Breakfast Of Champions

If you’re not a long time reader you can start here, or not.

After my abysmal fishing performance at the GI Joe fishing school my dad set his mind to spending the weekends taking me to various liquid spots to practice. We went to rivers, lakes, and even to the ocean, where I quickly learned to run out when the tide went out, cast out my line, and then stand there as the water came back in. I exclaimed at the strange sensation of the force of sand meets water under my feet that led me to believe that I was moving, although I was fairly certain I was standing still. “Shh”, I was told. “You will scare the fish.” I envisioned their slippery rainbow bodies, their heads turning at the sound of my voice, ears I couldn’t recall seeing listening to the sound of my chatter.

I always looked forward to these weekends alone with my father. We would head out painfully early; a morning person I never was, but my dad would take me to cheap breakfast joints before the little road trip, anything with a breakfast special of $1.99 or less. He never let me order for myself, and although I tried the tactic of staring longingly at the carbohydrate rich stacks of pancakes with the mysteriously soft whipped butter atop the pile, or the art of the waffle bigger than my head on a plate covered with juicy berry compote and a whipped cream perimeter, passing me by in the arms of the waitresses with the special swing to their hips they all seemed to have as they danced in between tables, he was sensible with my order: eggs, pork of some fashion, hash browns or toast. I couldn’t abide by the runny yolks I tried to choke down with the warm free water. I tried not to watch as he slid his buttered toast across his plate each time, sopping up the bright goo. Once, after hearing him order his eggs sunny side up, I blurted out to the waitress that I wanted my eggs sunny side down. This brought laughter from her, and he placed his hand over mine and whispered, “Over easy.” I was afraid for a moment, but then I saw that unnamed sign is his pale grey blue eyes that signified amusement.

Not once did I catch a fish. I was secretly glad, because although I wanted to please him, looking at the fish he caught made me so sad. I used to whisper apologies to them in my head.

My mom told me years later that at night when she and my dad would climb under the covers and whisper together about what their four children would be like when we were grown he used to say, “That Tammy, she’s going to be a vegetarian.” Hearing that, I was surprised that he had figured that out so many years before I first gave up eating meat for good. I had thought that I was hiding that side of myself from him, but he saw it.

Years later, an adult now as well as a parent, I found myself curious about the restaurants he would frequent in the wee hours of the weekend mornings while the rest of us slept in. Later he would rave to me about the eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and the choice of pancakes or toast. He explained to me that given the fact that he attended church everyday, sometimes several times a day, the first being in the wee hours of the morning; the last being the evening mass and the recital of the rosary, this extreme devotion to the lord earned him the right to eat a nice breakfast at a restaurant.

I started to take my children to the very restaurants he had told me about. Nathan and Polly were always pleased by this. I, unlike my father before me, let them order pancakes every time, figuring I’d fill whatever nutritional deficit later in the day. I ordered all of the foods he had told me about and found that when you pay $1.99 for a breakfast special you really do get what you pay for. The eggs were often cold, never soft and fluffy in their scrambled state, but rather rubbery. The hash browns arrived either in a puddle of oil or dry and burnt crisp. I never ate the meat; I just pushed it to the side of my plate, but it was grey in appearance and suspicious in its origin.

My kids loved these trips with me to various breakfast joints and so I continued on, herding them on and off busses until we had hit every last one of them. Sitting at the counter next to Nathan and Polly, who were once again sliding the whipped butter over their stacks while eagerly eying the syrup, I looked down at the fruit salad I had ordered with such high hopes. In front of me rested a plate with a scoop of cottage cheese and a pile of un-drained canned fruit cocktail swimming together.

There was no other explanation for this; the quality of these restaurants had to have declined in the years since his passing. My father was an extremely frugal man, but he took himself and the whole family out to eat frequently. He was a man who truly loved a great meal. His whole face would light up when he described to me one that was particularly memorable. No detail left unnoticed, the bread, the roast beef cooked to perfection and smothered in gravy that was neither salty nor lumpy.

I glanced around again at this place he had raved about so many times. I saw the aging booths, their yellow now looking dirty and worn instead of the bright sunny hue I imagined they once were. As my eyes scanned the tables they came to a rest on a well dressed man in a large corner booth. His suit was impeccable; his jacket carefully resting beside him. The booth was large, so large he looked comical sitting in the middle of a table that would have held eight comfortably.

He looked relaxed, comfortably reading his paper. I looked once again at my fruit salad; it was getting less palatable by the second. What the hell was booth man eating? Looking back at his table I saw a few empty glasses before him, the ice in varying stages of meltdown. There were no plates on his table. At that moment a lovely pony tailed waitress appeared before him with a fresh drink.  She cleared the other dishes away, apologizing for the delay in a thick Russian accent.

Inside my stomach a lump formed, a lump of sadness, of self reproach for not having caught onto this whole thing sooner. I wiped my children’s sticky hands and faces, helped them slide down from the counter stools, and shook my head no to my waitress’s offer of a to go box for my untouched meal.

Later, while visiting with my mom, I waited for the right moment, or for one that at least felt less wrong, before I blurted out, “Remember all of those mornings when dad would come home all animated and speak of what we had all missed out on by not going to mass with him at 6 am?”
Her jaw has been off center since my dad shattered it in a drunken rage and it never healed correctly. It clicks in and out and I know that it pains her, but we don’t speak of it.

“All of those places serve cocktails”, I say, stupidly now.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No, I thought…” but I don’t know what I had thought. Perhaps I had just been looking for a piece to the puzzle as to why the man I had hardly known had taken his own life. I knew that I mustn’t have been worth living for.

My mom reaches for the kettle for all of life’s moments, the joyous, the saddest, and everything in between. We waited together for the boil, silent, our bodies close, but not touching. She pulled out the fine china teacups and saucers and began to set the table.

Tagged as: alcohol, Alcoholism, dad, dealing with suicide, Death, Fishing, grief, Guilt, Letting Go, Mom, Motherhoood, My Dad, pain, parenthood, Parenting, parents, Shame, suicide