By now my mom and the other waitress had come over to help clean up the spill. Dad handed me the plate of food and pointed to the kitchen. “Take this away and wait for me.”

He apologized to the woman again, and maybe even a third time. I don’t know because I was already in the kitchen, cleaning off the plate and awaiting judgment. It wasn’t long in coming. In just a few seconds, he was there, all fire and brimstone. I could tell the day had already burned him out, and he had gone over to the Dark Side.

“I can’t believe what you did in there! Where is your head?”

“Dad, it was just a spill! I said I was sorry!”

“Just a spill? Your fingers were in her food! Do you have any idea how many health codes you broke?”

I’ll admit that I deserved to be reprimanded, but he was out of control.

That’s when Mom poked her head in, and said in a whisper that was louder than most people scream, “Will you keep it down? The whole restaurant can hear you!”

But Dad was a runaway train. “How could you be so irresponsible?”

“Well, maybe I have something else on my mind!”

“No! When you’re here, you can’t have anything else on your mind!”

“Why don’t you just fire me?” I snapped. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t fire me—because I don’t actually work here, do I?”

“You know what, Antsy? Just go home.”

“Fine, I will!” And for my parting shot, I dipped my finger in the big pot of Garlique Yam Puree, and licked it off.

***

It was long after dark now, and the walk home was freezing. I thought my brother Frankie might be at home to keep me company, since he was back from Binghamton for the weekend, but he was off with friends, so I had nothing to do but hang out and stew.

The phone rang at about eight-thirty. On the other end was Old Man Crawley, who owned more of my father’s restaurant than my father did. Getting a call from Crawley was worse than getting chewed out by my dad.