Crybaby
Crybaby
Word Count: 1,724
It was a particularly hot day for a Wednesday afternoon in February. Harley was sweating rainstorms under her heavy leather jacket and Kiss t-shirt. They stuck to her body like a fly stuck to insect trap paper, and every time she swung her arms on her sides as she walked, her jacket made a particular swishing sound that felt just as sticky. She had a long walk ahead of her and the sun was unforgiving.
Her mother had warned her about her outfit, but she loved her jacket and she wanted to wear it everywhere she went. Her mom hated it of course, said it made her look like a boy. No matter what the weather looked like, Harley needed her leather jacket. She thought it made her look cool, and once upon a time it belonged to her dad and his mysterious past. He had gifted it to her when she turned fourteen and told her that it was his most prized possession.
She was on her way to the American diner her, her dad, and her mom used to eat at every weekend. It was a tradition, and her dad liked to eat “good old fashioned American breakfast.” Her mom couldn’t stand to eat there anymore. Too many memories and his death were still a fresh wound. It had only been three years.
A red pick-up truck pulled up to her with a slow stop and rolled down its windows revealing a man in sunglasses and a scruffy beard. He pulled them down slightly, just enough so his eyes peek out from the top. “Hey kid, do you need a ride?”
“Uncle Bill! Yes, I need a ride, I’m dying over here!” Harley said as she grabbed the handle of the car door and let herself in. She turned up the AC to blast.
“Well, what are you wearing that hot fuckin' jacket for? It’s eighty-nine degrees weather. Didn’t you check before you left the house?”
“Well yeah, but I couldn’t leave without my dad’s jacket.”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t want you drenching the poor thing! You’ll stain it with your stench.” He quickly glanceed at her with a look of disgust and then turned his eyes back on the road.
“It’ll be fine, and I’ll clean it when I get home.”
“Ugh, by then you’ll have to burn it.”
Harley slapped him on the arm, “Hey!”
“How’s your mom holding up?”
“Fine. She gets pretty nitpicky on dad’s death anniversary, but she said she would meet me at the cemetery later.”
Bill awkwardly nodded his head and tapped an absent rhythm on the steering wheel. “This day is hard for all of us, I'm sure. Why were you walking anyway?”
“Mom can’t drop me off at the diner because of work.”
“Well, I might as well join you since we are already going.”
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The diner was small and run down. It had a bar facing the kitchen and several booths placed in a circular shape framing the rest of the restaurant. All the seats were different shades of brown, torn up or cracked just like the fake wooden tables. Harley never understood why, but her dad loved the place. Her mom used to pretend to hate it. She would give Harley’s dad a hard time every time he would suggest it, but they knew she would suck it up since it made them happy. She always used to say she could make the food they ordered at home, but her dad insisted it was different.
“Tell me a story about my dad,” Harley prompted after they sat down and ordered their food.
Bill took a moment to think.
“Your dad was a sore loser growing up," he huffed with a down turned smile. "When we were younger, he would cry anytime he lost a game or something didn’t go his way. Our mom, your grandma, used to get so mad at me. She’d tell me I was the older brother, so I had to let him win, but how was he supposed to grow up to be a man if he didn’t lose once or twice.”
“How old was he when he would cry like that?”
“Oh, we were about ten or eleven at the time. He was big enough not to cry every time he was mad,” Bill added with a shrug.
“It’s healthy to cry!”
“Yeah yeah, you girls and all your emotional meltdowns,” He waved his hand dismissively and then took a casual sip from his coke.
“Get on with the story,” she scowled.
“Anyway, as we got older, this didn’t change much, he just cried for different reasons. Like the leather jacket. He used to wear it cuz he thought he looked like he was in a biker gang, but to be honest he really looked like he listened to too much David Bowe. It was so fuckin funny because he would fold every time our friends wanted to hop the fence at the old closed down train station to throw rocks at windows. To be honest most of the shit we did was mindless and stupid. We never did anything that was worth crying over. But your dad was such a girl sometimes,” He laughs.
