The Time My Dad Took Me to a Bar

And made me promise I would never tell

I think I was around ten or eleven years old at the time. I’m not sure exactly.

Back then, every Sunday afternoon my father would take us four kids to the library on base. If it was summer he would then take us to the public pool for a few hours of swimming. In winter after the library he would take us to the bowling alley. The important thing is that he got us kids out of the house for a few hours so that our mother could spend some time without any kids around. Thanks to her migraines she needed a lot of child-less quiet time alone. The migraines always got worse when the kids were home.

Of course, being Sunday we kids had already spent a couple of hours at church in the morning — an hour of mass and an hour of Sunday School. While our father took us to and from the church he never went to mass himself. And our mother was an atheist so she never, ever set foot inside of a church. So my parents enjoyed a couple of child-less hours on Sunday morning together. It was after lunch when our dad got us kids out of the house for the afternoon.

There came a Sunday afternoon when my brother and two sisters had prior commitments. I don’t remember what they were but I think my sisters had some friend’s birthday party to go to and my brother had some dork event to attend. It was just me, and my mother was talking about there not being an excursion that Sunday.

But like a true kid I whined, “But my library books are due today and I desperately need more books to last me until next Sunday.” Every Sunday I would check out 12 books from the library (the maximum number allowed to be checked out at a time). I would read them all over the course of the week and then check out 12 more the following Sunday. Back then, books were my heroin.

My father said that he didn’t mind taking me to the library. He was the official family chauffeur who took us kids everywhere we needed to go. Our mother never left the house except to go to the Post Office, bank or grocery shopping. Sometimes I thought that our father wanted to get out of the house as much as we kids did.

So my father drove me the 9 miles to the library and he stood around talking with the librarians while I picked out 12 more books. But afterwards we did not go to the swimming pool or bowling alley. Instead my father just drove around for a long time. I asked him where we were going but he just said, “I dunno.”

Finally, my father turned into the parking lot of a small shopping center. At one end of the shopping center was a bar. He parked near the bar and, without saying anything, he got out of the car. I didn’t say anything either. I just got out and followed my father into the bar.

It was a sunny day and walking into the bar was like stepping into a near pitch black cave. The bar was very noisy and I guessed crowded but I could not yet see much, especially since I was walking directly behind my dad.

We had only taken a few steps into the bar when suddenly a silence fell over the crowd and then every single person in the bar abruptly yelled out, “Jack!”

(Jack wasn’t really my father’s name but I’m using it to protect his anonymity.)

My father and I walked up to the bar and he motioned towards a barstool for me to sit on. He then pulled out the barstool next to mine and sat on it; but he did not sit facing the bar. Instead he sat on it facing the room full of tables of drinking patrons and people playing pool.

Everyone in the bar stopped what they were doing and came over to greet my father.

“So Jack, this must be one of your kids. We finally get to meet one. Where’s the rest of them?”

“Oh, they got other things going on.”

A young woman in her twenties wearing a halter top and short shorts came up to me with her hand extended, “It’s such an honor to meet you. You must be so proud to be the son of such a great man.”

With mouth open, yet speechless, I shook her hand as I wondered what the hell she was talking about. (I could not help but notice her exposed belly button.) Several other women came up to me to shake my hand and pat me on the back.

Suddenly, the bartender handed me a tall glass with Coca-Cola on the rocks with a maraschino cherry, a thin orange straw and a lemon slice wedged into the side of the glass. It was the fanciest drink I had ever had.

The bartender handed my dad a beer. I noticed there was no money exchanged.

Quickly, everyone in the bar had come over to my dad and formed a semi-circle in front of him. They were all talking loudly and laughing. I kept hearing, “Jack, Jack, Jack.” They were treating him like some kind of celebrity or something. And all of them apparently knew him.

What the fuck?

I didn’t even know that my dad had any friends. He certainly never brought any of his friends to our house. Of course, as a kid I never brought any of my friends to our house either. I was way too embarrassed by my family to ever do that. I was afraid I would never see my friends again if I let them come inside my home.

So I sat there drinking my fancy Coca-Cola as I watched in utter befuddlement as my father held court. He had everyone’s rapt attention as he started telling jokes and stories. Everyone laughed and cheered at everything he said. Occasionally, someone would yell out a question and my father would quickly provide an answer that resulted in an eruption of laughter.

He was like a totally different person! Yeah, he was constantly cracking jokes at home with us kids but we never treated him like a star. With this audience before him he seemed to morph into some kind of extremely popular performer. It was like watching someone I didn’t even know.

For over an hour my dad told jokes and stories to a large group of people who obviously were very familiar with him and who loved him very dearly; all people I had never seen before. I quickly developed a sense of awe and newfound respect for my father. I had never met anyone before who was so popular and so loved… and it was my father! Someone I thought I knew!

My dad finally signaled the end of his performance by standing up from his barstool. Women rushed up to hug him and men rushed up to shake his hand. I remained in a state of utter shock.

On the way home we came up to a red light. As my dad stopped the car he looked over at me, “Son, what you just saw is our little secret, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this. And you especially can’t tell your mother. You’ve got to promise me right here and now that you will never tell a soul about it.”

“Okay.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise I’ll never tell anyone, especially mom.”

“Good. Thanks. It’ll just be our little secret.”

I suddenly felt very close to my father. I never betrayed his trust by telling my mom or anyone else about what I witnessed. It remained his and our secret.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.