Dear Father, Dear Son

by Larry Elder

  Dad did allow us listen to KGFJ in the car—finally. For a long time, Dad played the same station he played in the restaurant. But Kirk rebelled and insisted on KGFJ. Dad backed down, but only after Mom joined our side. I hoped that once Dad started listening to Motown, he’d actually enjoy it and play it at the restaurant. It might make things there just a little more bearable.

  “Dad, listen to this,” I said when the family was in the car.

  “Who’s that singin’?” he asked.

  “Smokey Robinson,” I said, “lead singer for The Miracles. He writes all their songs and stuff for the Temptations, too.” Dad seemed genuinely interested.

  “Huumph,” my mother said. “Sounds like a girl.” And she switched the channel.

  I hatched a plan to go to the Hunter Hancock record hop. I’d get sick. On Monday I began sniffing and coughing.

  “You okay?” Dad said.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  I dragged around, “toughing it out” until Thursday.

  “You don’t look good, maybe you should stay home tomorrow.”

  “You think so, Dad?”

  “No need in you coughin’ up ‘round the customers. I’ll get one of the girls to come in. Late notice. Have to pay overtime, dammit.”

  “You sure?”

  Dad never got tired. There was no such thing as fatigue. He never got sick. Didn’t believe in it. Weak people got sick—or got sick and weren’t strong enough to keep it to themselves.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “Stay home. Don’t want you coughin’ up on the customers.”

  After an afternoon of clock watching, Friday evening finally came. What to wear, what to wear? No, not those pants. This shirt with the big flyaway collar. I’ll put in a tiepin in the left collar. At last. My first record hop. Solid!

  To celebrate, I decided to smoke a whole cigarette. I had begun building up tolerance by sneaking Mom’s Pall Malls and going behind the garage to practice. Little by little, I overcame the light-headedness, and could now smoke up to a half of a cigarette. I learned to inhale and slowly blow out the smoke, like Bogart did in the movies, without getting dizzy.

  I ran bath water, and wet a couple of towels and stuck them in the crack under the door to block out the smoke smell. I soaked in the hot water, lit the cigarette, and for the first time smoked a whole one, making little “O’s” with the exhale. Wonder if I’ll get a phone number tonight. Maybe two. The goal will be at least one.

  Everything started spinning.

  I got weak and dizzy. I climbed out of the tub and grabbed the doorknob to keep from falling. I crawled to the toilet and started throwing up. Mom banged on the door.

  “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean nothing? You’re throwing up.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes you are. Let me in there right now.”

  “Mom, I’m okay. I just don’t feel well.” I threw up again before I made it to bed. I wanted to lie down for a just few minutes to clear my head.

  I woke up at 4 a.m. Three hours after the record hop ended.

  Sunday morning I heard Dad talking to Mom, as she got ready for church.

  “How’s Larry?” he asked.

  “He was throwing up Friday night. Spent Saturday morning in bed.”

  “Good thing I gave him the day off. Boy was sick.”

  6

  “DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS”

  Now the cab was minutes away from the restaurant. I was nervous and scared. It angered me that he still made me feel this way. But he was going to sit and, for the first time, listen to what I had to say. One more time, I went over That Friday—and what led up to it.

  Mom and Dad never really argued. If they did, it wasn’t in front of us. I never thought this was unusual until I met Steve Jackson. Steve and I were in the second grade. We both loved comic books, dismissively referred to by our parents as “funny books.” We first read D.C., Superman and Batman, and then, like all alert and aware comic readers, we graduated to Marvel.

  Steve’s mother was as beautiful as any Hollywood actress. She had long, thick, shiny blonde hair that she constantly combed while smoking a cigarette. His father was a tall dark man with a “process”—hair that had been treated to straighten it.

  The Jacksons were the only black-white couple in our neighborhood or, for all I knew, in the whole school district. Kids lowered their voices and stared at Mrs. Jackson when she walked Steve to school.

  My mother said Mrs. Jackson’s family was so incensed over the marriage that they stopped talking to her. And Mr. Jackson, according to Mom, “hated the world” because he tried to make a career as a singer, but failed. Steve once told me that his dad was a singer, and played a demo Mr. Jackson recorded years ago. I thought he was mediocre, but didn’t tell Steve.

  “Mr. Jackson is a prop builder at one of the studios. Hates it,” Mom said.

  She told me that the Jacksons were constantly in “money trouble”—even to the point of having their water and electricity shut off. Steve said that his dad once cooked their meals for a full week over a small outdoor barbeque grill. Steve tried to make it sound like an adventure, like camping. But that week he managed to stay long enough at my house three different times so that my mother invited him to stay for dinner.

  “Oh, Mrs. Elder, I don’t know. I’ve already eaten here twice this week.” Soon he was helping himself to seconds.

  The first time I visited his house, I saw dishes everywhere, even in the bedroom Steve shared with his brother. I saw cock-roaches—in the daytime. The drapes were torn. And the family drank out of Flintstone “glasses,” which were really grocery store grape jelly jars with Fred and Wilma on the sides.

  Steve and I were sitting on his bedroom floor reading.

