Bull Fights and Dad Dates

This would have been the day that Liz McIntosh, the cute sorority hopeful from my Freshman Seminar class, had been willing to have lunch with me. I had received another phone call that very morning, prompting me to change our plans. Liz was as understanding as she could be when I phoned in my regrets to inquire about changing to dinner instead. However, the sorority did events at night that sort of required the pledge hopefuls to attend; but we could do breakfast in the morning.

I entered the Mexican restaurant at 11:30 with a photo album under my spare arm; and knowing that my first college "date" would have to wait for another day. I hoped that my plans for the day would be worth it...

I entered the diner to find bullfighting on the televisions. The (traditionally) hispanic population of diners were engrossed in the televised scenes of a bull charging at the matador who kept antagonizing it. They were too absorbed in the screen to notice the thin white guy of 18 years of age entering alone. Instead, they watched the scenes of bullfighting (traditional for a Mexican restaurant) over beer and tacos (ALSO traditional for a Mexican diner) and waited for the goading, smug matador to get his comeuppance. Had they pivoted to find a ghastly white college freshman in their midst, I'd have reassured them in my remedial, High-School-Level Spanish that I was on their side.

Suddenly, a bubbly blonde girl (NOT traditional of a Mexican eatery) was at the hostess stand.

"Hi!" she greeted me, managing to stretch the standard greeting out for five syllables. "Table for one; or would you like to make it two?"

I sized up the coed cutie who I sort of recognized from in passing on campus. I would have to try to make plans with her another time.

"I'm meeting someone today." I answered, juggling the photo album in both hands. "It'll be a table for two."

"Okay." the girl answered, jovially, as she led the way across the diner and got me situated.

I had no sooner laid out the photo album on the table than I heard a chuckle from nearby.

"Don't keep going around and breaking hearts over little old me." came a masculine bark.

I glanced up and into the face of a mirror that had projected thirty years on my life. The man was also athletically trim and, if my start of a beard was brown, his thinly trimmed soul patch was gray. There was no question. The man, the myth, the legend, the failure to hear my mother tell of it, Daniel Myles, had surfaced in my college town right on schedule.

"Hey, dad." I said as jovially as I could, rising from the seat to greet a man who I hadn't even known in sixteen years. What should I do; a handshake? An embrace? Just stand there? (Oddly enough, I had been toying with the same questions about meeting Liz for our first prearranged date too).

Daniel answered my own reservations with the first move and planted his hands firmly on my shoulders.

"Kenny-boy!" he barked. "Kenneth Daniel Myles; my heir!"

"The king" had sure taken long enough to come back into "his heir's" life. (Though, I had some suspicions that my mother's own domineering had kept him at bay for longer than he had intended).

Finally, the two of us got situated again and turned our attention to a television across the way. The matador was gloatingly tantalizing the bull once again as the viewing audience now sort of encouraged the bull to finally put an end to the teasing. The question about the get-together between dad and I, however, was which of us was the bullfighter; or the bull...

Suddenly, the hostess with the short blonde hair arrived with menus in hand as though she had sensed these new dynamics descending upon her place of employment.

"Howdy, gents!" she greeted us both. "I'm Sarah; and I'll be taking your orders today!"

Dad, a man who I hadn't seen in sixteen years, sized up a girl who could have only been in (at her most) late teens.

"Sarah; we'll require your rank and serial number too, I'm afraid, dear." Daniel Myles deadpanned.

Poor Sarah (waitress/"the girl"/campus coed) looked like a deer in headlights.

"Beg pardon?" she (Doe In Headlights) asked.

My father chuckled at his own joke and I was ready to disappear beneath the table. I supposed that this was a normal father-son back and forth at eighteen and newly in college. Either way, dad decided to rescue Sarah (which was only fair after he had cornered her like that).

"We'll settle for your year in college, degree you're pursuing, and relationship status." he quipped.

"Saving her" from the original line of questioning would have done just fine without the final part of the last question, thank you. Sarah shrugged helplessly at our table as she scanned the dining area for anyone else who might have needed her help.

"I'm a sophomore studying Journalism at..." she supplied, confirming that I could have, in fact, seen her on campus somewhere.

"Could I possibly have a Pepsi and Water?" I asked, feeling either like a small child; or the parent who had brought a suddenly obnoxious small child into an innocent restaurant.

Daniel glared across the table at me as though he had been the one who had been acting perfectly normally.

"We'll make those two." he announced in a deadpan.

"Coming right up, boys!" Sarah answered; then, eyeing the photo album: "Is it someone's birthday today?"

"Sure; everyone was born some day!" Daniel retorted again, mischief in his eyes.

"Not at this table." I relieved her of the question.

A million stories as to what had brought the two of us into her establishment that day formed in my mind. However, she didn't necessarily need to know and she and I agreed there as she scrambled off to fetch our drinks. With that, I settled back into the booth. Dad merely glanced back across the booth at me.

"I was trying to help you out, lady killer!" he defended himself.

Perfect; my father hadn't seen me since I was two (whether or not that was partly my mother's fault) and he decided that I needed a wing man the first time he showed up.

"I'm sure that I'll be okay." I answered coolly as I studied the menu in front of me.

My dad chuckled back.

"Sure you will." he reassured me. "So what about Sarah?"

I decided that it might be bad form to mention that I could have been out with Liz for lunch today if my father hadn't chosen that morning to tell me that he was in town.

"I might be meeting a girl tomorrow for breakfast after Freshman Seminar; her name's Liz." I announced. "She's hoping to pledge a sorority."

"That's my boy!" Daniel confirmed after 16 years of absence and choosing now to deposit this drama on my doorstep. "So, you've got my number now; I want a report on how this goes!"

I figured that dad was finally making an effort; I could return the effort of keeping in touch.

"I'll try to keep in touch more often." I reassured him.

"That's my boy." dad repeated while, on the television, the matador had successfully dodged the bull yet again. "Oh; you brought the album! Can I have a look?"

I slid the photo album across the table. I had included several photos of my siblings and I from different points in our lives; though I had done everything possible to avoid including any photos of mom and Brad from over the past five years.

"Wow, have you been growing!" dad declared as he thumbed over photos and achievements.

It was kind of him to confirm the growth between two and eighteen years. However, there was one question that remained.

"Dad," I piped up, "sixteen years apart was a long time; and you've got to understand that I was a little stunned to have you turn back up when I started university. Did...mom...have something to do with your absence until now...?"

Daniel finally looked serious and removed his eyeglasses.

"Son," he answered, "your mom and I..."

Suddenly we sensed company and glanced up. I didn't think that the time would come that I would view Sarah as intruding on the day...

"Here we go with your drinks, gents!" she announced. "Are we ready with our food order as well?"

Dad and I glanced to one another for a moment, then glanced back at Sarah. At the same moment that the televised bull fight ended with the bull humiliating the once arrogant, flamboyant matador, the two of us ordered pork tacos, no lettuce or tomato, with a side of sour cream. Like father, like son...