Staying Off The Booze With Cocaine

My last post about my Fourth Waiting Job at the Rusty Pelican was kind of a set piece. I got lost in the reverie and unloaded. Meantime, the last ‘regular’ post was early July. So there’s a lot of catching up to do.

There have been two great developments at Carney’s Corner.

Frank the Bartender – previously known for his pious 6-year AA status, his Vicodin habit, and his slutty wife – has a new calling card. This one comes courtesy of his slutty wife. We’ll just call her Tara Reed, as homage to the actress with the similar name, because she didn’t take Frank’s name when they married, because she has a not-bad body, and because all she does is party and skank around.

TARA REID: 33. SO THE RELATIVE AGE IS OFF. FRANK IS 52, HIS WIFE IS 48

Tara (Mrs. Frank the Bartender), generally makes nightly visits to Carney’s to have a free drink or two and then head off to some other bar or club to meet her various boyfriends. Sometimes we waiters at Carney’s speculate that Tara picked Frank as her husband based on a rigorous qualification showdown. What are some of the things Tara needs to support and facilitate her lifestyle? As a major heading, she needs a

Reliable Hard Worker who is So Desperate and Insecure:

1. He works his five shifts week in and week out. When he takes a ‘vacation’ it will really be just an extension of an existing holiday, with an extra day off or two tacked on.
2. He, in order to illegitimately maximize his income, diligently rips off his employers week in and week out.
3. He has a non-negotiable work schedule locked in for the evening, club-going, cheating hours. From 5 p.m. till midnight (or later) Frank will be in exactly one place: behind the bar at Carney’s.
4. He is absolutely never going to come home early and surprise her. The bar closes late, and Frank is always there.
5. He is a non-drinker who can pick her up from various bars where she has gotten too hammered and needs a drive home.
6. He will willingly suspend all disbelief that she is cheating on him, because he can’t stomach the improbability of his getting another woman.
7. He will pretend there’s nothing unusual about the fact he works his ass off while she doesn’t have a job (not counting breeding her dog) and yet parties every night.
8. He is the one who actually does all the work breeding, caring for, and cleaning up after the dogs.
9. He has a job which puts him in contact with various sources of drugs and who can easily ‘trade out’ for those drugs, or for better deals on them.
10. He is pliable, forgiving, and clueless. He has no spine. He will adopt her hobbies. He will adopt her vices. He will adopt her rationalizations.

So back to Frank’s new calling card, besides Vicodin, etc.

It’s been a developing story with Frank, Tara, and Vicodin. We knew plenty about the Vicodin addiction, how his connection would come in and hand him a batch, how Jacqueline (another waitress) would hold some of his stash for him so he wouldn’t fiend it all away in one night, how Frank would be so flushed from his early-shift dose that his head looked ready to explode . . .

Ciera, who’s no stranger to drugs and anything else completely- or semi-sordid, had been saying for the last several months that she thought Frank was doing cocaine, not (just) Vicodin. We didn’t put much stock in her take on the thing. We thought it was just knee-jerk critique about a guy who was wigging out.

But. Ciera is friend and customer to Slick, the dealer who is Frank’s main connection – a bald guy with CIA-level clearance who made most of his bones doing foreign soil top-dollar construction work for the government because so few people were qualified at his level. Slick, says Ciera, is mostly a small-timer. He dabbles in the drug dealing enough to pay the bills; he’s mostly in it for the chicks and the social life. Ciera says she knows from Slick that Tara has become a regular customer for coke. A friend of Tara’s likes it a lot and had come into some money because her octogenarian millionaire ‘husband’ had finally died, leaving her (35 years old) the estate. Of course the Family had something to say, so she didn’t get everything – actually more like a few percentage points: a couple hundred thousand. But I digress . . .

So because of this background knowledge, Ciera is increasingly suspicious/convinced that Frank is doing not Vicodin, but cocaine. When we say, ‘Frank’s on his Vicodin frenzy right now,’ Ciera would counter with, ‘Or else a coke rush.’

Frank had no compunctions about hitting up Ciera for a Vicodin. One time she told me about him, jaw quivering, pleading if she could lend him a Vike? . . . she said she found one in the crease at the bottom of her purse. It was snagged with lint, there was even a pen mark. ‘He didn’t complain at all. He just thanked me,’ said Ciera.

