Sailor's Delight

The air was warm. It was one of those warm nights that you get in early Spring sometimes, the kind that fills the air with mischief. The kind that slows down time.

In the distance the sun was setting, streaking the sky with reds and light purples, soft pinks, like a woman putting on makeup. I was standing at the front of the line waiting for the bus, green grass and trees all around me. The part of the sky that wasn't red was of a pastel blue, the color of children's sidewalk chalk. A phrase came to me, knocked loose from my memory: red sky at night, sailor's delight. When I'd first heard it, as a child, it was preceded by: red sky at morning, sailor take warning. I'm not familiar with the veracity of the phrase, just that I'd heard it before. I think it was a family friend who'd said it, a friend of my father's, named Billy Ahern.

He was the kind of guy that always had a story to tell, always a joke, a riddle, a prank or an interesting tidbit of information to share. With him, there was no scarcity of wit. He was someone I enjoyed speaking to. He talked about things that were important and meaningful - not about how I was doing in school, but about how I was doing. As I grew up, he and my father had a falling out and he didn't come around much anymore. Occasionally I would run into him on the bus on my way to work, but our conversation was always abbreviated under those circumstances.

One Thanksgiving he had shown up to the house unexpectedly, wanting only to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. When I heard the knock at the door I was standing in the kitchen helping my father cook. In his socks, which were pulled up to the middle of his shins, wearing nothing but a pilgrim's hat and his tighty-whities, drinking a bottle of white wine, he told me to get the door. It was Billy. He shook my hand and said "Happy Thanksgiving," and then closed the door behind him. He waved to my mother in the next room, wishing her a happy Thanksgiving as well. He seemed ebullient and genuinely happy to see us. Billy didn't plan on staying long. I could tell because he didn't take his jacket off.

He looked at my father and laughed endearingly at his ensemble and then started to step toward him. All I heard was the sound of my father's socks sliding across the kitchen floor as he squealed, WEEEEEEEEEEEE, and sailed into view as though on roller-skates. When he got close enough, and still sliding, he used his momentum to slap Billy across the face, knocking his glasses from his head and sending them flying into the cat litterbox on the floor. Billy staggered back against the door, arms thrown outward, searching for balance, as my father cried: Happy Thanksgiving mothaFUCKAAAAAAAHHHHH! 

From the next room I saw my mother, mortified, her hand raised to her mouth in shock, looking at me as though I should do something. I turned to Billy, who wore a pained expression of betrayal and suppressed anger. "What the fuck is wrong with you Mike," he asked, standing himself upright. "I gave you something to be thankful for," my father replied. Billy looked incredulous, and for a minute, I thought he might retaliate, until I saw the stoic look of resignation in his eyes. He bent down and picked his sunglasses up out of the catbox and glared at my father. "This is how you treat a friend come to wish you happy Thanksgiving, huh," he asked, as he turned around and walked out the door.

After he shut the door, my father opened it and yelled: BIIIEEEEETCHHH!