Sean G. Meggeson

House Blazer

Woke up in predawn darkness, went to the kitchen, fumbled around for breakfast and poured milk in the sugar and coffee in my cornflakes. Days like this, give me half a go and I’d literally water the leaves and burn the lawn if I wasn’t careful. I’m struggling large time. I got some old cravings coming back hard. My old lady, Cath is still asleep but these days she’d just laugh at me and call me a space cadet because of the cornflakes, but she and I both know all to well what’s going on and how it used to be very different. She trusts me now, but used to be Cath didn’t laugh. Not at all. Back in the old days, she’d call me more pointed things than ‘space cadet’. And I deserved every last bit of what she had to give me then.

Probably had a dream about drinking last night. Mornings like this hardly ever happen now, but when they do, and it hits hard like today, what I’ve learned to do is, I slow down my scatterbrain self and try like heck to replace the cravings for a drink with memories of when I was a kid. It’s a helpful exercise. Takes me back to what brought me here first place. And, thank Christ on a cracker, remembers me of the things now matter most.   

So, this morning before the sun or even God’s up, I settle down in the breakfast nook and I go back to ol’ ’73. That year, like most others when I was a kid, we had classic lake-effect, witch’s teat-cold October with lottsa snow. The Bills—don’t laugh—were actually doing pretty good and Dad was hyped, so he took me out driving around one night before dinner, blasting stuff like Joe Walsh, BTO, and the Doobies on the Cutlass’ 8-track.

I could tell right away Dad was in one of his hard-looking moods—smoking, silent, brooding. It was always a coin toss. He might end up outwardly angry, or—could be, I always prayed—he’d decide to get real happy for some random reason. I sat in the car, listening to the tunes, hoping we might head home soon so I could catch M*A*S*H on TV with mom. Then outta nowhere, Dad—thanks to heavenly hickory sticks—perked up, flicked his dart out the car window and said, “We’re eating fancy tonight, Mr. J. Will do ya good. Learn ya thing or two.”

“But isn’t mom making dinner for later?” I asked sheepishly.

“Mom likely, rightly is,” Dad said, and then cranked China Grove.

I was disappointed that Dad’s perkiness wasn’t going to take us home, but instead was an intro to one of his random plans that according to his secret reasoning was always non-negotiable. Non-negotiable unless Mom fought real hard with him. I never fought.    

I shut my pie-hole and sat next to Dad in the car and tried to get excited as he gunned the Cutlass around a bunch of dark downtown streetcorners and drove us to an old steakhouse where he would introduce me to what eating fancy meant. How thick steaks are served on trenchers full of blood and how the waiter makes the Caesar salad table-side, whipping a raw egg into dressing with anchovies and throwing in enough garlic to choke a horse. And, how back then at those places, eating fancy also meant you had to wear a blazer or they wouldn’t let you eat there.

A sign inside the steakhouse read, Blazers Required.

“But I don’t have a blazer, Dad.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. J.—I mean, Monsieur Gee. Sometimes life just provides. Que sera, sera as they say.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means shut up and look lively. Here comes the ghoul squad.”

Out of nowhere a guy in a tux who looked like Vincent Price greeted us. Yeah, the maître d'. He looked at us and then walked towards the coat check where there was a small collection of blazers. I guess for rich people who wanted to eat fancy but forgot their blazers at home, or, more likely for folks like Dad and me who have a bunch of football and baseball jerseys at home but definitely no blazers.

“Gentlemen, if you please,” said the maître d', shimmying two blazers off their hangers.

Holding his chin high and looking like he was being crowned, Dad let the maître d' slip the blazer on him. Dad said breezily, “Just like the one I have at home, right?” He looked pretty good in the black blazer even though it didn’t go with his Wrangler cowboy shirt. I asked Dad why it’s called a blazer, not just a jacket.

“’Cuz it blazes your way to a miracle, kiddo.” Dad said this serious enough that I didn’t know whether or not to laugh. So I didn’t. He looked at me and judged my silence with a gruff laugh.   

I ended up with a burgundy blazer with black trim. It was too large for me and was a pretty funny contrast to the Bills tee I had on that night. Had to admit, something about it felt good. Maybe a few yards short of a miracle, it nonetheless held a kind of promise of presence. The silky lining, the solid shoulders, and those ‘look-at-me-I’m-a-big-man’ lapels. Dad saw me settling into it and smiling. When we were seated at the table Dad said, “Don’t get too comfortable in that thing, slick.”