  “Fuck, Lillie, where are my mother-fucking pants?!”

  Mrs. Jackson fired back.

  “Look in the Goddamn closet, you fucking moron! And don’t step on my Goddamn brush. Pick it up and hand it to me before you manage to lose that, too!”

  This went on for several minutes. There were two other children in the house, Steve’s older sister and little brother.

  I looked up at Steve. He stared at his comic book and slowly turned a page.

  “Are they always like this?” I started to ask. But Steve’s reaction had already answered the question. His parents spoke like this all the time, not caring who heard.

  My father is an ogre all right, but at least I’d never heard him say “fuck” or “shit” or “fuck you”—all of which I’d heard just in the last five minutes at Steve’s house.

  “Your parents aren’t like that, are they?” he finally said.

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He went back to Spiderman.

  Mrs. Jackson invited me to stay for dinner. I thought about the cockroaches.

  “No thank you, my mother made dinner.”

  “Ha!” she said. “Bet you’re afraid of my bugs.”

  I jumped on my bike and rode home. And I couldn’t wait to get there. “At least,” I thought, “my house isn’t like that.”

  Then came the restaurant.

  I never saw my parents argue or even raise their voices to each other—until the restaurant. They worked together for about two years. My father knew exactly how the restaurant should be run, and so did Mom. They had two entirely different and contrasting visions. To Dad, it was a restaurant. To Mom, it was a breakfast and lunch stand. Dad wanted a large menu with homemade cakes and pies. Mom wanted it simple and streamlined.

  They disagreed on the portions, the price, and whether coffee should be refilled for free. They quarreled over the name, the signage, and the tableware. Disagreement turned into argument, which turned into shouting. At first, the quarrels took place at the restaurant.

  “Look at what we sell and eliminate the rest,�
�� she’d say.

  “Let’s cook things they can’t get at fast-food places. That’s our advantage,” he’d counter.

  Mom came home each evening with some new tale of verbal abuse committed by Dad.

  “Your father can’t stand it when people compliment my Denver omelets,” she said.

  “Your father shouted at me, in front of a customer, just because he couldn’t find the hot dog tongs.”

  “One more time! One more time! If he talks to me that way one … more … time, I’m leaving!”

  “Your father ordered way too many potatoes for the week and when I told him, he didn’t want to admit he was wrong. So a whole bag of potatoes spoiled.”

  Mom came home every evening and acted out for us the day’s arguments. She complained about how he treated her. My hostility now broke the meter. It was no longer just about how he treated us, but about how he treated her.

  “I was sick for one day—had a fever with chills. And he accused me of ‘just trying to get out of work!’”

  “He said ‘Goddammit’ to me in front of the coffee delivery man. I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with it.”

  “I told your father that if he talked to me that way one more time, I’m gone. You know what he said? Do you know what your father said? He said, ‘Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.’”

  After this threat, she said he stopped yelling for a day, a week, or a month. Then it started up again. At first, he cursed at her in private, in the back. Then he did it in front of delivery people, then in front of the customers.

  “He won’t give me any credit for anything. I don’t do anything right.”

  “If it weren’t for me, the restaurant would be a failure,” she said. “But your father thinks he’s running the most successful business since General Motors.”

  “I ought to leave and show his stubborn black ass how much he needs me. And when he asks me to come back, I’ll have found me a better job and he can just go to hell!”

  Dad wanted to be the chief cook. Mom wanted to be the chief cook. Mom didn’t like the way he prepared an omelet. Dad didn’t like the way she prepared an omelet. Mom thought Dad was showing off when he tossed the eggs up the air and flipped them. Dad thought she couldn’t do it because she didn’t have the skill.

  I wondered how many customers stopped coming because they couldn’t digest their food while watching the wrestling match.

  They disagreed about when the restaurant should open, when it should close, and whether it should stay open on weekends.

  And in this increasingly Latino neighborhood, they disagreed about illegal immigration. And this was decades before the topic became a national lightening rod.

  “They’re taking over this country,” she said. “Our schools. Hospitals. What other country lets people just walk across the border and help themselves? This is going to ruin this state.”

  A nervous paint-splattered Mexican man came in one day, and struggled to order a hamburger. He tried say what he wanted on it.

  “Speak up.” Mom said.

  “Quiero—”

  “Quiero, nothing, this is America.”

  “Quiero—”

  “Quiero, nada. Speak English.”

  The man pointed.

  “Pickles. You want pickles?” She held up a pickle. “Pick-el. Pick-el.”

  The man turned and left. Dad exploded.

  “How would you like to be treated like that!?”

  “I’m not in somebody else’s country expecting them to speak my language!”

  “No, but you’re running a Goddamn business.”

  “He should Goddamn learn English before walking into somebody’s business and expecting service.”

  “We’re not the border patrol! I want everybody’s money.”

  “He’s in America now. He better learn to say pickle!”

  “He’s a payin’ customer!”

  “He’s not in Tijuana!”

  “Dammit, Vi—”

  “Dammit, Randolph.”

  And so it went, for two years, Monday through Friday. Mom came home and told us about that day’s abuse, in great detail. Dad came home, went to bed, and said nothing to anyone.

