My Father Maced Your Cashier

My last year of college, I lived in an area in Knoxville where the asphalt cracks and roaches scratch across the sandpaper cement. Orange lights drew circles on the streets at night and didn't hide the occasional prostitute that would open the door of a slowed vehicle. The money to restore downtown had washed up just one block from my apartment, so the I-40 overpass that traveled along the border seemed to separate north side from south perfectly. I would look out onto that overpass from my apartment, which used to be a hotel. A chandelier in the main hall and cracked tiles leading to a drooping wooden staircase, Sterchi Oaks hadn't seen "guests" since the time trains carried passengers through the city.

The year before, I lived south of the overpass in a tall building that had once been a furniture warehouse. The sidewalks there had lights underneath and police officers who punished you with parking tickets for the city's lack of spaces. The tenants of my building consisted mostly of college kids and the occasional professional who didn't know the tenants consisted mostly of college kids. I liked it alright, but I liked the crummier part of town better. On one end, you could see the drunken frat boy teeing off in the middle of the street with a nine iron and a beer bong, on the other you could watch a homeless man talk to a "No Parking" sign. This side was a little sinister, yes, but just enough to make for a good story. I didn't know then how good.

My dad came to visit on one of those summer days that are so bright, you can't look directly into anything. Pulling around back to meet me at the fire exit we used as a staircase, he stepped out of the car onto broken glass and tried not to laugh preemptively at his own joke.

"Geez. Nice place. You’re really moving on up, huh?"

I brushed off his insult and took him to an expensive restaurant for a free lunch.(As a side note here-- most parents do everything they can to make sure their kids don't have to pay for college. My dad did everything he could to make sure I did-- although admittedly, he didn't make me pay very much)

On the drive home, we passed under the I-40 overpass and my dad did a double-take into his rear-view mirror. "Is that the same guy from earlier?" he asked.

"Yah," I said.

"Is he talking to that sign?"

"Yah."

As he pulled up to my cracking curb, I gave him a hug goodbye and reached for the doorknob. "Hey," he said before I could get out. "Next time you come home, let's get you some mace."

The next time I would go home came pretty quickly. I can't remember exactly when it was, but I remember it was still warm because we were able to drive around in my dad's answer to the mid-life-crisis. I remember him coming into the living room and announcing that we would be taking the motorcycle to get the mace, then he shoved his helmet onto his head and his cheeks gasped for air, squeezing their way out of the fleshy mass, smothering his nose and puckering his lips. He tried to conceal a smile as if to convey he didn't know how ridiculous he looked.

"Okay," I said, ignoring his silent invitation for me to make fun of him, "But this time you can't yell at me for sneezing."

"Don't move around so much," he whistled, "and I won't yell at you."

On beautiful days like this particular day was, it's hard to resist the allure of a motorcycle ride-- the wind blowing in your hair and the shadow of two people flashing on the flowing fauna, country roads bending and rolling like rivers, sunlight flickering through the shade of trees, your future in front of you and your past, behind you. But this was different. I was on the back of a Honda clutching my dad's love handles and going thirty in a fifty-five as cars passed by honking and making rude gestures. I watched the front of a Ford Taurus slowly roll beside us, grazed my eyes over the windshield and then onto the white, muffled head of an elderly lady, barely visible above the driver-side window. As the car edged along, I followed the hood all the way to the trunk and then onto the forgotten right turn-signal that blinked at me ironically.

"Dad," I pleaded. "Please go faster."

"Quit moving around back there!" he snapped.

While my dad's helmet cut off his circulation, it was lucky for me that my helmet cut off my peripheral. It kind of worked for me in the same way blinders work for horses, blocking out any scenes that might alarm the horse, in an effort to keep it calm. When we finally pulled into our destination and parked, I took off my helmet and the reality that confronted me was horrifying. It made me want to retreat, to blow heavy breaths out my nostrils and buck in the air, angle my feet into the ground. I'm not going in there, I thought. Not with him.

We were in the parking lot of The Police Supply Store. Actually, we were in the parking lot of a Subway sandwich shop as, more often than not, entrances elude my father. But for all that my helmet concealed while it was on my head, it revealed one thing when it was off-- this was a store full of toys my dad was going to want to play with and had no idea how. Nervously I asked why we couldn't just get it at Wal-Mart.

