Locally Famous

Atlantic Northeast/Summer 2023

Dedicated to my father, C. Warren Nerz (1927-2022), and to all our happy times together.

We open the Guller’s door, allowing a gush of icy air that surely freezes every other diner. The restaurant is dark with a blur of yellow-y lights, full of mostly older looking cold people. The bar is built entirely of dark wood and cloudy with cigarette smoke. We do not smoke though. My mother still breaks up straws and rips up napkins telling us she still doesn't know what to do with her hands since she quit smoking thirty years ago, after I was born. 

"Gloria!" my father yells, as though he has not seen Gloria Guller, the adult daughter of the bar's owner, in twenty years. My father is an impossible, predictable flirt. Although he is a perfectly loyal and loving husband, he has a particular obsession with bartenders, waitresses, and women in shiny clothing. 

 "He's like a crow," my mother says. 

 There are only two barstools open and my father gestures to my mother and I to move into them. We do. He orders himself and my mother a Canadian Club on the rocks, and me a glass of the house merlot. 

 "Now that's a Guller's drink," he remarks as he surveys his and my mother's glass. They like them nice and big. 

 "Harry put our name on the list," my mother demands, and he goes. 

 I watch as he talks to Linda, the hostess. I can see her laughing, her straight, white teeth showing through the crowd. I know exactly what he’s saying to her. He’s telling her he wants a hot turkey sandwich to go. He's been telling her this almost my entire life, way before Linda started hostessing, when she was just a waitress. My mother and I stop watching him and turn back toward the bar, knowing that after he talks to Linda, he'll work the room, looking for people we know. 

 That's fine because my mother and I like to talk to each other. We always talk about books, my job, the neighborhood, and my mentally ill Aunt Deebie, usually in that order. 

 She asks me about Daniel, the interlibrary loan librarian at the library where I work. She wants to hear about all the other characters there too. I launch into my usual string of stories. 

 My father comes over and dumps the dregs of his drink and all its ice into my mother's half empty drink and orders himself another. My parents have an elaborate and mysterious drink ritual that I have never understood.

 "You OK, Red?" he asks me. 

 "Yup. Thanks. So who'd you see Dad?" 

 "Mostly Ralph Dohn. He's still shook up." 

 "Oh," my mother looks concerned, "Myrt said he's still not himself." We are talking about our neighbor right across the street, whose twin brother died of a heart attack last summer. 

 I sit up on my stool and crane my neck around my father's body in an attempt to see Ralph. 

 "How long until dinner?" my mother asks. 

 My father doesn’t answer, says instead, "Monsignor Colvson is here. What's he eating?" 

 "Looked like the fried haddock sandwich," I report. 

 We are all three great observers of details like what people are eating and what they are buying at the supermarket. My father keeps a steady mental record of what he calls "soundbites," little representative comments he hears on his rounds at the mall or the post office, or here, Guller’s. It's like we are taking an informal poll that has no purpose and no end. 

 "Good choice," my mother affirms in regards to Monsignor's dinner, while I nod and take a sip of wine. 

 "Indeed," my father says, eyeing a young couple at the end of the bar. I reach into the popcorn bowl and watch my father spring into action. 

I know he identified the young couple as out-of-towners or just- moved-iners. He’s going to get them to talk about Herman's, the grocery store, one of our favorite topics. I watch him as he picks up his drink and moves closer to the young couple. They look extra cold and way too young-younger than me-to be at Guller's. These two can't be from around here.  My mother and I go back to talking neighborhood gossip, pleased that Dad found someone to talk to about Herman's. I can’t hear him, but I know he is saying things like, Produce like nothing you've ever seen!  and  The service is out of this world!  and, the big finale, The bakery has an oven built in France shipped all the way here to our Herman's!" I take another glance at the couple laughing and enjoying my father's enthusiasm. It’s hard not to.

 Soon, I can actually hear my father's voice above the crowd, 

 A half hour later, the couple exits in a burst of freezing air. My father gives us the goods: 

 "She’s a teacher-kindergarten." 