Well, it finally happened. The other day Frank sidled up to Ciera and said, ‘Hey, you don’t have bump, do you? I could really use it right now.’

Of course, for the unfamiliar, ‘bump’ is slang for a snort of cocaine. Like, wanna do a bump?

Mr. AA. And he still is. No alcohol . . .

* * * * *

The other biggie is that Schotz, the well-to-do electrician who is friends with the owners of Carney’s Corner (Carney and Harry), dropped a bomb on Carney last Sunday. And all of us waiters want to find his address, go to his house, and shower him with gifts, flowers, kisses, and free drinks.

But first a little background.

Schotz is an extremely pleasant and affable guy. He’s part of the core buddy crew for Harry and Carney – those who’ll sit in a booth playing dominos for four hours. Schotz is also one of their go-to guys. Whenever they need some serious electrical stuff done, they call on their ‘friend.’

For instance, when Carney and Harry had to replace their old dishwashing machine, they took the opportunity to blow out a decaying and poorly-wired and -plumbed wall in the dish station area. They had Schotz in and he did all the electrical heavy lifting, delivering a first-class, up-to-code product. In this case and others, he politely refuses money (as a master of his craft in an upscale locale, his real rate would probably give them a heart attack), so Carney and Harry will give him restaurant gift certificates as compensation.

However, the only time Schotz and his wife eat anything at Carney’s is when they come sit in the dining room to redeem a gift certificate. They never even buy a quick bite in the bar. Which proves the gift certificates mean nothing to them – or else they’d be eating at Carney’s all along. To his credit, when Schotz and wife get their free dinner, he often tips 100%. Great guy.

Carney and Harry are extremely underdeveloped socially. Carney lives a life of rigidly-constructed delusion to protect her from feelings of severe inferiority. Harry is a late-stage alcoholic who drinks from sun-up till early evening, when the bedroom TV goes out of focus and his brain and liver finally surrender to the booze and THC.

They are not competent to have friendships outside of their controlled domain: the restaurant. Invitations to weddings, funerals, dinner, drinks, or miscellaneous outings like a movie or concert are rebuffed with excuses about how busy they are, how hard they work, how Carney has to have another colonoscopy the next day, or how Harry has to get another test on his prostate cancer.

(Incidentally, this fatal disease syndrome has been going on and on since I started there five years ago. And, no, they never have anything. Carney only regales us with tales of their medical woe. Ironically, the only thing honestly plausible – Harry contracting cirrhosis of the liver – has never been mentioned as a life-threatening ailment.)

Further in this direction, the owners absolutely refuse to allow any employee (or probably customer, for that matter) to have worse circumstances than their own.

‘How was your day off, Carney?’ I’ve asked many times. The restaurant is closed Mondays. ‘Hope you had some time to relax.’

‘Oh, no. Busy, busy. We were here at 7:30 waiting for the new air conditioner. Then when they were installing it, they knocked out a breaker, and Harry spent the next three hours fixing it. They got it in, but it wasn’t working in the front so . . .’ etc.

Or other times she might ask how I’ve been?

‘Pretty good,’ I’ll say. ‘I kind of had a stomach ache three days ago, thought I was coming down with something, but I guess it passed ’cause I feel great today.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve had diarrhea for three days running . . .’

Well, so, anyway. It’s Sunday. Schotz invites Carney and Harry over to his place for evening cocktails on Monday.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Carney said, ‘we’ve just been working so hard lately . . . we just really need that day off to rest. Otherwise we wouldn’t make it through the next week.’

Schotz said, ‘You know what? I’m getting fucking sick of always hearing how hard you two work. I asked if you wanted to come over for a drink. Just answer the fucking question.’

It’s just so great because Schotz is such a beautiful guy, even Carney and Harry can’t spin that he’s just a jackass. One of the nicest guys in the world unloaded on her about their self-aggrandizing, selfish dishonesty, and for a change there was absolutely nothing she could say.

Vicodin Theory and Ciera the Open Book

As promised in the last post, I’ll reveal the results from a test case of my theory regarding Frank the Bartender and his Vicodin addiction.

When I left you last, Frank had a hell of a night Friday from the servers’ and customers’ perspectives. He was cool and level-headed at the start of his shift (usually not the case), and he was an animal of efficiency making drinks.

