Hard Revolution

“How’s that burger, son?” said Darius Strange.

“It’s good, Pop.”

“You do somethin’ long enough, I guess you get it right.” He looked over his shoulder at his son, and as he shifted his weight he felt a sharp pain down by his tailbone.

Derek watched his father wince, then return to his task. He had that big old chef’s hat, which he called a toque, on his head. Recently, Billy Georgelakos had taken a photograph of his own father, Mike, standing alongside Darius, with Darius wearing the hat and holding a spatula up in his hand. The photograph had been framed and hung by the front door.

Mike had upped Darius’s pay through the years. Currently, he was making a hundred and ten dollars a week. Alethea was getting seventeen dollars now to clean houses and had cut her workweek down from six to five days. On their combined take, they managed to pay their bills. So they were doing all right. But Derek was worried about his father. Lately, his flesh looked loose on his face, his cheeks drawn. For a man in his fifties, he seemed to be aging fast.

The Daily News man came into the diner and dropped his stack atop the cigarette machine, removing the unsold copies from the previous day. Derek got off his stool, picked one from the top of the stack, and walked it back to the counter, where he spread it out to the left of his plate. The News was D.C.’s tabloid paper, convenient to read because of its size. The easy layout style and the dramatic edge put on the stories also made reading the News fun. Even had puzzles near the fu

“Anything good coming up?” said Peters, wiping mustard from the side of his mouth.

“The Scalphunters,” said Derek. “I been waitin’ on that one.”

“Burt’s all man,” said Peters.

“Don’t forget about Ossie Davis. Got that bald-headed dude, too, played Maggott in The Dirty Dozen.”

“Savales!” said Mike Georgelakos, suddenly animated, from the other end of the counter, and Derek heard his father chuckle under his breath.

“You go

“I don’t think so,” said Derek, thinking, Darla doesn’t even like westerns anyway.

Darius turned and stepped up to the counter, placing his palms on it and facing his son. “You finished?”

“Thanks, Pop,” said Derek.

“You tryin’ to do my job now?” said Ella Lockheart, stepping quick over the mats, reaching across Darius to clear Derek Strange’s empty plate. “I’ll just take that up.”

In doing so, she brushed her hand across Darius’s forearm. Her touch seemed natural and did not appear to discomfort him at all. Ella placed the plate on a bus tray beneath the counter and went back to her ketchup bottles. Darius looked at her for a moment, then back at his son.

“De

“He told me he was go

Darius’s eyes went to Troy Peters, then back to Derek.

“It’s okay, Pop,” said Derek. “My partner and me, we already discussed it.”

Peters nearly smiled. It was the first time he could recall Derek calling him partner.

“You think it’s for real this time?” said Darius.

“He thinks it is,” said Derek. “Whether De

“Maybe the three of us could check out that movie you were talking about. You, me, and De

“I’d be into it,” said Derek.

“I’ll talk to your brother,” said Darius. “See if he’s into it, too.”

Darius went back to his work. Derek looked down the counter at Ella, smiling to herself, singing along softly with the gospel tune coming from the radio.

Derek remembered a time when he was a kid, when he’d walked uptown after school one day while the magnolias were in bloom, hoping to surprise his old man. Derek was coming up the alley, headed for the rear door of the diner the way he and Billy liked to do, when he saw his father and Ella Lockheart talking real close on the back stoop. In his father’s eyes and smile Derek saw something familiar. It was the way he looked and smiled at his wife, Derek’s mother, on certain nights when they were happy and getting along. Later, on those same nights, Derek would hear them laughing and making noise in their bedroom. Seeing his father look at Ella that same way unsettled him. He backed himself out of the alley and walked home, never mentioning to his father that he had come to visit him that spring day.

He guessed he had known even then. But for a boy it was all too confusing to deal with directly, so he had put the incident, mostly, to the back of his mind. He loved his mother and father equally. He was sorry for her and disappointed in him. Disappointed, too, that the bond between his parents, which he had held to be simple and sacred, was as complex and fragile as everything else. But he couldn’t bring himself to hate his father. Judge not lest you be judged, that’s what their minister always said in church. It seemed to apply to both Darius and the adult Derek Strange.

You are your father’s son. That’s what Lydell had said to him the night before.

He reckoned that he was. He sure had gotten his work ethic from his old man. His interest in local sports heroes, in music, even in western movies, it had all come from Darius Strange. And his reluctance to commit to one woman, truly commit, even when someone as good as Carmen was looking at him square in the face, well, he supposed that had come from his father, too. Course, knowing where all his baggage came from didn’t make the load any lighter. You just put one foot in front of the other every day and did the best you could.

“We gotta get moving,” said Peters, looking at his watch.

“Right,” said Derek.

They paid up, half the amount that was printed on the menu, and left change on the counter. They waved good-bye to Mike, whose lips were moving as he counted out a stack of ones.

“Have a blessed day, young man,” said Ella Lockheart, now filling the salt and pepper shakers, her final task of the day, as Derek Strange and Troy Peters headed for the door.

“You, too, Miss Ella. See you, Pop.”

“Son.”

Outside the diner they moved toward their squad car. Across the street at the Ke

“Nice out,” said Peters, looking up at the cloudless sky.

Strange smelled rain.