Dear Father, Dear Son Read online

  I was locked up for eight hours. When Mom asked where I was all night, I told her that I spent the night in jail.

  “For what?”

  I told her what happened.

  “I see,” she said. “You were mouthing off.”

  “Just don’t tell Dad.”

  I’d flown in from Cleveland. I had settled there after law school, without running the decision by Dad. I hadn’t lived in L.A. since I graduated from high school. The city felt less like home and more like someplace I used to know. But then, that’s why I left, wasn’t it, to find my own way away from him—away from the shouting, the rants, and the put-downs? I wanted to realize my potential and to do it without his advice, without his input, and without his guidance—not that he ever showed much interest in offering any.

  I needed to talk to him.

  He needed to know how I felt about how he treated us, and why his relationship with my brothers and me was either shitty or non-existent. He needed to hear a few things: what I needed as a child, where he fell way short, the kind of father I wanted—the kind I deserved but never had. If this pissed him off forever, so be it.

  I was tired of being afraid of him, of holding so many things in, of letting him walk all over me. This was it. He needed to understand, Goddammit, that there was a fucking human being on the receiving end of his yelling, screaming, and cursing.

  Family outings with Dad always deteriorated into an endurance test between Dad and my brothers and me. Thankfully, these outings were rare. Something always happened to upset him, and we’d end up leaving early.

  At Disneyland, the first ride we hit was the Matterhorn rollercoaster. Dad twisted his neck and spent the rest of the day berating the theme park for his pain, complaining that he had to pay for the privilege of walking around with a “crooked” neck, arguing that the rollercoaster failed to post warnings, and noting that the designer of the Goddamn park “should be ashamed of himself.”

  “Dad, why don’t we just go home?” asked my little brother, Dennis.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Dad now shifted his wrath from Walt Disney to Dennis.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well—”

  “Shut up! I said, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’”

  “Well—”

  “Shut up!”

  Dennis stopped eating his cotton candy and tried not to cry. We didn’t stay long.

  My first Major League Baseball game was between the newly transplanted Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves at the L.A. Coliseum. A mysterious force made Dad buy tickets one row in front of a guy with a horn blaster—the kind that emits a sound only slightly less obnoxious than an ambulance siren. Dad wanted to kill the guy, but Mom threatened to leave if Dad “made a scene.”

  “Don’t you say anything to that man,” she warned. She said lots of people had those things.

  “Who invented those Goddamn things?!” Dad said.

  “This is a ballpark, not a church. If you don’t want to cheer, you shoulda stayed home.”

  Instead, Dad spent the rest of our time in the ballpark attacking rude fans in a voice loud enough for the guy to hear. But the horn blower had heard my mother’s admonishment and knew the troops were on his side, so he blasted away. We left in the sixth or seventh inning. I’m pretty sure Hank Aaron hit a home run. But all I really remember about that game are Dad, Dennis, and the man with the “Goddamn horn.”

  Dad took us to see the Fourth of July fireworks at a park with a big grassy area that served as a parking lot. It was stacked parking, where an attendant directs the driver to the next open spot in a line of multiple columns. So a driver parked in the interior must wait for another car to leave before there’s enough room to pull out. Having no choice, Dad parked as directed—in the middle.

  With the night sky still aglow from the fireworks finale, Dad hustled us toward the parking lot. “Gotta beat the traffic.”

  But we were the first in our stack to arrive. Maybe the first in the whole parking lot.

  “Where the hell is everybody, Goddammit!”

  Checkmated in the front and back and on either side, Dad fumed while waiting for others who were obviously taking “their own sweet time.”

  “Let’s get in the car and wait. Might as well rest,” Dad said.

  He slumped down in his seat behind the wheel and covered his face with his hat. After a while, I decided to see if he was asleep. I lifted up the hat.

  “Dammit! Why did you do that?” He acted as if he’d been poked in the ear with an ice pick.

  “I was just check—”

  “Shut up! Why’d you do that?”

