the anniversary

by Doug Henderson

When the tenth anniversary of my father’s death rolled around, the day was so bright, the breeze so soft and warm, I decided not to visit his grave, which I rarely did anyway as the trip was an hour by bus without traffic and instead rode my bike to the spot where he died: Brandy’s Tavern.

I generally shunned the place, not being a drinker myself, and not understanding the appeal of such establishments. I turned away whenever I passed by, unable to bear the weight of looking, even after all these years, probably due to some lingering resentment, and then, over time, a superstitious belief that abandoning routines would lead to bad luck.

But a change in the air on that bright day, or love and family on the brain, plus the simple fact that it had been ten years, lifted something deep within, some shroud over my being, and filled me with a sudden desire to visit. I had long been curious about what I would find beyond Brandy’s swinging saloon doors.

I leaned my bike against the side of the building, which was rather run down. The only establishments my father would visit were the nearly condemned ones. There was no need to lock my bike since it was pink. I had learned that pink bikes were the least stolen, if they were stolen at all, and from then on pink was the only color I rode. This current bike was my favorite, not only pink but with some glitter mixed in. I didn’t buy it, I found it one evening, abandoned, down by the tracks, oddly placed, as though it had leapt for its life from a speeding train.

The first ride on a new bicycle is always something special, but that night: a sky full of stars, a crescent moon, a thin band of magenta still on the horizon, the color of hope. There was a sense of renewal in the air on that day too, which led me to buy a lottery ticket along the way home. A scratch-off with a slot machine theme. And I won fifty dollars. A new bike and fifty dollars, all in one night. I stopped for a cheeseburger and a beer, unusual, as I rarely touched alcohol, my father’s dependence on it, and my family’s predilection toward alcoholism kept me away, but I wanted to celebrate, spurred on by a sense of possibility, that my life, despite everything my father had said, could still be an open-ended question.

Brandy’s Tavern had been pointed out to me by an older cousin (“That’s where your dad died, you know.”), as if I knew, as if anyone would have told me before. I was a teenager then and still protected from the realities of the world by my mother. But I’d never forgotten the look of the place, especially with the one feature that set the tavern apart from all the rest: the saloon doors.

Who chose those doors and what did they expect to keep out? Not flies and gnats, which were plentiful, no doubt drawn by the presence of stale beer. And not dogs either, of which there was a cluster, hanging around the dead-end street, sniffing and digging. And certainly not people, although, at that time of day, there were none on the street but me. No, the doors were there because the owner of the place must have liked the look and feel they provided.

I pushed my way through the swinging doors and immediately regretted it. Nothing but dead, stale air welcomed me. The bartender, as soon as I had a seat on one of the tall stools, took no notice of me. There were few patrons, but someone was leaning against the jukebox in the corner and smoking, for I thought at the time, smoking? Inside? Only in a place that was soon to be condemned would such a thing still be allowed.

Behind the bar was a long, rectangular mirror, the edges covered in faded photographs of patrons, and bartenders, a history of the place, and those who passed through. Many of the photos centered on an older, broad-faced woman with long gray hair, who I could only assume was Brandy, one arm around various, smiling drunks, leaning in closer to some more than others.

I thought for sure my father’s photograph would be up there, amongst what was no doubt the bar’s motley, treasured few. I searched for some time, scanning the faces, to the point where I wondered if I’d forgotten what he looked like. Ten years was a long time. His eyebrows, his mustache, the cleft in his chin, I could envision them all, but they might be so misaligned that I would mistake him for a stranger, should he be up there in a photo smiling.

Perhaps I was staring for too long, or coughing too loudly from the smoke, which I was, not to be rude, but because I’d grown so unfamiliar with the smell of cigarettes, having not been around them for so long, but whatever the reason, the bartender took notice of my presence and decided to move between me and the mirror, which is to say that instead of the photos, I suddenly had a view of the triangular cut of black chest hair that rose above the collar of his shirt.

