Dad had a habit for coming back into the apartment after he left late for work. Most weekdays, Rory and I watched the act as we sat at the kitchen table late for school eating Kellogg’s corn flakes or burnt toast (not Mom’s fault. Toaster was on the fritz, everything came out dark). Like Dad, we were two lazy asses. Mom prayed we all would leave the house and talked to herself while Dad looked for his pants belt or his money clip. Dad didn’t carry a wallet because he didn’t like the lump it created that wrinkled his suit’s pant’s pocket. Dad usually didn’t need subway tokens in the morning because he used to sneak hail a cab on York Avenue to go to Battery Place during the same period he hadn’t raised Mom’s house money in 5 years.
When Dad looked for his belt or money clip, Mom yapped at the sink curse words scattering in air while washing the dishes she took away from us quickly during our last bite or spoonful of cereal. Dad wouldn’t talk to himself but he mumbled under his breath some personal language of disappointment.
Sometimes, Dad had a load on the previous night, and before he went to bed after looking for something to eat he took a money ball out of his pocket that never made it back onto his money clip, and he hid it instead of putting it on his dresser. Sometimes, Mom would find the money ball in Dad’s hiding place and change the hiding place. When these two things happened consecutively, Dad would spend a great deal of time looking for the money ball, but he couldn’t let Mom know he hid the money, at the same time he slowly came to the realization Mom took it and re-hid it, and he couldn't do anything about it because he knew he never should have hid it in the first place. I remember my neck hurting in school after spending early mornings at our
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