It was summer. I was seventeen. I had managed to snag my first
job – the late afternoon to closing shift at a local Dunkin Donuts. I proudly
donned my yellow, orange and brown donut tree dress and headed off to the neon
lit rectangle on the edge of town. Our customers were primarily day-trippers
leaving the Rhode Island beaches, stopping on the way out to Providence and
Boston and places beyond for their ‘large, light, sweet’ and boxes full of
crullers. I only remember one regular. Willy. He was a small man with
greased back, wavy hair. While I managed the counter and drive-through window, he’d sit on a stool and talk with me, a naïve
teenager still new to America. I didn't mind working
on my own in the afternoons, but when the last steaks of sunset retreated into the empty night, the space was too quiet. After closing, I'd lock the doors, croon along to Journey, and close down the shop. My last job was to throw out the uneaten doughnuts, dragging the garbage bags out and heaving them into the dumpster at the back of the parking lot.
My father didn’t like it. I called the manager and asked to
be put on the late shift with a
co-worker. But no, if I wanted the job it was me and me alone. So I stayed.
From then on, every night that I worked that shift, my father would show up just as I was closing. My tall, strong father, most comfortable in a shirt and
tie, or slacks and polo – not once in my life did I see him wear a pair of
jeans – my father, the spy, who made phone calls from train stations in
northern Europe, my father who would leave for work in his trench coat and hat,
briefcase in grip, my father the ultimate host, poised behind his bar, telling stories, pouring
drinks, his thick fingers dipping into the orange, plastic bowl of salty
peanuts, his deep, explosive laugh bouncing off the walls. We worked in silence, side by side. As I mopped the floors, he wiped dried icing off the display case shelves with a damp towel. And then he’d help me haul the day’s unsold donuts out back.
With the store shut and locked, we headed home together, my
car following his. Or perhaps, his car followed mine. Perhaps we drove side by
side down the four-lane Route 1 through Westerly, passing JC Penny, McDonald’s, the movie theatre, the Chinese restaurant and down towards the river, turning onto quiet, tree lined Elm Street. Number 9. Home.
(Below, After Westerly, written in 2006. Dedicated to my father.)
(Below, After Westerly, written in 2006. Dedicated to my father.)
After Westerly
Elm Street, number 9.
The door, a new family green.
Someone else's car
parked in the drive.
The memory of my mother
perches inside on a kitchen stool,
Peter Jennings talking news,
a cocktail on the counter,
dinner on the stove.
My sister and I bounce
down carpeted stairs
to set the table,
light the candles,
pour the milk.
Upstairs, my father
pecks at the typewriter,
a green mug full of coffee cold
standing guard.
At dinner, he builds boats
out of orange rinds and toothpicks,
and sails them across the table.
Most evenings, he walks Riley,
their respite
from a house full of women.
He wears the navy blue trench coat
that I now wear,
so boxy
I can barely reach the bottom of the pockets.
After Westerly;
I think that maybe if I stand outside,
he’ll do so again, passing by
the thirty-four year old me
he’s never seen.
In the city, a photo hangs on my fridge
of my parents laughing at the end of a party,
their arms flung high,
my mother shoeless
in black stocking feet.
