Thursday, May 02, 2013

Tonopah Can Wait


Shim is not mentioned in this post.  So if that's what you came here for, you may move along.

“Hey Freddie.  Did I ever tell you about that time we was all outside that gas station in Tonopah Nevada?”

“Yeah Dad.  About a dozen times or so.  But besides that, I was there and …”

“Well anyway.  We was coming down from San Francisco on our way to Vegas when I needed to stop for gas …”

It’s ok dad.  I got this one.

One thing I never quite understood about my dad was how he seemed to find trouble.  I’ve mentioned before that he’s got a ton of stories that he likes to tell.  Most of them are about some bar fight.  Mostly he beat someone senseless.  Every once in a while he will tell a story of somebody getting the best of him.  When he tells one of these stories, you can bet there’s a (to be continued).  And unlike me, he actually has another story.  Usually a story that illustrates his great bravery in redeeming himself from the earlier defeat.  Perhaps in the form of “How I learned my lesson and kicked the guy’s ass on the ensuing fortnight.”

But I often wondered how he happened to get into so many fights.  According to him, he never started any fights.  I actually witnessed about half a dozen of these and in my mind at the time, someone had picked the fight with him.  It was amazing.  He was just minding his own business.  Until he wasn’t.

One Wednesday night at Kelly’s Hilltop Bowling Alley …  Wait a minute.  Dad used to bowl on Wednesday nights.  The walls of Kelly’s were all furry.  Hmm.  I used to go with him because I was in love with the daughter of one of his bowling buddies.  I was like 11 and she was 15, so yeah.  I was in love.  She always wore this really cool pair of bowling shoes.  Stolen from a different alley.  I asked her where she got those cool shoes and she said “I copped ‘em.”  I had never heard that term before, but I assumed it meant stole them.  She was so cool.  But I honestly don’t remember anything else she ever said.  I do remember standing on this narrow catwalk against the wall by the front entrance.  I’m not sure why.

So one night, after the WNBW (Wednesday Night Bowling Worlds), my dad and a dashing young fella walked calmly toward the back exit of Kelly’s.  I wondered where they were going.  I looked at my brother and we shrugged as the big grey metal door to the stairs to the exit slammed shut.  Roughly 20 seconds later, The steel door opened and my dad walked over to us and said, “let’s go.”

Next, the man who had gone outside with my dad came through the door.  From just above his left eye, streaming all the way down his face and on down the length of his white turtleneck was a deep red trail of blood.  He didn’t say anything.  He just walked over to gather his things.

“What happened to him,” I asked my dad.  There hadn’t seemed to be any anger between the 2 of them, but the guy looked like he’d been punched. 

“Oh he just fell down the stairs,” my dad said.  Seeing I was squinting at him, doubting him, He continued, 
“Yeah.  He tried to cop a Sunday as we got to the landing then lost his balance and fell down the stairs after I nailed him in the eye.”

Now I was trying to reconcile the meaning of the word “cop.”  I asked, “He stole some ice cream?  What?”

“No son.  He tried a surprise attack.”

“But why was there a fight.”

My dad has a way of getting on your nerves if you are losing some contest to him.  He gloats.  Endlessly berating you and saying you suck and everything.  Laughing and pointing, etc.  I think this is where I learned to win with grace.  Too bad I don’t win very often, because it would be a treat for the others to see how graceful I am at it.   

I’m not saying he was doing this taunting that night.  I wasn’t paying attention, so I can only guess. I was hanging out with Penny, the bowling shoe thief, who I was in love with by the way.    

What I know about the events of that night, I have gathered from eyewitness testimony.

The guy Dad punched was on the other team.  The other team was losing. Dad was having a particularly good night of bowling.  He was getting a lot of what they call “strikes” which are good in bowling.  He was jumping very high with each new strike.  I believe the night was already won, but dad was still shouting in exaltation, because he does that. 

The guy who later fell down the stairs had been mumbling something for a while.  Each time my dad walked by, he thought he heard something.  Eventually he inquired as to the content of the mumbling.  Then turtleneck calmly explained, “Yeah – I said you’re a son of a bitch.”

Rew>

If you’ve never seen “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” Then I don’t want to be your friend anymore.  Go see it and come back and read the rest of this.  It will be beneficial for 2 reasons.  “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” is one of the most wonderful movies of all time ever.  And B) Calling my dad a “son of a bitch” is kind of like saying “Cleaning Woman” to Rigby Reardon.

So go watch "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid."  I'll wait.

Man was that a good movie or what?  I can't believe you've never seen it before.  Friend.

When my dad was about 3 or so, his mother was having headaches.  And even though it was the late 40’s, they all said the tumor would have been completely operable if she had not been misdiagnosed as needing glasses.  It was tragic.  She was about 22 years old. 

I never really understood the “Your mama” thing.  First of all, we called her “Mom” and second of all I didn’t understand they were implying that my mother was some sort of pedophile.

But anyway, if someone called my dad a “son of a bitch,” he took it personally.  I guess to him, you might have well said, “I heard that when you were a little boy, your mother died of a benign brain tumor.  That’s very sad.  What a bitch she must have been.”

So when the bowling alley guy called Dad a “son of a bitch,” He most likely hadn't expected a sudden invitation outside.

Well, I never got to the Tonopah story, but it’s probably just as well.  I wasn’t sure how to describe the antagonist in that tale.  The description is easy.  Think “The Cleveland Show.”  What’s difficult is doing the scene justice without sounding like a huge racist.  The thing is, “Cleveland,” upon getting into the little altercation with dad, suddenly “put on” some sort of affectation that was clearly designed to put the fear in the white man.  If the weather doesn’t improve, I’ll explain next week.  Otherwise, I’ll most likely talk about one of my bike rides. 

Penny update: A few months back, I was on the phone with Dad.  He was saying he went to his old friend Ed’s funeral.  I asked if it was the Ed he bowled with.  He said it was.  So what the hell – “Was his daughter Penny there?”

“Oh yeah, I talked to her. Real nice gal.  Got a bunch of adult kids,”  dad said.

I confessed, “You know, I had a big crush on her when I was a kid.”

Then he kind of laughed, “You wouldn’t anymore, son.  You wouldn’t anymore.”  Then we both nodded into the phone and quietly hung up.

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