Now, a few months later, at this family gathering, I was seeing Joey for the first time since his birthday. The instant he saw me, his face broke out in a huge grin, and he ran up to me and screamed, “JOEY’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OH YEAH!” I laughed and told him it was nice to see him, but he didn’t acknowledge my greeting in the slightest. He just kept saying his catch phrase over and over. For the first ten minutes or so, my relatives thought it was cute and smiled at him or affectionately tousled his hair. My dad had been in the bathroom the whole time Joey had been carrying on like a parrot on speed, and when he walked out, he simply said, “Hey there, Joey.”
“JOEY’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OH YEAH!” Joey screamed before running off.
My dad turned to me. “It’s Joey’s birthday?”
I explained the situation, and in the midst of my explaining, Joey interrupted.
“JOEY’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
“He and I need to have a talk,” my dad said matter-of-factly as Joey dashed into another room.
My dad talks to everyone, no matter his or her age, as he would to a forty-five-year-old physicist, so I had a pretty good idea how this was going to go.
“Just let him tire himself out, Dad.”
“He doesn’t want people thinking he’s an idiot, right?” my dad replied.
“He doesn’t even know other people think anything. He’s three.”
“A three-year-old doesn’t have a license to act like an asshole.”
On cue, Joey once again ran full speed into the room and screamed, “JOEY’S HAPPY BIRTH—”
“No,” my dad said, cutting him off.
Joey paused for a moment. “Joey’s happy birthday?” he said, totally devoid of conviction.
“No, Joey, it’s not your happy birthday. You need to stop saying to people it’s your birthday.”
Joey looked confused and horrified, like a stripper bursting out of a cake only to realize she’s been accidentally delivered to a baby shower.
My dad knelt down to Joey’s level and added, “It is not. Your. Birthday.”
The next sound I heard was a high-pitched squeal coming from Joey’s mouth. Then tears began streaming down his face and he ran away, arms at his sides, dangling like two limp strands of overcooked spaghetti.
Completely ignoring the disapproving glances from nearby family members, my dad got up from his crouch and turned to me. “Hey, it’s a tough realization it ain’t your birthday, but he’s a better man for it,” he said with satisfaction.
On My Bloody Nose
“What happened? Did somebody punch you in the face?!…The what? The air is dry? Do me a favor and tell people you got punched in the face.”
On the Democratic System
“We’re having fish for dinner…. Fine, let’s take a vote. Who wants fish for dinner?…Yeah, democracy ain’t so fun when it fucks you, huh?”
On Remaining a Gentleman No Matter the Situation
“I personally would never go to a prostitute, but if you’ve paid money for some strange, that doesn’t mean you can act like an idiot once you get it.”
On Getting My Own Apartment Even Though I Attend College 20 Minutes from Home
“You want your independence, huh?…Every time you tell me about your independence, I just replace that word with the word
money
. Then it’s easy to say no.”
On Finding Out I Tried Marijuana
“Pretty great, right?…Really? Well, we differ in opinion then. Don’t tell your mom I said that, though. Tell her I yelled at you and called you a moron. Actually, don’t tell her anything. See, now I’m paranoid, and I didn’t even smoke any.”
On Giving Up a 450-Foot Home Run in My First College Baseball Game
“Jesus. That wasn’t even a home run, that was a fucking space experiment that should be written about in science journals or something.”
On Attending the Student Film Festival Where My First Short Film Played
“I enjoyed it thoroughly…. I know which one was yours goddamn it, it was the one with the car…. Well shit, I thought that one was yours, so I left after. Don’t bust my balls, that festival was like sitting through a three-hour prostate exam.”
On My Responsibility to Do Chores
“You’re a grown man in college, but you still live in my goddamned house. Huh. That sounds way shittier for you when I say it out loud.”
On Getting a Job as a Cook at Hooters
“You, my good man, are not as dumb as I first fucking suspected.”
On Meeting My First Girlfriend, Who Worked at Hooters
“I thought she’d have bigger breasts. I’m just being honest. That’s not a bad thing or a good thing, that’s just a thing I thought.”
You Have to Believe You’re Worth a Damn
“You are a man, she is a fucking woman! That is all that matters, goddamn it!”
