by Alana Davis
The bar’s been around at least as long as I have. It’s changed names a few times since then, but it’s been The Red Parrot for a while now. A few blocks from the beach and from the house I grew up in, it’s the kind of place where you could enter with bare feet and no one would bat an eye. The kind of place where health codes play second fiddle to the neighborhood code: always tip your bartender; buy your buddies’ beers; if you double park your golf cart, you’re too drunk to be driving it. No wonder locals call it The Dirty Bird. At least that’s what my Dad calls it, and he’s a local.
“Lara, it’s so good to have you home. Feels like you were a kid when you left,” Dad says. He crashes dishes around in the sink while I slip past him, snack in hand, to join my mom on the sofa.
“Dad, I kinda was a kid!” I say. It’s been ten years since I left Virginia for college in New England. Five years later I’d graduated, commissioned as a submarine officer, married, and moved to the West Coast. Between deployments and, well, life, I really haven’t made it home much. In truth, I haven’t much minded this either.
“The Bird’s gonna get such a kick out of seeing you now,” Dad says, promoting the bar to some kind of living, breathing being. “I don’t know if you’ve met any of them before except maybe Mike, the bartender. He’s been at that spot a while.”
“Yeah, I think I remember Mike. He wouldn’t let me pay for my drinks that weekend I came home after graduation.”
“Sounds about right.”
And it does sound right. It’s what coming home is like on these rare occasions. People are kind here. Unbothered. It’s a beach town that’s stayed miraculously uncorrupted by developers or vacationers. Where the same local crowd frequents the same dingy watering holes most days. My dad enjoys this kind of slow familiarity. It feels so foreign to me now though, even frustrating. In my career and with my husband I’m accomplished, discerning, generous. At home I’m an appeasing daughter, an infrequent, prized friend to cart around and drink with. That’s one reason why I don’t come back much. I crave newness and home never changes. I don’t feel changed when I’m there, despite having lived so much since leaving.
Mom and I are just starting to enjoy a moment of quiet watching an old movie in the living room while Dad rummages behind us in the kitchen. “Lara, make sure you got on what you’re gonna wear out.” This is another reason I dread homecomings: Dad’s insistence on enforcing his social schedule.
I’m wearing jeans and a Varsity sweatshirt I got in high school. More than nice enough for this outing, I figure. “Dad, it’s 2:30.”
“Exactly,” he shouts. “Wheels up in fifteen! We gotta be there while the boys are.”
When we walk into The Dirty Bird, Mike is the first to greet us. He’s already placed Dad’s Miller Lite on the bar and a Bold Rock for me. How he remembered or guessed my order, I couldn’t tell you. Sure enough, “the boys” are at a table in the back waiting for us – both aged well into their 80s. They are exactly as they are every other day at 3 p.m. sharp when they gather for a beer, maybe two, and some small talk over whatever football game the bar’s blasting. I’ve often pictured them from Dad’s reports when I call home. We’ll discuss family and work, and then he’ll mention a missing Dirty Bird friend that’s been in the hospital, or another who brought his much younger girlfriend to meet them.
“Teddy. John,” Dad says as he pats both their backs with more vigor than they should probably absorb, “You remember my daughter Lara.”
We’ve never met in person, but they remember me from the countless updates and photos Dad’s shared with them, solicited or otherwise, since I was a kid. Dad is especially notorious for whipping out his iPhone 6 and scrolling though grainy images until he finds a picture of me in uniform to tout to any stranger he figures might also be in the Navy – given away by shitty mustache, most likely. It’s a Navy town, so he often judges right.
We take the two remaining chairs at Teddy and John’s table, as if they’d been saving them for us. Of course they have been.
“John, how ya been, buddy?” Dad asks.
John smiles back at Dad without saying a word. I’m unsure if he’s mute, senile, or not paying attention. Dad is unphased.
“That’s alright, just give me a hand – thumbs up or thumbs down.”
John’s smile widens enough that I rule out senility or fog, then slowly he raises his right hand above the table to reveal a proud middle finger.
“That’s the stuff, John. Keep that up,” Dad says and cracks his own mischievous smile back at me.
I can’t figure why my Dad spends every afternoon with such characters. He’s not a young man, but he’s got to be twenty years younger than these guys. One doesn’t even talk. As the old pals carry on, I witness little sparks of life lighting off amongst them. Dad has always called these Happy Hours his ministry. Even as a kid, I called bullshit. 6 p.m. would come and go. Dinner would get cold. Mom and I would eat, and he’d bound in at the end of the meal, ringing the Captain’s Bell mounted at the top of the stairwell, announcing his arrival. Liquored up and eager to share his encounters with his unenthused audience.
