Gotta’ Get This One on the Books

I was at a construction site today and this story came up.

I have to write it down.

It was May 15th, 1983. I was 18 years old. I was also freshly done with my first year of college. 

For the first time in my life, I boarded an airplane alone and flew from Buffalo through Chicago and landed in San Francisco. 

Dad picked me up at the airport and he was happy to have the company. He had to leave the family for work, but it was the job of his career. He was the top dog at the building of a 47-story hotel in downtown San Fran.

He was bringing his newest Union laborer to work with him the next day.

I didn’t have a whole lot of construction experience. In fact, I’d never put on work boots before that. 

But I was ready!

That first day I was sent in to clean out the elevator shaft at the first floor. It was loaded with garbage and debris. I cleaned it all out, annoyed that every half hour or so I was caught in a rain shower.

Whatever. I went from there to a chipping hammer. I spent the rest of the day breaking up concrete.

I loved it!

Dad waited for me to finish up and we headed for home.

“How’d it go?” He asked.

“Good. Except for the rain when I was cleaning the elevator shaft.”

He laughed.

“It didn’t rain today. That was guys pissing into the shaft.”

I was considering that when it happened. Dad cut across the lane and the guy behind us laid  on the horn. 

“Son of a bitch!” Dad yelled.

I looked in the rear view mirror. The driver was extending his middle finger.

“He gave you the finger,” I said. 

(I shouldn’t have mentioned that because it was about to get worse).

There were two big men in the car. They were in their mid-20’s. They were also mad. In fact, they pulled their car even with our car. The shouting started. You can imagine.

The conversation ended when:

1). Dad flicked his lit cigarette into their open window.

And

2). The big bastard in the passenger seat spit.

It missed Dad.

Hit me! In the forehead!!

I’d been pissed and spat on.

Dad’s door swung open. “Stay there,” he said to  me, but now I was mad. 

I wasn’t staying anywhere!

So, our vehicles were left right there in the middle of the city street and 3 men and me were about to fight.

I immediately understood that we were in trouble. The two guys who got out of their car were wearing USC hoodies. 

They were jacked.

“Dad!” I said, but it was too late. He was already going at one of the guys. 

The other guy came running towards me.

I deftly stepped to my left as he charged, with his head low. He slammed straight into the bank window. 

Head first.

I simply held on. 

Looked up to check in on Dad. He had the guy by the back of the hoodie and he was sort of spinning around.

I distinctly recall someone leaning out a bus window, yelling: 

“Get him! Old man!!”

The police sirens shook me out of my catatonic state.

“Dad!”

Three minutes later, we were back in the car heading to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Dad was breathing really hard. 

“Is this how California is going to be?” I asked.

“It was fun,” Dad said, as he continued to try and catch his breath. “Don’t tell your mother.”

We were on the bridge.

As long as I live I will never forget how amazing that view was from that bridge for the very first time.

Alcatraz to the right.

Boats and the blue water. The hills and the majesty of that wonderful bridge.

We were finally silent.

“So, you enjoy your first day?” Dad asked.

We both laughed.

“Steak tonight,” he said. “Pasta tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

(We repeated that dinner pattern for the next six months).

“How’d you get that guy on the ground?” Dad asked. “Did you hit him?”

“Nope,” I said. “I just ducked him. He hit the bank window.”

We laughed some more.

In the 25 years that followed, we told that story a hundred times.

But I didn’t tell Mom that night.