Shrimp Boat is Comin'

The Shrimp Boat

            In the late 60’s, already the victim of two abortive attempts in business, I blindly ventured into a third. Shrimp Boats of Louisiana, Inc. was a corporation composed of shareholders Reese & Abadi. Reese knew a fellow by the name of Dick Wasserman, who made a living selling cooking equipment to restaurants. Dick was about forty-five years old when I knew him, and was a man who appeared to consume copious portions prepared in one of those Wasserman stainless steel ovens. He was your typical salesman type, who spoke his memorized inanities, non-stop.

            Every time I heard his name mentioned, I could only think of the Wassermann diagnostic test for syphilis and wondered why I was eating anything exiting those ovens. He actually was fairly differential in his dealings with us and generally looked to his business partner to answer any of our questions. He was talked into his side of the partnership because he could sell his restaurant supplies to every franchisee, thereby making a hog’s killing before any of the franchisor’s profits were realized. Nice work if you can get it.

            Dick had apparently combined his talents with another man, whose name escapes me, and they founded a franchise with its defining signature being a restaurant shaped like a shrimpboat and specializing in seafood. After about an hour meeting with those two, George and I decided the only thing missing from our lives was a restaurant shaped like a shrimpboat and specializing in seafood; so we bought the deal. This was the first franchise sold by our antagonists, and neither of them had ever been in the retail restaurant business prior to this first sale. Reese and I missed that fact during our initial discussions.

            I once heard of a redneck from Mississippi and a Polish guy from Indiana, who opened a French restaurant in New Orleans. They were absentee owners, to boot. I immediately knew they had absolutely no chance of success. Neither one of them was trained in the business, as they were professional football players who got sold a bill of goods. They were well known luminaries in a city chocked full of fabulous restaurants, and obviously they thought the crowds would flock to their spot merely because their names were associated with the venture. I laughed like hell when I heard those two jocks got taken down by some hustlers. “How could they have done that?” I mused.

            Well, the ultimate laugh is on me. How could two lawyers succeed in the food business, whose only restaurant experience is sitting at a table d’hôte, with napkins stuck under their chins, a plate of boiled crawfish in front of them, and whistling up two more martinis? Answer is; they can’t. 

            As you drove down the main drag in a New Orleans suburb, up loomed this ugly structure resembling a hurricane-beached shrimpboat. It had a gangplank for its entrance, lifeboat rings with the name Shrimpboat of Louisiana written in a semi-circle attached to the front door, fish nets hanging inside, and it even had a crow’s nest upstairs to seat overflow diners. The kitchen had brand new, Wasserman-supplied, stainless steel equipment and all of the tables, chairs, booths, and pictures in the dining area were laced with a maritime theme. Then came opening night.

            “What can go wrong will go wrong,” is a motto this place thrived on. Opening night the rains came down in torrents. Now a little rain never stopped a Denny’s or Burger King from serving their customers, because their parking lots are paved and the customers have easy ingress and egress to these restaurants. At the Shrimpboat Restaurant, during this rain it became abundantly clear to everyone that our franchisors had not supplied a proper parking area to us.             As the few unsuspecting patrons, who braved the elements, attempted to exit from their parking spaces, they found their vehicles had sunk to about midway up the hubcaps in this thick, soupy, South Louisiana clay that held its prey like a jungle beast mired in quicksand.

            Of course, any sane person who witnessed the two lawyers and their secretary in the parking lot, up to their knees in goo, thoroughly soaked from the ever-present rain, pushing their initial customers out of this quagmire, would have suggested the doors to this august establishment be immediately nailed shut, and a “closed” sign should be hung from the doorknob.

            Rather than nail the doors shut, we merely ordered several loads of oyster shells to be dumped onto the parking areas, exchanging minor cuts to the customers’ tires for mud up to the floorboards. At any rate, the oyster shells did the trick and we continued in business.

            We did have to revise the gangway, since the moisture from the rain made it more slippery than goose grease, and several first night customers emerged rubbing their sore derrière.

