Fucking gland-case, I eventually heard, enunciated loudly and with care from somewhere behind me. When I turned around, Croft and his cronies had dissolved into the crowd.
Here’s a snippet of how the conversation went between Croft and Gord moments before my father’s attempt to take flight.
Gord: What can I get you today, son?
Croft: Coke.
Gord: I beg your pardon, now, I didn’t quite catch that.
Croft: Coke.
Gord: You’d like a Coke, would you?
I should explain that Gord is already doing a slow burn at this point. I can all but hear the rant bubbling away in the foreground of his brain: goddamn little Christer no respect doesn’t even know how to ask for something it’s the parents off doing god knows what don’t even instill common courtesy let alone basic please and thank you think the world owes them every goddamn thing they get. So it’s only at this point that Croft, who has been paying no attention whatsoever up until now, actually turns his nasty focus on my father. So I see this. I am standing at the grill supposedly waiting for it to be time to turn the patties over but at this point I have pretty much forgotten about the patties because I witness the way Croft’s bright little eyes are taking full measure of Gord and the tendrils of smoke slowly wafting from my father’s ears.
No, I think. Not the smirk.
Croft allows the smirk to just kind of ooze across his face like syrup over pancakes.
Croft (enunciating loudly, precisely the way he did when he called me a gland-case at the dance): Yeah, bud. I said a Coke. Coca. Cola. I wanna teach the world to sing.
(Chortles from the skeezer crew lined up behind him.)
Gord (with a hideous patience that tells me he is revelling in the accumulation of adrenalin that’s taking place as his ire is stirred. Now the two of them are practically dancing together): It’s not that I can’t hear you, son. I may have a few years on you, but I don’t have any trouble with my hearing.
(Oh Christ, I think, he’s called him “son” again.)
Croft: Sorry, bud. Guess it must be the Alzheimer’s setting in or something.
(More skeezer tittering. Even though it isn’t quite time, I rapidly flip all the patties on my grill to get this particular obligation out of the way.)
Gord: My problem, son, is with you. And the fact that you little assholes keep coming in here . . .
Croft (flipping his hands into the air at the word “assholes”): I just want a Coke! I’m just thirsty!
Gord: . . . and you sit in the back corner both scaring people away and reeking of maryjane . . .
Croft: I don’t even know Mary Jane! I never touched her!
(skeezers holding their sides at this point)
Gord: . . . and then you have the goddamn nerve to come up here and grunt at me in my own restaurant. “Coke” (Neanderthal grunt-speak here). “Coke, bud. Gimme Coke.”
Croft: Look, bud . . .
That’s what did it. The slavering insolence of that third and final “bud.” I dropped my flipper and hurled myself forward, reaching Gord just before his extended hands could secure themselves around Croft’s neck.
There was a lot of yelling. The word “punks” occasionally leapt like a salmon from an otherwise undifferentiated stream of obscenities where my father was concerned, whereas on Croft’s side of the counter, as he and his crew sauntered (but sauntered somewhat hurriedly, I’d like to point out) toward the door, I heard — along with their own laughing, obscene stream — the words “Crazy” and “. . . should call the fuckin cops!”
Once Croft et al. had taken off, I yelled — still clinging to Gord — something around the restaurant about complimentary single cones for everybody, but everybody was too busy gathering up their bug-eyed children and herding them toward the exits to notice. The only people left to take advantage of the offer were a few workers from SeaFare grabbing burgers after their shift, and they seemed to regard the incident as a kind of floor show. They laughed and applauded and generally made me regret the free ice cream I ended up doling out to them.
“Nice reflexes there, Rankin.”
“You shoulda let him go off on that little tool.”
“Why you giving my food away to those assholes?” Gord wanted to know once I had rejoined him behind the counter. He had yelled at me for burning my patties but otherwise seemed cheerful and refreshed after