“It’s my money,” Dad said, bent over in front of the VCR, trying to find some button. “I’ll piss it all away and won’t leave you with nothing.”
“That’s a fine attitude with the nursery hardly making any money.”
Dad turned around like a snake about to strike, and had that evil glow in his eyes. Mom looked away from him and sat in her felt recliner. It was over, a little nothing of an argument. I had prepared for much worse, but maybe I was overly cautious. After all, I had witnessed all-out marital warfare for most of my twelve years.
Dad was angry because he didn’t like hearing Mom say they weren’t making much money. Dad’s father died in 1955, long before I came along, but everything Grandfather touched turned to money. With only a third-grade education, he was a millionaire by the time he was thirty-five years old. Dad told me this. He spoke of his father as a legendary figure. Grandfather got in early on the West Texas oil fields, and once the money started rolling in, he branched out into cattle and bought massive amounts of farmland which he leased out. Dad never did anything so economically grand. He made quite a bit of money, from what he told me, driving truck, but never becoming a prosperous businessman itched at Dad.
The new TV and VCR were in the living room, which was separated from the dining room by what seemed to be a small arch. At least that was what Dad called it. But to me it looked more like a door that was cut too big by the builders. The living room’s two windows also had bars on them, just as all the windows and exterior doors of the house did. Mom’s felt recliner was tan; next to it sat Dad’s recliner, a walnut leather with brass buttons running around the edge of the arm rests. His chair was twice as large as Mom’s, and it sat more directly in front of the big screen TV. The first show Dad watched on the new TV was M*A*S*H, his favorite, though Mom and I did our best to tolerate it. “That’s how my unit in the war was,” Dad said, “everyone cutting up with each other, no one paying attention to rank.” I pulled a dining-table chair into the living
room and sat to the right of Dad.
Dad liked M*A*S*H, but little else on TV, except for the nightly world news. Because of this, he had the bad habit of channel surfing, or “flipping the button,” as Mom called it. Neither she nor Dad ever called a remote control by its name. It was always the button. Mom was tired, mad at Dad, so she went to bed early.
“Be sure and go to bed soon,” Mom said, and touched me tenderly on the shoulder. She didn’t say good night to Dad, and he didn’t look at her as she walked to their room. Even though
it was summer, Mom still wanted me to get plenty of sleep. She didn’t understand that a major point of summer vacation was staying up late.
Dad winked at me when Mom told me to get to bed soon, and I knew I wouldn’t be laying my head on a pillow any time soon.
Dad went to the kitchen and I got out of the hard, straight-backed dining-table chair and eased into Mom’s recliner. I only sat in Dad’s chair when he was out of the house. Any other
time, his chair was off limits. Dad returned with a tall cold glass of milk and a freshly opened package of Devil’s Food cookies, one in his mouth. He sat the package on the left arm of his chair, the side closest to me.
“Look at what else I got,” Dad said. He popped open a rectangular plastic case and out came a large tape. He handed me the case and walked to the VCR. On the case, letters spelled out the name “Bruce Lee,” a name I had heard Donnie and other boys mention at school. But the cookies, at that moment, held more of my attention. Dad, his back to me, was bent over the VCR, and was having trouble getting the tape bay to rise like the delivery men had showed him it would.
“Open up you sonofabitch!”
This was my chance to snag a cookie, but my hand wouldn’t move. They were less than two feet away but I couldn’t make myself take one. Dad caught me earlier sneaking the seasoning, but that was not the same as taking one of his cookies without permission. Dad, after a little more cursing and poking, got the tape in the VCR. He looked at the cookies, and I knew he counted them. He didn’t say anything, only grinned as he sat down.
Dad unfastened his khakis, the only type of pants he ever wore, and slung his right leg over the arm of the recliner. When Dad sat like this, he was ready to remain seated for a few hours. He ate another cookie in two bites, gulped half of his milk, and wiped away the white mustache before offering me one. He held the cookies only inches from my face, and I feared he might shove them into my mouth the way he did the tape into the VCR.
“Take one,” he said. “I know you’re dying to have one.” I reached for a cookie. “That’s why your ass is so wide now.”
I stopped.
“Don’t change your mind now. One more cookie ain’t gonna make you any fatter.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You want this cookie like a hog wants slop.”
“No I don’t.” I placed my hands in my lap and turned my head to look at the TV.
The movie began in silence.
At first, I was disappointed in the movie. Bruce Lee, from what the kids said at school, was this awesome fighter. But at the beginning of the movie, he wasn’t allowed to fight because
his father gave him a necklace and told Bruce he couldn’t fight as long as he wore it. I wondered if Dad might do the opposite: buy me a necklace and tell me I had to fight as long as it was around my neck. Bruce’s necklace eventually got ripped off by one of the bad guys, and the buttkicking commenced.
“Me and Johnny Shirk,” Dad said, “whooped a gang like that once.”
Dad always interrupted movies with his stories. If it was one that he had told me before, I could generally tune him out.
“We were out in Long Beach sitting in a truck stop about four in the morning when these bikers came in, all loud and cranked up. Johnny had been a POW in Korea and Nam, luckless bastard. They beat him in the head so much that the VA had to put a metal plate in him when he returned. Had the mind of a twelve-year-old but was strong as a bull. He held a washing machine on his back for forty-five minutes one time when he got wedged on the steps of this family’s basement. In his face, you could see Johnny wasn’t quite right, so those bikers thought he’d be easy to pick on. He wasn’t, though, and neither was I.”
This was a new story. Dad had my attention.
“They took Johnny’s cap off and were playing keep away with it as I paid our check. I walked outside, figuring they’d give his cap back once they saw us leaving. They didn’t. Instead they followed us outside, and made a circle around Johnny, throwing the cap all around. I carried a bicycle chain in my coat pocket when I was on the road, and whipped that thing out and clocked the biker nearest to me. He was a big bastard and fell hard. When Johnny saw him fall, he started throwing punches like a dervish, and I swung that chain for all it was worth. We had all those bikers on the ground in less than three minutes. We left them bleeding and moaning and got back on the road.”
Dad grinned. The memory pleased him, and since it was one I had never heard, he must not have thought of it often, but seeing Bruce on a rampage brought it back.
“That little China man can whoop some ass,” Dad said. “You got to be quick and coordinated to do that.” Dad ate another cookie. “That’s why you’d never be able to do it.”
“I would too.”
“You can’t walk across the yard without stumbling.”
Staying up late was what I had wanted to do, but I wasn’t staying up with Dad and his mouth. Big screen TV and all, I headed to my room.