WORK

My first job was at a small family-styled restaurant in my hometown. It was across the street from my neighborhood. I was a short-order cook. On my second day the manager gave lessons on how to cut tomatoes with the meat slicer.

"Why don't we use a knife?" I thought that his technique looked dangerous.

"I'm your boss." He was 25. I was 14. He expected obedience from his employees. "You do what I say."

"Okay." I did it the way he wanted and a day later during the dinner rush, I accidentally stuck my index finger into the circular slicer. There was a lot of blood, but little pain. My boss tried to staunch the blood with a towel. It turned red real fast. My mother came to the restaurant and drove me to the hospital. The doctor in the emergency room numbed the finger with a shot and closed the wound with 8 stitches. My finger was wrapped with a big bandage, so I couldn't work in the restaurant. I still got back thanks to workman's compensation and received $1000 for the injury from my employers.

It was the summer of 1967. I went to the beach every day and swam with the bandage in the sea. My finger recovered within a week. I stayed out of the restaurant for a month. My father finally send me back.

"You're no loafer."

he was only partially right. I don't like working. Not for other people, but sometimes I have to earn money, so forty-one years after my first job I've come out of semi-retirement to sell fine jewelry at Stepan Paul at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

No way we need to cut tomatoes with a meat slicer there.

I hate working, but it is nice walking into the Plaza.

My new name is Pierre.

Pierre of the Plaza.