  7

  ELDER’S SNACK BAR

  I could see Dad look up when I got out of the cab. He watched the driver help me with my luggage. The sign, “Elder’s Snack Bar,” looked freshly painted. When we were little and driving around in the car, Dad would point out faded signs and burnt-out neon lights.

  “Some people have no pride,” he’d say.

  One after another, the family—Mom, me, then Kirk after he got out of the service—all quit working at the diner. Kirk came home from the Navy a different man. Before he went in, Kirk had worked with Dad, and like everybody else, stopped because of Dad’s treatment. When he got out of the Navy, I was surprised that he went back to the restaurant. This was years after I had stopped working there. They struck a deal in which Dad would gradually relinquish control, and Kirk could run it as he saw fit. And Kirk had lots of ideas to improve sales.

  It was during the summer, and I was home from college until the fall. Kirk and Dad had a furious argument over something about the restaurant. I never knew exactly what, but I’m sure Dad either resisted Kirk’s suggestions or was not turning authority over to Kirk on the timetable Kirk felt that they had agreed to. Kirk never talked about it.

  They were in Dad’s bedroom. Kirk was screaming so loudly the neighbors on both sides of the house came to their windows.

  “I’ll never work for a piece of shit like you again!”

  No one had ever yelled at Dad. Not ever. And no one sure as hell had ever called Dad a “piece of shit.” Someone, I said to myself, would die tonight. But I didn’t hear any response from Dad.

  “I said, you are a piece of shit!”

  Still no response.

  “A worthless piece of shit.”

  Silence.

  “Nobody in this house wants to work for a worthless piece of shit like you.”

  More silence.

  “You make promises and now you’re fucking going back on them. You’re nothing but a Goddamn lying worthless piece of shit.”

  Still, I heard nothing from Dad.

  Kirk screamed and ranted for what seemed like forever. If Dad said anything back, it was too faint to hear. Kirk fired ‘F” bombs. He called Dad a bastard, a son-of-a-bitch, said he hated him and that “everybody else does, too.”

  Kirk stomped out of the room. It was the last time he worked at the café and the last time Dad and Kirk had said anything to each other.

  Dad was standing at the grill when I walked in. It was now just after rush hour, with three or four customers sitting around the counter.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  The customers looked up.

  “Hey, Randy, I didn’t know you had a son.” I introduced myself and shook their hands.

  “What are you doin’ here?” Dad said.

  “I came to talk to you,” I said firmly.

  “Okay.” He looked surprised. Was he nervous, too?

  “You want to put your luggage in the back?” he asked.

  “No, I’m good. I’ll just set it down here.” I wouldn’t be staying long.

  He was wearing the same outfit—pants with small black and white checkers, white short-sleeve shirt, white apron, and paper diner hat—that he wore every day for over fifteen years. His hair was still thick, but now completely white. He stood erect and strong as ever—still in charge. The place was neat and organized, everything in its proper place—the result of the accumulated wisdom of decades of trial and error and constant improvement.

  “You’re either gettin’ better,” he’d say, “or you’re gettin’ worse.”

  No, it’s better for the coffeemaker to sit here rather than in arm’s reach of the customers—a guy once tried to help himself to a refill and dropped the coffee pot, sending glass and coffee flying everywhere. No, the fly swatter should be down h
ere—out of view—because “people don’t like lookin’ at fly swatters while they eat.” And no, the smaller plates should be stacked and on the near side of the larger ones to cut down on the frequency of long stretches, saving a fraction of a second off meal prep.

  He had a million tricks, hints, and shortcuts.

  Put a little vinegar in the water when washing the windows, it helps prevent streaking.

  Put a little water in the catsup bottles, not to cheapen the flavor or to save money. Heinz catsup is too thick and becomes messy. If it’s not thinned out a little, customers have to work too hard to get it out of our rubber containers and after a lot of coaxing, it comes out in a burst, spilling way too much on the hamburger. The customer ends up just scraping if off. And that’s wasted money.

  Use wrapped butter packages. People will be less likely to waste the butter, and if you put a block of butter on a tray, people will cut it using their breakfast knife. Leaves crumbs in the butter, and looks unsanitary.

  When you peel a boiled egg, make sure it’s still warm and roll it around on the counter, but not so hard that you smash it. Just roll it around so that the shell is crunched all over. Then the eggshell will peel off as if you were peeling an orange.

  Never let anyone in after closing time. He’ll think he has special privileges and will start coming later and later. Others will see your closing times as a soft time, and you’ll end up staying open an extra ten minutes.

  And, within a few percentage points, he could predict, from the moment a customer walked in, the size of tip that would be left.

  “Get out of here,” I said, when he made that boast.

  But sure enough, it worked with customer after customer.

  “All right,” I said, “that works fine with repeat business. You already know.”

  But he did it with amazing accuracy with people who had never before walked into the building. I asked him to explain.

  “Men tip more than women. White people tip more than black people. Black men tip more than Spanish-speakin’ women, and more than Spanish-speakin’ men—but only just a little. Black men tip more than black women. Older people tip more than younger ones.”