  “I was just—”

  “Shut up! I work my ass off and all I ask is for a little bit of Goddamn sleep!”

  Another long, silent ride home. It was the first and last family Fourth of July fireworks observance with Dad.

  If he said he was going to do something, he did it. No back-and-forth. No half measures. No excuses.

  He started smoking cigarettes at thirteen when he left home. One day, he complained about a scratch in his throat and went to see a doctor. In those days, even before warning labels on tobacco products, the doctor told my dad his cigarettes were “cancer sticks” and that they caused the scratchiness.

  “I quit,” he said.

  He never smoked again. After almost thirty years of three packs a day, he just quit.

  Mom, on the other hand, started smoking because of Dad. She used to light his cigarettes for him, and just picked it up from there.

  Over the years, she tried to quit. She tried cold turkey. She tried gradually cutting down. She tried anti-smoking gum. She told us to hide her cigarettes, to throw out her cigarettes, and to charge her 10 cents every time she lit up. Nothing worked.

  But Dad? “I quit”—and that was that. His willpower made us fear him even more.

  To save money, Dad bought some clippers and shears and began to cut our hair. Kids laughed at “the barber who picks at your head.” They didn’t know the barber they ridiculed was our dad. He butchered our hair. He had no regard for what was in style. And he took forever, which meant being in his presence, close up, every other Sunday, with the always-present chance for him to get mad at something we said or something we didn’t say. Only after Kirk got into high school and rebelled did Dad stop cutting his hair. After Kirk spoke up, Dennis and I did, too. Dad hung up his clippers.

  “All right, but don’t you ask for a raise in your allowance,” he said.

  On Sunday nights, Dad watched the “Ed Sullivan Show.”

  “Kirk. Larry. Dennis. Come look!”

  No matter what we were doing, we dropped everything, as Dad demanded, rushed to the television, and suffered through something he assumed we enjoyed—a ventriloquist, dueling jugglers, or the sequin-shirted guy running around keeping plates spinning at the end of long sticks, including one in each hand and one in his mouth.

  “Look at that,” he’d say.

  “Wow, Dad.” We faked interest, drummed our fingers on the floor, and counted down the seconds until the act ended and we could return to our little zone of freedom—somewhere away from him in another part of the house.

  None of us dared say, “You know, Dad, I really don’t give a rip about Topo Gigio and his stupid little puppet friends. Or Sonny Liston jumping rope. Or Kate Smith singing ‘God Bless America.’ Really, Dad.”

  One night, Dennis and I were polishing our shoes for Sunday services the next morning, and Dennis starting singing a song that was sweeping the playground in third grade. It was a stupid song, of all things, about a popular brand of chocolate syrup:

  I hate Bosco.

  It’s not good for me.

  My mother puts it in my milk

  To try to poison me.

  But I fooled my mother.

  I put it in her tea.

  And now there’s no more mother

  To try to poison m
e.

  Dad exploded.

  “What are you doin’ singin’ a song about murderin’ your mother?!”

  “Dad, it’s just a s—”

  “I don’t give a damn. I don’t want to hear it again.”

  “But Dad, Mom never said anything—”

  “It’s not up for debate, dammit!”

  Even on Christmas Day, we felt tension. One Christmas, the drama started a couple of days early. Dad kept up the fiction that Santa Claus brought us our gifts. Our house had no fireplace, the doors were always locked, and some of our friends lived in apartments. The logistics of getting gifts to every kid, on time, no matter where they lived, had long ago stopped adding up. Anxious to see what my parents were getting me, I went into their closet, which was always off-limits. An air rifle! Just what I wanted.

  After he came home from work, I bragged about my detective work.

  “I know what Santa Claus is getting me for Christmas.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?” he said from behind the evening paper.

  “An air rifle.”

  “Goddammit! Who said you could go through my closet?! Who?!”

  “No one, I—”

  “Now you’ve ruined Christmas, Goddammit! Go to your room!”

  I wasn’t sure if it was because I busted his Santa Claus myth, or that I had spoiled Christmas since the gift was no longer a surprise, but after that, I never really enjoyed the air rifle.

