"Is that your father?" Tami asked. She pointed at a booth on the far side of Gourlay’s.
It was my father, and he was with a woman I didn’t recognize. Actually, a girl, probably no older than Tami. That son of a bitch! After all of his lectures about how I treat women.
Tami said, "You don’t think he’s…"
The girl in the booth leaned forward and slid her hand across the table. Dad slipped one hand under hers, and with his other hand stroked her fingers.
The maitre’d said, "Your table is ready. Right this way." He pointed the way with the two large menus bound in black leather.
"Wait a minute," I said, and started toward my father.
Tami grabbed my arm. "Jeff, no."
I jerked out of her grasp and kept moving. I bumped a chair. The woman in the chair yipped, and I glanced down. A beet-colored stain bloomed across the right breast of her canary yellow blouse. A drop of wine fell from the glass onto her orange slacks.
The man across the table from her said, "Hey, be careful."
My father looked up from his booth. When he saw me he jerked his hands away from the little tart. "Jeff! What are you doing here?"
"I’m on a date," I said. "Same as you."
"This isn’t what it looks like."
Dad’s date said, "It isn’t?"
"I’m Jeff," I said, extending my hand to the girl.
"Darlene," she said, and shook my hand.
Tami had come up beside me and I put my arm around her. To Darlene I said, "Do you know Tami? I’ll bet you were in homeroom together."
Dad said, "Jesus, Jeff, you don’t have to be insulting."
"I was just saying how youthful she looks. Don’t you think she looks useful? I mean youthful?"
The sides of Dad’s neck reddened. He looked at Tami. "Are you Jeff’s latest conquest?"
I looked at Darlene. "Oh, is Gourlay’s the kind of place you take a conquest, Dad? I thought it was a place to take someone you’re serious with." I pulled Tami closer.
Dad said, "Tami, I hope you’re not buying Jeff’s schtick about being serious."
Tami said, "Jeff, let’s go."
"And I hope, Darlene, that you’re not buying Dad’s schtick about being single."
Darlene looked at Dad. "Ben, you son of a bitch."
"Holy shit. Did he tell you his name is Ben? Benjamin’s his middle name. His first name is Jeffrey, like mine. And his wife’s first name is–"
"Shut the fuck up."
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. "I should capture this moment. Your grandkids will want to see it," I held up the phone and pushed the camera button.
"You little shit!" Dad stood and swung his fist at my hand. I jerked my hand back just in time, but I lost my grip on the phone. It spun, flipped through the air, and splorked into a bowl of tomato soup, which erupted onto the yellow blouse and orange pants of the woman I’d spilled wine onto.
The maitre’d said, "I’m going to ask the whole lot of you to leave."
Darlene said, "Ben, give me forty dollars for a cab."
"I’ll drive you home."
"Give me forty bucks."
"Fuck it, then," Dad said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. "Find your own goddammed way home."
I said, "Like father, like son."
Tami said, "What?"
"I think he’s trying to tell you," Dad said, "that he’s just as big an asshole as I am."
"Give me forty fucking dollars, asshole!" Darlene shouted.
I reached for my wallet.
"Not you." Darlene said, "The other asshole."
I held out two twenty dollar bills.
Tami snatched the bills out of my hand. "Maybe we can share that cab."
"Or perhaps instead of a cab," said the maitre’d, "you’d all prefer to leave in a paddy wagon."
Tami said, "A what?"
My father said, "Given your likely career, young woman, you’ll know what paddy wagon is soon enough."
I wound up and hit him. I’m sure I telegraphed the punch, and part of me probably expected — or hoped — that he would duck out of the way, but either he didn’t see me or he was too stunned that I’d actually take the swing. I caught him solid on his left cheekbone, and he went down. He hit his head on the corner of the table, and a fork pinwheeled up and landed on his forehead, smearing roquefort dressing across his eyebrow. He lay still.
Darlene was gone. So was Tami.
"That’s enough," a man behind me said. He wrapped an arm around my throat, and with his other hand stuffed my soup-drenched cell phone into my shirt pocket. He patted my pocket, then wiped his hand on my sleeve. "You don’t want that to come true, buddy. Trust me on that."
"I don’t want what to come true?"
"Like father, like son. You have a choice."
"Who the hell are you to be giving me–"
"Right now you have a choice. You can choose mindfully, or you can wait until you discover that the chance has passed you by, that you’re stuck with who you’ve become. That moment is not too many years in your future."
"I can’t breathe," I said.
He relaxed his hold on my throat. "Can I let you go now?"
"Yeah."
He let go.
I turned around. He looked at me with an expression that I couldn’t interpret. Looked me right in the eye.
I walked past him and headed toward the door. The woman in the yellow blouse leaned away from me as I passed.
I stopped.
"Ma’am, I’m sorry about your clothes. I should probably pay for the damage."
"I appreciate your saying so," she said. “That’s payment enough for me.”
I began to protest, then stopped. I looked at the man. He raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Well? What’s it going to be?”
I nodded. I apologized again to the woman, then turned and walked out.
