Hi, this is Frank Flaherty. Welcome to Brooklyn for this week’s episode of “Dad, Interrupted.”
One thing I’ve learned as a dad is that hanging out with kids makes for good stories. Sometimes it’s the kids that make the stories, and sometimes it’s the grownups. Here are three favorites from my own life.
I call this week’s posting, “Tales From Kidland.”
Jerk in a Hurry
Back and forth, back and forth I pace on the sidewalk, with five-month-old Patrick curled up in the pastel papoose slung over my shoulder. We are on Seventh Avenue, the major retail street in Park Slope, and the year is 1989.
It’s pretty early in the neighborhood’s gentrification, so there are still big swaths of Old Brooklyn around. One of them is the Landmark Pub, a gritty bar not far from where I’m walking with Patrick.
Landmark’s owner had two little girls back then, and the girls would leave their doll heads and other toys strewn all over the tables. The toys would still be there when the place opened for business. I remember that. A local resident once said that on the nights when the pub was largely empty and had live music, the band could seem like it was singing to an audience of doll heads. I never saw that, but I wish I did.
Just for perspective, you should know that the Landmark Pub is now a spick and span Douglas Elliman real estate office. One property it’s advertising is just one street away from where the doll heads were. It’s a $5 million brownstone with six bedrooms and an exercise room.
Anyway, back to 1989. I’ve been walking and walking, but young Patrick is fidgety and sleep has been a long time coming. But with luck, I hope, and maybe one more lulling stroll down the block to Pino’s Pizzeria, Patrick will finally nod off.
And he does! But I keep on walking, because even though I’m a new parent I know that even sleeping babies like to be on the move.
But then, just a few minutes later, I hear: “HOOOONK! HOOOONK! HOOONK!” A guy in a white convertible right next to us is blasting his horn in a fit of vehicular rage. Apparently, the traffic light changed two full eye blinks ago and the car ahead of him still has not moved. Of course, the horn startles Patrick awake.
As the driver chomps impatiently on his cigar, waiting for the car in front of him to move, I explain to him what he has done to my son’s hard-won nap. I am not happy, and it shows. But the driver does not reply supportively or apologetically. Now I am more unhappy. We exchange salty words and suggestions. The suggestions become more and more unvarnished.
Finally, we both pause, drained. Then as the first car at the light finally stirs, the convertible driver gestures to Patrick, looks at me, and says, “You … you … babysitter!” He then motors away. I’m guessing he thinks that that parting shot was a killer.
For some reason, at that moment I think of the old Mad Magazine feature, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. But I come up with no comeback for him before he guns it and takes off. My only thought is, I hope this guy doesn’t have any kids. And although I have major reservations about gentrification, I hope this guy got priced out of the neighborhood a long time ago.
The Players and the Played
It’s now the early 2000s. School is out, and our tween kids and their friends are converging on our house, eager for Warhammer, Xbox, Risk, Avril Lavigne and sugar and protein. As is his custom, Patrick’s friend Dylan makes a beeline for the kitchen, where he stands on a chair and stretches up to the top tier of the lazy susan cabinet. He grabs the dessert sprinkles, shakes a handful of them out and gobbles them up. Meanwhile, Clara and her girlfriends start eating baby carrots and hummus and Swedish Fish. The boys go for cheese and crackers and wedges of watermelon.
I’m normally at work at this time, but on this day I’m the resident grownup. There isn’t much for me to do, though, as the kids sort themselves into their usual groups and play their usual games. So I busy myself trying to save our jade houseplant, whose smooth emerald leaves have turned pruney all of a sudden.
Ten minutes later, drama erupts. Marty, a friend of Patrick, is very upset.
“I lost my 20 bucks!” he wails. “My uncle gave me 20 bucks for my birthday and now it’s gone!”
“Where did you see it last?” I ask, tossing aside the houseplant book.
“It was in my pocket and we were playing Risk,” Marty says. “I know I had it when I got here, and now I don’t.”
I urge all the kids to search on the floor, under the Risk board, between the couch cushions and inside the various sneakers that have been tossed pell-mell on the floor. Clara finds a quarter under the coffee table, but that’s it.
Slowly, the kids mumble, shrug and return to their games, and I’m left alone with a sniffling Marty. I engage him in a full review of his every move after he entered the house, and then scour each spot he names in his itinerary. But I, too, come up empty.
“I’m sure it’ll turn up but I don’t want you to worry,” I tell Marty as I dip into my wallet. “So, here’s a $20. When we find your $20, we’ll keep it and there’ll be no harm done. OK?”
Marty thanks me and resumes his place at the Risk game. I return to the houseplant book to figure out what’s wrinkling up my jade plant.
The afternoon passes uneventfully and the kids drift off one by one, as their parents or older siblings ring the bell and escort them home.
After Marty leaves, Patrick’s friend Sam looks at me. “Frank,” he says (Park Slope kids don’t use Mr. or Ms. – too hierarchical). “You know that Marty totally played you, right?”
“Huh?” I say as I trim off some jade leaves. “What do you mean?”
“Uh,” and he looks to Patrick for support and confirmation, “there was no 20 bucks.”
“Yea, Marty does that all the time,” says Clara. “But look, I got a quarter!”
The Ugly American
One day in the 20teens Jeanette and I go grocery shopping in Brighton Beach, the neighborhood right next to famous Coney Island.
Brighton is heavily Russian — its nickname is Little Odessa — and we go there to stock up on Russian goodies like borscht and Baltika beer. There are several groceries in Brighton Beach; on this trip we go to the Tashkent Supermarket.
We wheel our cart through the aisles to pick up our stuff and to scope out what’s new, and Jeanette, who knows a little Russian, tries to translate what she overhears from other shoppers.
“Those two are fighting,” she tells me. “She says he’s too fat and doesn’t need any more blini.”
Finally, we head to checkout with our filled-up cart. When it’s our turn at the counter, after the food is bagged and the bill is tallied, I scoop a handful of coins from my pocket to give the checkout lady exact change.
But then I fumble and drop the coins, and they scatter all over the floor.
I grunt and crouch down to retrieve them. At that point, several kids come over and start to help me. This leads me to think nice thoughts about how Russian parents raise their children to be helpful to strangers.
Only thing is, as I pick up the coins I notice that one of the kids is staring at me funny. I look up at Jeanette. My wife knows things.
She’s noticed the kid with the funny look, too. “I think in this neighborhood when grownups drop coins, the coins belong to the kids,” she says. “So I’m guessing they feel like you’re ripping them off.”
“Oh, shoot,” I say. I re-drop the coins I’d grabbed off the floor, the kids dive for them, and after I pay the checker and pick up our bags, I slink off.
Three Tales from Kidland