by Larry Elder
There were some other variables.
“Fat people tip more than thin ones.” He didn’t know why, but thought that they were happier.
And really old people were likely on a fixed income, and tipped carefully. There was a critical non-variable: service. Everybody, regardless of the expected tip, got good service. They were helped right away, their water re-filled without asking, and their coffee topped off. In other restaurants, the tip might vary according to service. But at Elder’s Snack Bar, everyone was treated the same—with prompt attention and respect.
In walked a middle-aged Latina. “Ten percent,” he whispered. And she did.
A heavy, young to middle-aged white man? “Fifteen percent.” Bingo.
Young black woman. “Twenty-five cents.”
“Twenty-five cents?”
“Young, black woman—flat rate. Doesn’t matter what she orders or how much it costs. Twenty-five cents.”
When she left, I lifted up her plate—two dimes, one nickel!
Years later, I read an academic study comparing the tipping habits of blacks and whites. It confirmed that, on average, blacks tipped less than whites, regardless of service quality, even if the server was black. Damned if an Ivy League professor hadn’t vindicated the S.O.B. high-school dropout.
Outside, the restaurant looked exactly as it did when he first built it—still an aluminum shoebox. Only now it was painted a beige color. The building was supposed to last just ten years. But Dad kept climbing on top of the roof and, using tar, patched the leaks himself and kept extending the life of the structure by six years and counting. A few years after he built the restaurant, he bought the little house next door, and announced grand plans to expand “the family business.”
“Someday we’re goin’ to double the capacity,” he said.
It never happened. So Dad rented out the little house, eventually stopped talking about expansion, and no longer called it “the family business.”
It didn’t start out as a restaurant. When we moved out of our first house, Dad kept it and rented it out. He lost count of the times he had Mom type out letters demanding late rent payment.
“What makes a son-of-a-bitch think he can live somewhere for free?” he’d say.
Dad and Mom discussed other options, including selling it, to “get it out of our hair.” Then Dad discovered the area was zoned for “light industry.” He started talking about knocking down the house and putting up a restaurant.
Mom fought it hard. “You must be crazy. Who builds a restaurant in a residential neighborhood?”
“If you have good food, people will find you.”
“The busy street is Pico. Randolph, that’s two blocks away! You can’t see the restaurant from there.”
“People have to eat.”
“They have to find you first.”
Down came the house. Up went the restaurant.
That was that. His proud little oasis was flanked by houses and a couple of apartment buildings. There was a small shirt factory a couple of doors down. But that was it as far as other businesses within several blocks. To the loyal and appreciative customers, it was a hungry man’s Wrigley Field.
When we lived here, the area was maybe 40 percent black, 40 percent Hispanic, and the rest white. The combination of blacks moving out and lots of legal and illegal Hispanics moving in, made the area—near what is now the Convention Center—almost completely Hispanic, gang infested, and much more dangerous. A few years before Dad retired, he began getting up a half hour earlier to paint over the graffiti that cropped up almost every night. It became a battle of wills, the gang “graffiti artists” versus my Dad. But when the bangers saw that this old man would, like clockwork, erase their artwork the very next morning, they finally stopped. Dad won.
The café was a robber’s dream, squeezed into a residential area surrounded by houses and apartment buildings. The traffic was light. But Dad was never the victim of a walk-in stick-up and was never mugged going in or out of the place. Late at night, the café was broken into and triggered the alarm over a dozen times in thirty-five years. But no one ever walked in with a gun.
At night after closing up, he walked out with the day’s receipts—cash and coins—in a heavy bag. He used a shopping bag so, he said, it wouldn’t be so obvious that he was carrying money. But everybody knew. Neighborhood tough guys and gang bangers often loitered in the small parking lot attached to the café. But no one ever threatened or approached him. When they were little kids, Dad handed them free vanilla ice cream cones out the back door. When their parents said, “Randy, I’m a little short today,” Dad fed them on credit. They usually paid, but not always and rarely when they said they would. My mother used to get on Dad for “being taken advantage of.” But they remembered.
“Hey, Randy. Let me get that for you.”
Dad handed one of them his money bag. He held it, waited while Dad popped open the trunk, and handed back the bag.
“Thank you.”
“No problem, Randy. See you tomorrow.”
8
THAT FRIDAY
Dad looked at the clock on the wall behind the coffee warmers. “We close in about an hour. Sit tight. Somethin’ to eat?”
“No, thank you.”
“Still don’t drink coffee?”
I shook my head. I was surprised he remembered.
“How about some tea?”
“Fine.” I took out a newspaper and pretended to read it. And waited.
Francine brought the tea. She was a long-time waitress. I barely knew her and she always seemed uncomfortable around me—polite but awkward. This time was no different. I assumed over the years Dad had told her a bunch of shitty things about me and that she saw me through his eyes. When I worked there, she had just begun working part-time. I didn’t think she’d make it. She was shy and way too fragile for my father. But she became his longest-running and most loyal and dependable employee. She lived around the corner. Her parents came here illegally from Mexico and spoke little English. Francine was maybe eight or nine when Dad opened the place. One day she walked in and scrambled up on one of the stools.