“It’s only a loaner. I know.” Dad looked at me like I should have said something better, funnier. My face went red.

Maybe he noticed my red face and felt a bit bad for me because he smoothed out the tablecloth with both hands and breezily said nicely (nice for Dad), “Yup, like most things in life, slick. On loan from somebody somewhere making more scratch than you or me in good ol’ Nickel City, home of The Juice and the goddamn glorious Electric Company. The Lombardi’s comin’ to Rich Stadium this year, right?”

“Go Bills,” I said.

“Go Bills,” Dad nodded confidently at me, which made me feel good.

“Why tonight, Dad?” I asked.

“Why tonight what?”

“Why we…eating fancy?”

“Well, Mr. J., if you gotta know, my old man used to work here. Frickin’ ages ago.” Dad looked around the place, clicked his tongue. I took a look at the silverware, cloth napkins, and the brass hurricane lamp at our table and wondered how Dad’s dad ended up working at a place like this.

“He worked here? He didn’t work at the factory like you?”

“He did. The Old Man worked a lotta jobs to make ends meet when I was a little pissant like you. Mostly due to getting his keister fired all the time. Was probably hired-fired from the factory jobs ten times over. Always said he liked working here, just bussing tables and such, watching the well-heeled chow down like the lusty cannibals they is. Whatever. It’s the old man’s cake day, so…” Instead of finishing the sentence, he spread out his arms as if showcasing something obvious.

I was surprised because Dad rarely mentioned his old man. I had so many questions in my dingbat head, but I only said, “I guess, happy birthday to Gramps.”  

He clicked his tongue again and said quickly, “Now don’t get all juicy on me, slick.”

Dad would say that to mom all the time, ‘don’t get juicy’. Mom seemed to be juicy a lot. But in that moment, I actually wasn’t juicey at all. I never knew Gramps, and I didn’t feel much of anything about him as I sat there in that dimly lit steakhouse with its polite, soft sounds of glasses and plates clinking and clacking in the background. I once asked Mom about why I had no Grandpa on Dad’s side, and she told me Gramps died of a heart attack back in the day before I was born. She wasn’t juicy at all when she told me that.  

The waiter brought us some garlic bread with chopped green stuff on top. Dad said, “Let the games begin.” He hoovered a piece, then another.

Then the drinks. Always vodka. I never understood why vodka until later in life when for a time, water was a distant second to vodka for me. But as a kid, vodka looked like plain ol’ water and compared to the array of colorful liquids behind the bar, vodka seemed so damn boring. As Dad sucked back his vodkas—he would often order them before he had even finished the one in front of him— I looked at the glowing bottles behind the bar and imagined finishing them all in one sitting. I knew I could do it, and really wanted to. I imagined how their colorful magic might make me into something more. Something ablaze with I-didn’t-know-what, but as Dad would put it, maybe I would finally mean business.

Dad said that phrase all the time like he was on a TV ad or something: ya gotta mean business in this world. “My silver and stripes Cutlass—means business.” He’d say ‘business’ more like ‘bizzniss’ with chin forward and big lips. I doubted for a long time if I was made out to ever mean bizzniss according to Dad. Not like his Cutlass, the Bills (well, the ’73 Bills), Bob Seger, Farrah Fawcett, or how Dirty frickin’ Harry meant business.

The meal proceeded with more garlic bread, the table-side Caesar salad show, and more vodkas. When the steaks arrived all bloody on worn trenchers, Dad looked at the waiter and said seemingly surprised, “This steak means business.” He tersely sawed off a chunk, took a bite, and said, “This steak really means business.”

“Thank you, Sir,” the waiter said in a whatever-tone and walked away. I wasn’t exactly sure of what to make of the tone, but I thought maybe that’s how fancy waiters talked at fancy steakhouses. I also thought he probably just didn’t want to waste too much time on Dad and me in our house blazers. We were obviously not fancy.