Saturday night was a different story. Starting the evening, before guests had begun to fill his bar and the restaurant, he was like a feral cat, clawing and howling, jumpy and aggressive, scared of shadows, so hyper he was incoherent. Through the shift he couldn’t focus. Prying his attention from his newest canned soliloquy (his wife broke her femur and had to adjust her medication to be functional) was impossible. When he would cast his gaze at our arm-waving, we’d call orders – simple ones like two Ketel rocks and a Cosmo – and he’d grab a glass, hesitate looking into the air, then beg a repeat of the order. A typical mess.

The difference?

Friday is when Jacqueline comes in with his weekend Vicodin baggie. As mentioned before, Jacqueline’s husband, Bart, is a bartender at a nearby establishment. He’s had health problems over the years, like bad shoulders, bad back, bad knees. And hence he’s on the Vicodin train. Though Bart uses Vicodin recreationally – Jacqueline says he pops one and watches football on his days off – he doesn’t need or want anywhere near the volume prescribed. As a side note, Bart like Frank is also a long-time ’sober’ bartender. Also like Frank, Bart has an elastic idea about the meaning of sober. He smokes pot from breakfast to bedtime, and of course takes the occasional Vicodin excursion.

So, since Frank chews Vicodin like Smartees, he can’t hold on to a supply for more than a day or two. I don’t know what his supply system is during the week, but when Friday comes around, he’s probably been dry or nearly so for at least a day. At five o’clock he’s just normally medicated, probably having gulped his last pill before getting to work. He’s calm. Jacqueline gives him the baggie when she gets in at 5:30. Frank visits the restroom. For the next four hours, he’s Vicodin-charged, but not overdosed.

Saturday, that baggie has been beckoning him since he woke up in the morning. He can’t resist. He pops three or four before work to feel extra good. The result is that he’s crazed. He probably does a couple more during the shift to get completely out of his head.

I think my theory was proven.

Saturday also had a funny story from Ciera the Open Book. Ciera is fun and funny and loose and a daily drinker. She always has one ‘boyfriend’ or more, as well as two or three guys she’s dating/being pursued by. I’ve talked about her before. She had us in the back, telling about her Friday night (she was off work):

‘It was a nightmare! I had Rod (her long-time on/off boyfriend who lives in San Diego) calling me saying he was coming over. I had Angus (her most recent boyfriend who is now also on/off) texting he was coming over. (Neither knows about the other.) I told Angus I was going out with Candy but he said it was too late, he was coming anyway. And Rod is already driving on the 5. I didn’t know what to do. So I called Rod and tried to start a fight so he’d say fuck you, I’m going back home. But not too bad of a fight because he’s taking me to the Charger game tomorrow and I really want to go.’

‘Quite a highwire act, huh?’ I said.

‘You have no idea. But it didn’t work. I couldn’t really light him up because of the Charger game, so he didn’t get pissed enough. Luckily, he got there first and I said, “Let’s go get a room!” So he said “Okay,” and we went to the Hilton. I kept getting texts from Angus – “I’m outside your house. Where the fuck are you?”‘

That was a particularly delicious story from Ciera, but that should give you a whiff of what she’s like. Without embarrassment, she’ll tell you anything about her life you’d like to hear – and some stuff you might not. Like when she was walking gingerly one night. She said, ‘God, my ass hurts. Me and Angus fucked all night last night and towards the end he started going in the ass.’

‘You didn’t want to do it?’ I asked.

‘No, that was all right. I don’t prefer it, but I’ll do it when my pussy gets tired.’

* * * * *

Saturday continued the strong weekend – $255. It was a curious repeat of the previous Saturday where there was a flush of people early, as I was still opening the restaurant. It made for a good early turn, after which I was first cut. My turn-in to the tip pool was a solid $210.

Sunday I paid all the bills stacking up on the secretary downstairs. I use my bank’s website in lieu of an actual checkbook. I’m sure there are downsides, but once you get set up, it makes the arduous process a lot simpler. It also yields really fast turnaround times. If, for instance, you’re paying a Citibank credit card, you can log in just two days before your due date and still get the ‘check’ there on time. Likewise, you can schedule payments automatically; you can schedule one-time payments to deliver any date you specify.