Afternoons spent drinking and conversing with whoever takes the stool next to you are not evangelical. People witness other people’s confessions every day but don’t call themselves priests. Yet, I’m almost frustratingly willing to forgive him. For all the routines he was counted on to miss, he’s always been there when it really counts.
“You know John used to be an attorney. Had a real successful firm, isn’t that right John.”
“Nah, he was an accountant,” Teddy pipes up.
“No, I could’ve sworn he was a lawyer. Used his GI Bill to get a fancy degree a hundred years ago,” Dad retorts.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Teddy quips as John continues to stare right through them towards a stack of extra chairs at the back of the bar. John could have had a successful career as a circus clown, for all he was willing to share.
Half listening, already somewhat fatigued by Dad and Teddy’s ping-ponging, I tap my fingers on my can of cider and start to wonder why I agreed to this outing in the first place.
“I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer, but I needed a GED before I could think about anything more,” John pipes up out of nowhere during a rare lull in conversation. I straighten up, not expecting a word from John, and certainly not expecting any opportunity for serious talk today. I’m suddenly anticipating his continuation– salivating over the faint prospect of wisdom to be revealed.
The rest of the bar rallies in a moment of reverence, though admittedly the only other occupants are Mike and a teenage hostess shuffling menus by the door.
“And you did it, John! Teddy, I told you he was an attorney,” Dad interjects.
Baited by the interesting career path he must have navigated, I glare at my father and continue to John, “Well how’d you do it?”
“Do what?” he says, still not one to waste words.
“I dunno… Educate yourself? Find success? … I’ve already heard all my Dad’s stories. I’d like to hear yours,” I reply with some unaccustomed timidity, not used to conversing with someone as curiously reserved as John.
“Yeah, John, this is the first time in the eight years I’ve worked here I’ve ever heard you say a peep,” Mike pipes in from behind the bar, “Shut these other guys up for a bit, will ya?”
John smiles again. He has a pale, thinning face, but a kind one. He raises his hand above the table again and instead of another middle finger, waves the squad off like a seasoned press agent done taking questions.
“Alright, alright. Your girl here’s gonna finally make me talk.” John’s voice is deeper and louder than expected. He shifts his gaze between Dad and me. I’m worried he’s peeved but he looks damn near tickled to finally have the floor to himself after all these years.
“Hey Mike, bring us another round of cold ones and pull up a chair if you like. This place is deader than Dickens right now,” Dad shouts.
I slap Dad’s arm which I hope is a clear enough signal to shut up. I haven’t been the best at treating my father like my father for a long time. I learned self-righteousness from him when I was young. Whether the love tap or the fresh Miller Lite did the trick I’ll never know, but he does shut up.
Mike mutes the game. He doesn’t join our table, but he’s leaning towards us over the bar as he diligently dries glasses.
John relishes in the silence a bit longer. We awkwardly sip in sequence, waiting. “Well shit, I guess someone will have to write my obituary. So, here’s how it should go.”
Confident behind his podium now, John finally concedes after a throat clearing cough.
“John Nowak, a Polish Jew, was born to his immigrant parents in 1940-something. His parents realized they hated the cold second to the Nazis and moved their family to Florida as soon as they could afford to. John was a dipshit and dropped out of high school to spread peace via weed and women. Instead, he spread his seed. At twenty something with a kid and no prospects beyond further dip-shittery, but with a nascent desire to do a little bit more, he found a way up through the Army. Lightened by the loss of his long hippie locks but weighted down again by the death of his kid from polio…”
John stutters and shuts his eyes. Until that point, his manner of speaking was lawyerly. Like he’s re-stating the facts of the case of his own life in closing argument. I like it. In the military I’ve come to appreciate frankness. I haven’t been offended by crude language for a long time. Working on submarines, often our only humor is dark humor, so I’m amused by this too. But I’m not deaf to the deep pain that such conversational mechanisms mask.
Eyes still closed, John starts up again.
“Lightened by the loss of his locks and at least ten pounds during basic training, John was now a trim, trained animal ready for war. He shipped off with the 1st Infantry to Saigon where after a few months he could walk the routes to the Cambodian border blind. And it was a good thing he could, because the jungle at night is black. So black it makes you feel cold even when it’s 1,000 degrees outside. And John hated the cold just like his parents.”
He appears to shiver despite our close warm surroundings. He takes a few slow breathes and his eyes blink a few times in indecision, then shut again.
