One of the ways that my father shows affection during our visits with him in Florida is through sandwich making. Each morning, before we leave him for the beach, my dad happily takes orders (as long as I write them down) and expertly slathers mayo on wheat or mustard on white; lettuce, no lettuce, makes no difference. All the grandchildren love Grandpa's sandwiches and cite his handiwork as the gold standard when they refuse their own parents' attempts at feeding them upon returning home. ***image2***
So after a morning of broken shell collecting and superhero sandcastle building, I opened the cooler to retrieve our lunch. My wife Lala was sitting on a beach towel gazing at a magazine that showcased homes with cartoonish architectural elements and throw pillows that cost as much as 10 barrels of oil.
"Be careful with those," Lala said, nodding at the foodstuffs.
"Why?" I thought she might be warning me against the aggressive seagulls we had seen divebomb pale kids ferrying fries from the snack bar the day before.
"Your dad bled on some of them."
"He what?"
My wife explained that my father had cut himself during the lunch assembly process but continued on because he a) hated to waste food, b) had been tested and was clean, and c) knew I would eat the sanguine cuisine.
There was a lot to digest from that story. Wasting food is close to armed robbery in the Wilder family and, as a child, I had seen my dad freeze loaves of discounted Wonder Bread, save restaurant leftovers for weeks and use semi-decaying vegetables and meats in soups, sauces and stews where they'd be nicely hidden. In fact, the next day Poppy would come running to us because her beloved Grandpa served her a bagel with mold. I yawned at the news, but threw the thing out when the old man turned his back. The one thing I'd never experienced (at least to my knowledge) was blood. Spit, yes, (that's another story) but never fluid that ran in human veins.
I chalked up my dad's comment about annual testing with a doctor as something old folks do in Florida to have someone to talk to, but the last reason pissed me off. My own father thought that I would eagerly eat tainted food? OK, I will add cream to my coffee after it's expired, freely employ the five-second rule with dropped tenderloin while cooking and I just learned from the Internet that it's not a good idea to make egg salad with Easter eggs that have been sitting out a few days (a fact my dad still argues with), but blood? Who serves their child blood?
As I examined the ham and cheddar on rye with mayo, lettuce and hearty dashes of salt and pepper, I felt my salivating glands start to tingle. My dad does make damn good Dagwoods. The plasma dotted the corners as if the sandwich had been shaving and nicked itself accidentally. Just tear off those parts, I thought. It's not like it's the blood of a stranger. In fact, you could argue that it's just like eating my own life force. I ripped the tainted edges and buried the scraps in the sand. Lala was watching me closely, having already decided that neither she nor the kids would even consider eating anything that contained even the tiniest amount of my father's sap.
I realized that I'd experienced as many moral dilemmas in my life as the number of shells in my son's bucket next to me, but this one seemed huge. As crazy as it sounds, I felt as though I would somehow be betraying the Wilder name by not eating my father's creation. The top of my head prickled from all this deep thought. A dark shadow passed quickly across the sun. And then, as if from God, the seagull hovering above me snatched the sandwich and flew away.
Robert Wilder's newest book is Tales from the Teachers' Lounge.
© Copyright 2008 Rob Wilder