I worked for Ciera tonight (remember the Charger game date?). Not too busy. Made $103. Had a late table featuring a gorgeous blonde of about 45 years. She’s had some work done, and I thoroughly approve. She’s been coming in for a couple years with her boyfriend, and I think I’ve served them 90% of the time. She always looks stunning – think Heather Locklear, the way she still looks today (she even looked pretty good in her mug shot!) – and I always compliment her when she sits down. Her boyfriend is always preoccupied though courteous. He is always impatient with her indecision ordering and with her positions in their conversations. He doesn’t drink. She drinks Chardonnay.

For some reason tonight, she leaves the table and finds me in the hallway, out of sight of her table. She grabs my hand and thanks me profusely for putting up with him. She says I always make her feel so good, and I’m so good to her. She apologizes for him again, and says they’re no longer together. She says she’s dating now. She asks when I work? I tell her, and she says she’ll come in alone and sit with me next week.

Sounds good. But it’ll probably be the following week if ever, as Carney’s is closed Thanksgiving and I might be off Friday.

Every man is different. I’ve been best friends with some who could stroll a cemetery at midnight and be propositioned by a beautiful woman. I’ve been best friends with others who could strike out on Spring Break in Cancun. Myself, I will make advances and be accepted and get no follow-through; I’ll be propositioned and never hear from her again; or sometimes it’ll just come together. I’m neither a Closer nor Elvis: I have a hard time ‘making it happen,’ and I don’t have an abundance falling in my lap.

But it’s always exciting.

R.I.P., Martini Glass

 

Real long day yesterday, a double. Got home at 11:45 p.m. with a couple beers in me and the Lakers on tap (if you will), so I bagged the blog for the time being. Lakers dominated the Nuggets – a thoroughly enjoyable way to end my night, along with my Bombay martini which with the earlier beers ended up being a little too much. My momma raised me right: I just don’t like to waste gin.

Also, on a personal note I’d like to say a few words about the passing of a very dear friend. Two nights ago, I poured a brilliant Bombay martini into my favorite martini glass. It’s a large bowl, mosaic-like colored glass affair, built very solid. It has served me well. Being so heavy, it really holds onto a chill. Alas, it is made of glass.

There was only one lemon in the house, already partially used for twists. It was pretty desicated, but it also made it sort of like camping where you make do and enjoy it even more for the hardship. I was digging deep with the twist gouger (is there a name for this kitchen tool?) right over the glass. (Note: To those unschooled in the finer points of mixology, when you ‘twist’ a lemon rind, it emits oil from  the skin, fragrancing and flavoring the drink. A good server/bartender will do this right over the drink, and then also rub the twist around the inside rim of the glass. Only an amateur will just drop the twist in the drink. Using the kitchen tool – which is uncommon in restaurants – the oil comes out in the rendering of the ‘twist,’ not when you do it with your hands. This is why I was doing it over the drink.) So, in digging deep on the dried lemon, I was using quite a bit of torque. No, I wasn’t buzzed yet – this was my only drink of the day. Well, the lemon squirted out of my hand. Trying to catch it, I toppled my beloved martini glass onto the floor, shattering it and wasting several ounces of gin.

We shared a lot, me and him. He consoled and comforted me at the end of many a long day. He celebrated with me for many Lakers victories. He chimed in on myriad toasts at cocktail parties. He kept cool even when I was losing my head. He was really a great guy.

R.I.P., Martini Glass.

At least my birthday is coming up.

Lunch at Michael’s was consistent with the straight line of the rest of the week. $110 on only four tables. Again, the people with money still have it. It’s the people who have to ‘feel’ wealthy to have lunch at an expensive steakhouse who are missing.

Had a shopping center developer VIP at Michael’s who bemoaned the economy. He said he was okay personally, as ‘we’ve been in cash for a long time,’ but the climate was making everything else difficult for business.

The merit system was at work today, also. This is where the good people get rewarded. I don’t mean me, although I do benefit other times. There’s a great dinner server, Bo, who has been working a lunch shift a week for awhile now. Because of his versatility and ‘game,’ he was awarded a banquet of 12 people (I know, usually banquets are no reward at all, but this one he did alone, and got a $135 tip from it). Further, it was just busy enough that Bo had to pick up tables on the floor. He got a great single diner regular who usually tips 100%. You read that right. His check is $50, his tip is $50. Don’t know for sure what happened but the odds were good. Later, Bo was still on the floor while the rest of us had been cut. In walked Mr. Martha, so-called because he starts his meal by ordering Heitz Cellars Martha’s Vineyard Cab – $200+ – and if there are more than two diners, he’ll order another one later. He then proceeds to order from the more expensive dinner menu. Anyhow, another $100 tip was coming Bo’s way after I left the restaurant.