We didn’t talk during the meal, even though it seemed like he had something to tell me. Instead, he made random comments about the food, the smooth waiter, the crappy muzak tunes. I thought maybe I should say something about Gramps, but I kept my tongue in my dopey, little head. I wanted to ask Dad, why were we secretly celebrating Gramps’ cake day, especially without Mom. Why were we leaving mom at home with the Hamburger Helper? I didn’t want to be called ‘juicy’ so I didn’t ask, and to this day, I still don’t have definitive answers. Maybe Dad wanted to bring me to eat fancy ‘cuz his Dad never brought him. Maybe Dad had a rare bout of juiciness of his own that night, and hated himself for it. Classic Dad, I guess. But one of the few things I’ve figured out in my own life is that I don’t always need answers to old questions to keep moving forward.

The meat sat heavy on my stomach. I admitted to myself it was probably better than Hamburger Helper, but boy, it was a lot to take. It felt weird to eat like that. Not just taste-wise, but it felt all wrong in some other, weird way like the food was too much, too good for me. It also felt like I was going against Mom by being there without her and eating someone else’s food, and I hated that feeling. We didn’t have dessert, but Dad ordered a final vodka and when it came, I held up my glass of water like an idiot, thinking we might do a cheers or something. Dad didn’t even look at me. He shot back his vodka right quick, and I was left holding my glass of water in the air. I felt my face turn red with embarrassment. I hastily shot back my water with some of it spiling out the sides.   

By this point, Dad’s own face was real red and glowy — not because he was embarrassed. He was good and soused, but a stranger would never know. Dad held his liquor like a trooper, that way. Only thing was, you had to be careful around him when he was like that. Even though he wouldn’t stumble or slur or anything, Dad could do some real out-there, whacko things when blotto. Like one time, Mom bought a credenza without asking him. She had it delivered earlier in the day, and it was out on the porch waiting to be brought in.

Dad got home from work, and asked Mom, “What’s that on the porch?”

“It’s a new credenza,” Mom said.  

“We don’t need a cadenza,” he said. Mom laughed and corrected him. He went silent and left the room. At dinner, he killed almost a full fifth of Popov as we ate in silence. Later that night he came into the living room where Mom and I were watching TV together.

With that same red and glowy face, he said casually to Mom, “The cadenza’s on fire.”

“What?” Mom screamed.

Dad drew back the curtains with a blackened hand and showed us the credenza out on the small, front lawn engulfed in flames. I could smell the gasoline on his hands. Dad just laughed and walked away. Mom was juicy for days after that one.

When the waiter came with the bill, Dad pulled out a cheque to pay. “Sorry, sir—cash or credit only,” said the waiter said in a wah-wah tone he seemed to enjoy using.

Dad paused and looked at the waiter like he wanted to deck him. I knew Dad didn’t have a credit card because Mom and him always fought about money and I heard most of the details. The waiter’s expression didn’t change. I hoped Dad had enough scratch on him.

“Well, slick,” Dad said, “let’s see what I got on me.” He opened his wallet and counted out bills. I looked away.

Dad threw a wad of bills on the table and said through his front teeth, “There ya go. Have yourself a night, slick.”

The waiter smiled weakly, took the cash, and left with a slight nod in my direction.

Dad noticed the nod toward me and muttered under his breath, “Yeah, yeah.” I could feel his anger. He was probably demanding where was his nod after forking over all that dough. It felt like I had screwed up again.

We both sat at the cleared table with Dad looking pissed at forking over all that dough. He looked at me and maybe he could tell I felt bad. He brushed some crumbs off the table and then outta nowhere, flashed me a smile.

“Well, Mr. J., this place cleaned me out real good, but how ‘bout I leave one more little something for slick tonight.” Dad took one of their wine-colored cloth napkins, put it to his nose and with a bunch of really loud honks, launched some serious snot rockets into it. He was so loud, the whole place went silent for a second after he stopped. A couple bluehairs close by were so rattled, they probably moved a bit of the brown into their Depends.

Dad neatly folded the napkin and placed it on the table. He looked at me and popped his eyebrows, “I call it The Waiter’s Surprise. Would love to see slick’s face when he goes to grab this little baby.”

How could I not laugh? It was kinda funny. I was giggling when we got up to leave and headed for the exit. We almost forgot about the house blazers.

“Gentlemen, if you please.” The maître d' stopped us by the coat check. I stopped giggling, and Dad saw me stop and I could see him pull in his lower lip and narrow his eyes at me like I was a wimp for not giggling on my own terms.

