Completely in the Dark

Steve Butler—tall, pockmarked, with greasy-curly red hair—lurches from the milk dispenser in his gold and black-trimmed busboy jacket.

Grinning stupidly through smudgy eyeglasses, he flicks lit matches from a matchbook at Rich Bruestadt.

Bruestadt scowls.

“Knock it off!”

It’s early summer 1976.

Just another Sunday brunch at the Lafayette Club and all hands are on deck.

Butler continues raining down matches on Bruestadt. The trick here is to see how far you can go before you really piss someone off. Bruestadt flees in frustration, but when Butler tries it with Dan Rogers, they both get chased out of the kitchen to bellowing from Chef and the dishwashers.

Chef ran Sunday brunch with military precision. Bronx-born, he hulked over the oven and griddletops early, barking orders to the sous chefs. He had a porous and pustulant red nose made that way by a fondness for sipping white wine. In fact I…