As a restaurant manager you can suddenly find yourself in a situation you would normally never end up in. In addition, you are called on to make quick decisions with no training and little opportunity to consider the alternatives. An example occurred just after I had been transferred from the Houlihans at Sixty Third and Broadway to the Houlihans on Lexington at Fifty Sixth. I had not been happy at the last location and was looking forward to making a fresh start.

My new assignment was a cozy mid sized walk up restaurant. As you walked in off the street there were a series of three small staircases. Each led to a landing and then reversed back over the one that had preceded it. At the top of the third flight of stairs was a final landing. Along the left side of this landing was a sturdy brass railing. Leaning over the railing and looking down you could see the entrance way two floors below. Across the top landing were two large oak doors that were usually propped open with big rubber door stops.

As you came through the entrance there was a host stand on the left and to the right was the bar and cocktail area. A narrow row of booths stretched ahead and then opened into a small dining room. To the rear of the dining room and off to the left were the swinging double doors that led to the kitchen. That's where I was late one night when one of my waitresses came in and calmly told me that someone had spilled a beer in the bar.

I quickly dispatched my dishwasher, George, to take care of it. George was in his late thirties although he appeared much older. He was a large man, who never stood up straight, appearing too fatigued to bother. His pants, also, seemed unable or unwilling to climb all the way to his waist, preferring instead to rest halfway up his ass, creating quite an endearing sight for those seated across from any spills he attended to. George was a veteran of the Vietnam war and he wore his sunglasses day and night, indoors or out. He always stank of the cheapest Muscatel and his face supported a perpetual three day growth of hair. George was reliable and he was a good worker when he was sober, (I'm just guessing, of course, as I had no first hand experience of this), but he tended to get progressively slower and sloppier towards the end of the night. While I was often anxious to get the work finished and get home George was more concerned with the money a few extra hours of work provided him. I also discovered that he lived in the subway station at Fifty Fifth and Third Avenue, perhaps another reason why he never hurried to get home.

Soon after George headed out to the bar with a mop and a bucket another waitress came running into the kitchen and told me that there was trouble. Apparently the gentleman who had spilled the beer had not done so accidentally and resented George's attempt to undo his handiwork. She told me that he was pushing George and pouring more beer on the floor and behaving altogether unpleasantly. I would simply need to inform this individual that his behavior was unacceptable and that he probably needed to adapt a more cheerful disposition.

I came through the dining room and around the end of the circular bar. Conversation at the bar had evaporated and all eyes focused down towards the opposite end. As I rounded the bar I saw a long legged bar stool lying on the ground and a short legged man standing next to it. The man wore blue jeans and a blue woolen work shirt. His sleeves were rolled up revealing a tattooed snake on his muscular left arm and a tattoo declaring his love for his mother on his right arm. He clutched a half empty bottle of Budweiser in his left hand. There was no one near him except for George, as all the customers had moved a safe distance away. The dishwasher was dutifully trying to mop up the spill and remain oblivious to the taunting being directed at him.

All my life, I had deliberately avoided physical confrontations, especially with bigger, stronger, and angrier men. Even though he was barely five ten he still had a few inches on me. My heart was pounding but I had a job to do. I walked up to the gentleman and calmly said,

"Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

He stepped up to me, with a broad smile that was missing a few teeth, and put his face close enough to mine to kiss me. We spent a few seconds there, motionless, as he composed his response. Then he said,

"Oh, yeah!" and turned his bottle of beer upside down, emptying its contents at my feet.

I got the impression he was angry. I found out later that he had just had a fight with his girlfriend and she had stormed out of the restaurant. That explained not only why he was so upset but also why he had so much beer to throw around.

I turned and walked away, telling him what I hoped would be a very convincing and effective lie.

"The police are already on their way, sir."

I headed around the corner to the host stand where there was a telephone. One of my waiters, an aspiring actor named Chris, was on the phone. I asked him if he was calling the police and, Chris, who was somehow unaware of what was happening a few feet away and thought my question was some perverse form of a joke, responded in kind by saying 'yeah'.

Comforted by the thought that the New York Police Department had been notified and would be rushing to our aid I turned back towards the bar. My main concern was to get the attention of the belligerent patron and to be the focus of his aggression so as to insure that no one got hurt. As soon as I turned around I could see that that would be easier than I thought, he was standing right in front of me. It suddenly occurred to me that my plan to make sure that no one got hurt hadn't included me. I regretted the oversight. He put his face right up to mine again and smiling an extremely unfriendly smile, said,

"So, you're the guy who's going to throw me out of here, huh?"

As he spoke he was fingering the pen in my shirt pocket. Before I knew it he grabbed my shirt pocket and pulled down, ripping my brand new Pierre Cardin shirt into one more piece than it had been when I bought it. It never paid to where nice things to work. I got a little upset. I lunged at him, trying to catch him off guard and push him out the door. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Chris suddenly becoming aware that I hadn't been joking before. His face drained of all color and his voice trailed off as this violence erupted around him. He quickly hung up and dialed 911.

I managed to push my adversary out the door and he tumbled backwards and down a few of the steps. As he struggled to regain his feet I kicked out the right hand door stop and started to pull the large door closed. I don't know what I hoped to accomplish as these doors opened from the outside and were not meant to be secured from the inside but I was reacting more than thinking.

As I leaned across to grab the right hand door I was struck quite forcefully under my left ear by the man's fist. It hurt. My head reverberated with pain and a loud ringing sound. Violence suddenly exploded from within me. I threw a right cross that rocked him in his jaw. Then I quickly grabbed him and thrust him back towards the brass railing. With my left hand grabbing the shirt below his right shoulder and my right hand under his chin I pushed him back towards the banister. I bent him back over the rail. His feet were up off the ground and with my right hand I was trying to bend his head back so that he could see how close he was to a long, fatal drop.

Instantly, I was pulled off of him by members of my crew. Upon reuniting his feet with the ground he put them to quick use and ran off down the stairs. Although it was not my intention, I have never come as close to seriously hurting anyone as I did that night. I shudder to think what might have happened had I not been pulled away.