  Even on Christmas, Mom and Dad showed no affection toward each other.

  New kitchenware. “Thanks, Randolph.”

  New, fluffy, terry-cloth robe. “Thanks, Vi.”

  Perfume. “Thanks, Randolph.”

  The Christmas event Dad enjoyed the most was finding a package that was tightly bound with string, or a box that someone struggled to open. My Aunt Juanita from Chattanooga always sent pajamas in boxes that were securely wrapped with thick string.

  “I’ll get that,” Dad said, as we tugged and pulled on the strings. “Hand it to me.”

  He stood up, reached into his pocket, and pulled out this bulky red tool—a Swiss Army knife. Dad carried it with him every day of the year, but Christmas Day was the only time I ever saw him use it. He carefully selected the appropriate blade and slowly sawed through the string.

  “There.” Triumphant, he handed the package back. “Anybody else? No?”

  Back into his pocket went the knife, where it would remain for another 364 days.

  4

  “I’LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT”

  L.A. traffic. You never quite get used to it. While the driver cut down side streets to outmaneuver the congestion, I thought about what led up to That Friday—reliving it again and again.

  I was fifteen and had worked for him three straight summers and on Saturdays year-round when, for a while, the restaurant was open six days a week. And I despised every minute of it. That Friday, that moment, that time, I just wasn’t going to take it or him anymore.

  At the restaurant, when things got busy during “rush hour,” from about 11:30 until 2 p.m., he cooked furiously, sweat like crazy, and barked out orders like a boot camp sergeant.

  “Get this. Get that. Dammit, I thought I told you—”

  Do the wrong thing and the cursing would start, and it didn’t matter if customers heard it.

  I hated the restaurant. It was a diner, really. Fifteen stools placed a few inches apart and set up in a “U” shape so that every customer faced the grill, where my father presided. My parents could never even decide on what to call Elder’s Snack Bar. The café. The restaurant. The snack bar. Mostly they called it “the place.” Dad worked seven days a week, even though the restaurant eventually closed on weekends. On Saturdays, he still got up early.

  “It’s the only day I can get away to get supplies,” he said.

  On Sundays, he needed to “set up the week,” and was gone almost all day. My brothers and I didn’t care. He probably didn’t want to be home any more than we wanted him there. Whenever he was around, the weather was cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms.

  “Your father is going to build a restaurant,” my mother announced a couple of years before it opened. I visualized a big, darkly lit ballroom with tables and chairs, a hostess, and maybe a piano—like in a Shirley Temple movie, where people get dressed up, pull up in big cars, and hand their keys to a valet. A restaurant! We’re building a restaurant!

  The glass and aluminum shoebox building was hot, with small narrow aisles barely wide enough for one person to walk through without turning sideways. I was ten when he opened the restaurant. At first, I washed dishes, mopped the floor, squeegeed the windows, and cleaned the toilet. I wanted to wait on customers like Kirk so I could earn tips. But Dad wouldn’t hear of it.

  “I don’t like kids handlin’ food,” he said.

  “But—”

  “It’s not up for discussion.”

  Dad was a former Marine, and working for him was like being in the military—everything done on time, at the same time, no excuses.

  “Larry, it’s time,” Dad said, when he woke me up at 4:30 a.m. No snooze button. I had five minutes to get ready.

  By 4:35, we were in the car. The restaurant opened at 6:30, giving us one hour and fifty-five minutes to cram everything in. We drove through streets, still dark and empty, to pick up supplies. We got to the restaurant at 5:10. I took down the stools that I’d sat upside-down on the counter the night before. I wiped off the counter and the stool seats. Then I stood at attention, ready to fetch whatever he needed.

  Cups?

  “Right.”

  Potatoes?

  “Right.”

  Cooking grease. Paper place mats. Sugar. Napkins. Jelly in the glass containers. Refill the salt and pepper shakers. Straws. Plastic baskets for the French fries.

