the tasty, protein-rich gelée that covered us from head to toe.
The garden party was, to be modest, a smashing success. No one in
dowdy old Provincetown had ever seen anything like it. We became
instantly notorious, and we made the most of it, printing up business
cards for a planned catering venture called Moonlight Menus. The cards,
commissioned from a local artist, depicted us sneering in toques. We
proceeded to hand these things out to local businessmen, telling them
blithely that not only did we not need, or even want their business, but
they couldn't possibly afford us, as we were easily the most expensive
and exclusive caterers on the entire Cape! Two highly trained specimens
like us had more than enough business, thank you very much.
There was, of course, no business. But the strategy worked. In the coke-
soaked final weeks of 1975 P-town, there were plenty of local
businessmen eager to impress their friends with an elaborate end-of-
season bash. And we were only too happy to encourage them in even
grander pretensions, filling their heads with names and dishes we'd
culled from my Larousse (few of which we'd actually attempted) and
quoting staggering prices. We knew well how much these people were
paying for cocaine-and that the more coke cost, the more people wanted
it. We applied the same marketing plan to our budding catering
operation, along with a similar pricing structure, and business was
suddenly very, very good.
In no time, we were able to leave our regular jobs at the Dreadnaught and
Mario's, lording it over our old co-workers in brand-new Tony Lama
boots, and brandishing shiny new Wusthoff knives when we dropped by
for a quick visit and a gloat.
Our customers were restaurateurs, coke dealers, guys who ran fast boats
out to motherships off Hyannis and Barnstaple to offload bales of
marijuana. We catered weddings, parties, private dinners for pizza
magnates, successful leather and scrimshaw merchants. All the while, I