“Hi, Randy. My name is Francine. Someday I’m going to work for you.”
She taught him enough Spanish so that my father could take anyone’s order, no matter how complicated. The percentage of non-English speaking customers increased and Francine was on a first-name basis with everyone. She’d ask about their jobs, their spouses, and their children. She found part-time workers. My dad called her his “director of personnel.”
Francine became full-time. During this time, I graduated from high school, went off to college and law school, settled in Cleveland, and never once called the restaurant. Francine knew because she answered the phone. How much, if anything, Dad told Francine about me, I didn’t know. But she sure adored him. And I couldn’t understand how anyone who worked with him could feel that way.
I thought about That Friday one last time.
Why that day, I can’t say. He had cursed at me in front of customers plenty of times, as he had the day before and the day before that. But that day, That Friday, I just decided I’d had enough. But I’d had enough many times.
This time I was going to curse back, I always promised myself. Then he’d curse, and I’d just go in the back, slam something down, come right back out, and take some more.
“I’m not taking any more of his bullshit,” I’d tell myself. But three or four “Goddammits” later, I hadn’t said a word.
But that day, That Friday, would be different. It was rush hour, and the place was packed—a customer on every stool and another customer standing behind each one seated, waiting to order “to go.”
Rush hour was like a tranquil day that turns into wind and hail. You knew it was coming. But some days it started at 11:30. Other days at 11:30, the place looked deserted. Sometimes, everybody seemed to come in at 11:40. I remember a rush hour starting as late as 12:05. But you knew it was coming, and you’d
brace yourself to wait on twenty hungry people with forty-five minutes to order, eat, and get back to their jobs. I felt guilty when I caught myself looking at the clock and wondering “when”—even hoping that today will be the day when nobody comes in. No rush hour today. Just once.
“I’m not runnin’ a Goddamn charity,” Dad would say. “Rush hour makes money. No rush hour and it’s back to moppin’ floors and cleanin’ toilets. Do you want that?”
That Friday was hot. I never saw a day that busy. Rush hour began a good twenty minutes early.
The hot dog buns started it.
When he prepared a hot dog or chili dog, he’d lean forward, reach slightly above his head, grab a bun with his left hand, and stick his thumb in the opening just enough to slide in the wiener with his right hand. This time he reached, and found an empty box.
“Hot dog buns!” he called out.
Minutes earlier, he had asked me to refill the dwindling stack of buns, but I was taking orders and the phone was ringing. Run out of buns, and his rhythm is shot. And, as usual, buns were his fourth or fifth instruction—with at least two or three given when I was in the back and could barely hear. He rarely looked up when issuing a command, especially during rush hour.
“Did you say something?” I asked, coming in from the back where I went to get eggs.
“Brew another pot of coffee.”
“Answer the phone.”
“Bring me a bag of fries.”
“Put up a container of ice cream.”
“And where, Goddammit, are the hot dog buns?”
He spat out the orders like the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket, only Dad was more intimidating. Lord help me if I got the orders in the wrong order. But what’s the correct order? Hot dog buns must be dealt with first. I think.
“Fresh coffee pot!”
“I need the ice cream!”
“How many times do I have to ask for the Goddamn hot dog buns?!”
Prioritize. Read his mind. Don’t make him ask twice.
“Where are the buns?!” he asked for the fourth time.
I finished taking the phone order, placed it on the order wheel to the left of the grill, quickly walked toward the back, and grabbed four cartons of buns.
“Where are the buns!?” Five times.
He had left the water running where we wash the dishes, and the sink had just begun to overflow. I put down the buns. I shut off the water, unplugged the sink to let some of the water drain, grabbed a mop, and quickly wiped the area dry. More than even roaches, ants, and potato bugs, he hated anything on the floor—grease, milk, water—that could cause a fall.
“Goddammit, I … said … bring … me … some … buns!”
I put down the mop, turned around, and started to pick up the buns—then I stopped. I untied the strings around my waist, took off my apron, and removed my paper hat. Full house, rush hour, phone ringing, and my father alone—I walked out.
“Now let’s see how what happens,” I said to myself. Sitting at the bus stop, I felt weak and stupid and cowardly. Why hadn’t I said something? Anything? What a fucking wimp. What would happen that night when Dad got home, I had no idea.
“Go back,” Mom said when I got home.
“Go back?”
I told her what happened. I thought she’d agree with me and support my decision.
“Go back,” she insisted.
“What!? How can you tell me to go back when you couldn’t take it?”
She said that there was a difference between the way a man treats his wife, and how he treats his son.
“No there isn’t,” I said. “They both should be treated like human beings.”
I quoted her many condemnations of Dad, using her own words from when she’d worked there.
