Anthony Stovall
Funny compulsive liar
A rat faced bastard
That was a haiku, for you mouth breathers. What to say about Anthony Stovall... Let me come clean up front. I love the man. He is one of those fantastic people that gains power from complete and total self involvement, as undeserved as it might be. He was confident and proud. I use his last name because of all the people I might write about I think he alone might be amused (probably not, though). Also, he went by "Stovall" so it would be a little confusing for me to call him Anthony. Our relationship was one of, for the most part, playful antagonism. One night both of us in were high spirits, a-twinkle-eyed and ready for amusement. I put my face within inches of his, and articulated, over emphasizing every syllable, "Faggot". He chuckled and said, "If I was your boss I'd fire you." He was a guy who could take a joke, and I think that is an indispensable quality in a human. However, he had some qualities that to my thinking were dispensable.
If you believed him, at the age of sixteen he was managing a Wal Mart, attending a military school where his drill seargent took him and his peers to a back alley where they engaged in underground fight club style brawls, and was banned from using a computer on account of the two charges of "virtual grand larceny". Also, I think he had some level 70 warlock or something in the MMORPG Everquest. I believe one of those things. To be fair, I have no evidence to contradict any of his stories. Perhaps he really does own a four story mansion in Asheville that he doesn't live in for tax purposes. Maybe he really did get kicked out of the casinos for counting cards (Although he said he counted cards in Texas Hold 'Em, which to my understanding is impossible and just a stupid concept that sort of exposes how little you actually know about numbers or cards).
For all of his shortcomings though, he was a natural leader. Monday through Friday he would show up at Steak & Shake at nine PM and stay until the bitter end at six AM, sometimes later. He took a pride I will never understand in his job and really did keep things running as smoothly as possible. We, the servers and cook staff, were afraid to question him and at the same time liked him. He was funny and had a strong personality. He was skilled in the verbal fencing of alpha-maleism and did not back down. He was wrong usually, regardless of the situation, but he recognized that wasn't the important part. He led and conducted and would not allow question to his command because in all honesty we, for the most part, were looking to subordinate and undermine. He knew he was fighting us, but he had fun doing it, and so did we.
When things slowed down around four in the morning, he would take a booth, bring a newspaper and smoke and drink coffee. We would join him and he welcomed our company with coded messages like, "You don't have something you need to be doing?" But he wouldn't tell us to leave. He would tell us about his fantastic adventures, how if he hadn't gotten his girlfriend pregnant he would be a Delta Force sniper. We would arm wrestle and he would smile when he won, which was always. He was a comically built man. Short and skinny to a fault, he was made of rubber band muscles and skin pulled tight from years of smoking and a life less than indulgent. I don't think he was thirty yet, and he was balding. His teeth were bad, a symptom of a poor Midwestern childhood. Still he smiled proud and unapologetic, as one should smile when forced into circumstances undesirable as well as uncontrollable. His nose, though, is what made me call him a rat faced bastard. Pointy and pronounced, it involuntarily convulsed in sniffles above his rodent like buck teeth. He was not pretty, but the strength of his character quickly forced you to forget that. I liked him because he reminded me that truly it is not what you are on the outside but who you are on the inside. I mean that in sort of a fucked up way. I didn't especially like who he was on the outside or inside, but regardless he was strong physically and mentally even if he needed a fabricated world and delusions of grandeur to achieve such confidence. I respect that. What is the alternative? To admit to the world that in fact you're pretty useless and obnoxious? To curl up and let the freight train of life crush you and split you into smaller and smaller segments of subhumanity? Bravo Stovall, keep fighting the good fight (which in your case is the douche bag fight but lets not split hairs).
