Cold Steak

My father has always worked hard, very hard. He was of the blue-collar age, where hard work in the factory garners a move up on the pecking order. He was hoping, one day, to be a head pecker. I'm so glad he never got to be one.

Anyhow, back to the idea of hard work. I remember how, on Saturdays, he would rise early, probably around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., and go straight to work in the garage. He would clean out something, saw something, hammer something, crawl under a broken something or haul something off to the dump. He would work hard. I knew this because as I sat in my sandbox, I would hear grunts and then "move you son-of-a-****." This was hard work. My friends and I would eventually hang around long enough to learn a new cuss word or two and then head off to the kitchen to experiment with cooking explosives and garlic powder.

Usually around 11:30 a.m., my dad would walk in the back door and head down stairs to get a beer at the bar that he made with his own hands. It was a gorgeous bar. A sign hung above it that read "John Birchak's Pistol Two Saloon – Bar closes at 1:00, Saloon closes at 2:00, So let's all drink 'til one and Pistol Two." It had a tap, just like the kind you see in your local drinking pub. The keg attached to it was always, always full.

After standing at the bar, enjoying the fruits of his labors and the hops of his beer, he'd wander upstairs with another full beer in hand in dig through the refrigerator. "Whatcha makin' Gabby?" he'd ask. My friends and I would exchange glances and say, "Lunch." He'd keep digging in the fridge. Often I'd see him pull out an old leftover steak from a few days ago. He'd open the foil like it was a Christmas gift. The only difference is that Dad never drooled over his Christmas gifts. He'd pull out a piece of steak, lean over the sink and rip on that meat like an old Coon Hound ripping the meat off of a dog bone. The only difference is that the dogs didn't have a beer chaser.

My friends would often look at him with a look of disgust at this mid-morning snack. I, however, found intrigue in this Saturday morning ritual. It wasn't until just recently that I realized that the Birchak apple truly does not fall from the Birchak tree. Just last Saturday, after a good two hours of punching my computer monitor and yelling "go, you stupid son-of-a-****," I wandered up to my kitchen where my kids were coloring.

"What are you coloring?" I ask them.

"I'm drawing a superhero that flies everytime he farts. He has four arms, one eye, six legs and I call him Fart Man," giggles my four-year-old.

"I'm drawing a superhero that eats underwear," laughs the three-year-old.

As I'm listening to this, I'm pulling an old, cold steak out of the refrigerator. It is wrapped in foil, and bagged in a freezer bag to keep it fresh. My husband, Joe, walks in to the room. "Wanna bite?" I ask.

"Yuck, no." He makes a face. "You're gonna eat that cold?"

"Sure," I reply, "But I have to do it leaning over the sink."

He makes a face as though the act of my eating a cold steak over the kitchen sink is an aromatic offense. The kids just look at me, analyzing the situation. I know that one day they will pass this on to their own children. So I stand there, looking out into the backyard, ripping on my steak and drinking my O'Douls (I don't drink alcohol before noon - after that all bets are off). I am proud, because I know that I am setting the Birchak example for generations to come.

Comments

[Paloma Campos]

This is classic! A well-told ritual.

Did I ever tell you how much my family loves vinegar? We used to fight over the remaining salad dressing at the dinner table like a pack of wild dogs. The winner would take the giant salad bowl in two hands, drink that Balsamic mixture and follow it up with a sour happy face.