I admit I was jealous, but I don’t begrudge Bo his good fortune. He earned it. That’s why I also despise servers who complain when a good server ‘gets all the good tables.’ There’s a reason why when it’s a coin flip who gets the good table, the manager will lean toward the most competent guy/gal available. The managers want to protect this valuable asset. If they can be sure someone will give their prize customers a great experience, they’ll pick that person every time. It’s just good business (and managerial job security). And it’s a deserved reward for competence.

Carney’s was busy like the holiday season was already on us. Very pleasant and energizing. Tip pool yielded $253 a person.

Had a guy who brought in his own l’aventure Optimus Cab from Paso Robles. He wouldn’t shut up about how great it was, how awesome the vintner’s wines were, how he had such a great collection of them, how he would bring in the two top-tier wines and let me taste them next time. Coincidentally, I’d tried the wine years earlier, and even remembered it. I shared my recollection with him, and I was spot-on in my evaluation at that time (so he said). Even so, having demonstrated my knowledge of the wine, it didn’t stop him from continuing to ‘educate’ me about it. He ordered the big lobster dinner for two and had a nice check. At the end he said he ‘thoroughly enjoyed’ me and my service . . . Oh-oh! Yep. 15%.

Then there was the very dicey-looking late table – an old guy with a shaky gait and his extreme-facial surgery/possible-transsexual wife. They split a dinner and a dessert, and left a 25% tip. You just never can tell.

Frank the Bartender was in peak form (no sarcasm here for a change). He was calm to start the shift and an absolute dervish slinging drinks for us. Four separate times I heard compliments on the speed of cocktail service. It is a major strength at Carney’s.

But there’s a reason, I believe, for his peak form. My theory will be tested tonight. So if you can hang on, I’ll post the results after the shift. Hint: it involves Vicodin.

12 Hours And Home For The Lakers

Everybody, thanks for reading about the ‘No’ Lady. Hope you enjoyed it. I’ve got a mini-catalog of Customer Types ready to go. My MO is mainly to trot them out when a prime example crosses my path, so the whole thing is fresh in my mind – like the ‘No’ Lady. Instead of a rough character sketch, I’ll be able to give some cut-from-life details, some smelly emotions.

On to today. A marginal 4-table shift at Michael’s. Fortuntately, I was able hit for a high slugging percentage and walked with $99. Four-top ordered nicely, $249 check left $55. Two-top enjoying glasses of White Zin, $20 tip. A guy who should be a VIP was treating his chiropracter – a pretty blonde woman – to lunch: $149 check, $30 tip. A two-top featuring a Forty-Yard-Fake-Out woman (looks HOT at forty yards, but up close you see she’s out of shape, not athletic, and the face is older and not so great) showing off her knowledge of Michael’s for a handsome younger guy who was probably an assistant she’d like to fuck (ASLF). $12 on $60.

Short break between shifts to spend an hour working on the screenplay. Got some nice things straightened out regarding the science and logistics of what I’m laying out. The play is laid all out. I’m fine-tuning right now in preparation for a run at a first draft. My method is to outline a plot, read it and make notes about it, then re-outline based on the notes. Repeat, and again. I’m now to the point in the screenplay where it’s pretty solid what’s going to happen; why it all happens is pretty much accounted for; and my characters aren’t having conflicts with the previous two elements. So I’m going to let ‘er rip with a draft of the ‘real’ screenplay. We’ll see what happens from there. Wish me luck. BTW, I have written screenplays before; this is not my first attempt.

Carney’s was a wasteland tonight. It was rescued only by Dory’s co-worker from her other serving job showing up. That was a $53 tip for two diners. Dory and I walked with a mere $65. Otherwise, it was very slow. Unfortunate because yesterday saw the restaurant filling up – surely a $200 night. These are the economic times.

Vicodin-Boy (Frank the Bartender) was his better self, but towards the end he tried to tell Dory and I a story about how his bank was no longer denying debit card transactions above his account balance, instead honoring the transaction and charging over-limit fees. He almost choked on his tongue – he got so worked up.

