Justin Halpern - Sh*t My Dad Says

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.

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Jesus. That wasn’t even a home run, that was a fucking space experiment that should be written about in science journals or something.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You, my good man, are not as dumb as I first fucking suspected.”

“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.”

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.