  He barked out three or four things to do, and God help me if I did them out of order—and the proper order wasn’t necessarily the order in which he gave them.

  “Prioritize, dammit,” he said, when I once asked which task he wanted done first.

  “You mean, read your fucking mind,” I said to myself.

  “I thought I told you to fill those catsup bottles.” He hadn’t.

  “Why isn’t the coffee machine on?” It was.

  “Who told you to put out so much bacon?” He had.

  “Why didn’t you bring out an order tablet when you were in the back?” I had. It was under the newspaper that he had set right on top of it.

  At 6:10, Dad turned on the grill and the deep fry, and took out the eggs, bacon, and ham. He chopped up onions, grated cheese, and boiled potatoes to make hash browns. He took out scales with weights and measures. Like a chemist, he used the precise amounts of flour, salt, and sugar for the pancake mix and the biscuit dough. Everything was fresh and homemade—biscuits, pancake mix, pecan and apple and sweet potato and cherry pies, and German chocolate cake. The menu, for such a small place, was gigantic. My mother wanted him to pare down the number of offerings. Dad refused. He liked making so many different things. He considered himself an artist. A customer once called the diner a “fast-food” place.

  “Fast food?” Dad was insulted. “Fast food? You think you can get this at McDonalds? Fast food!?”

  As much as I hated it, Dad loved the restaurant. He loved working for himself. And he loved cooking. More than that, he loved performing. He didn’t know it, but when he cooked—juggling so many different orders—he had a slight smile. It said, “That’s right. I’m good. We both know it.” There was absolutely no wasted motion.

  He was a music conductor in front of his five-foot-by-three-foot grill, the stovetop at stage right. In his hand, instead of a baton, was a spatula. Denver omelet, upper right corner—the woodwinds. Hash browns, middle right side—the brass. Omelet, no ham, middle rear—tympani. Pancakes, to the left—piano. Grits, in the pot on the stove—the bass. Eggs, over easy, in the front—the strings. Now all together!

  He flipped the eggs a good foo
t and a half or more above the pan, never missing a landing and never breaking a yolk. He carefully rolled up the omelet. When the toast popped up, he dipped a small brush in the melted butter, stroked each piece, and cut them diagonally. Without looking, he grabbed a plate from overhead. He placed the eggs, hash browns, and toast in exactly the same spot every time. A customer once shook her head at the sight and said, “Jesus, Randy, you’re like a surgeon.”

  The bastard was good.

  Back at home, the three of us kids drove Mom crazy. Our first house—the one where I lived until I was seven, the one my father knocked down to build the café—had no backyard. Kirk was three-and-a-half years older than me, and Dennis, called—what else—“Dennis the Menace,” was fifteen months younger. We were like three hamsters trapped in a shoebox-sized cage, jockeying for the same spinning wheel. We shared a tiny bedroom. Kirk had his own bed, and Dennis and I slept in bunk beds with Dennis up top. My father determined this arrangement.

  “Wait ’til your father comes home,” my mother said, when we “acted out.” And we acted out a lot.

  She insisted we speak “proper English,” and would correct our grammar anywhere, anytime, on the spot.

  “Can you bring a candy bar for me and Dennis?”

  “I can, if it’s ‘for Dennis and me.’”

  Kirk didn’t make up his bed. Dennis played with his food. I wouldn’t eat mine. We lost a toy. We found a toy. Dennis claimed the toy was his. Dennis traded his wagon for a broken tricycle I no longer used. Then he wanted his wagon back.

  “No. A deal’s a deal.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Larry, give Dennis his wagon back.”

  “No.”

  “Fine, wait ’til your father comes home.”

  “Told you,” Dennis said.

  “Wait ’til your father comes home” usually meant Dennis and I got into a fight. A real fight—a fist fight. And we fought every single day, several times a day, seven days a week. We couldn’t stand each other. His temper was like my Dad’s, and this made me dislike my little brother even more. Even though Dennis and I knew we’d “get a whippin’” for “actin’ out,” we still fought.