The incident described in
Plastic Food took me back to a similar situation I encountered with my father when I was around twelve years old.
We were preparing for a camping trip to Utah. It was a big deal; we were driving fifteen hundred miles across the country and were planning to stay at a campsite bordering a wilderness area in the Uintah mountains. There was a lake there where we could fish and a nearby ranch where we could rent horses to ride into the wilderness area. I can't remember if my parents were separated at that point, but I know there were already signs of the coming storm. It was clear something was going wrong with my dad. He was moody and drinking a lot at night.
Despite that, or maybe because of it, I was really looking forward to the trip. As part of the preparations, we had gear to acquire. I would guess that we needed fishing tackle, but the only specific item I remember now was that we had to get me a camping knife. That was cool. A tool of power. It was a sign that I was getting older, that I could be trusted with something sharp and dangerous.
We went shopping at a local discount store: Zayres. I don't know if the chain is still alive. I suspect that even in Western Pennsylvania it's been done in by Walmart, but at the time it was a popular store for buying sporting goods, toys, cheap clothing, and so forth. The thing I remember most about that particular store was the everpresent smell of stale popcorn tempered by some sort of disinfectant.
That's the kind of detail I remember. One of the bits and pieces, flash images and sound bites. The Sporting Goods department was in the left front corner of the store. I remember that there were full-length windows all along the front of the store so that you could actually see the outside world. How many stores today have that? I'm sure that analysts have decided that that's just too distracting to shoppers. Keep them isolated. Keep them focused on products. No wonder Zayres is out of business now.
I was really excited scanning the row of knives in the display case. It wasn't clear to me what kind of knife we were after. A knife for our camping trip was all I knew. I was just happy to be on a mission with Dad. Looking back, I guess it was some sort of pocket knife (just for me?) because after perusing the selection -- hunting knifes with fixed blades, lock knives with
single blades, pseudo-Swiss Army knives sporting forks and corkscrews -- we decided that a pocket knife in the rotating plexiglass cube sitting on top of the case was the perfect fit. It was exactly what we needed to make our camping trip in Utah a success. Dad flagged down a Zayres employee and we informed him of our selection. I bounced up and down with excitement, looking forward to the moment when we got home and I'd take the knife out of its box. I'd proudly show Mom each of its purposeful blades in turn. "This is the saw. This is the small blade, for cutting little things. This is..."
The Zayres guy was probably in his late teens. For some reason I remember him with scraggly facial hair and wireframe glasses. I think Zayres employees wore red vests. He unlocked the storage cabinet behind the counter and started looking for the knife we wanted. It was not to be found in that cabinet; the salesman moved on to the one adjacent. I leaned forward over the counter and tried to see what was going on. They *had* to have it, right? I looked to my dad for reassurance. He didn't return my gaze, but stayed focused on watching the salesman shuffle boxes and check labels. Finally he rose from his crouch and said respectfully to my father, "I'm sorry sir, we seem to be out of that one."
My response was to start looking at the other knives for suitable alternatives, but Dad was not so easily deterred. "Are you sure?"
"Yes sir. We're out of stock on that one. But we have a lot of other knives."
I started to get uneasy. Dad's voice had sounded a little more annoyed and edgy than the situation seemed to call for. "Well just give me that one then," he said curtly, gesturing at the display box.
"That one's out of stock sir."
"No. That one. That one," my dad said pointing to the display again. "The one in the case."
"Well, umm. Let's take a look." The salesman was doing his best. He had switched over into the mode salespeople use for dealing with overly demanding customers. Patronize. Pacify. Placate.
I just looked at the floor. I could tell there was no getting into the plexiglass cube that the knife was in.
The salesman examined the display. "Well sir, it doesn't look like it opens up. We just get them from the company that way."
The volume of my dad's voice went up a couple more notches. "Well I want that knife. Why are you showing knives that you don't even have?"
"Sir. Some of those knives are in stock. Just not that one."
I continued to stare at the floor. I couldn't look at my dad losing his temper for a not particularly good reason. I couldn't look at the salesman because I was too embarrassed. I just wanted to be home. The magic dream of the camping trip knife was gone.
It went on, pointlessly, for what seemed like a very long time. My dad insisted on speaking to a manager, with whom he discussed the possibilities of breaking open the display cube and generally expressed his displeasure with how Zayres was cheating him and his son out of the exact knife that they needed for their camping trip to Utah. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell the salesman and the manager that it didn't matter, that I apologized for my dad, he didn't mean it.
I guess we ended up leaving the store knifeless. We got a knife somewhere else. One completely different than the one at Zayres that had been so perfect that its unavailability had been an issue worth summoning a store manager about.
Nothing was said on the ride home. My dad never talked to me about what happened. He never apologized or explained why it had been so important to him. Apparently he felt too vulnerable and insecure to open up, even to his young son. Or maybe especially to his young son.
I'll never know for sure what precipitated his anger that day. My interpretation now is that it happened in reaction to having his attempt to reach out to me thwarted. He was trying to do something special for me. He was doing his best to be a dad, buying his son the knife he wanted in preparation for a big camping trip. At a point in his life where he felt like nothing he did turned out right, it was just one more indignity to suffer.
I wish I could've done something to make him understand that the effort alone was enough. I *did* feel special going on our mission.That one particular knife was insignificant. Instead that magic was broken by the embarassment of him making a scene over it, even though he was sticking his neck out for me. I didn't want to know my dad was human, and a fragile one at that. That's not something a twelve year old boy should have to know.