The maître d' slid the blazer off Dad’s shoulders while Dad swayed impatiently on the spot. He held his head high, like before, but when the blazer finally came off, Dad stood there blinking as if adjusting to a bright light and he looked a little lost for a few seconds. As I watched all this happen, I was quickly sliding out of my blazer on my own, so when the maître d' came for my blazer, I handed it over to him right away. The maître d' nodded to me and said, “Thank you very much, Sir.” Without thinking, I went to shake the maître d'’s hand, but he just bowed and left.   

Dad’s face snapped from emptiness to anger. He looked at me like I had failed him yet again. I guess I gave up the blazer too willingly. I definitely shouldn’t have tried to shake his hand. What was I thinking? My face glowed red again, but this time I felt it stronger than ever. Dad didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. I said the words to myself: I didn’t mean business—when will the day come when I frickin’ wake up and show the world I’ve got some cojones?  

On the way out, Dad roughly scooped up a mound of chalky dinner mints, threw one into his mouth, and dumped the rest into my hands, saying sarcastically, “Just for you—happy, happy birthday, J-Man.”

“But it’s not my birthday, Dad—” I stammered like a fool.

“Jesus H. Christ on a cracker! Let’s just go home so you can watch TV with your mommy,” Dad said, hauling open the big wooden front door.

We sat in the car in silence. Still chewing the mint, Dad lit a Marlboro. He fired up the Cutlass and was about to put it in drive but thought better of it. “Wait here,” he said, heading back to the restaurant. I remember literally begging Jesus in heaven that whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to end in flames.  

When he re-appeared, he had something tucked under his arm. He walked quickly, and acted like nothing was the matter. Jumping in the driver’s seat, he threw the burgundy house blazer in my face, saying with frustration, “There ya go already.” He slammed the car into drive and raced outta the lot blaring La Grange.

The blazer to the face phased me a bit, but I wasn’t all that surprised. It was classic Dad. And even though I was a kid and maybe wasn’t too swift, I knew enough to understand the stolen house blazer was actually meant to be a gift. His kind of gift. You know, to silently make up for being a relentless buster of balls. My miniscule balls.  

In an ideal world where a kid gets what he wants, Dad would have jumped in the car, popped his eyebrows, handed me the blazer, and said something funny-but-nice like, “Try eating them eggs for breakfast.” And if we’re going with ideal, he would have thrown in a little speech, too. Something like:

I want ya to remember that you’re good people, Joe. That you should never forget you deserve to eat fancy at least one night of the year, maybe on your cake day. It would do ya good. And, you don’t have to hand over no house blazer too easily, son. Just remember, it’s good to make ‘em wait sometimes, show ‘em you mean business.

Of course, it was a speech he never gave, but between you, me and the dog shit at the foot of the lamppost, it’s one I’ve said to myself more times than I care to admit. Especially on days like these when I mess up my cornflakes and boy, a freezer cold bottle of Popov for breaky would go down nicely.

When we got home that night Dad didn’t light anything on fire, but he watched me bring the blazer inside and sit down on the couch with Mom. Mom pulled the blazer from my hands and asked, “What’s this now, Joey?”

Without anger or menace, but rather with a rare voice of firm care and insistence, Dad said to mom, “It’s his, just leave it be.” Mom shot him a hard look then turned to me with softness.

“Are you hungry, J-Bear? I have some Hamburger Helper on the stove.”

I shook my head and slowly took the blazer from her hands and balled it up against my gut with the lowest of murmurs. She looked at Dad, then at me again. She saw I was ready to burst out crying. She put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a squeeze or two.

“You’re tired and so am I. Let’s just watch some TV. Okay, J-Bear?”

“Okay.”

She let it go. I remember that moment from Mom as being one of her greatest gifts of mercy towards me. She didn’t push things that night to where there would have been a big fight and I would have for sure shown Dad how much of a crybaby I really am. I silently curled up by mom on the couch, clutching my blazer. She turned on the TV with the M*A*S*H outro song playing.

Dad gave a “yeah, yeah” and went outside on the porch with a bottle and spent the night there drinking and smoking. When mom and I finished watching TV and got ready for bed, I saw Dad was still out there.

Mom never did ask me about the blazer, even one-to-one. Some fires aren’t worth starting, I guess.  