"They don't sell them there," he said, waving me off as he giddily began climbing the grassy median.

"What about K Mart?'

"They only sell them here. Come on."

I could see by his jovial step what was going on. He must have been planning this for weeks, maybe months. And I was his scapegoat. I envisioned him passing it on the highway and thinking, man I want to go there-- that's where we'll get the mace. This was his goal and I was the innocent victim along for the ride. As my dad neared the entrance, I had to make up my mind-- would I stay outside or would I run the risk of accompanying him in? On the one hand, he would make a scene. On the other, I could possibly hurry him out before he had the chance. In his excitement, he was yards ahead of me and his hands were reaching out for the door handle. I ran to catch up. The bell chimed as the door closed behind me and a man looked up from the counter.
"Where's the mace?" I said as my dad veered toward the gun rack. The man walked out and pointed me to a spinning display then broke into a sales pitch.

"Now this one is good, but this is pepper spray. The difference between pepper spray and mace is--" I caught a view of my dad between the gaps in the rack. What was he holding? It could be a ball or it could be a hand grenade. Time was running out.

"What's your most lethal mace?"

He spun the rack around and pointed to a purple bottle. "This here contains mace, pepper spray and a neon liquid that shows up on the culprit under a—”

"Good, good, good. This one." I grabbed it off the rack and walked the short distance to the checkout counter where a pre-pubescent boy was ringing up and old lady. My dad was in an aisle pulling the triggers of guns. The old lady was making slow, careful actions. Just buy the damn thing I thought.What are you waiting for? I glanced up to see my dad pointing a gun and looking through the scope.
The woman slowly stuffed her money into her wallet and I scooted her aside and put my mace on the glass counter, loud so my dad would hear it. "Dad," I said as the bell chimed behind me, the door closing behind the woman, "It's time to pay, come on." I looked nervously at the cashier who took my cue to scan the barcode. In the distance, my dad was poking at something. "Dad, this guy has rung me up. Time to pay." I could tell by the way he eyed me in annoyance that I was taking him away from something he found particularly interesting. But he started to walk toward to me anyway. I couldn't believe it, he was walking toward me. Maybe we'll get out of here without making a scene.

"How do you work this thing anyway?" he asked, handing over the money and eyeing the purple tube in its plastic casing. The cashier reached into the glass case and pulled out an identical tube of mace.

"You flip this switch here and you push this button," he said as he began placing the cash into the register. I could hear my dad repeating the steps under his breath. "You flip this... switch and then you..."

Limbs began flailing and breaths were being gasped, the store erupted into sudden chaos as people formed a twenty-foot radius around my father. He pushed the button. He maced the cashier. And there he stood, examining the tube and exclaiming in mild bewilderment, "Well, I thought it was a demo."

"My eyes!" screamed the cashier.

"I thought it was a demo."

"Go to the bathroom! Wash out your eyes," someone yelled.

"What's going on out here?" screamed a tall man who came out of the back room, hurling open the curtains. "Holy shit!" he said, looking at the boy's red face. "Go wash your eyes!"

The boy fumbled through the gun aisle and felt his way to the bathroom as the tall man demanded an explanation.

"I'm sorry sir," I said—poising myself for that inevitable next sentence—“but my father maced your cashier."

"What?"

I looked at the wall to his left and scanned the pictures of those caught in the act of thievery in hopes that I could find one of a middle aged man squirting a tube of mace into a cashier's face. None. "Please sir," I begged, outside of myself and scrounging for any remaining hope of dignity, "Please tell me this has happened before."

"No," he said, not quite politely. "This has never happened before."

As we walked out my dad offered up one last, "I swear I thought it was a demo" and the door ringed closed behind us. We walked away and the last of the remaining customers scattered out, regaining their breath in the fresh air and getting into their cars.

Back on the road, we rolled slowly along as I held onto my father begrudgingly. People honked at us and made rude gestures and a translucent white baggy with a purple tube within it dangled from my hand. I wasn't talking to my dad but that didn't stop him from talking to me. "I thought it was a demo," he said, and then tried not to laugh. "Really."