            The next thing brought to our attention as owners was the packaging supplied by the franchisors was defective. Since I was the delivery boy for the first month (a lawyer in the restaurant business must start at the bottom), it was pointed out to me, in no uncertain terms, the food a take-out customer was receiving was a little off; maybe more than a little off. What was supposed to be crispy fried catfish, in reality was a soggy, flaccid, hunk of something resembling a fish, or at least in the same phylum as a fish.

            We discovered the delivery packaging was flawed in several ways. First, it had no holes in the box to allow the freshly cooked seafood to expel its steam. Second, the walls of the take-out boxes were lined with aluminum foil, creating more interior moisture, resulting in all of the boxed contents being drowned in a sea of evaporated steam, grease, and seafood liquids creating the fish sculpture previously described. To add insult to injury, all of the other accompanying foods (fried potatoes, rolls, etc.) were welded together with the mystery seafood producing an unidentifiable glob of the most uneatable omelet one can imagine. That was the end of our take-out business; at least, for return callers. Can you picture the looks on the patrons’ faces as they opened the tightly sealed aluminum-lined take-out boxes, expecting crispy fried seafood and instead receiving a rancid smelling collage stuck to the bottom of the container? As delivery-boy, I never saw so many jaws drop as the first glimpse of the boxed contents went from pleasure, to awe, to wonderment, to ire, to really pissed off, and finally to; “You expect me to pay for this crap?” In some cases, the box hit me in the back before I could beat my hasty retreat.

            Those were just a few of the startup problems. There were numerous others. As the business rapidly decreased, our investment increased proportionately, until such time we were forced to make a change. We told Wasserman and his buddy to buzz off, and finally, one night after closing, we had a face-off in the parking lot with the two of them versus Reese and me. Since I have always eschewed physical violence, particularly if it involves me, I invited Rod Saavedra to the party. Reese and I had long since forgiven Rod for his minor transgression of stealing our money. The night ended up with much shouting and posturing about who was at fault, and we verbally severed our relationship with those two unarmed bandits. Saner minds would say Reese & Abadie were at fault for participating in this boondoggle in the first place, but who listens to saner minds?

                        “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”   Carl Jung

            We replaced our management (Reese & Abadie) with a friend of mine from high school, one Joe LaBella. La Bella, in Italian, is beautiful; whereas in Latin, bella is war. Something must have gone awry in the translation, just as something must have gone awry in the LaBella family.  Joe looked like he was descended from the Vikings; not the Romans.  Joe’s blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin certainly didn’t resemble the other Italian boys I grew up with, but his attitude was indeed beautiful. I can’t remember ever seeing Joe without a large smile and a kind word for me.

Joe was a great baseball pitcher in high school who specialized in a roundhouse curveball. The only curveball thrown here was the one the franchisors threw at us. Joe quickly told me he had enough of the restaurant business and we replaced him with another friend of mine from college, Carlton Sweeney, who lasted long enough to realize it was a sinking ship that could not be refloated; a virtual beached Titanic, and we were the ones drowning.  

            Carlton Sweeny had some kind of personality complex, because when he spoke to you, he did so with his head sunk down into his chest and he never looked you in the eyes. I understand he has been enormously successful in oil field ventures, since leaving his temporary residence in the food business, which proves the old axiom, “Slinging hash ain’t like drilling oil wells.”

One other person was tried as manager, and he lasted all of two weeks. I was actually a little dubious about his restaurant skills, when he instituted a breakfast menu to compliment our long suffering lunch and dinner fare. He was of Indian extraction (dot; not feather), and I guess he thought we needed to lose money on three meals per day instead of just two.  

            By this time we were losing so much money, Reese & Abadie had to return to the front lines taking over the day to day management. One particular night we ran an oyster special and several of the patrons suggested instead of serving the oysters on a mock oyster plate, we should serve them on real oyster shells, as most other seafood establishments in this area did. Not to be outdone by our competition, I raced out to the parking lot and collected about two dozen partially damaged oyster shells we had unloaded there after the opening night rains. I placed the bottled oysters on the fractured shells, salted them down and served ‘um up. You never heard so many wonderful compliments about those “freshly shucked beauties.” Our best selling item was a total fabrication.

