Night at the Museum. Leslie Goldman
he decided to play dumb. “I didn’t give it to you?” he asked.
Miguel wasn’t falling for it. They both knew that Larry hadn’t given him the rent check. “You’re two months late,” said Miguel. “If I don’t have it by January 1, I’ve got no choice but to evict you. I’m sorry.”
Larry wasn’t worried. He’d been late with the rent plenty of times. Of course, he’d also been evicted plenty of times.
“Don’t worry. You’ll have it. I’m about to close on a major deal. Cash flow is not gonna be a problem,” Larry promised. “See you later, Miguel.”
Larry hopped into his old heap of a car and started it up. He was hoping to make it out of there before his landlord could argue with him.
“January 1, Larry. Two weeks,” Miguel called.
“Got it,” said Larry. What he was really thinking was, I hope I’ll have it.
Larry sped to his meeting. It was in SoHo in downtown New York. He was running a little late, but luckily he found a great parking spot in front of his soon-to-be restaurant.
At the moment, it was a dingy, vacant storefront, but Larry had vision. He had imagination. All he needed was the money.
After climbing out of his car, he placed a brown paper bag over the parking meter. Scrawled on the bag were the words “Broken Meter.” This was a great way for Larry to get out of wasting change to pay for parking.
Soon he was giving his three potential investors a tour of the place. “If you’ll turn to page one of your business plan,” Larry said, trying to sound as official as possible, “you’ll find the basic layout of the restaurant.”
The men opened up their folders to the first page. This wasn’t exactly hard to do, because besides the cover, there was only one page in the business plan.
Larry explained what he thought was a brilliant plan, a sure moneymaker, and probably his best idea, yet. “We’re going to go for an Asian fusion sort of thing,” he said confidently. “There will be a sushi bar around the perimeter. Six shabu-shabu stations in the center here.”
“Shabu-shabu?” asked one of the men. “We’re dentists, Larry. Talk to us in English.”
Larry said, “You sit around a pit of boiling water and cook your own food. It’s very big in Japan.”
The second man nodded, thinking about this. “Interactive dining. I like it. This is an interesting investment opportunity.”
“I don’t think we can go wrong,” said Larry, clearly pleased.
“What are you looking at in terms of food cost to profit ratio?” asked the first man.
“Uh, it’s… it’ll be…” Larry was afraid the questions would get complicated. To be honest, he hadn’t done all that much research into the financials of the business. Why waste his time crunching numbers? There was no need. He knew—he just knew that it would be a huge success. “High yield. Very solid ratio,” Larry assured them.
“Can we meet the chef?” asked the third man.
Details, details, thought Larry. What is it with these guys?
“Yeah, I’m actually looking into a few guys. That won’t be a problem. There are a lot of great cooks in New York.”
“Who know how to do shabu-shabu?” asked the third man.
“The thing is, you really cook it yourself, so…” Larry was starting to get nervous. Actually, he didn’t have anything else to say on the matter. It seemed as if they were losing interest. This had happened before, with other investors. It baffled Larry. How could these guys not want to give him the money, when his plan was so brilliant?
The second dentist took a closer look at the business plan. “I don’t see your résumé in here. You’ve worked at other restaurants in the city?”
“Yes,” said Larry. “I’ve actually held several managerial positions, in neighboring fields.”
Last fall, Larry had been fired from Kinko’s, which was next door to a great little Italian restaurant. This is what he meant when he said “neighboring,” but he decided not to share that part.
“So you’ve never worked in a restaurant?” asked the third man.
“No. But that’s a minor detail,” said Larry. “I’ll be the big-picture guy. I’ll run the front of the house. We’ll hire people to handle the rest.”
The three dentists exchanged skeptical looks. The problem with Larry’s plan was, well, it wasn’t exactly planned out. One of them handed his folder back to Larry.
“You know what, gentlemen. I’m going to pass,” he said.
“No, why?” asked Larry. “This is gonna be great. We’ll open the first one, then we think about franchising.”
The third man glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to run, too,” he said. “I have a root canal at three o’clock.”
“Sorry, Larry,” said the first man. “I’ll see you at your next cleaning. Keep flossing!”
As they walked away, Larry stood there, holding his three folders. That didn’t go well at all. How was he going to pay his rent in two weeks? He didn’t know but decided to look on the bright side. At least he’d managed to get the cable turned back on.
Walking back to his car, he had a funny feeling in his gut. Something wasn’t right. He pulled the brown paper bag off the meter. Someone had crossed out the words “Broken Meter” and written below, “Nice Try.”
There was a ticket on his windshield. Worse than that: A big orange boot was wrapped around Larry’s back tire.
“No, no!” Larry shouted. He kicked the boot and then yelped, as the pain shot up his leg. His big toe throbbed. That hurt. That hurt, a lot!
Then he noticed his watch. “Oh, crap,” said Larry. Realizing there was no way to pry the boot off his car, he made a run for it.
An hour later, Larry jogged up to the entrance of his son Nicky’s school. A teacher was up on a ladder about to take down a banner.
“Hey, Mike,” said Larry as he caught his breath. “Have you seen Nicky?”
Mike smiled down at Larry. “Erica came by to pick him up. He was waiting a pretty long time.”
“I know. I had…” Larry tried to swallow his guilt. “Car trouble,” he finished. Just then he noticed what the banner said. “Welcome! Parent Career Day!” This was the first he’d heard of it, which meant that Nicky failed to tell him. Was it on purpose, and just because he didn’t actually have a career at the moment? Okay, so The Snapper hadn’t worked. Yet Nicky didn’t know about the restaurant failure, yet. It had to be because of The Snapper. Or perhaps it was because of the hundred or so other ideas that Larry had failed to make work.
“So today was, uh, Career Day?” asked Larry.
“Yeah,” said Mike. “Nick didn’t tell you?”
“Yeah, no, he did. I just…I must’ve forgotten. See you, Mike,” said Larry. Although he forgot about many things (the rent, the cable bill, the electric bill), he definitely would’ve remembered Nicky’s Career Day. Nicky was his only son. His best friend. His buddy.
Larry decided to go see Nicky at home. He lived with his mom, Erica, who was Larry’s ex-wife. Now Erica lived with her fiancé, Don. They had a big fancy apartment on Fifth Avenue, in New York City.