I am not the first Halpern son to live at home in his late twenties. In fact, my two older brothers, Dan and Evan, did so as well. Evan is nine years older than me, and, along with Dan, is the product of my dad’s first marriage. Evan is pretty much the nicest, most considerate human being you could ever meet. Plus, he just might be the only person to graduate from Humboldt State University, in Northern California, who has never smoked marijuana. After college, Evan wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, and he spent the next few years working various jobs in various cities. But at twenty-eight, he found himself living at home with me, my dad, and my mom, who raised him since he was seven and who he considers his mother. It wasn’t exactly a high point in Evan’s life.
At the time, I was going to college at San Diego State, also living at home, and working at the Hooters in Pacific Beach, a nearby beach town. My best friend, Dan, and I had applied for jobs there a year earlier as a joke, and lo and behold, Hooters was looking for cooks and hired us. Contrary to what a teenaged guy might think, it quickly became the worst job I’ve ever had. As soon as you get over the fact that you work around a lot of boobs, you realize the job entails a bit of cooking, a ton of cleaning, and trying to meet the needs of insecure women yelling at you to make their fries faster. I spoke openly—and frequently—about my hatred for my job to everyone I knew, always comforting myself with, “But it could be worse. I could be the dishwasher at Hooters.”
So when Evan asked me, “Hey, could you get me a job washing dishes at Hooters?” I knew he was in a bad place. Even though he’d heard me vent endlessly about working there, he still wanted the job. So I got it for him.
Five nights a week, he would come from his volunteer internship at a sleep therapy lab and go straight to Hooters, where he’d start washing dishes in slacks and a dress shirt. Then he’d head home to sleep, and do it all over again the next day.
My dad was concerned that Evan seemed lost and unhappy, and even more concerned that he wasn’t meeting any women.
“He’s a fine-looking young man. Your twenties is a time for screwing and so forth. He needs to meet some women,” my dad told my mom after dinner one night while Evan was scraping buffalo sauce off of plates at Hooters.
In an effort to liven up Evan’s romantic life, my dad decided to step in.
“I got a woman for you, big dude,” my dad said to him one night after he came home from work. (My dad calls Evan “big dude” since he’s the tallest in the family.)
“I’m pretty busy, Dad,” my brother responded.
But my dad had already set up a blind date, and my brother, unlike myself, rarely puts up a fight.
“You’re going to like her,” my dad said, and Evan nodded warily.
I was shocked that Evan didn’t ask our dad more about her, but that’s not his style. Later, when I questioned his reticence, he explained, “I sort of do what Dad says. You get mouthy with him, and then he yells at you. I always figured if you could stay the kid he yelled at, I wouldn’t be that kid.”
So, the next Saturday night, Evan asked to get off early from his dishwashing shift at Hooters. I was working in the front of the kitchen and spotted him on his way out. He was covered in dishwater and looked like he had fallen on a grenade filled with hot sauce and blue cheese dip.
“Dude, you going on the date with Dad’s lady?”
“Yeah,” he replied, half asleep. “I smell, like, really gross. I should probably shower,” he added. And off he went.
When I got off work a few hours later, I crawled out of my disgusting Hooters uniform and drove home shirtless, in an effort to prevent my car from smelling like chicken and hot garbage. I jumped in the shower and, when I came out, found my dad sitting in his recliner in the living room, asleep. Then I heard the front door open and saw Evan walk into the hallway and tiptoe toward his bedroom like a cat in a cartoon trying to sneak past a sleeping dog. Unaware that he was trying to go to bed without talking to anyone, I immediately jumped in.
“How was it, dude? Was she hot?” I shouted excitedly.
My dad snorted himself awake, and a look of fear shot over Evan’s face.
“Big dude, how’d it go?” my dad asked, closing his robe back up.
“It was okay, but I’m tired,” my brother said, trying to slip off to his room.
“Bullshit. Get back in here, let me know how it went.”
Although Evan is quiet and demure most of the time, every once in a while he snaps. This was one of those times.
“She’s a resident in neurosurgery who used to be Miss Oklahoma or something!” Evan screamed, his eyes suddenly venturing into angry crackhead territory.
