Family vacation

We go on vacation with another family that we somehow know. We are on a boat, I suppose, or a cabin. The children are playing in one of the rooms while I sit at the kitchen table spinning a screwdriver.

One of my children comes out and takes a beer from the fridge.

"Not before dinner." I say, and she puts it back.

Minutes later a boy, cast as a preppy bully, with his hair combed weirdly over to the side comes out, and takes a beer from the fridge.

I look over at his dad-- the dad from the show Moone Boy. He is sitting in a lounge chair staring at the wall with a defeated expression on his face.

I go to the room where the kids are playing, but as I get there the door slams shut. Walking back towards the kitchen to find a responsible parent, I look in the other family's room and see that the beer thief's mother is sitting at a settee, gazing dreamily into her own eyes and brushing her hair.

I opt to try the father. "Your boy is drinking beer."

"He likes his beer."

"It's my beer."

"Well..." the dad realizes what I'm suggesting. "He doesn't listen to me."

"No." I agree. "Do you mind if I discipline him?"

"Well..." the father mumbles something about '..willfull..'. He is unsure.

"I won't hit him. Or yell or anything," I reassure him, "But I've had enough of his behavior, this weekend. I can't allow it to go on near my kids."

"Well..." his defeated expression fades the tiniest bit. "Maybe it would be okay if you yelled."

My father is with us on the trip. And he was the king of yelling. Firm but fair, he would only ever yell, but he could yell like nobody else in the world could yell.

His yelling wasn't just for us either. Other teachers, other parents, people on the street. If someone was willfully out of line, they were fair game. But when he told the story of his rigthous yelling, he never said that he 'yelled' at anybody, he always 'blasted' them.

Before his Alzheimer's started coming on, I occasionally saw him look to the side when our kids acted up. Perhaps he would bite his lip, perhaps he wanted to suggest that a good old fashioned 'blasting' was what was called for. But his blasts were never for the grandchildren, by this time in his life, they were mostly for people at the grocery store.

He shuffles now, rather than walking. His shoulders bend forward.

I look at Mr. Moone, to whom the cloud of defeat has returned after a brief whisper of sunlight. "Well, in that case, I know perhaps the best yeller that has ever yelled."

I look over at my father as he stares through the fireplace. "Dad.." I call.

He looks up at me.

"Apparently, you have permission to yell."

His eyes find a focus they have not found in months, and he gestures at the kids room. I nod, glancing to the room.

"Bloody rights I do!" he says.

I look back, and my shuffling bent father is gone; the father I only recall from old photographs is there. Tall and straight, jaw set, hair mussed with big red sideburns.

As my father walks in to the kids' room, and the door slams open, I wake up. My eyes are teared up as I roll out of bed.

Sometimes, I really miss my dad.