“Really?” Harley deadpans.
“Awe come on, it was true!”
“I mean he cried when we watched sad movies or mom would surprise him with gifts, but I feel like that’s normal! Isn’t it romantic that my dad loved my mom that much. That doesn’t make him a crybaby.”
“That is hilarious! Your dad was a total softy! Especially when we were younger. Anytime our mom caught us sneaking out he would instantly tear up or that time he was so stressed out because he thought the cops were gonna get called when we snuck beer into a movie theater. It was the funniest shit ever. That leather jacket was like his costume, but the water works would start the moment he thought he was in trouble. It was hilarious!”
The waitress set their plates of breakfast in front of them. “Is there anything else I can get you two?”
“Nope we’re good,” Bill said. She smiled then walked away.
“Well that just means he was a good guy,” Harley interjects.
“Of course he was a good guy! Your dad was a great guy, nobody said he wasn’t!”
“Okay I’m just making sure,” Harley laughs. “When I asked you to tell me a story, I was expecting something heartfelt and sappy, you know, death anniversary and all.”
“This is heartfelt and sappy! What’s not heartfelt about it?”
“You’re insulting women and my dad in the same breath. It’s astounding really.”
“I’m not insulting anybody, also you ordered a lot of food. Are you gonna finish all of that?”
Harley looked down at her plates. One filled with six slices of french toast and the other covered in eggs, bacon, sausage, and hashbrowns. “My dad always ordered this. Maybe it was the clogged arteries that got to him and not the cancer.”
Bill laughed, “Well that’s Michael for you. He loved his sweets. Another girly trait if you ask me. Real men eat burritos with chorizo and extra hot sauce for breakfast.” He then took a bite into exactly that.
“Would you get on with the story about my dad, please,” Harley rolled her eyes.
“Right, right, right,” he said with his mouth still full. “So basically, this one time, your dad, me, and a couple of our buddies went into this liquor store and the challenge was whoever stole the most expensive thing in the store would be labeled God for the rest of the week and the losers would have to chip in their money to buy the Marvel Universe deluxe edition comics.”
“What a weird prize for something so stupid!”
“Those comic books were legendary! Any smartass sixteen-year-old knew what a prize that series was! Anyways, so naturally, I went first cuz I wasn’t chicken shit and I walked out with a handful of candy shoved into the front of my jeans, you know, and then our buddy Joey went in and came out with three bottles of coke. Joey was dancing around acting like he already won, but then after our buddy Dave and Carlos went in, we thought Joey was for sure the winner. Then your dad goes in and he’s already shitting bricks. He went last because you know how much of a baby he was. But then, he goes in, and he is taking forever, and we start getting nervous, like maybe he got caught or something, but then he finally walks out with a fucking bottle of vodka and not the cheap ass shit, but the full on twenty-five-ounce bottle of the good kind of vodka.”
“Oh my god” Harley said, completely forgetting her breakfast.
“Hell yeah! That was a legendary move. I’ll never forget it. Obviously, he felt bad after taking the bottle and cried the whole time after. It was great. And you know where he hid it?”
Harley shook her head.
“In that stupid jacket you’re wearing right now. That thing hid an entire bottle of vodka. What a night.”
“It’s weird to hear a story like that about my dad. He always talked about his past like you were the troubled child and he was an angel,” Harley laughed. “Any time I would get in trouble he would say that he was never rebellious! Now I wish he could hear you telling this story. Maybe I would have gotten into less trouble.”
“He likes to say that I dragged him into it, but really he came up with some of the best ideas. May he rest in peace.”
They got up from their seats and Bill paid for the meals. They drove to the cemetery in silence, and Harley pulled her jacket on just a little bit tighter.
Harley’s mom was already at her dad’s grave cleaning up the plaque and wiping his picture so that it was clearer. Bill pulled out two potted flower bouquets from the back of his truck, a little wilted from the heat, and Harley helped him place them on the stone surface. She thought about how her dad would have cried if he saw them together like this, still taking care of him.