My Dad Is My Hero by Susan Reynolds

Author:Susan Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Adams Media, Inc.
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Fall of the Nicotine Kid

R. GARY RAHAM

I have no idea what the Nicotine Kid’s real name was. He regularly invaded “Roy’s Coffee Shop” (Roy being my dad) to flirt with junior high school girls, maybe buy a burger and coke, and smoke—if he thought he could steal a puff or two in the parking lot. He wore a mostly white T-shirt, jeans, penny loafers, and combed his hair in waves that crashed together at the nape of his neck to form a rakish “ducktail”—the envy of all the pimply males a few years his junior. He also twisted a pack of Camels or Pall Malls into the right sleeve of his T-shirt. This both helped earn him his nickname and complete an iconic Beat Generation image. A somewhat overmuscled, probable high school dropout, he still radiated the coolness of the fifties like a living Marlboro commercial. Girls seemed to flutter at his approach like dinghies disturbed by wavelets of testosterone.

One girl got to know the edgier side of testosterone while dancing with him to the demonic beat of rock and roll emanating from the jukebox. The Nicotine Kid pushed her for some reason, breaking her necklace in the process. The mechanical arm of the record changer groped for another 45 as French fries froze midair. I remember the sound of beads clattering across the tile floor, and the faint fizzing of untended Coca Colas. My dad marched down the runway behind the lunch counter and latched onto the duck-tailed scruff of the delinquent’s neck with one hand and a fistful of denim jeans with the other. He propelled the surprised adolescent out the front door and then literally rushed out to sit on him. Luckily, the Nicotine Kid wasn’t built like a football hero, but then neither was my 5'6", 150-pound Dad.

I don’t remember exactly what Dad said to him—only that it was a heated directive on how to behave around young ladies— but I remember feeling glad he wasn’t saying it to me and so proud of him I puffed out my eleven-year-old chest.

Dad wasn’t a violent man, which is why his actions surprised me. He was good for a swat in the seat of your pants if you misbehaved, but that was it. He assumed the role of stern father, I think, because that was what his nineteenth-century father had taught him—the eldest son in a family with five other kids. My Dad had not served in the military, being too young for the First World War and too old for the second, but he bore himself with that no-nonsense ramrod look that implied he was not to be trifled with. He kept his own counsel. He worked hard. And he dealt with my mother’s asthma stoically.

Mom had acquired chronic asthma as a young adult. She lost three children after bearing my brother and sister. Her health dictated at least one medical abortion. She was doing well while carrying me, which meant I dropped into a family with two teenagers aghast at such a late and demanding arrival.

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