In 1979 I was the very young dining room manager of Houston’s premier entertainment-focused restaurant, The Great Caruso, a 235 seat palace of ostentation that featured live entertainment (including the waitstaff) with a house band and an array of local musical talent.  It was fashioned with architectural oddities and treasures from around the world (a massive, 2 story white marble circular staircase graced the center of the room) and a FOH staff of 30 including 18 busboys all from Iran, all under my inexperienced management.  The Great Caruso was a white tablecloth venue of the old school with an excellent menu (we still cooked a few dishes at the table in those days), a top notch wine list for that time (heavy on the French as CA had not come into its own yet) with a full time wine steward (one of the waiters replaced me when I was promoted).  We hosted political royalty and celebrities on a daily basis and anyone who walked in here knew they were in for a special evening.  The wait staff was primarily women and a mix of straight and gay men (all of whom taught me how to dance at the gay discos after the shifts), the busboys were Persian and there was me in the middle.  It was one of the most exhilarating times of my life as all of us were bonded by an esprit de corps that hospitality workers can really appreciate.

The busboys all attended an engineering college nearby and the restaurant was like their second home.  We would all get together and play Texas Hold-em on Sunday nights after the shift (they were incredibly aggressive bettors) where they would teach me words in Persian and I reciprocated with American idioms. I was ok with a few of them doing a few “slides” of a specific hallucinogen from their home country upstairs near the lockers after shifts. If they were caught doing it at school they would be expelled and returned home, a great shame to their families.  So they came to work to get high.

So many of them were named “Ali” that they were assigned numbers which they took great pride in – Ali 1 through 6. It started as a joke but they completely owned it.  One time, when Ali 2 had graduated and went back to Iran, we had a council on whether or not a new Ali could claim his number or go to #7.  In this case, Ali 2 was held in great esteem so it was determined that Ali 7 would be created.  A few days later, a few of them approached me before a shift with something in their hands wrapped in tissue paper: a beautiful scrimshaw etching of an ancient Persian polo match, framed in a handmade frame of Persian design, proof of their cultural contribution to the world.  “Mr. Robin” had gained their respect.  Being so young and inexperienced in the real world, I was touched beyond belief and it remains one of the lasting treasures that I have near my desk in my office.

Over a period of a few weeks, I began to see a pattern emerge…many of them weren’t coming to work on Sunday nights.  I always took great care to manage the work schedule around their studies and tests, religious observances and trips back home, but I was now getting hammered by the GM, the maitre d’, the owners and the waitstaff.  Even though Sundays were the lightest nights of the week, our level of service was rigorous and the lack of busboys was causing seams to show.  When they came in for service, I approached them in the locker room and made a general announcement that we needed them to show up for their assigned shifts and made a vague threat that their jobs were at risk.  They all nodded in agreement but it was obvious something was going on and the following Sunday, I had 2-3 no-shows.  Ali 5 did show up and after the shift I asked him what was going on.

He explained to me that all the others were at the mosque praying.  I wasn’t aware that Sunday evenings were now part of their prayer cycle but he said this was something special.  “We are praying for our deliverance”, he said, “for the return of our beloved Ayatollah Khomeni”.  He went on to explain who this man was, about his exile in Paris and how all Persians hated the current Shaw of Iran, who was a tyrant and blasphemer in their eyes.  The Ayatollah, an honorific bestowed upon the upper echelon of holy men, was a prophet and would lead the current Iran to its proper place as it was in ancient times, when it was once called Persia.

Over the next few weeks I was torn between my affection for them, my curiosity for their prophet and my duties as a manager. I was reading small articles in Time magazine about this man and the excitement he caused by all these young students.  I remember having some difficult interactions with the busboys and the wait staff over the constant absenteeism.  At one point, Bassam, who was definitely the coolest of them all (probably because he exhibited the most Western behaviors) stood up at a staff meeting and demanded a higher cut of the tips.  The other busboys all agreed, and I realized this was a planned insurrection.  I could see the headwaiter slowly shaking his head and knew that I would soon be over my head.  In the next few weeks it turned into a shit show with the GM and owners pressing me to “solve the problem” which I clearly did not have the experience to do.  I think at one point I had the whole staff, front and back, pissed off at me. 

The drum beats of revolution were now pounding heavily in far-off Iran, it was a constant staple on the evening news and Chronicle headlines.  A noticeable change came over the entire bus staff, they were solid on their demands for more money and they were staging a kind of “blue-flu”: chronic absenteeism, reluctance to do any extra work, surly on personal interactions.  Not all of them, but most.  Mike, one of the older waiters who was an Iranian/American, pulled me over one night and said, “Robin, this ain’t going away.  They’re fired up over this Ayatollah guy and you’re either going to have to fire them all or find some other money for them”.  It was a Hobson’s choice, no choice at all.

Deliverance came for me when the GM called me up to his office at the end of a Thursday evening shift and told me that this wasn’t working out and my last day as a manager would be Sunday night, after I locked up.  I could either come back as a waiter or find another job.  They wouldn’t be hiring anyone to take my place for a while and he was going to assume my duties.  On Sunday evening, after I locked up, I went out to my car and the entire wait staff was waiting for me in the parking lot.  They said, “get in your car, we’re heading to a bar to celebrate your last night” and when I turned, it looked pretty weird.  Jeff Sherrill, the MC who ran the show at the restaurant from an overhead  booth and one of my better friends there, filled my entire car with popcorn, the entire interior.  I opened the door and it fell out into the parking lot and the staff pulled out a couple cases of beer and we celebrated.

Within a month, the Shaw of Iran fled the country to the US as Ayatollah Khoumeni returned from exile and started the Islamic Revolution. It was February 11, 1979.  By November that year, the US Embassy was attacked and American hostages were held until 1980 after Reagan took his oath of office.  The anti-Islam sentiment had come to America and took root and I heard that one by one each of the busboys was fired from the Great Caruso.  All except for Bassam, who had “converted” to Westernism and denied his Iranian heritage.  The next few months I was glued to the TV, magazines and newspapers, looking intensely at the pictures of the crowd of young “students” staging marches, holding and parading the hostages and chanting “Death to Carter” and “Death to America”.  I think at one point I saw Ali 5.