Shortly after this brainstorm, Doug Atkins, a behemoth professional football player, entered this mock vessel, with a sidekick in tow, and ordered (demanded) oysters-on-the-half-shell. Try to imagine our half shells; they were not one half of the entire oyster as is customary in our local restaurants, but one half of one half, making them look a little weird, particularly with the majority of the bottled oyster sagging over both ends of the shell. The weeks of cars driving over the parking lot shells had taken its toll on the shell’s configuration.

Atkins, was about six feet eight inches tall, weighed well over three hundred pounds, and made Hulk Hogan look like Shirley Temple. He began slurping down our ersatz oysters-on-the-half-shell like there was no tomorrow. I don't know for sure what effect our oyster combination had on this big animal, but what I do know is; he never played one more down of football.

            One of my law professors, Hoffman Fuller, and his family came in one night while I was waiting the tables, handling the cash register, and trying to sober up the cook. He had taught a course in taxation, and he must have given me a donation of a passing grade, because to this date, I have absolutely no earthly idea what Congress has hidden in that IRS code. The man was literally so embarrassed he began to sink further and further down into the booth when he recognized one of his poorest students was wiping down the tables and shoveling hash to the few patrons left. His wife and family stared at him like he was a stroke victim. I, on the other hand, had completely lost all pride and approached the table with a, “Well, hello Professor Hoffman, how’s tricks?”

            “Ah, Mr. Abadie, er, er how er are you?” he stammered, turning red as a beet, while attempting to return to his original seated position.

            “Fine Professor, what’ll ya have?” For some inexplicable reason, I never saw him again. Presumably, he now instructs his tax classes in the pitfalls of attempting to circumvent his blessed IRS code and winding up like that Abadie boy.

            Several of my close friends frequented our little establishment, but only once; no relative ever dared show their face a second time. On a chance encounter in the business district, they were either at a loss for words, or I spied them dashing across the street to avoid a face-to-face confrontation with me, as though I had just contracted a fresh dose of the bubonic plague. The really close ones just laughed out loud and shook their heads in a physical show of disbelief. They didn’t have the gumption to ask how we were doing. I guess they knew.

            Two things finally did us in. Actually two hundred things did us in, but in reality the last two were devastating. When I came home one night my wife asked me if I saw the man land. I was so out of it, I asked, “What man?” Of course she was referring to July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon saying, “Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.” From growing up reading Buck Rogers and all of the other space comics, to this historic event, I was always fascinated by space and what is going on out there, and here it was I missed the most significant space adventure ever. Served me right.

            The last thing causing the close of this purveyor of fine foods was an event that occurred one dark and rainy night. It was also a night when the Shrimpboat proprietors featured an all-you-can-eat chicken special. I realize this was a restaurant specializing in seafood, but through some nefarious means, one of our longshoreman clients had located several crates of beheaded chickens and Reese and I figured, “What the hell difference does it make now? Let’s serve um up.”

            After a cursory inspection, our alcoholic cook swore to me the birds were just fine and he could fry them up to a golden perfection so that the old Colonel himself couldn’t tell the difference. I was particularly skeptical on hearing this proclamation, since he hadn’t changed the grease in the fryers for about ten days, and frying all the rancid seafood in them surely left a putrid residue, which would have sped the old Colonel to his grave many years sooner. But it was an all-you-can-eat special, and the combination of the inclement weather and our growing reputation for serving the worst food on planet Earth, apparently was keeping the wily patrons at bay. So I did not discontinue the promotional sale, feeling I was safe, or in this case, the unsuspecting customer was safe.

At this point, I worked at my law office from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Rushing home, I undressed and changed into my nighttime attire; old pants and an apron. I generally got to the Shrimpboat at about 6:00 p.m. and worked to 10:00, or even 11:00 o'clock, if any malingering customers had a desire to remain and chat after swilling the uneatable gruel.

            This final night a huge red-neck family waltzed in about five minutes before closing time, and spying the crow’s-nest, the big ugly one ordered his family to ascend the spiral staircase, leaving behind an entirely empty first floor. My bedside demeanor had waned over the intervening several months and as I approached his table, out of breath from the climb, I barked, “What do you want?”