So, I finally got my cornflakes right this morning and feel better having eaten. I found my regular breath and the need to drink turned into something else like I knew it would. A little more breathing room allows me to think about how the blazer didn’t begin to feel like a real gift for me until much later in life. Like until after Dad’s ticker gave out—kaput—just like his old man’s. I was going through some stuff after he died and found the old blazer. Hadn’t seen it in years. It brought me back alright and made me realize some things. Got me asking myself, how long would my own wonky ticker last? How many more bottles of vodka could I kill before Cath would toss my ass, just like mom eventually did Dad’s? Would I, like Dad, end up wasting away in some god-awful rooming house in Kaisertown, a hop-step-and-fart from the I-90? Dying there, no good to no one and learning nothing from nothing? Not everyone gets a chance at making things right, but it is my official belief that we should all at least make a try for it. Like dreaming the Bills one day will frickin’ bring home The Lombardi, right?      

Well, Lombardi or not, my ticker’s still pumping strong, knock on serious wood. Still ticking in no small part because, unlike Dad and Gramps I finally managed to stop with the vodka. Going on about twenty years now. My thirst is just for boring water these days.  

Besides, if I started drinking again, Cath would slaughter me. She would no joke just leave good ol’ Nickel City and probably vacate the entire country never to return without a word to no one. Given what she’s put up with, I wouldn’t blame her. Not one bit. I also think that if there’s a nice, fluffy place in the sky, Mom’s probably looking down on me—and she sure as Shinola wouldn’t be too thrilled if I picked up again.

I guess there’s also that thing where people say I should stay straight edge just for me, but I never really got that. We live in a world of people, right? Humans are pack animals, right? When I drank, I turtled and did everything just for me all the time anyways. About as useful to me or anybody as a bag of baloney. Downright selfish. I don’t let myself get all juicey about it. I just try to call the play right: it was selfish. Probably got it from Dad. He never really thought too much about others, even to the very end. Won’t be me. Human beings is definitely no island. Sure, I stay sober for me, but primarily I do it for others. I like living in a world where I can give a solid, and get a solid, and vice-versa. Just makes simple salami sandwiches to me.

Getting ready for winter, I shuffle outside and rake the leaves and mow the lawn one last time for the season. And think how grateful I am to actually have a nice small, lawn, a Cath, and, all things considered, a pretty good, basic life.

After a while, I stand there looking at the leaves I just raked and think of Dad and that night when he torched mom’s credenza. I think, That mudder—And then, I let it frickin’ go like I know I should, ending up only feeling low grade pity for Dad. Boy oh boy, that letting go schtick. People make it sound so easy. It’s not. It’s frickin’ work, lemme tell ya. I can admit Dad was okay in some ways, but it still gets me every now and then that he never woke up to how his rage was just a dog’s breakfast for self-confidence, and a cheap-ass cover for the strength it takes to truly love.

Well now, there’s a chill in the air. Snow’s late, but here comes old man winter. I go inside and there’s Cath in her robe at the stove making us some scrambled eggs and bacon. I take a good look at her and I gotta admit, I still think she’s a knockout—crazy bedhead, puffy eyes, worn out polyester robe she bought at K-Mart twenty years ago. And a bright morning smile worth more than a thousand frickin’ Lombardis.   

“Hungry? Want something more than cornflakes?” Cath asks. I’m not really hungry, but I’m not stupid. I know what to say.   

“You bet I do,” I almost sing. I watch her for a moment at the stove. She knows I’m watching her and she smiles to herself. I know my eyes on her like this makes her feel like a million bucks, and I know why, and she knows I know why.

I slide into the breakfast nook and then look out the window and marvel at the gorgeous, gray Buffalo sky for a long time. This particular shade of gray is just so…well, I don’t know what the word is, I just really like getting lost in it.

“Game day,” Cath says loudly, brining me back.

“Go Bills,” I say with conviction, snapping out of my dopey haze.

“Go Bills,” she laughs.

“Don’t laugh. We all gotta have some silly dreams, right?”

END

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Sean G. Meggeson lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He has written and lectured on such topics as Ricoeurian hermeneutics, neurodiversity, and interspecies intersubjectivity. He has published poetry and prose in a range of journals and magazines. Fiction recently published in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Gorko Gazette, Mr.Bull, and Revolution John. X: @seangmeggeson Bluesky: @seangmeggeson.bsky.social Insta: @sean_g_meggeson_poet