The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t answer. He blew a cloud of smoke at the windshield and we both watched it curl up the glass and roll back upon itself like a wave.

    I have only hazy memories of my father’s face that day. I was too nervous to look at him for more than a second at a time, and I was too captivated by his voice. Also, I was too focused on the speech I was about to deliver. I was going to demand that my father give me money. If I could choose the perfect words, if I could say them just right, I would return to my mother with a fistful of cash and we could escape Grandpa’s house and she would never again have to sing in anger or peck at her calculator. I rehearsed in my head, while taking deep breaths and steeling myself. It’s like diving off the high board at the public swimming pool, I told myself, closing my eyes. One. Two. Three.

    I couldn’t. I didn’t want to say anything that would make The Voice disappear again. Instead I stared out the window, at the slums and liquor stores and snowdrifts of paper along the side of the road. We must be a long way from Manhasset, I thought, wondering vaguely what I would do if my father kept driving and never brought me back, and feeling guilty that this scenario caused a shiver of excitement.

    We arrived at someone’s brick town house, which smelled of stewed tomatoes and grilled sausages. I was put in a corner of the kitchen, where I stared up at a row of enormous female rumps. Five women, including one called Aunt Fatty, stood at a stove, fixing lunch. After bolting several helpings of Aunt Fatty’s eggplant my father took me to a nearby apartment to meet his “gang.” Again I was put in a corner and told to amuse myself. Instead I watched my father and three couples sit around a table, playing cards and drinking. Soon they began to take off their clothes.

    “You’re bluffing,” someone said.

    “You’re right! Glad I wore my clean underwear today.”

    “Glad I’m wearing
any
underwear today,” my father said, to peals of laughter.

    My father was down to his boxer shorts and one black sock. Then he lost the sock. He studied his cards, crooked an eyebrow, made everyone gasp with laughter as he pretended to be in a panic about losing his last article of clothing.

    “Johnny,” someone said to him, “what you got?”

    “Momma, I ain’t wearing any clothes—you can see what I got!”

    “Johnny’s got nothing.”

    “Aw, shit, I don’t want to see Johnny’s thing.”

    “Absolutely. I second that. Johnny’s out.”

    “Wait!” my father said. “The boy! I’ll bet the boy!” He called to me and I stepped forward. “Look at this fine young specimen. Wouldn’t you rather have this nice little boy than a look at my manhood? Wouldn’t you rather have this fruit of my loins than my Fruit of the Looms! I’ll see your bet and raise you—Junior!”

    My father lost the hand. His friends slid off their chairs, whooping with laughter, and there was some breathless discussion of who would pay for my education, and who would explain things to my mother when my father didn’t bring me home.

    I don’t remember anything after my father bet me, which felt worse than if he’d beaten me. I don’t remember him sobering up, putting on his clothes, or driving me home, and I don’t remember what I said to my mother about the visit. I know only that I didn’t tell her the truth.

    Some weeks later I was warming up the radio, waiting for my father’s show to start. I planned to tell The Voice about a troubling rumor that the Mets were going to trade my idol, Tom Seaver. Handsome, clean-cut, a former marine who was the ace of the Mets pitching staff, Seaver began his windup with his hands under his chin, as if praying, then drove his powerful body forward, kneeling on his right knee, as if he were going to propose to the batter. That the Mets might trade Seaver was too awful to contemplate. I wondered what The Voice would say. But the time came for The Voice and The