Fiction Ruined My Family - Jeanne Darst [48]
“Are you going to eat that piece of mackerel there, Jean-Joe?” my dad said, hand poised above the piece of fish on my plate, suspended like a giant white-man hand puppet, awaiting my answer.
“Umm, no.”
“I didn’t think you had plans for that one,” he said, popping it into his mouth. “Now, tell me, Jean, reading any of the English poets? I mean the greats. Keats? Blake? Who’ve you tried?” and before I could answer, my dad had spread wasabi on the green plastic separator things that act as some kind of plate decoration and lobbed it into his mouth and began chomping on it.
“Dad! Jesus Christ!” Katharine yelled. “That’s a garnis!”
“A what?” my dad said with wide eyes, as if he had eaten a blowfish.
“A garnis! It’s plastic. Decoration. You’re not supposed to eat it!” Eleanor said, looking around to see if the waitstaff was watching. My dad pulled the green plastic matter from his mouth and laid it on his empty plate.
That Thanksgiving was the last time he ever took us out to dinner. He’d run out of his house money. That piece of mackerel was the official start of destitute divorced dad.
He was early to pick us up for Christmas. Ever since I can remember, my father never had anywhere else he had to be.
He was sitting on one of the couches in the lobby with a bag of presents on either side of his knees. He wore a hat; he still bought and wore hats, mostly from this prehistoric preppy store on Madison and Forty-sixth, F. R. Tripler. Tripler’s was his only charge account, so you could count on some things from there at Christmas. The men’s section may have been passable, but the women’s clothes were the most outdated, buttoned-up, queer shit imaginable. What old money wear in menopause.
He got up and gave his usual huge greeting. “Jean-Joe! Eleanora! Julita! Katarina! Mer-ry Christmas! Sit. Sit. Have I got some great things for you all.” My dad, hat and gray overcoat still on, began taking presents out of the bags, all unwrapped. My father had never wrapped a present ever. It totally threw off your timing as the person getting the gift because you could plainly see what you were being given as he reached across people to hand it to you and out of politeness you had to maintain a façade of suspense as he passed the unclothed gift your way. There were biographies he got half-price at the Strand, a button-down shirt with a silk tie at the collar from Tripler’s that Pat Buckley might wear to jury duty, and then the worst kind of present my dad gave—an expensive item, like a fancy camera that you knew meant he wasn’t going to eat for a week.
We sat in the lobby opening presents, thankful that because Mom was new to the building we didn’t know any of the people coming and going to their holiday festivities, passing us and giving the raised eyebrow to the doorman, Mario. Katharine and Eleanor, the two people in our family who had incomes, entry-level though they were, made a couple overtures to actually going somewhere for brunch, but Dad cheerfully dismissed these wacky notions.
“Oh, I think we’re good right here. What do you think about that OED, Jean-Joe? There’s a manual that comes with it on how to use it and also a magnifying glass, which, even at your age, you’re going to need, believe me. Oh, it’s wonderful. Your life as you know it? Gone, I’m telling ya. You’ll thank me later.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re very welcome.”
My father then reached into one of his bags and pulled out a large hunk of Parmesan cheese.
“I thought my bio of Rebecca West smelled a little funny.” Katharine giggled.
“Murray’s cheese shop on Bleecker.” He pulled a knife out of his herringbone overcoat and chiseled off a flaky