The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Fairline Freddy was parked at his usual table at the Pilot Lounge with a few of his vintage car buddies, watching the ballgame Sunday and drinking early.  Sam and myself had just rolled in, said hello how are ya two IPA’s, thanks Jerry, then pulled up at the only open table next to Freddy’s.  The game by then was out of reach, hopelessly lost and the mood next door was decidedly unpleasant.  Nothing new there, I figured … and as usual was wrong.

‘So my daughter wanted a blowout wedding,’ Frank was saying, ‘big Hall, hundreds of people, Big She-Bang.  And she’s 35, husband is 40, been married once or twice already, him, I mean, but they want a Cinderella wedding and I’m spozed to foot the bill.’

‘You shoulda done like I did, Frank,’ Freddy says.  ‘Tell them to elope and you’ll give them a pile of cash.’

Frank shakes his head.  ‘I tried that, Fred, I offered them 10 grand but my baby wants a fancy wedding.  Cake, florist, five bridesmaids, an open bar at the reception.  That offer work for you?’

Frank confesses that it did not.  ‘I don’t get it either, Fred.  Kids nowadays want a splash, photographers, something special.  They been living together for four years, for godsake.’

‘But here’s the thing.  The Hall I rented for Her Highness, I took a tour the other day, see how it sets up, where the band goes, the bar, all that — yeah, yeah, a band, you believe that? — and the lady who runs the Hall shows me the back side door and there’s this bum sleeping in the doorway when we open it up.  You believe that?  Guy’s got a sleeping bag and sacks of god only knows what and he’s out cold middle of the damn morning.  So I tell the woman this guy had better not be here when we have this wedding, all I can say, and she says, get this, she says he sleeps there every night and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.’

‘Looks to me like she’s dealt with this bum before and he just keeps coming back so I walk over to the guy, tap him with my boot to wake him up and I tell him if he comes back here he’ll be one sorry sonofabitch, now get moving.  That’s how you deal with freaks like this, probably some meth head, cops don’t want nothing to do with him, but hey, I don’t want him screwing up my kid’s special damn day, know what I mean?’

The table knows exactly what Frank means, nods all around, a couple of good for yous.  Sam, before I can drop an arm on his wrist as warning, feels compelled to weigh in, liberal snowflake that he is, the kind of man who thinks holding your tongue is tantamount to being complicit.  ‘Who deputized you, Frank? The guy bothering you or what?’

Frank says,’ hell yes he was bothering me! And so are you.’

‘Good,’ Sam says, ‘that’s the idea.  Who made you God?  Here’s some character, down on his luck, you don’t know one thing about him, parked in a doorway, cold, probably hungry …’

‘Hungry?’ Frank shouts, ‘the guy is holed up across from the damn Food Bank.  He’s eating 3 squares of free food a day, no job, no worries, life of Riley.’

‘Life of Riley?’  Sam is suddenly on full boil.  ‘Life of Riley, really?  You ever been homeless, Fred?  You ever go without a meal?  Ever lost a job?  Ever been down on your luck?  Have a little compassion, why don’tcha?  But naw, go over and kick the guy awake and threaten him, that’s nice, that’s big hearted.  Geez.’

Frank gives Sam a long woeful stare.  I’m expected fireworks, overturned tables, broken glasses, blood on the floor kind of violence.  But instead Frank suddenly deflates.  ‘I lost my job once, Sam’ he says in a quiet voice.  ‘Boeing laid me off and I lost my house.  My wife left me awhile after that so I lost her too.  She took our daughter and I got the boot.  I been there.  I didn’t live in an alley but I had to hole up in a friend’s basement for a year.  I know what bad luck is.  I just don’t want my daughter’s wedding screwed up for her.  That’s all I’m asking.  I’ve screwed up enough things for her.  She just wants this damn wedding to be special and I want everything to go okay. ‘

Our two tables go church quiet although the ballgame is still going, other tables are groaning and cheering, the place is full.  Sam fingers his glass and finally, after a long silence, holds it up to Frank.  ‘Cheers, Frank, you’ll have a great wedding for your daughter.  One she’ll appreciate.  You’re a good dad.’

‘Too late for that, Sam, too late for that.’  But Frank lifts his glass and so do the rest of us.  Too late for all of us, I think.  Later I’ll wonder where the guy in the doorway ended up, but for now, all is well in the world.  Or at least the Pilot Lounge….

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