“And now you’re telling me to go back?”
“Please,” she said. “Your father needs you.”
“No. He doesn’t need anybody.”
That night, I lay on the bed, trying to read, waiting for him to come home. I thought about not being there when he got home. But I was already angry for not confronting him then and there, and walking out like a little coward. No, I’ll be here when the son-of-a-bitch gets home. I’m not running.
I looked up and he was standing at the door—big, tall, and angry. He could have been there for two seconds or it could have been minutes. He didn’t come in.
“Why … did … you … leave?!”
“I got tired of being cursed at. I got tired of being treated like an animal. And I’m not going back until you start treating me like a human being.” I had never talked to him like that.
He was furious. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. Then he crushed it into a ball and threw it on the bed. I didn’t move to pick it up. We just stared at each other. I picked up my book.
“You’re on your own,” he said.
He turned and walked away.
“Okay,” I said to myself as he left my bedroom That Friday. “I’ll manage without you. You’re not going to stop me, you son-of-a-bitch. I’m stronger than you think. I’ll show you.”
I made another promise. I was never going to be like him. Never.
That was the last time we spoke to each other—for ten years.
I looked at the clock and folded the newspaper that I had pretended to read. Francine said good-bye and left for the day. Dad turned off the grill and the fryer and the oven. He unplugged the toaster and poured a cup of coffee. He went out of the back door and came in the front, locked both doors, waved away a tardy customer who was approaching, and flipped over the “Open” sign in the window. He sat down on the stool next to me.
It was 2:30.
PART TWO
THE TALK
9
THE BEGINNIN’
“What kind of father do you think you are?” I asked.
I didn’t feel nervous. That surprised me. What I felt was anger.
“Is that what you came out to ask me?”
“That’s what I came out to ask you.”
“What kind of father do you think I am?” he said.
“Compared to what?”
He laughed that laugh. The real one that came from down home. It had been a long time since I’d heard it. I sure didn’t expect that.
“You know that we were all afraid of you,” I said.
He stopped laughing and put down the coffee.
“What do you mean?” he said after a long pause.
“I mean, we were afraid of you.”
“Kirk and Dennis, too?”
“Scared to death.”
He shook his head. He didn’t know?
“C’mon Dad, it’s hard to believe that you don’t know this.”
Another long pause. He stirred his coffee even though it was black. Was he nervous? Good. How does it feel?
“That’s it? That’s why you came all the way out here? To tell me that?”
“No, that’s not it. I—”
“Wait a second. Let me say somethin’. Then you can finish.”
“All right.”
“Look, I was tough. Not goin’ to deny that. But, no, I didn’t know you were afraid of me. All three of you?”
“All three of us.”
He shook his head again. “Well, I’ll say.”
“You don’t think we had any reason to be?”
“No, I don’t. What did I do to make you afraid?”
What did I do to make you afraid? Was he kidding?
I let it rip. I told him about The Belt, the time I ditched it in the sewer. I told him about the time Kirk and I ran away, the whipping with the telephone cord when Dennis and I were naked and wet. It poured out, words like “cruel,” “severe,” “abusive.” I went from incident to incident, growing angrier and angrier, completely forgetting that I promised not to get emotional. He sat. He listened. Sometimes he shook his head.
“Why did you even have children? I mean, what was the fucking point?”
; I’d never cursed at him. He stared at his coffee and said nothing.
After all my practice and prep, all the if-he-says-this-I’ll-say-that, I didn’t expect nothing. But that’s what I got. So I kept going.
“What did you do to make me afraid?” I repeated his words. “What did you do to make me afraid?” “What didn’t you do to make me afraid?”
Your temper, Dad. The trauma of going to the drive-in. The scary curb feelers.
“I don’t remember that,” he said, after I told him about the time we wailed when he pretended that he was going to whip us.
“You don’t remember that?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I didn’t make it up.”
No, after a million mental rehearsals where I told the son-of-a-bitch off, after all the times I imagined this moment, I didn’t expect silence. I thought he’d deny, defend, blame Mom, maybe yell, or stomp off. But he sat there, absorbing story after story, remembering some things, but not most of them.
“I’m goin’ to get another cup,” he said, finally getting up from his stool. “You sure you don’t want anythin’?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
He went around to the back, poured another cup, set it on the counter, and came back around the front.
“How much time do you have?” he said.
“As much as you need.”
He looked at the clock. “I guess I can put off cleanin’ up for a while.”
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He inhaled a couple of times. “You sure you want to hear this?”
“Go ahead.”
Nothing he could say would change what he did or how he treated us. I came here to tell him what he did, and what a poor excuse of a father he was. He can say what he wants. Excuses won’t matter. It’s too late. Maybe this whole thing was a waste of time. Closure—what a stupid fucking concept.
“You know,” he said, “I was afraid of my father.”
He never talked about his father. When I was little, I used to wonder if his father was afraid of him, too.