“The company John kept wasn’t so cold though. He’d have died for anyone in that squad except Taylor. Fuck Taylor. But that doesn’t need to go in the write-up. Anyway, John would’ve died for anyone in that squad and dammit he tried to more than once. But like the fucking mosquitos, they all kept getting swat at and squashed. But John didn’t get squashed. He got dysentery. And then he got discharged.”
I let out an unexpected chuckle, bemused by the honesty and bleak absurdity he wove into his tale. He’d be a wonderful writer.
“It’s not glamorous but it’s the truth. John also got disability and a stipend. Like any good future defender of the law – he forged his GED and applied to college. He wanted to be a civil rights lawyer because he wanted the men he fought with to have everything he had, everything they deserved. He graduated college and law school. Barely. He struggled as a civil rights lawyer for a spell. He was poor and newly remarried. He rode out the spell a bit longer, until weakness and greed broke it and he turned to tax law. Then his spirit broke and his marriage eventually did, too. His practice thrived until he retired into too many years left of lonely mornings in his criminally expensive nursing home and mildly amusing afternoons at a The Dirty Bird with his friends. He is remembered and survived by them. Barely.”
You even nailed the ending, John, I think, pleased by the little jab at my Dad and the rest of the bar’s congregants. Yet the allure of Dad’s ministry starts to come into focus. Ministry in the close company one keeps. Face-to-face confession without booths or curtains. Reconciliation yielded from conversation, like what surrounds me now.
For John, these friends and these afternoons are just about everything he has to look forward to, everything he has to live for. But damn, has he lived already. His has been a full life – messy and regimented, selfless and selfish, heartbreaking and triumphant.
“Did you get all that sweetheart,” he asks, quieting now. “It’s good stuff. Your dad said you like to write. Bet you appreciate a sad story.”
I turn towards Dad and smile. Being sailors, we love a good yarn. A true one being most precious. He grins back at me – evidently delighted his ministry is to thank for this new closeness.
Sufficiently encouraged, I finally answer John, “Yeah, I got it. But it’s not a sad story.”
“Ah, come on. I lost,” he shuts his eyes again. “I lost people I loved. I lost people I didn’t. I lost myself.”
“John, are you kidding?” I’m speaking louder now, indignation and clarity at once boosting me. “Look at you. You’re right here. Commanding the damn bar. You shut everybody up.” I’m searching for the words as I speak, refusing to let him hate himself a second longer. “You’re a badass – that’s what I got. And a good soldier. And a good friend. You’ve lost more than most. But you haven’t lost yourself.”
Out of breath, now I’m hoping Dad will chime in. He doesn’t always have the right words, but he always has some, and maybe they’re not all bullshit. As desperately as you can hope for a stranger to decide to love himself, it’s damn hard to make him. Maybe Dad can. I’m beginning to believe he does.
“Hey, Mike, you choppin’ onions back there? Why you gotta make me tear up like that?” Dad chuckles at his own wit as he wipes his eyes.
“No onions.” Mike uses a dish towel to dry his own face and tucks it back into his pocket.
“Thanks for sharing that, John,” Teddy says, laughing nervously. “Sorry I ever thought you were an accountant.”
“Lara might have to edit your obituary a bit, John. I’m not sure they’ll publish dip-shittery in the papers these days, but we’ve got time to work on it.”
Now we’re all laughing.
“Eh you might be right,” John concedes. “But don’t think it’s not the right word.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Dad replies. “I’ve met you.”
We linger a while longer in silent reflection. Nursing our now-warm beers. Contemplating a man’s life. And our own.
“Hell. I guess I’ll even get the tab for you suckers and the lady here.” John shakes a little as he gets up from his seat, then steadies himself, his posture erect.
He hands Mike a $50 bill across the bar. Mike doesn’t take it. Instead, Mike opens his own wallet, takes out some cash for the register and a crumpled piece of paper. We all watch from the table as he unfolds a photograph and hands it to John.
“This one, that one, and that one all died in Afghanistan. That one’s dead now too. They all could’ve… should’ve been me.”
Both John and Mike’s hands are gripping the image, tips of their fingers touching ever so slightly behind the page.
“I don’t talk about it either,” Mike says.
“Maybe you should.”
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Alana Davis is a Lieutenant in the US Navy and a Submarine Officer. She has a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from The University of Florida. She has published various works of professional journalism and non-fiction for Proceedings Magazine, The Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) and others, but this is her first piece of published fiction. Her other creative writing, mostly poetry, can be found on her blog, “Young Old Soul.”
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