ticket, and it’ll probably get another one before lunch is over.
Inside, Johnny Rockets is crowded and smells like a big French fry, and an Elvis song is playing, “Blue Suede Shoes.” I know this place well. It’s Allie’s favorite restaurant on earth, and it’s where we eat when she’s in charge. It’s always crowded, even more so now, and I find Gary sitting at a red booth sipping from a soda the size of buckets that pioneer women used to bathe their children.
“Hiya, Tommy,” he says. Usually, Gary would spring up and give me a bear hug, but he’s jammed into his booth pretty hard, and so he offers me one big hand. He looks tired, a little bewildered even, and there’s a stain on his Ford polo—a couple of them actually.
“You got another parking ticket, Pop.”
He sighs. “What? You’re shitting me. I don’t understand how people figure out how to park in this damn city. You gotta have a Ph.D. to read all the signs. No parking here on Tuesdays between three and four, except on Thursdays. Like I got the time to figure all that out.”
“You parked in front of a fire hydrant.”
He studies my face, trying to figure out if I’m kidding, which I’m not.
He’s as big as two of me, and he looks cramped in this close, stuffy place. His gray hair would normally be in its military-style buzz cut, but it’s grown out like a Brillo pad on his big head, making him look like a more casual, world-weary version of himself.
Our waiter in this ol’ fashioned American diner is Asian and incredibly friendly. I order a giant Diet Coke of my own, and we both ask for cheeseburgers and fries. This is one of those lunches that’s going to leave me sitting sleepy and fat at my desk for the rest of the day, but seeing Gary always inspires my desires for excess.
“How’s the Honda riding?” he asks.
“Good,” I say.
“You been checking the oil like I told you?”
“You kidding? Every week.”
Gary is the owner of the Mid Atlantic region’s third most successful Ford dealership, and my Honda came off his preowned lot. It physically pained him to put me in a non-American car, but he promised that if I checked the oil regularly and took care of it, it’d go for two hundred thousand miles. Gary’s grasp of the true depths of my incompetence is shaky though, and I’m not even exactly sure how to check oil, or what I’d do if I found that the car actually needed more of it.
“Saw your dad on Letterman ,” he says. “Never cared much for Letterman , but Curtis was funny.”
“Yeah, he did all right. I think they put too much makeup on him, though.”
“That’s just for TV. Whenever I’m in those commercials for the dealership, they pile that stuff on. It’s because the camera picks up every nook and cranny. Photo shoots are even worse. You see my new billboard, the one out on I-95. They airbrushed my crow’s-feet. Said it made me look more honest, whatever that means.”
The waiter drops my gargantuan soda off with a thud, and I stop him. “I’m sorry. I actually ordered the big soda,” I say, to which Gary and the waiter just look at me, and I can actually hear crickets. This joke never works, but I try it whenever possible.
“Did I tell you I read one of your dad’s books?”
He’s caught me in mid sip.
“The new one with all those short stories. I liked it. He certainly has a way with words, your dad. Is he still driving that Porsche around? You should tell him about our new Mustangs. What with the economy all hitting the skids, I could probably get him in one pretty cheap.”
Most men would prefer that their wives’ former husbands simply drop dead and fall off the face of the planet; Gary wants to put his wife’s former husband in a bitchin’ new ride. “I’ll be sure to let him know,” I say.
“Your mom told me about that story, ‘Macy’s.’ She said it was about you. Did he really lose you in a store like that?”
“Well, he never won the Pulitzer for
Inside, Johnny Rockets is crowded and smells like a big French fry, and an Elvis song is playing, “Blue Suede Shoes.” I know this place well. It’s Allie’s favorite restaurant on earth, and it’s where we eat when she’s in charge. It’s always crowded, even more so now, and I find Gary sitting at a red booth sipping from a soda the size of buckets that pioneer women used to bathe their children.
“Hiya, Tommy,” he says. Usually, Gary would spring up and give me a bear hug, but he’s jammed into his booth pretty hard, and so he offers me one big hand. He looks tired, a little bewildered even, and there’s a stain on his Ford polo—a couple of them actually.
“You got another parking ticket, Pop.”
He sighs. “What? You’re shitting me. I don’t understand how people figure out how to park in this damn city. You gotta have a Ph.D. to read all the signs. No parking here on Tuesdays between three and four, except on Thursdays. Like I got the time to figure all that out.”
“You parked in front of a fire hydrant.”
He studies my face, trying to figure out if I’m kidding, which I’m not.
He’s as big as two of me, and he looks cramped in this close, stuffy place. His gray hair would normally be in its military-style buzz cut, but it’s grown out like a Brillo pad on his big head, making him look like a more casual, world-weary version of himself.
Our waiter in this ol’ fashioned American diner is Asian and incredibly friendly. I order a giant Diet Coke of my own, and we both ask for cheeseburgers and fries. This is one of those lunches that’s going to leave me sitting sleepy and fat at my desk for the rest of the day, but seeing Gary always inspires my desires for excess.
“How’s the Honda riding?” he asks.
“Good,” I say.
“You been checking the oil like I told you?”
“You kidding? Every week.”
Gary is the owner of the Mid Atlantic region’s third most successful Ford dealership, and my Honda came off his preowned lot. It physically pained him to put me in a non-American car, but he promised that if I checked the oil regularly and took care of it, it’d go for two hundred thousand miles. Gary’s grasp of the true depths of my incompetence is shaky though, and I’m not even exactly sure how to check oil, or what I’d do if I found that the car actually needed more of it.
“Saw your dad on Letterman ,” he says. “Never cared much for Letterman , but Curtis was funny.”
“Yeah, he did all right. I think they put too much makeup on him, though.”
“That’s just for TV. Whenever I’m in those commercials for the dealership, they pile that stuff on. It’s because the camera picks up every nook and cranny. Photo shoots are even worse. You see my new billboard, the one out on I-95. They airbrushed my crow’s-feet. Said it made me look more honest, whatever that means.”
The waiter drops my gargantuan soda off with a thud, and I stop him. “I’m sorry. I actually ordered the big soda,” I say, to which Gary and the waiter just look at me, and I can actually hear crickets. This joke never works, but I try it whenever possible.
“Did I tell you I read one of your dad’s books?”
He’s caught me in mid sip.
“The new one with all those short stories. I liked it. He certainly has a way with words, your dad. Is he still driving that Porsche around? You should tell him about our new Mustangs. What with the economy all hitting the skids, I could probably get him in one pretty cheap.”
Most men would prefer that their wives’ former husbands simply drop dead and fall off the face of the planet; Gary wants to put his wife’s former husband in a bitchin’ new ride. “I’ll be sure to let him know,” I say.
“Your mom told me about that story, ‘Macy’s.’ She said it was about you. Did he really lose you in a store like that?”
“Well, he never won the Pulitzer for
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