Last spring we went on a family road trip to Washington D.C. to finalize Justin's college selection for the coming fall semester... class of 2015! At some point during the four hour ride to our nation's capital, we wanted to have lunch but not at one of those busy highway road stops where the choices were limited to waiting on long lines for the iconic American restaurants like Arby's or Roy Rogers.
We happened to be in an adventurous mood so we decided to venture into a small sleepy town off the Turnpike called Hamburg. It was a town that was sort of off the map, sort of middle of nowhere. We slowly cruised down Hamburg's Main Street in search of that perfect Norman Rockwell "middle of America" experience. We came upon a restaurant which seemed inviting enough named Tony's Italian Restaurant. There was something about the name "Tony" which conveyed a warm and fuzzy familiarity of "howyadoin" and "fuggedaboutit". By any other standard, Tony's was a pizzeria but in the town of Hamburg, it was "the" place for Italian cuisine.
We sat down to the creaky wooden chairs and and wobbly tables with the rigid cadence of foreigners entering a new country. There were old black and white photos of people that looked like celebrities whom I didn't recognize hanging precipitously off the grease smudged walls next to the cash register. The waitress, a comely young lady who probably was born in Hamburg and will probably live out the rest of her life in Hamburg, took our order with a restrained indifference as if she didn't want to make it obvious how odd it was to see four Asians walking into her restaurant on a lazy Friday afternoon.
We placed our order of Tony's special pizza and Philly steak sandwiches with a heightened ambivalence of ordering something exotic for the first time and lost ourselves in small talk and the wonder of us having lunch in a place like Hamburg which had the similar surreal feel of being in a mystical town in Kansas with Dorothy and the Munchkins.
But the "surrealness" of the moment came to a crashing halt when I noticed on Justin, who happened to be sitting across from me, a very small but distinct red mark on the side of his neck as the afternoon sun trickled its way through the window blinds and pinpointed at the perfect angle the rays of protracted sunbeam directly onto his neck.
My eyes were drawn to the red spot like a Google map zooming in from out of space and with a piece of sausage still dangling precariously from the side of my mouth, I couldn't help but blurt out "Is that a hickey on your neck?" At first Justin looked startled as if he himself had totally forgotten about the red mark and having recovered, looked even more surprised that his old man called him on it.
"It's a scratch from a tree..." he managed to sheepishly reply turning his neck away as if there was something on the other side of the restaurant he was looking for.
"Oh man, that IS a hickey isn't it? I know my hickeys son and I can tell you right now that's no scratch from a tree!" I vehemently blabbered.
By now, Ethan was fascinated with the conversation and asked "Dad, what's a hickey?" I could immediately feel Jeannie's deadly laser glare that was beaming me a telepathic message, "don't even go there".
I was torn. On one hand, darn it, I was rather proud of my son for sporting what I considered a small but significant sign of passage into young manhood. But on the other hand, I had to be mindful of a ten year old's budding and impressionable curiosity. Then, of course, there was Jeannie. One slip here and the entire road trip will be a long torturous journey into the black vortex of Dante's Inferno.
It was a very delicate situation. Do I react as "Pops" or do I react as a "Father"? As "Pops", I wanted to give Justin a high five and a wink-wink and say "You go Boy. Pops be proud of you son!". As a responsible father, I knew I had a duty to say "Son, these things are not appropriate to flaunt, especially in the presence of your mother and younger brother."
But then I couldn't help but start thinking about my own very first hickey. It brought back flood of memories. I was in the 8th grade and Jasmin Rodriguez put her soft peachy lips on my neck and just suckled until I got woozy. I was so proud of that hickey I wanted to show it off to the entire world and the fond memory of it must have brought out a spastic smile to my face.
Jeannie quickly snatched my goofy look with a deft precision of swatting a drunken fly and immediately brought me back to reality by hissing, "Dad, I don't think this is the time or the place to be talking about this", and maneuvered to change the topic of conversation to Justin's pending visit to American University.
Meanwhile, Ethan's curiosity reached a bubbling boiling point as he absolutely had to know what was a hickey as he panted like a delirious puppy dog, "Dad, what's a hickey? What's a hickey?"
At that moment, despite Jeannie's stare of death and her pending Vesuvian implosion, I felt that I owed my son a mature and responsible answer to his query. So upon some thoughtful reflection and careful consideration of the consequences, I turned to Ethan and said,
"Well, son, a hickey is something a girl gives a boy when she REALLY likes him a lot." I felt I needed to emphasize "really" because I wanted him to be mindful to the fact that it was something that involved a degree of commitment, responsibility, and that it wasn't something whimsically given.
Ethan's eyes lit up wide and bright like a Christmas tree and he desperately wanted to know, "You mean it's like a present?" Ethan was very excited because he loved presents.
I could sense the rumblings of Mount St. Jeannie reverberating nearby but I felt compelled to put a responsible closure to this momentous occasion. So with a look of sage fatherly wisdom I nodded, "Yes, son, it's like a real nice present...".
Last thing I recall about that eventful day is Ethan asking "Dad, how can I get one?"
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