No Thanks, I've Already Eaten (Page 1 of 1)

I was purposely late — 6:45 p.m. instead of the agreed upon 6:00 p.m. When I climbed the stairs from the basement and entered my living room, I found him sitting on my couch stabbing coins of medium rare beef with a fork. It looked like he was just getting started, though, and I took some small satisfaction in the fact that he'd waited, sort of.

"I suppose you're full," he said.

"Actually, Dad," I replied. "I am."

He held a fork-dangling slice of rump roast in the air like a white flag. "Try some, kiddo. You'll like it."

The truth is that I really was full. I'd just left my girlfriend's family's Christmas dinner, where I'd stuffed myself with ham, turkey and cheesecake."Just try a bite," he said. "And a spoonful of mashed potatoes."

I walked into my kitchen and pulled the lid from a pot that sat on the stove-eye. The instant potatoes were the color of football leather. "Soy sauce?" I guessed. I noticed an odd shape in the potatoes. "And cashews?"

"Try it!"

"You put cashews in the mashed potatoes?"

"For Christ's sake, kiddo, just have a bite."

He dipped a spoonful into the pot and airplaned it in my direction. I turned my head and took the spoon from his hand.

"It's what I marinated the meat in," he explained, and before I could bring the potatoes to my mouth, he stabbed a medallion of beef off the plastic cutting board and held it up.

The potatoes, dry as Styrofoam, tasted like salt. I pinched the meat from the end of the fork and popped it into my mouth.

"Good," I said. "Smoky."

"The old man's still got it, huh?"

"Yep," I replied. "You still got it."

He handed me a beer and we plopped on the couch in front of the blank TV.

"Did I tell you about the Christmas party I was invited to?"

"No."

"Ah! It was at The Waterfront. A lady I met at Aubreys invited me."

"Good time?"

"Well, it was potluck, so I brought a can of spicy tuna and two pounds of chicken feet."

I sighed. "Dad, who brings a can of tuna to a party? And chicken feet?"

Since returning from his three-year expatriation in the Philippines, my father has taken on the personal mission of enlightening the West. He practices his homemade karate — which he calls "The Dance" — shoeless in public, swinging giant bamboo sticks in the air, standing on one foot like the Karate Kid and kicking knee high and spinning in circles until a sheen of oily sweat rolls off of his red forehead. When he first returned, he stayed at my house for several months. Just before dinner every night, he would stroll out into my front yard with a box full of weapons and begin attacking imaginary enemies. Cars rolled by slowly, and sometimes, he'd stare at them and wave a WWII bayonet above his head like a helicopter blade. My friend Fowldog came over one day, and Dad stood him in front of the couch. He placed his palm on Fowldog's chest and puckered his lips. Then Dad blew his breath into Fowldog's face and shoved him down into a sitting position. "Huh?" Dad said. "What do you think about the old man?"

Before he moved into his own apartment, I came home one night to the smell of beef stroganoff, a standard dish of his, cooked exactly the same way since he learned how to use a stove.

“Ah, kiddo, I’ve been waiting for you.” His stomach, split by the purple scar of a recent hernia surgery, was swollen and tight. PBR cans circled his chair. A small cigar, cherry flavored, hung in the corner of his mouth, and blue smoke circled the air above his head. His white hair was unwashed and hadn't seen a comb in days. I could smell, even over the simmering dinner, his armpits.

“Why?”

“I came 2,000 miles to cook you dinner, and you come home late?”

“I’ve been at work.”

“Bullshit.” He struggled to get out of the recliner, grunting and jerking, and motioned for me to follow him into the kitchen.

“Try the stroganoff.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Just try it!”

I looked into the pot and was instantly startled: The ingredients had changed — he'd added peanuts and green peas to the bubbling sour cream base.

“Peanuts?”

“Ah! Try it. Go on.”

He spooned out a scoop, blew on it a couple of times, and stuck it in my face. “And peas?”

“Try it!”

Before the spoon even touched my lips, I could feel the gag working its way through the curve of my stomach.

“It’s good,” I lied. “Too bad I’ve just eaten, on the way home.”

“What? I come 2,000 miles to cook for you?”

“I didn’t know.”

I turned from the kitchen, walked into the master bedroom and shut the door behind me. If I kept a stereo in there I would have put on some AC/DC and rounded the volume knob to full throttle.

Dad recently bought a ticket to Thailand, and he plans to leave this summer for a month-long scouting trip. He also video-chats daily with a lady in China who supposedly lives at the foot of a mountain inhabited by martial arts experts. She's given him an open invitation, but he wants to wait until the Olympics are over. Until then, he's content with practicing The Dance in the park across the street from the Maryville courthouse, ordering happy hour drafts from the bar at Aubreys and slipping into my house while I'm at work and throwing soy sauce and nuts into everything he cooks.

Sitting on the couch Christmas night, I asked him if anyone at the party ate his chicken feet.

"No," he said. "They didn't seem interested."

"Really?"

"I got there late. They'd already eaten."

* The views expressed in Commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Knoxville Voice.