ChilledVodka III
Experienced
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2004
- Posts
- 60
The Cake
by G. B.
Ringwood, New Jersey
I was fourteen and my brother was sixteen when we went with our parents to my cousin's graduation party. Getting out of our house to go to a family function was always fraught with tension and screaming. My father hated going anywhere. He didn't mind being places once he got there, but he hated the going and getting ready part. He had yelled at my brother and me most of the morning for being teenagers and smirking and grunting the way teenagers do. My father was a strict disciplinarian who could, if provoked, use his closed fist on us. Not that it scared us, but you had to gauge very carefully how far you wanted to provoke him and make sure that you were ready to face the consequences.
My brother and I fought often with each other: vicious, face-punching rows that scared the local kids from messing with us, although we rarely fought with anyone else. As if fighting was an intimate gesture reserved for the people close to you.
The party was held in Guttenberg, New Jersey. We had come from the Bronx, and my brother and I stood against wall between the kitchen and the living room, waiting for the cake to be cut so we could get this over with and go home and sulk in our rooms. We stood against the wall like two clumps of wet paper towel that had dried and now looked like some plaster deformity growing out of the Sheetrock. There were young children there, too. They were running in and out of the rooms shrieking and laughing in anticipation of ice cream and cake. We were being cool. Then, one of the boys, with teeth in different stages of falling out and coming in, darted to the graduation cake and stuck his head out over the professionally sculpted icing. "Look at me! Look at me!" he yelled. I saw my brother grit his teeth and clench his fist. I knew what he was thinking, and with a silent nod of the head, I dared him to push those uneven teeth into the cake. He smiled through his clenched jaws and shook his head. We both knew the consequences.
Theshrill boy knew them, too. He darted over to my brother and taunted him to do it. Then he darted back over to the cake and taunted him again. My brother shifted his weight and unstuck himself from the wall, ready to make the move I so desperately wanted him to make, and as he made that little shift in posture, my father entered the room and went into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. He was still carrying on a conversation with someone in the room he had just left, talking in a loud voice through the cigar that was perpetually stuck between his teeth. The boy noticed my brother frozen next to the wall and taunted, "I'm over the cake. I'm over the cake. . .." My father entered the room on his way back from the kitchen, and with one quick glance he sized up the situation. He saw what my brother's intentions were, and he understood who those intentions were directed at. My father swiftly stepped over. Using the same hand that held his smoking cigar, he thrust the boy's face deep into the green icing of the cake, stifling his taunts in midshriek. Then, barely breaking stride, my father went into the living room to continue his conversation.
My father and I have had our differences, but I will always remember his for that.
I will always love him for that.
by G. B.
Ringwood, New Jersey
I was fourteen and my brother was sixteen when we went with our parents to my cousin's graduation party. Getting out of our house to go to a family function was always fraught with tension and screaming. My father hated going anywhere. He didn't mind being places once he got there, but he hated the going and getting ready part. He had yelled at my brother and me most of the morning for being teenagers and smirking and grunting the way teenagers do. My father was a strict disciplinarian who could, if provoked, use his closed fist on us. Not that it scared us, but you had to gauge very carefully how far you wanted to provoke him and make sure that you were ready to face the consequences.
My brother and I fought often with each other: vicious, face-punching rows that scared the local kids from messing with us, although we rarely fought with anyone else. As if fighting was an intimate gesture reserved for the people close to you.
The party was held in Guttenberg, New Jersey. We had come from the Bronx, and my brother and I stood against wall between the kitchen and the living room, waiting for the cake to be cut so we could get this over with and go home and sulk in our rooms. We stood against the wall like two clumps of wet paper towel that had dried and now looked like some plaster deformity growing out of the Sheetrock. There were young children there, too. They were running in and out of the rooms shrieking and laughing in anticipation of ice cream and cake. We were being cool. Then, one of the boys, with teeth in different stages of falling out and coming in, darted to the graduation cake and stuck his head out over the professionally sculpted icing. "Look at me! Look at me!" he yelled. I saw my brother grit his teeth and clench his fist. I knew what he was thinking, and with a silent nod of the head, I dared him to push those uneven teeth into the cake. He smiled through his clenched jaws and shook his head. We both knew the consequences.
Theshrill boy knew them, too. He darted over to my brother and taunted him to do it. Then he darted back over to the cake and taunted him again. My brother shifted his weight and unstuck himself from the wall, ready to make the move I so desperately wanted him to make, and as he made that little shift in posture, my father entered the room and went into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. He was still carrying on a conversation with someone in the room he had just left, talking in a loud voice through the cigar that was perpetually stuck between his teeth. The boy noticed my brother frozen next to the wall and taunted, "I'm over the cake. I'm over the cake. . .." My father entered the room on his way back from the kitchen, and with one quick glance he sized up the situation. He saw what my brother's intentions were, and he understood who those intentions were directed at. My father swiftly stepped over. Using the same hand that held his smoking cigar, he thrust the boy's face deep into the green icing of the cake, stifling his taunts in midshriek. Then, barely breaking stride, my father went into the living room to continue his conversation.
My father and I have had our differences, but I will always remember his for that.
I will always love him for that.
