The term road rash is a bit of a misnomer. While it is a condition primarily caused by contact with roads, it only resembles a rash in as much as a rash is similar to advanced leprosy or being flayed. This is because the quaint “rash” referred to is actually a euphemism for your flesh being peeled of your body like an avocado skin. It hurts more than most things do. Imagine flesh-eating bacteria or a hang-nail that covers a square foot of your body, and you are in road rash territory.

            Considering the scenario – a post-last-call motorcycle cruise on a Yamaha 1100 that cost me $300 (to give you an idea of the condition of the machine,) this after a long day of partaking of Napa Valley reds and Colombian whites – I had gotten off pretty easy. My “rash” covered the width of my wrist from the base of my left hand six inches up my forearm. Not by any stretch of the imagination the worst possible penalty for my ill-advised late-night joy-ride.

            The unfortunate part, aside from the messianic pain caused by spraying New-Skin™ over the wound, was that I was working at a five-star restaurant as a banquet server, a job that required extensive use of my hands and wrists. The restaurant in question made its bones primarily in the summer time, hosting weddings. At times there would be up to six weddings in a single day, replete with cocktail, champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and cake service (all tasks involving holding a circular tray 18” in diameter on the fingertips of the non-dominant hand for extended periods of time). To compound the misfortune, the morning following the motor-scooter incident was also the morning the owner of the restaurant decided to promote me to “captain,” a highly coveted title. Not wanting to miss my one shot at truly making it in the service industry, I neglected to mention to her the large patch of missing wrist-skin concealed beneath a cotton bandage and the long sleeve of the black tuxedo-shirt comprising the top half of my uniform.  If I could avoid resting the trays on my wrist for the sixteen-hour double-shift, I would be fine.

            As captain, one of my new responsibilities was coordinating service with the customer. Often times, this meant the father-of-the-bride, or some similar title. In this case, however, the contact was the bride herself. My boss Allison briefed me on the wedding – service for forty, choice of three entrees, open bar – and instructed me to go speak with the woman in the Palmer Room, where the dinner was to take place.

            The Palmer Room was the converted upstairs drawing-room of the manor house. The Western wall was lined with large windows that looked out on the well-manicured grounds of the turreted building. When I entered the room the bride was seated alone at one of these windows, gazing longingly out into the mid-afternoon day. Had I stumbled unwittingly into the room, I would have thought she was posing for publicity shots for a new vampire movie. A real Jane Austen schtick: thin frame, pretty patrician bone-structure, seated at a bay window in her white silk dress, gazing out into the middle-distance. I got the impression she had been rehearsing the pose for at least a month.

             I greeted her and she looked through me with vacant, haunted wedding-day eyes. Three months in the wedding business and I had little sympathy for the type. Get married or don’t, I don’t give a good goddamn which I thought as I introduced myself and went over the game-plan with her. She conversed distractedly with me for about a minute, the air of a Prussian general addressing the peasantry. This isn’t a fifties romance film and you’re not Elizabeth Taylor, I said to myself silently, while saying to her, out loud, “We will make sure everything goes perfect.” She answered with a look that said she already assumed that, and turned back to her affected wedding-day repose. After leaving the room I took a deep breath. Of course I would get a Bridezilla-type on my first assignment. The gig certainly paid well, but women like this had a way of making me feel like a hired midget playing the baby at a prohibition-era New Year’s Eve gala.

            Despite my feelings toward the bourgeoisie broad, what happened later was not intentional. Champagne service, and my bartender is at the bar in the corner of the room, loading a circular tray with flutes full of the nectar of the gods. The bride is sitting rigidly in her chair, which is just behind me. The reception has felt, over the last hour, more like a meeting of insurance adjusters than a wedding.

            I have been serving all day with no ill effects, managing to keep my wrist from painful contact with any foreign objects. I slide the tray off the edge of the bar and elevate my fingertips up, but as I’m turning the edge of the tray brushes against the wound, and my reaction is as automatic as it is disastrous. Twenty glasses of champagne come down in a jarring crash, shattering the indemnity-solemnity ambiance, right beside the bride. A tendril of amber liquid licks the hem of the lady’s expensive dress. The look on her face is similar to her window-gaze, although it is markedly more vicious.

            The moral of this story is don’t drink a bunch of wine, snort a bunch cocaine, then drive your motorcycle around at 4:00 am in the morning after work. If you hadn’t realized that already, you’re probably a server.