Incident at Frank’s

Incident at Frank’s
“What’s a matter with you? You look like you saw a ghost.”
September 1973

“Ok, we’ll go in the bathroom and fight. That’s good,” I heard a voice behind me say. I ignored the comment, assuming he was speaking to someone else and that he was kidding with a friend. I was at Frank’s Bar and Coffee Shop heading to the bathroom because I didn’t want to take out my retainer in public. I walked in, stopped at the first sink but before I could take out the container the door swung open and a middle aged man came in, eyeing me and circling around me from my left to my right. I backed myself out the door but he followed me, with a dull but determined look on his face.
The only reason I was at Frank’s in the first place was because Lenny and I thought we were too old, at 19, to go hang out at Bob’s Big Boy with high schoolers after a game. The only reason we attended a game at Burroughs was because we had sat out a year so it wouldn’t look like we had nothing better to do but to return to our old school. Well, the year was up and we had 5 years passes which now had only 4 years left. They were given to us for lettering in a varsity sport and so we went to the second game of the year so it might look like we were doing something else the week before, and had sat out the previous year but now we were old enough to come back and take in a game without looking like hangers-on, but we were certainly not going to go try and make the scene with a bunch of kids at Bob’s. That would be pathetic. So we went to Frank’s, a humble but not grimy coffee shop which featured gum-chewing overweight waitresses in gigantic white shoes built for comfort with white aprons over tapioca colored dresses and silly little hats that covered half the pencil stuck in their beehive hairdos. There certainly would be no crowd there.
The plan had gone well; the place was empty except for a few really old people, like maybe 40 years old or more, even. But now this looney guy was actually chasing me around tables at the deserted back section taunting me to fight him like a man. I noticed he was either drunk or very uncoordinated because he could not keep up with me. He kept bumping into tables and chairs as I made my way serpentine back to the booth where Lenny sat.
“What’s a matter with you?” Lenny asked, “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“This guy.”
“What guy?”
“This guy was chasing me around the tables back there when I went to the bathroom.”
“What do you mean? What is he some kind of fag or something?”
“No. He wanted to fight me.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Why would he want to fight you?”
“I have no idea.”
“Jackson, you’re not making sense, guy.”
Before I could answer Lenny, the man arrived at our booth. He wore a blazer, slacks, a white shirt, but no tie. He held the edge of the table so he wouldn’t wobble.
“There you are. Why won’t you fight?”
“I don’t want to fight you.”
“Oh, so you stare at my wife but then you won’t fight, huh?”
“I’ve never even seen your wife. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a chickenshit and a liar. You were staring at her when you walked in here.”
“Look buddy. You’ve been drinking. Why don’t you go home and sleep it off?” Lenny interjected.
“Oh, so you got your friend here to defend you. Chickenshit. That’s all you are.”
“I didn’t even see your wife. I was looking at the two cops who were in the parking lot. That’s why I turned around when I walked in.”
“Chickenshit. Tell your friend here you’re a chickenshit.”
My dad used to tell the story about the time he worked as an account on a government farm in Imperial Valley during the war. He was picked on daily by one of the field workers; the man suggested that bow tie wearing accountants were less than manly. Dad ignored him for a week until one day Dad wheeled on him and asked him if he’d like a sock on the jaw. The man said Dad was too weak to do any harm but that was all he said because Dad came with the left and knocked the guy on his wallet, and there was no more razzing Dad while he worked there. But that story was meant for entertainment purposes because the times when he spoke directly to the subject of fighting he almost always concluded that when two men get ready to fight, the one who walks away is the real man. So I decided to be a real man.
“Lenny, I am a chickenshit.” That seemed to pacify him. He pushed himself back from our table and bumped into the waitress who was bringing our burgers and fries. He stumbled out the door muttering. His wife was nowhere in sight. Lenny called the waitress back.
“Excuse me, Miss. That man that just left tried to pick a fight with my friend here.”
“Nothin I can do about that, Hon.”
“He’s drunk and he’s about to get in his car and drive.”
“We wouldn’t have served him if he was drunk.”
“Well does a sober guy stagger around, try to pick fights and bump into tables and chairs?”
“I’m not gonna stand here and argue this with you.” She turned to walk away.
“Can I have some ketchup, please?” Lenny shouted at her. She brought the ketchup and banged it on the table. With her arms crossed over her stomach she stared at Lenny for a while before she finally spoke.
“Why don’t you run out there and make a citizen’s arrest, or call a cop?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, then I’m gonna tell the cop that this wonderful establishment let the guy get drunk and that you didn’t believe what I’m telling you.” She walked away again.
Lenny wasn’t done though. He jumped up and ran out the door. I stayed at the booth so the waitress wouldn’t think we were pulling a “dine and dash”, not that we had dined that much. He went to the two cops in the parking lot. I could see him pointing toward Olive Avenue and then pointing back at the Coffee Shop. Then the cops started heading toward the door. The waitress came to our booth and stood with her hands on her hips awaiting their arrival. The older of the two cops spoke with a wink in his voice.
“Now, what’s going on here tonight?”
“These two longhairs here were bothering one of our best regulars.” I was so astounded at the comment I couldn’t even feel anything. Lenny repeated what he must have told them out at the parking lot.
“That guy was drunk and staggering. He tried to pick a fight with my friend. He is in a car and could get in accident and hurt himself. Are you going to let him do that or are you going to go get him?”
“Slow down there, fella. Let us do the policing, ok?”
“ Well, fella,there’s a guy out there behind the wheel, drunk and you’re in here telling us to slow down.” Lenny was going to have his say. I admired him; he sure had a set that night.
“See what I mean, sir?” The waitress was getting her digs in.
“Did you see the car?”
“’64 Nova, green.”
“License plate?”
“How should I know? It’s too dark out there. You’re wasting time. The guy was going east on Olive, like I told you five minutes ago.”
“Well, we’ll look for him. Thanks for your concern.”
“Thanks for being one of Burbank’s finest,” Lenny said, with enough sarcasm to last Don Rickles the rest of his career. The cops left; the waitress looked at us with contempt. Lenny and I paid for our uneaten burgers, left three pennies for a tip and walked out into the dark parking lot.