’d squandered a small fortune, along with his reputation, playing the options in the Brazilian stock market. So he decided to skedaddle and chase a long time dream. An accomplished surfer, he embarked on his own Endless Summer, touring the world’s most exotic surf spots with his two miniature schnauzers. After being kicked out of Australia and Indonesia for working illegally, he landed in the Port of New Orleans, flat broke, with an eye to restock his war chest before returning to Brazil to reclaim his crown in Rio’s financial district and marry his childhood sweetheart. His plan was to bank a cool fifty G’s, by hook or by crook, and what better place to do it than the French Quarter’s lucrative restaurant and bar scene. In the right spot with the right kind of managers, you can make that in a year, plus tips. He was more than half way there when I met him.
I don’t know why he took me under his wing. He must have seen in me some poor rube working way too hard for his money or maybe, like most people, he was simply brimming with pride. At any rate, he taught me his only trick, what I later found out was known by insider’s as the Buffet Scam, an entry level maneuver popular with up and comers. But the Brazilian had taken it to a whole new level. He was the essence of stark simplicity combined with a solid sack of stones; he used the oldest scam in the book and flat pillaged like there was no tomorrow. I admit, I’ve had the pleasure of working with far more artful grifters who implemented vast, elaborate repertoires and prided themselves on mastering high tech POS scams like the Wagonwheel and others, but none of them minted money hand over fist like the Brazilian and his mighty recycled checks.
Besides sticking it to the restaurant, he had a few angles on the side. In fact, he used to dabble in the same scam that George Bush’s sticky-fingered buddy, Claude Allen, made famous, snatching and returning items at mega-stores like Walmart and Target. His favorites were the fishing reels.
You might say he ushered me into the Dark Side or maybe he just shed first light on the mysterious duality of man. He was without a doubt a taker, but he was a giver as well. He was always shoplifting steaks and bottles of wine and dropping by for impromptu cookouts.
“I know the manager of the supermarket,” he'd say with a shit eating grin, and for quite some time I actually believed him.
Not to mention, he was trusting enough to divulge to me the legendary and mysterious Brazilian pick-up style. A technique that he’d all but perfected, and by which he parlayed his pathological imagination and brief knowledge of several romance languages into an unbelievable amount of pussy.
The last time I saw the Brazilian he was shirtless and shitfaced in the doorway of the Ol’ Bourbon Street restaurant, screaming empty threats at the terrified manager who was hiding in the kitchen. She was a busty little vixen who’d done just about everyone in the place except for him and I think he took it personal. It may not be in the employee handbook to shag the whole staff, but despite that small infraction, she was a company woman to the core and probably the only honest and competent manager in the place. They were always going at it, and she’d canned him earlier that day when one of their arguments got out of hand. I think she probably knew what he was up to, but lacking evidence, settled for the old standby, insubordination. Oh well…he was a surfer, and there’s no doubt he rode one hell of a pipeline before eating it on the filthy red bricks of Bourbon Street.
In the end I learned one extremely important lesson. With very little Italian and a passable BMW you can easily convince American girls that you’re a wealthy European jetsetter come to the US to breed the family stud and shop for award-winning thoroughbreds. And once they believe that - the sky’s the limit.
Bom sorte, Brasileiro.
