It's Important for Everyone Here to Look Sharp.

That's something that Jake had said offhand when I was a trainee, before the dinner shift.

He was talking about something very specific -- my shoes were scuffed and dusty -- but since I looked up to him so much back then, I started thinking he had told me the meaning of life.

It hasn't even been a year since I moved into the city and got this job waiting tables, but I've changed so much. I was such a scared shy kid back then. I couldn't handle sustained eye contact. I had just quit drinking and getting high and now all the shitty feelings were back. And the mean voices were back too, at louder volume before.

Anyhow, I remember how Jake found black shoe polish in the manager's office and a rag and I used it to clean my shoes. They were old steel-toe work shoes that I used to wear to punk rock shows. In that world, looking filthy was a good thing.

A small flaw throws everything off, he said. "It's all a magic show, really. The food, music, the waiters in starched shirts all standing quietly at their stations, the spotless white tablecloths; the polished chrome on the freezers showing the catch of the day... it all combines to be greater than the sum of the parts."

There's a big mirror on the wall behind the bar in the main part of the restaurant. I'd often glance at myself throughout the day when I was feeling frustrated or overwhelmed or embarrassed or like a failure. I don't know why, but I've always felt a tiny bit reassured seeing my own reflection. A tiny bit less lonely.

That other person sees everything, and they know that while I'm not perfect, I'm not human garbage either. The mirror version knows all the details and understands that all the little choices I made usually seemed like the right thing to do at the moment.

We glance at each other, him in his world, me in this one, and he usually says something like, "I feel it too. You're not crazy."

After I finished polishing my shoes, when we walked back out to the front of the restaurant, I glanced at my mirror friend. He looked like he wasn't sure he couldn't handle all this.

That night I stood by and watched Jake stand in front of all these tables of rich people going out for dinner, and he looked so relaxed, so peaceful, so attentive. He talked about wines and seafood and different cooking methods with such quiet confidence and expertise.

You would have thought that Jake was a chef to European royalty. It's funny now, almost a year, to realize that while all that part is real, there's another part too, where Jake lives in a tiny efficiency apartment, lost his license after one too many drunk driving arrests, and his romantic life is like a gay version of those day time talk shows where guests get in fights on stage and bouncers have to pull them apart.

Toward the end of the night, Jake had me handle a few tables while he watched. And I didn't fuck it up that bad.

I remember Jake taking the tip and smiling. He explained how the trainer gets the tips. I said that's kinda like pimping. He said, "No, it's EXACTLY like pimping."

I remember walking home after that training shift. I felt a weird sense of pride. This job was going to be very difficult for me, but I got through that shift OK. I didn't have that tip in my pocket, but they tipped me. I could do this.