The Failure Read Online Free

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7. THE TIME GUY’S FATHER VISITED GUY IN LOS ANGELES AND TOOK HIM OUT TO DINNER AT THE PALM, ABOUT TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

    Y ou don’t eat meat? She doesn’t eat meat?
    -A lot of people don’t eat meat, Dad.
    -Not where I come from.
    -You realize you don’t actually come from the ’50s. You just grew up then, said Guy.
    -Dayton, Ohio. Pine Club. Best goddamn restaurant in the free world.
    -That’s actually true, more or less, but only if you eat meat.
    -Lines out the door on the coldest day of the year. Can’t make a reservation. They don’t take ’em. One time, the President of the United States …
    -Heard this story only about half a million times, Dad.
    -Yeah, well, Violet hasn’t. Have you, Violet?
    -Nuh-uh.
    -President comes driving up, Secret Service guys get out, go in, manager says, Sorry, we don’t take reservations, President has to wait in line like everyone else. And he does. Two fucking hours. Of course, he waited out in his limo, but you get the point. If the Pine Club is worth two hours of the President of the United States’ time, must be pretty damn good.
    -Wow.
    -You bet your skinny vegetarian ass, wow.
    -Dad!
    -I was joking. She knows I was joking. You didn’t mind, did you, honey?
    -Of course not. Guy, please punch your father in the face to defend my ass’s honor.
    -Now that’s what I’m talking about! I like this one.
    -Good to know, Dad. Your endorsement means so little to me.
    -Respect for your elders. I tried to teach him, Violet, I really did. Never took.
    -In fairness, you never really tried to teach me. Anything.
    -If that’s how you want to remember it, I can’t stop you.
    -And respect is something earned, not granted automatically.
    -You know how I got where I am, said Robert, turning back to Violet. -Count every penny. Every goddamn one. Ask Guy. He remembers.
    Guy remembered. Sifting bags of filthy coins into the automatic counter, reading off the total to his mother, who scrupulously kept the books. You could never get that smell off your hands, your skin, out of your hair. The whole house aromatic with copper, nickel, and dirt—every pore in the wood, every crack in the linoleum. Human dirt passed from coin to coin, coins pressed into sweaty palms, coins jangling in lint-lined pockets, coins dug out from between couch cushions, swept from under the bed, picked from the gutter. Guy had developed an aversion early on to handling currency in any form other than paper, which held terrors of its own, so even then with some distaste.
    -What do you mean, Mr. Forget? asked Violet inevitably.
    -I had most of the juke box concession for the entire Midwest region, said Robert. His ruddy face and cratered nose betrayed him as a longtime heavy drinker, a trait Guy had inherited, along with the ability to hold his liquor.
    You don’t grow up in an environment like that without permanent scars. Foremost among these an embossed stamp of