It was either a few recently-swallowed Vicodins kicking in, or else he couldn’t handle the pressure of telling a story he hadn’t rehearsed a few hundred times. Frank is that kind of bartender/server. We all are to a degree, but he’s the worst. Once the soundtrack starts with him, it goes all the way through. Someone mentions dogs, in any context, and they will be treated/subjected to an etched-in-granite 10 minute soliloquoy about the 9-litter Portuguese Sheepherder (or whatever they were) saga he and his wife went through . . .

He’s a tight ass, too. But tonight when I asked for my shifter (we’re actually informally allowed two), I only asked for a half martini. So he poured me Hendrick’s, my fave gin, top-shelf and usually not on the shifter roster. Tasty.

Steak salad and a martini at home and the Lakers handled the Suns pretty easily. I’m happy and tired.

Vicodin Twins

It used to be that Frank, bartender at Carney’s was the object for our ridicule for his Vicodin addiction. He’s the supposed ‘manager’ of the restaurant, but he’s a total weasel. None of us respects him as manager, but he still tries to inflict his authority on us.

He’s got five years in AA – and he doesn’t let anyone forget how great he is for that – but he semi-secretly hits the pills like he’s eating popcorn. He used to have it made when his girlfriend who had Lupus and myriad other health problems could get an unlimited supply that she never tapped. But he broke up with her and married Shirley. Though he lost the girlfriend, he kept the Vicodin habit. He keeps it secret from Shirley, going through all manner of subterfuge to keep up with his hobby.

For instance, waitress Jacqueline has a husband, Bart (a bartender at another restaurant), who occasionally takes a Vicodin for recreation on his Sundays off, watching football. Bart has had elbow, back, and knee problems that sometimes lead to amassing large supplies of Vicodin. Frank jumps all over that, imploring Jacqueline to bring him any extras. I don’t know if she sells them or donates them.

Other times, Frank gets a big stash himself. So he brings most of them to Jacqueline for safekeeping. “I only allow myself 7 or 8 a week. If I have ‘em around, I’ll go through this bag in a week.” Many’s the time Jacqueline has reported to us that Frank calls her mid-week, begging for more ’cause he’s out already. Other times he’s showed up knocking on her door, begging for pills. She finally banned him from coming to the house because he was so sketchy and suspicious.

The worst times for us waiters is the start of the shift. Frank is spineless, so is always on pins and needles when Carney and Harry (the married owners) are around. When he knows they’ll be in all night (they often work the days and leave the nights to us professionals), he loads up on Vike’s before work and shows up completely wigging out. Best I can observe, a Vicodin high seems to combine an amphetamine with a mood elevator. He gets behind that bar and starts barking requests to anybody with two ears.

“Ice, please!”

“I need a six-pack of Miller Lite!”

“Can someone get me one envelope?”

“Primo, I need a twist!”

“Primo, get me a six-pack of Bud!”

Yes, he asks for the Lite first. Then five minutes later he asks for the Bud. He doesn’t combine the requests to save Primo (the busser) time. And anyway, there all a six-pack will do is complete a fully-loaded refrigerator with 24 bottles of Bud and Lite each. He’d take two days to run out.

So it used to be Frank. But now it seems Ciera is developing a Vicodin addiction. Tonight she was just the same as Frank, running around, asking for help, placing orders, half-finishing a handful of tasks then leaving the kitchen entirely. Ciera usually works in the lounge area while I work in the dining room. I thought she must be really busy, so I went up front to help out. There were some tables all right – six, where five is considered a normal full station – but three of them were completely done, with their checks down. I had no idea why she could be so freaked out with just three active tables.

Ciera is an open-book person. Her life is not that pretty. She’s 50-something, very pretty, but also aging way too rapidly. She’s never been married or had kids. She dates pretty much for drinks or for money. The ‘arrangements’ she works out with men are right on the edge of prostitution territory. Even without an ‘arrangement,’ she will have sex with nearly anyone who will take her out for a nice dinner. Or even just drinks, if he’s fun and attractive. She drinks every day – unless she’s in physical pain (either bad back or bad feet) – then she takes whatever pills her doctor gives her. And of course she still might have a couple glasses of wine along with it. Recreational pharmaceuticals make their way to her, as well, through a variety of friends. The other day, I observed another bartender leave a Vicodin on the back counter for her to pick up when she came in to work.

And I know all of this is true because, as I said, Ciera is an open-book person. She tells it all to you herself.