The three of us had just moved to Los Angeles: my girlfriend, our cat and me. We arrived here to chase dreams. I quit my corporate career in New York City and gave up a rent-controlled apartment in Jersey City. Not only that, I also somehow convinced the landlord to reduce the rent. I came here to pursue acting and writing full time, which sounded either inspirational or financially irresponsible depending on the day. Sometimes both on the same day.
“Where do you want to go for dinner?” my girlfriend asked on a Friday night in early February.
“Somewhere walkable,” I said. Even though this was our first month in L.A., I worried about parking despite the fact that we didn’t own a car yet. I’m an immigrant from New Delhi, and Monica, my girlfriend is white and American. To give you an idea, she is so white she “introduced” me, an Indian man, to ashwagandha.
We sat by the window at Mantee Café, a Lebanese and Armenian restaurant in Studio City. It’s a quiet place lit by soft yellow light. At the table beside us sat a family of three: an elderly couple and their adult son, who had the restless energy of someone forced to sit at the dinner table against his will.
When their food arrived, he looked at the plate and screamed: “This is garbage.”
Monica and I exchanged looks, not sure what was happening. His parents sat in silence. I felt sorry for them. They looked disappointed and apologetic.
“Take this back to your country, wherever you’re from,” he yelled.
It was not the first time I had witnessed a customer yelling at waitstaff. However, this particular moment made me think of the aviation systems engineer from India who was shot dead in a bar in Kansas the year prior. Before shooting him, the man said, “Go back to your country.” But he didn’t give him an option. Back on our table, I wondered if the guy would pick me next. His parents looked down, and their shoulders dropped.
Monica looked at the stranger. “You’re being disrespectful,” she said, “and loud. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Everything went silent. In the kitchen, the staff stopped moving. A few nervous hushes floated across the place. The man looked taken aback. I braced for a fight and put my hands flat on the table. After a few more tense moments of silence, he mumbled under his breath and left. One, two, three, we all exhaled at once. A room full of strangers finally letting go of the breath we’d been holding since he first started screaming.
I wanted to tell Monica I was proud, but my throat felt tight. We tried to perform the rest of our dinner like normal people as if nothing had happened. But I couldn’t enjoy the kebabs. My fork hovered aimlessly over the plate while my eyes stayed fixed on the entrance. I expected the guy to return, and this time, pick a fight with Monica or me. A little later, the waiter and manager came to our table.
“Thank you,” the waiter said and smiled. He must have been relieved to be supported by a guest.
“This one’s on the house,” the manager said and placed a plate of baklava between us. I kept my eyes at the door. He didn’t come back. We finished the dessert in silence. Outside on Ventura Boulevard traffic moved both ways. We paid for dinner. The manager and the waiter thanked us again.
On our walk home Monica apologized for “creating a scene.”
She was the only person who acted sane and brave that night. Did I not speak because I didn’t have to? Or because I didn’t want it to escalate? I’ve always avoided confrontation.
But that night, back at home, I stayed restless for not speaking up. I was there physically and ready to fight back, but I didn’t find any words. My instinct told me to let it pass, but Monica acted to interrupt it and call it out. And yet somehow she worried she had been the disruptive one for facing a man who screamed racist abuse across a restaurant.
How often have I paid the price of politeness and let terrible people get away? After I fed the cat, I continued wondering what I could do about it, and in a fit of frustration, I wrote a satirical list titled, “When Is It Okay to Yell at Your Restaurant Server for Poor Service?,” and sent it to McSweeney’s.
A few days later, early in the morning, I got the acceptance email while I scrolled through my phone. I wanted to jump in celebration. I showed the acceptance email to Monica.
It became my first-ever published piece of writing. I couldn’t have imagined or written to get published this way. What Monica did, following her instincts, at dinner, I started to do on the page — confront the uncomfortable head-on. Humor has always been how I process life. Monica, in her own way, made me feel brave enough to write with honesty about these moments in our lives while using humor.
Writing a satirical piece didn’t erase what happened, but it gave me an outlet to act. That night, I saw Monica differently. I was lucky to be with her. I learned how love can also be about witnessing the person beside you become brave first.
I had quit my corporate life and moved to L.A. to pursue a career in entertainment. I was still unsure how the city would treat me. That night, somewhere between a racist stranger, a free dessert, my girlfriend publicly shaming a man in a Mediterranean restaurant and our demanding cat, the City of Angels started to feel like home.
The author is a Los Angeles-based actor, writer and creativity coach. An immigrant from India, he is at work on a collection of essays and a book on the creative process. His website is mayurchauhanstory.com, and he’s on Instagram: @mayurchauhanstory.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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