“You ready?” he asked, as though we were heading out to the movies, and when I hesitated, he said, “What can I get you?”

I wasn’t a drinker and hadn’t come to Brandy’s Tavern with even the expectation of drinking, but rather, luck willing, to uncover some mystery or truth about my late father, a patron of the bar, and in his memory, however unpleasant, pay my respects, however unearned, and hopefully move on with my life. But how was I to say that to a stranger?

“Beer?” the bartender asked. “Whiskey?” He was arranging things under the bar, things I couldn’t see, not that I was looking. I had focused my attention on my own hands, not out of interest, but to avoid looking at his imposing, masculine form.

“I was taking in your photos there,” I said. “Is that Brandy?” I was speaking of the older, gray-haired woman.

“Nope, that’s Darleen, the owner. She’s retired. Mostly leaves the place to me. Brandy’s her granddaughter.”

Naming a bar after a child were values my father would have appreciated.

I ordered a beer, to occupy my hands, after quickly confirming I had enough cash on me. I did. I had long gotten over the fact that I was a man who had to check his wallet before he committed to anything, especially something as frivolous as a beer that would likely go to waste. While the bartender poured, I talked about my father and his aneurysm in the bar.

“It’s the anniversary of his death,” I explained, as though that would reveal why I was there. The bartender nodded and excused himself, the way people do when they’ve no idea how else to respond, the topic of aneurysms not being the best for casual conversations. I took a few sips from the pint glass, to maintain the illusion of drinking, and questioned my decision making.

This focus on my father may lead one to believe that I didn’t love my mother, but nothing could be further from the truth. I adored her and I saw her nearly every weekend. We’d fix brunch, and walk to the park near her apartment, and run whatever errands she couldn’t do alone or with her friends, a rowdy bunch of empty nesters who kept her social when she didn’t want to be. She had a quiet shyness that could be mistaken for purity, but she loved a crass joke even if she never told them. My mother was not the difficult one. When angered she chose the flyswatter over the belt, and if anything, she suffered my father as much as I did, and for longer.

They met at a bowling alley where she worked. Not in the bowling alley part, but in the bar, where she poured drinks. He always had a thing for dives, and she always struggled to find work that didn’t involve serving. Her innate inclination toward needfulness could never be overcome.

In their minds, the bowling alley was ironic, a place of retro-cool, somewhere their parents, my grandparents, had hung out and socialized. But I never found it cool or ironic, always a touch sad and lonely, the way things from the past that linger on for too long often became.

The bartender returned with a shoebox of photos and said perhaps there was something in there, which meant that maybe I would find pictures of my father. I took off the tattered lid. Inside, there were hundreds of photos, of all sizes, mostly polaroids of smiling patrons, the bar staff, various parties, Christmas, New Years, Halloween, sporting events, the Super Bowl. Right away I had mixed feelings about the box, like the bowling alley.

My father collected boxes, cigar boxes particularly Swisher Sweets. And jars, he always had jars full of bits and pieces. He had a shed where he’d try to repair things around the house, a ceiling fan, a broken chair. He never got around to doing it, and yet he argued with anyone who tried to throw his broken things away, as if intention alone was important, as if the illusion of virtue was what truly mattered. I always admired that about him, but I hated holding onto things.

Many of the photos were in clumps, their emulsion adhering them to each other. I pulled them apart with a snap, which I found satisfying. To snap all the photos apart became my first mission. I could tell it had been a while since anyone had looked through there, and I couldn’t help but notice the sides of the box were held up with yellowing tape, repaired many times over the years, as though there were no other boxes available, or worthy of the task.

Sorting through the box took some time, and I’d forgotten my real goal, so engaged had I become with the snapping apart of the photos that I nearly gasped at the sudden discovery of my father’s face between my fingertips. And there he was again and again, the deeper I looked into the box, although I wouldn’t say that any of the photos, I found were of him. He only appeared in the background, a bystander, scowling from his stool as he watched TV or glared at someone across the bar, the light from the camera’s flash turning his eyes bright red.