Before I was an employee, Stovall was the man that welcomed myself and the crew into the Steak & Shake brotherhood. Sure, we had the approval and favor of several of the servers, even angry old Shirley, but as long as the management frowned on us loafing and mooching, we were the outsiders. Stovall saw the attention we were getting from the young and pretty servers Andrea and Julie. Alpha-radar detecting a threat to his reign he approached us. A jovial confrontation that lasted for every subsequent visit to Steak & Shake ensued. We learned to like each other and we tossed around insults in a very friendly way. All of the sudden we had official sanction and Stovall was as excited to see us as any of the staff. In fact, he approved of us drinking for free, I'm not sure how he felt about the chili rations. As long as he established himself at the top of the totem he enjoyed our company, and we enjoyed his. He would sit with us and make fun of Jordan's neck beard or ask how gay we must be to never bring any girls with us. In our defense... wait, no, we really did never bring girls with us.
The management style used on third shift was pretty much what you would expect from someone like him. As long as the customers were happy, and no one was making Stovall's life any harder, he let us do as we please. The only company policy Stovall enforced with any tenacity was the no cell phones in the dining area rule. While busing tables I held my phone in the crook of my neck and carried the bus tray back to the dish washers and dumped it off. Stovall asked me to walk with him to the bank across the street to make the deposit. As if I had personally assaulted him, he threatened to "write me up" for the behavior and warned of repercussions if I continued to disrespect the holy code of Steak & Shake protocol. I'm not saying he was wrong, or that servers should be allowed to talk on their phones all the time, just his interest in maintaining the appearance of order was surprising to me.
As long as he was happy, we were happy. When pressure from the higher ups landed on his shoulders we felt the burden as well. Team meetings would take place in the break room. He would take two staff members into the back while the rest fended off the hordes of customers. When he was done with his first two victims he would put them back out on the floor and take two more into the shadows. The servers on the floor shared nervous looks and glanced at the entrance into the kitchen and break room like children staring at the locked door hiding fighting parents. When you went back in that room he did his best to put his foot down. If we didn't like Stovall, if he wasn't fun and a real person, it would be easy to blow off the explosive "management". His tirade usually started with something about how this job was not a joke to him and this job put food on the table for his son and if we wanted to mess that up for him he'd hold the door open for us and say goodbye with a smile. He would scream. He would tell us how embarrassing it was that a table remained unbussed for five whole minutes after the party left. In his defense, maybe he really believed that the dirty table really did threaten the food supply of his child. Maybe he just knew how to push our buttons. Regardless, buttons were pushed and if Stovall was mad enough to pull us in for a conference I guarantee you the rest of the night was miserable. Solidarity among servers was a poor defense against his judgement, since most of us honestly valued him as not just a team member but a team leader. He was our boss. Mike and Ben and Will were guys we had to work with, and unfortunately they were higher on the totem pole than us but we held no special love for any of them. Their anger was laughable. Stovall's anger was personal. Even though we knew how absurd and inconsequential this job and his opinion was, we still felt like we let him down. So we tried to do better.
Stovall would have done well as a football coach. He had a game plan and wasn't afraid to scream and hurt and humiliate to motivate his players. He always talked about some prize the corporate branch awarded to the best wait staff out of all the Steak & Shake restaurants. He spoke of it like it was the Super Bowl, the prize to keep our eyes on. I don't know if he was using it as a tool to motivate or if a part of his pride actually wanted some recognition from the bosses that only knew how to reinforce positive behavior by screaming and threatening the behavior they disagreed with, like veering from the script given to servers. The part of me that hopes for his well being prays it was a motivational ploy. Please, Stovall, don't whimper for your bosses with tail between your legs, hoping for that pat on your head.
Under the direction of Stovall the third shift crew at Steak & Shake was something of a local treasure. We had real, regular customers. An actual repertoire developed between staff and customers. These people kept coming back for more because in a weird, professional sort of way we were friends. Stovall allowed us, for the most part, to be humans. Once all the other managers left for the rest of the night he was OK with us undoing our bow ties and wearing them dangling from our neck. He overlooked us grabbing a bowl of cherries for the customers that asked for them and when things got busy he'd grab a bus pan or run drinks and food for us. The customers of Steak & Shake all night long were treated like humans by humans and it cultivated a sort of counter culture of love and humanity led by none other than the rat faced bastard.
i got this photo from his myspace
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