 "That's sweet," my mother yawns. 

 "Yeah, he's a lawyer-" 

 "Who with?" my mother instantly interrupts. She's a pro. 

 "Some firm in Syracuse. Melbourne, somebody, and somebody." 

 "Where from?" I ask. 

 "Philadelphia-met at Penn." 

 "Did you tell them about Papa?" 

 My grandfather grew up in Philadelphia. The son of a wheelwright. 

 "Oh yes," my father says, "I got it all in," he winks at me. 

 My mother sips her  drink, "Well I hope they know about the white-outs, commuting

into Syracuse like that." 

 "Ma! How could someone not know about the white-outs? That's what we're famous for!"

 "No-well-we're famous for Herman's!" she offers proudly in defense. 

 "No. No, Nora-that's locally famous. The white-outs are famous-famous. World famous," my father says, he looks at his watch, "It's nine o'clock!" 

 "So late. What happened to Linda?" My mother is a little tipsy, her face is as rosy as mine feels. 

 Unselfconsciously, my father calls out, "Linda! Our table?" 

 "Hot Turkey!?" she screams back, "I called you already! Where were you?" 

 "We were right-uh-here," my father is laughing at the end of his sentence. 

 “I’m all full," says Linda, "You want to eat at the bar?" She looks at my mother, instinctively knowing it’s her decision. 

 I survey the packed restaurant. I am not the least bit hungry anymore. 

 "Ok," my mother announces, "let's roll down the hill, Harry. Em, we'll have grilled cheese at home." She stands to confirm her statement. 

My father gets our coats and holds them at our backs crookedly while my mother and I guide searching arms down the sleeves. We say our goodbyes and venture into the dark night, snow crunching beneath our feet as we march single file down the sidewalk lining the two lanes of road that winds through our town. The air instantly sharpens our dulled senses. Removed  from the festive lights and noise of the bar, we’ve entered a seemingly foreign world of silence. We push our hands deep inside our coat pockets. My father's long scarf swings, hanging down his back as he leads our little parade. 

"Let's go see who's where," he suggests. We agree by following him past our house into the circle of houses beyond, responding as he calls out each neighbor's name. 

"Redbo's?" he asks.

"Club," we say, continuing to move along briskly. 

"Brown's?"

"Florida," my mother says. 

"Dohn's?" 

"Guller's!" my mother and I shout in fake exasperation. 

 We enter our driveway. I see my car, already covered in a thick frost. 

 "Em, you gotta sleep over after grilled cheeses! It's too cold and dark to go home to your apartment!" my mother begs. 

An image of my apartment without me flashes through my mind. The refrigerator hums, the clock ticks, the bed is made, the unpaid bills sit on the desk. The objects don’t miss me or need me for completion. In another flash I envision my room here at my parents’ house, with all my dolls and Norton Anthologies lining the shelves. My ceramic bank that looks like a cat asleep atop a ball of string sits quietly on my dresser. Do these miss me when I am gone? I am not sure either place needs me the way I want it to. My room at my parents' with its flannel sheets, the mismatched sounds of my mother's antique clock collection pulls me in every time. 

 "Oh yeah, I'm staying, Ma," I say. 

 "Good, put on Glenn Miller, won't you Harry?" 

 "Sure, sure," he says, throwing his keys into a large bowl in the hall as he makes his way to the kitchen. He sort of limps in his older age, but it is a quick, agile limp, a little dance step.  I am busy kicking off my boots off as I listen for the sounds of him filling the kettle and the tick tick tick before the gas pilot light bursts forth from the burner. 

 "Supposed to snow tonight. A big one," he calls out to no one in particular. My mother answers him from some deeper recess of our house, an indecipherable remark.

 Later, in bed, I am comforted and relaxed by the hot water heater’s creaks and groans,  spreading warmth through the pipes, radiating through the house. Despite the potentially harmful number of blankets covering me, for now I am the perfect temperature. I turn in bed on my side to face the window, watching the snow fall softly, steadily, as my father said it would.