Farzad Story, Part One: Booze, Bigotry, and Belligerence

I put myself through college working as a server at Lyon's Restaurant. Lyon's used to have these fairly cheesy "clubrooms" with a full bar, live music, and servers who wore better uniforms than the coffeeshop-side people. In my clubroom we wore tuxedo tops and bow ties. Like I said, cheesy.

Anyway, one of my managers was a guy named Farzad and he had a really beautiful voice. I think he had sung professionally with his brother or something. He was from Iran and spoke Farsi. He was sort of roughly handsome with strong features and dark chocolate skin. Every once in awhile, at our request, he would come up and sing some beautiful, romantic song in Farsi. Sometimes he would also sing it in English. I suppose the customers loved it -- I never really thought about them. I loved it. His rich, full voice and the mournful beauty of the songs sometimes made me want to cry.

One Sunday we had a full clubroom and Farzad agreed to sing. He was sort of shy about singing in the restaurant, but he sometimes would, if he wasn’t too busy. This town was fairly homogenously white & Eurocentric, but as it was a college town, people were not completely unexposed to broader culture.

A few minutes after he had begun, I heard a loud, alcohol-soaked voice from the other side of the room, yelling. It was one of those things that is incongruous and hard for the brain to place at first. Why would someone be yelling? In the middle of the song? His words took on meaning quickly. "You shouldn't be up there singing that.....I don't know what this is....what are you singing for...can’t even understand what you’re saying….why don't you [I can’t remember exactly what he said here; his meaning was “why don’t you go back to your country”]...is he the manager? What is he singing for...." I looked around in horror and saw the owner of the voice, a sixtyish, redneck, alcoholic-looking good old boy, moderate gut, bolo tie, belt with a buckle, and polyester slacks with a crease down the pant leg, looking like the kind of guy who probably never left Butte County in his miserable life, yet sure that all his strongly held political and social opinions were wisdom from the good Lord himself. In dismay I realized he was in my station. His mousy wife sat next to him, silent and mortified.

Farzad's voice faded away. The look on his face broke my heart as he mumbled something about being sorry and that he wasn't going to sing anymore, stepped away from the mic, and disappeared down the hall to the manager’s office.

To be continued...