“I want that God-damn chicken special, boy,” he shouted, popping several more veins in his already crimson nose.

“What do these two lovely children want?” I replied, looking down at two small malformed creatures, obviously a product of years of double-wide trailer inbreeding.

“They don’t want nothin’ boy. I’m the onlyest one eatin’.”

Now there was this loud-mouthed red-neck, what looked to be his wife (possibly his sister too), his two little cretin children, and an old lady who just sat there with saliva dribbling down her chin. I’m not sure how she got up those God-damned stairs without a hoist, but she made it in better shape than I did. So, down the stairs I went to see the cook, who was sitting in his favorite spot on the floor, sucking out of a bottle of cheap bourbon, and I barked the order, “One chicken special chef, on the double.”

While the chef was drunk, he was not stupid, and he replied, “What the fuck them other red-necks eatin’?”

“Nothing,” I said, with a wink, as the cook levered himself from the floor and commenced throwing the longshoreman’s headless monsters into his boiling cauldron.

Up I went to the crows nest the third time (second time to deliver drinks) and placed a large platter of faux chicken in front of this classic Bubba. About ten minutes later, I heard him yell, “Hey boy! More of this here chicken.” Another platter was delivered. Same request ten minutes after that, and I delivered yet a third portion. This time I noticed the grease was running down the faces of not only the obnoxious red-neck and his wife-sister, but also down the faces of the two no-neck monsters, and lastly, the spittle on Granny’s face was replaced by a puce colored gravy, which one can only assume was a product of the chef’s nasty cauldron.

“Sir,” I said, politely. “You can’t feed your entire family on one chicken special.”

“Listen boy,” he yelled, rising from his chair. “You jus’ haul yo’ ass down them stairs yonder and fetch me another plate of this here stuff, and don’t you worry none, about who’s eatin’ it.” 

I was about to respond when one of the no-neck cretins turned his head in my direction and said, “Big Daddy, I think I’m goin’ to be sick.” And sick he was. All down the front of my shirt, pants, belt, and shoes. Great globs of whatever animal it was the longshoreman stole, coupled with the chef’s ten-day-old grease, produced a chicken salad mosaic that stained my entire front.

I screamed maniacally, “Get the fuck out of here you red-neck bastard and take these retards with you.” I raced downstairs into the kitchen and came out brandishing one of the cook’s longest and sharpest knives, still screaming at this dysfunctional family at the top of my lungs. I chased that big bastard all the way to his pickup truck, threatening to castrate him and his wife-sister, as they sped from the depleted oyster-shell parking lot.

I went back into the kitchen, breathing heavily from the exercise, snatched the cheap bottle of bourbon from the staggering cook, and emptied it in one long pull. I turned to the cash register, unloaded the money, gave most of it to the cook, and told him, “Chester, we are officially closed.” I ordered him to hang a sign on the front door– Closed for Repairs– whereupon I drove to the nearest liquor store, bought a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon, and then on to Reese’s house for the final showdown. I relayed the most recent episode to George and told him I was thinking of how we could get out of this contract with the franchisors.

“How,” he asked sleepily.

“Sue the bastards,” I replied.

And sue we did. George’s nephew, Sam LeBlanc, was a real lawyer (as opposed to Reese & me), with a respectable firm, and George importuned him to take our case. We went all the way to the trial, empanelled a jury, and Reese and I testified to “the truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God.”  Our expert witness, Paul Sels, a Burger King executive at that time, testified and probably scarred the hell out of the defendants, because shortly after the morning recess we were offered a settlement, which we promptly accepted. If you had multiplied the settlement by ten thousand, we still lost a lot of money.

For several years after the conclusion of this trial, every time I waltzed into the courtroom where the trial was held, the Judge’s clerks sang out at me, “Shrimpboats is a’comin,’ their sails are in sight....”

Reese and I were the laughing stock of the entire courthouse.

            “Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.”

                                                            Shakespeare:  As You Like It