Free Becoming the Butlers by Penny Jackson Page B

him, at the end of the counter, near where the bartender rang up change. He was half on and half off a stool, slumped over in a way that said, not only is this man drunk, but broken too. James was talking loudly to a short, bald bartender who was ignoring him. A group of men at a nearby table watched his routine and snickered among themselves. I gave them a dirty look as I sidled up to my father’s stool.
    “Hi,” I said cheerfully. “Did you have a nice nap?”
    Why did all drunks look like they desperately needed a shave? My father’s chin was covered with stubble.
    “There you are, Rachel, I was wondering what happened to you. I mean, how many postcards can you write?” James didn’t smell nice anymore, but stank of cigarettes and bad breath and booze. “Pablo,” he called out to the bartender. “This is my daughter. My wife named her Melody because she thinks she was conceived at Woodstock.”
    “I didn’t know that,” I exclaimed.
    “Well, you weren’t there, were you?” James looked terrible. I’ve seen my father in various stages of inebriation: swaying like a scarecrow in a storm, bouncing buoyantly as if balloons were attached to his limbs, even slithering on the carpet like a snake; but somehow this was worse. His face looked so puffed up that his eyes were no more than slits, and his lower lip looked swollen, as if he bit it or was punched. But no matter how smashed, my father was never incoherent. He spoke as directly as if he were giving a lecture, which is probably why he could, most of the time, get away with teaching Geometry drunk.
    “I was just telling Pablo here about Mr. Okito and our honeymoon in the Poconos. As I was saying, amigo …,” my father declared, not realizing that the bartender had walked away. “Here was this poor little lost Japanese man who ran after all the newlywed brides in our hotel. Seems that someone in Tokyo gave the erroneous advice that the prettiest girls in the United States could be found in the Poconos in June. Some goon nearly broke Okito’s arm because he asked his wife to dance. I took Okito aside and tried to make him understand exactly who all these very pretty ladies were. He was so mortified that he didn’t leave his room for three days straight. But he was very grateful for my help, and every fall, right around our wedding anniversary, he sent my wife and me the most beautiful fans from Japan.”
    My father paused, waiting for a response, and then slammed his right fist so hard on the table that the glasses shook. “So tell me, Pablo, why, last October ninth, no fans from Mr. Okito. How did he know, huh? Did Elizabeth write to him or something? Or was it some kind of Japanese ESP that told him this year nobody wanted to be reminded of any anniversaries?”
    My father sat very still, his eyes widening as he realized he had been addressing a liquor cabinet. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked in a low trembling voice. “What’s going to happen to us, Rachel?”
    “I don’t know,” I told him. That was the truth. I literally had no idea of what would ever happen again.
    “I’ve got to go upstairs and pack,” James said, sliding off his stool and leaving several bills on the bar. “Our flight’s tomorrow at seven A.M. Got the tickets here in my pocket.”
    “So we’re really going?”
    “That’s right. What else can I do? We never should have come. God knows what I’m going to tell Mrs. Vasquez. If I hadn’t married Elizabeth and made her move to New York City, she would never have met George. You don’t have Spanish supers in the suburbs. Hey,” he said with a little smile, “now you try saying that five times fast.”
    I was glad to see he still had his sense of humor. I didn’t feel very much like joking myself.
    My father walked steadily out of the bar but in the lobby he tripped over someone’s suitcase and fell hard onto the floor. He lay motionless for a few moments, like a corpse. Two porters rushed over but James,