“I know—good stuff, right?” my dad said, confused as to why Evan was upset.
“NO! I’m twenty-eight, and I live at home! I wash dishes at FUCKING
Hooters!”
Evan rarely cursed, and never, ever, ever cursed at my dad. I don’t know if my dad was angry or shocked, but he got stern real quick.
“What is your fucking point?” he said.
“My point is it was humiliating to sit there with some woman that’s probably used to dating doctors and models and whatever the fuck else!”
Then came the line that sent my dad into a frenzy.
“She’s out of my league! It was humiliating!”
My dad looked down at the floor and mumbled quietly to himself “out of your league?” over and over, like he was Indiana Jones trying to figure out if what a weird tribal person had told him right before he died was a clue. Then he exploded.
“This is complete fucking bullshit!” he screamed.
At that point I left the living room and tried to hide in the hallway so I could still listen.
“Out of your league?! What fucking league are you talking about?! You are a man, she is a fucking woman! That is all that matters, goddamn it!”
After that I couldn’t make out the yelling, but a few minutes later Evan stormed past me. I peered into the living room and could see my dad felt bad about what had happened. Normally after arguments, he wore a red-faced look of conviction that you see on famous world leaders addressing a hostile United Nations. This time he just looked sad. I went to bed, not wanting to agitate him.
Nobody talked about what had happened those next few days. I figured the argument had passed. Then, my dad came home from work about a week later and told Evan and me to get in the car, that we were going to dinner at Black Angus, which, in my opinion, was the Kansas City Royals of steak houses. Yes, it technically qualifies as a franchise, but it’s not worth getting excited about.
“Black Angus?” I replied, a little disappointed.
“Don’t be an asshole,” my dad said.
We drove to Black Angus, where we sat down in a dark booth with cracked leather seats, and my dad ordered three porterhouse steaks, his favorite cut. I had no idea what my brother was thinking, but I was wondering why in the hell we were at Black Angus, given that this was not a holiday and there was no apparent cause for celebration. Generally, steak is eaten by my family only on special occasions.
My dad exchanged a few pleasantries, asked us how we were doing, how our week was, and then, as the waitress set down our steaks in front of us, he said, “I want to tell you a story about the time I get mono from a stewardess.”
He dove into a long, convoluted story about meeting some stewardess, how they “spent some time together,” and what followed.
“I told everyone I got mono from this stewardess. You know why? Because I couldn’t believe a woman that attractive would be with a guy like me, so much that I was bragging about getting goddamned mono. Then I went into the hospital with fucking Guillain-Barré syndrome, and it was a whole mess, and I almost died. Anyway, my point is: It took me a long, long time to realize that I was worth a damn to women. You don’t have to brag about getting mono.”
The three of us sat quietly for a moment before my dad called the waitress over to our table and said, “Let’s see a dessert menu, I’m feeling frisky.”
Evan and I glanced at each other, unsure if we were supposed to comment on our dad’s anecdote.
“Gee, Dad, that’s a great story,” I said sarcastically, trying to stifle my laughter.
Evan started giggling, which sent me into a fit of laughter. My dad shook his head.
“Well, you both can go fuck yourselves,” he said. “I’m trying to impart some fucking wisdom about women.”
This only made the two of us laugh harder, to the point that Evan was almost unable to breathe and nearby patrons looked sympathetically at my dad, pitying the man who had to suffer two such inconsiderate sons. But he just started chuckling as well.
“As long as you two jerk-offs are happy, I guess that’s all that matters,” he said, as the waitress returned with the dessert menu.
On Taking My First Girlfriend to Las Vegas
“Vegas? I don’t get it, neither of you are old enough to gamble. You’re not old enough to drink. The only thing you’re old enough to do is rent a hotel and—ah, I gotcha. That’s smart.”
On Realizing He Was Starting to Shrink Due to Old Age
“I’m five foot eleven! I used to be six feet, goddamn it. Boy, going bald and shitting infrequently ain’t enough for God, huh? Gotta rub it in, I guess.”
On the Death of Our First Dog
“He was a good dog. Your brother is pretty broken up about it, so go easy on him. He had a nice last moment with Brownie before the vet tossed him in the garbage.”