The bartender seemed satisfied by the photos, taking them as proof that my father had been a regular patron, and asked if I was happy with this confirmation. But I had to squint sometimes to see my father, struck by how absent he was even in the place where he spent the most time. I had never seen my father so small and insignificant. I thought for sure he had been spending his time with people who liked and understood him, who appreciated his company, where he was not just another drunk.

I began to regret coming into the bar, not only because of the pang I felt upon seeing my dead father in the tattered box of assorted photos, but because they reminded me that I had someplace else to be.

Joel, my partner of five years, would be home by now, and cooking dinner. He loved to cook, it was his love language, you could say, and to be sitting in that bar, like my father, instead of at home with Joel felt like a terrible decision, even on this anniversary day.

We were trying to decide, Joel and I, whether or not to get married. We hadn’t discussed the idea in weeks, but it remained in the air between us like a hum, a white noise that we’d grown used to ignoring. I with my bike rides and Joel with his cooking, both of us mulling over the thought. What would it look like, what would it cost us, what would it mean? And by we, I really meant me. Joel seemed happy with the idea, eager to celebrate and content to commit, but I wasn’t sure if such a grand gesture was necessary, or just a frivolous expression of our love.

My father died before I had a chance to come out to him, but he knew anyway, parents always did, ever alert for the signs because they feared their children would become what they didn’t want them to be, or worse, already were.

The bartender put the lid back on the box, perhaps sensing that I was done, as my gaze had no doubt moved past the photos, through the walls of the bar to a place beyond. He asked if I was okay, if I wanted another drink, and I realized I had somehow finished my beer.

No, I shook my head. I hated beer. I laughed and wiped my eyes.

If I ever cried in front of my father, he’d give me something to cry about. I would flush my goldfish down the toilet solemnly and watch their final lap in silence. I’d save my tears for later, at school, in the locker room while I pulled a shirt over my head as I changed for PE, or, unexpectedly, while standing before the pencil sharpener in front of the whole class.

I certainly wasn’t going to cry now in Brandy’s Tavern. But the discovery that I had in my life what my father never did in his was overwhelming. How? Me of all people, the kid who collected robots, who broke down in front of the pencil sharpener, who was too self-conscious to swim shirtless with the other guys at summer camp. How did I find love?

I stood to leave, dazed but eager to be on my way. The bartender asked if I wanted to take any and nodded toward the box. The smoker was gone from the corner of the bar, but the circular, glass ashtray smoldered atop the juke box. I said no thanks. I could remember my father just fine.

I returned through the swinging saloon doors, and as expected, my bike was waiting where I’d left it, unstolen, filling me with a sweet relief. Outside, the air was fresh but grown chilly. The stray dogs still circled the end of the block, sniffing, searching, and whining in frustration, and beyond the abandoned dead-end street, the sky was medium rare, a pink darkening into gray. I could almost make out the band of magenta. The moon was the sort where I had to take a moment, straddling my bike, to decide whether it was full, or if it needed one more night. It did.

I planned to take the long way home and enjoy the sunset, perhaps buy a scratch-off if I felt lucky again, but I decided not to dilly dally, even though I knew Joel would understand. And I did feel lucky. I could already smell the kitchen, Joel’s cooking, the garlic, the onions, the black pepper. A hug from his long arms, the smile on his goofy face.

Riding though the breeze, I pictured Joel in a tuxedo, a rented one, imaginary. How could we ever afford it, our wedding? A tuxedo with his white Converse high-tops, wearing them as he would do, his signature, and then, despite everything, I began to soar.

Photo of Doug Henderson

BIO: Doug Henderson is the author of The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club, and a winner of the PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Short Édition, Michigan Quarterly Review Mixtape, and Beyond Queer Words. Originally from Cleveland, he lives in San Francisco with his husband and two children.