LIMO WORK: MOSTLY DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE

There’s the televised high life, and there’s the waiting around for the people who brought all that high life to the show.

Just 45 degrees to the left from the soggy pre-Grammy glitz going down Tuesday afternoon at the Shrine Auditorium’s main entrance--the lights, the cameras, the action--there was a long, snaking line of limousines working their way through the driving rain toward lonely parking lots.

It’s the first time the limos--and their drivers--will sit and wait Tuesday. But after the awards show proper, there will be the jaunt to the big party at the Bonaventure (more waiting), then on to lesser parties, and then finally back to the garage. For these drivers--impeccably uniformed, neatly groomed, pretty much bored--the mammoth celebration just means a guaranteed full day’s work (though chauffeurs won’t get much sleep) and a great chance to catch up on the latest best seller or the newest gossip.

The cluster of drivers standing around in the freaky chill weather Tuesday is as diverse a group as the uniforms are similar, almost like the contents of a lifeboat in one of those movies from the 1940s: a woman, two black men, a Latino, a young white guy and an older one. And the stories they tell--of hours behind the wheel and the bizarre parade of clients that pass through the rear doors--range wide, too; these folks fancy themselves as students of human behavior.

“Part of this job is watching the changes people go through,” says chauffeur David Foster, running his hand through his short blond hair. “When you first pick them up, it’s all politeness and enthusiasm, even with the people who ride in limos all the time. Then, when the drinks or the hours start getting to them--and this is the fifth club they’ve been to--it turns into silence. By the time they go home, that politeness has turned into ‘Yeah, see ya, bye’ and the firm handshake instead of a tip. Their eyes go all different. It’s weird.”

With the precious cargo the chauffeurs brought to the Grammys--Al Green, Michael McDonald, Dwight Yoakam, Larry Gatlin, the British pop group Simply Red, rock ambassador Bob Geldof--it’s a different matter, they say.

“The folks who ride in these things all the time are pretty much polite,” notes Erin McNamee, a petite Midwestern woman who’s been working for DavEl--the “official” limo service to the 1987 Grammys--for about three years. “I’m driving (soul singer) Luther Vandross to this thing, and he’s really a very nice man. And I’m not just saying that; I mean it. The people who treat these limos like taxicabs . . . they’re the ones who are, ah, less than charming. But being a woman, I get the most trouble from women; men are always treating me nicely.”

In spite of the fact that theirs is a service industry, the drivers resent being treated like servants: lugging huge suitcases for intolerant clients, being sent into a convenience store for booze or cigarettes, or being forced to tolerate extreme examples of back-seat driving. They feel a little respect--not much, but more than a cabbie gets--is due them.

“It gets a little embarrassing sometimes,” says Bert Malvaez, a veteran driver and raconteur extraordinaire. “All we want to do is be there, do the kind thing, shut up and drive. But I’ve been called on to break up fights between married people, provide paper bags for sick people or carry killer luggage up seven flights of stairs. There’s a fine line between servitude and service, and a lot of people don’t get it--especially when the end of the night comes and there’s no tip for such services.”

Like their service cousins who prowl behind the bar, pour the coffee or trim the sideburns, chauffeurs talk a lot among themselves (and especially to reporters) about how tips comprise a sizeable portion of their wages--and how oftentimes their clients assume that the 15% “service charge” which gets tacked onto the bill is their tip, which it isn’t.

Every driver underlines it: “Make sure you let people know it’s perfectly okay to tip us.” Adds Foster, with a sly smile: “And let it be said that tips do not necessarily include money.”

Foster tells a story of two pornographic film starlets who hired another driver to take them to a meeting with a certain producer of such fare, and how--in order to prove their legitimacy--they performed certain live re-creations of their greatest film “performances” in the limousine after the producer was picked up.

“In his case,” concludes Foster solemnly, “the driver’s tip was not a financial reward, I can tell you.”

But such stories, while savored, aren’t the chauffeur’s normal tales. Instead, there’s talk of many books read, furtive half-hours of television watched (the drivers aren’t supposed to get in the back of the car while the client is elsewhere), crossword puzzles labored over or long, hazy thoughts mulled. Tales from the downtime.

“Sure, sometimes it’s boring,” says McNamee. “But every job has some hurry up and wait; ours just has more of each.”

“A lot of books get read,” adds Foster. “It’d be a great job for a Ph.D candidate, if they could handle the hours.”

And if they could handle the less pleasant vicissitudes of dealing with people who often have more than one sheet to the wind, due to drink, drugs, illness or long hours: verbal abuse, nausea, personality changes, bickering, you name it.

“You see just about everything in the back of a limo,” says Malvaez wearily, eyes narrowing. “Most of it I could do without. But when people--especially first-time clients who suddenly think they’re stars because they’re being driven in this huge machine--step in and ease back, it all changes for them. What I like to do is make sure they have a great time--that’s what we’re really supposed to do, isn’t it? But behaving like decent, civilized people . . . well, that’s their job. And most of them do just fine.”

“Except four or more young women, together, back there,” adds Foster, grinning. “Man, it becomes a jungle in there. Being decent is the last thing they’re thinking about. A bunch of guys together? Forget it! They don’t hold a candle.”