My Closest Encounter With Trump
To me, the weirdest part about the whole "Donald Trump is running for president” thing is that, as someone who’s lived in or near New York for most of his life, I can tell you with absolute authority that he’s been the punchline to a joke about excessive tackiness since the ‘80s. That he comes from New York is a total embarrassment to a city known for its tolerance and diversity.
I’ve heard three stories from people who’ve dealt directly with Donald Trump and none of them are flattering. Two involve people whose companies did work for him, only to be offered pennies on the dollar afterwards. After waiting months to be paid. The third involves a woman whom he propositioned while one of his wives was pregnant (lovely, right?).
The closest that I’ve ever come to dealing with Donald Trump was shortly after I moved back to New York from London. I needed a job desperately and was offered a position in the reservations office of what was then the hippest restaurant in the city. You couldn’t get a table unless you were Leonardo DiCapro or Bono.
The owner, a brilliant and nice guy who once gave me a raise after he mentioned that he wanted to see a movie and I told him that Kieslowski’s “The Dekalogue” was playing at Lincoln Center, is a man who I still admire. The several restaurants that he either still owns or has in the past are testaments to the fantasy that a lot of people come to New York to hopefully live out in reality. He has always understood that atmosphere and experience are at least as important as food.
I’ll mention also that he was obsessed with not having empty tables. Once during Valentine’s Day, I was instructed to keep taking reservations even after the restaurant was booked to capacity. When I asked him if that might ruin a romantic evening for a lot of people, he assured me that a lot of them wouldn’t show up and there was nothing to worry about. He turned out to be right.
The only person we were ever allowed to deny a reservation to was Donald Trump. Once I had worked there for a little while and people got to know me, I was told that it would be perfectly fine to not give The Donald a table and even have some fun at his expense if he ever called. When I asked the owner why this was so, he replied, “because he’s disgusting.”
One day, I was sitting at my desk and taking reservations, just like I would on any given day. The phone rings. I answer. It’s a very polite woman on the other end who informs me that Donald Trump would like to come in for dinner with Danny DeVito (seriously).
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything available,” I replied.
“I haven’t told you when they want to come in yet,” the woman said.
She gave me a day and time. I didn’t even bother opening the book. I simply told her that there was nothing available.
“This is Donald Trump who wants to come in,” she said, as if the name alone would somehow cause a table to magically open up.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Unfortunately, we have nothing available.”
She asked about the next day. I told her there was nothing. She inquired about the day after that. Nope. The other reservationists were listening in, giggling and slightly jealous that they weren’t getting to be the ones who got to deny a reservation to Donald Trump.
The woman sighed, realized what was going on and hung up without another word.
My guess is that if Donald Trump becomes president, he will become upset and I will have to answer to Vladimir Putin.
