Memoir Draft

"What do you guys want for dinner tonight?"

My father was a very, very good cook. He asked me and my little brother this question while we drove to his house.  Every other weekend I would look forward to Sunday dinners in his cramped kitchen; he'd make dinners like roast chicken, steak, corned beef and cabbage. Mmm! It was delicious, and he made it all from scratch. 

"Chicken?" I'd suggest. 

"Chicken? Again?? You guys are starting to look like chickens!" He'd joke about that constantly; I almost believed him. "Let's stop at Roxy's and see what specials they have for today."

Roxy's is considered a landmark in my hometown, anyone would recognize the pink neon ROXY'S sign from a mile away. It's the place to get the freshest meat and produce at a cheap price; its only downside was an overwhelming smell of fish that you could sense what seemed like a mile away.

We walked in and headed straight to the butcher's counter out back. There was a big white freezer with two men in back of it whose job was to measure out the weight of the meat and package it for the customers right in front of them. My dad skimmed the produce and decided to get a cut of beef for a roast. He walked from aisle to aisle picking up potatoes, carrots, green beans and Gravy Master as me and my brother followed behind him. 

My father lived in a three family house on a side road in Dorchester, my grandfather and his half brother lived in each of the other two floors above him. It wasn't the nicest of areas, there was always yelling coming from outside late at night, and cars sped by the front of the house so I wasn't very safe to play outdoors, but it was my second home. The indoor was very small; there was a parlor, or a "palah" as my dad would say it with his thick Boston accent, a bathroom, two bedrooms and a kitchen. It was nothing special but it was always warm and strangely inviting.

When we got back to the house, my brother ran to the parlor to play his Play station as I helped my dad bring in the groceries. He flipped on the television to the local news and unpacked the food we were about to feast on later that night and I sat down at the round kitchen table with him. He asked how school was going, how the family was and things of that sort. It was nice to spend that time with him.

Time had passed and he could tell I was getting hungry. He looked up at the ticking clock on the wall and decided to take out the food from the fridge. The sound of the steel knife separating the fibers of the vegetables and landing on the wooden cutting board was a satisfying sound to say the least. I asked if I could help but he had everything taken care of. He was the type that did everything himself. He placed the tin pan filled with the roast and the vegetables into the oven; it was time to wait.

Every Sunday my dad would have my grandpa come down to eat with us; it was a nice change from his usual frozen TV dinners he made himself every night. He walked from the third floor down to the first where we were.

“Here he comes!” Yelled my dad, I could hear his old worn slippers dragging against the tile out in the hallway.

The front door opened and in he walked, always with a smile on his face. He loved seeing me and my brother as often as he could. He walked into the living room and greeted my brother, then joined me and my dad around the kitchen table.

“How ya been!” He’d ask me. “When’s the food ready?”

“A few more minutes,” my dad said, “Hey, did you hear tomorrow’s weather? Beautiful!”

The show Cops was on the TV, one of my dad’s favorites. They laughed at the screen watching the criminals try to outrun the police as I sat there spinning the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table.

“DING!”

Dinner was ready, finally! My dad put his old burnt oven mitts on and pulled out the roast from the oven. The smell spilled out into the air, dancing around the kitchen. It smelt like home.

“Andrew! Dinner!” I yelled to my brother.

I opened the kitchen drawer where my dad kept the utensils and picked out four forks and four knives. I got plates from the drying rack near the sink and placed them on the table. The noise of the electric food slicer screamed as my dad cut into the roast. The suspense was killing me, I was so hungry.
My grandpa placed a bowl of the mixed vegetables, soft and warm from being in the oven, in front of me. Then the gravy boat. And finally, my dad was finished with the carving and placed the roast onto the table.
There we were, three generations of my family gathered together on a Sunday evening ready to share a meal together. What could be better than that? We dug in, it was delicious. The flavorful meat covered in gravy, the green beans still crisp from being so fresh; the sound of metal scraping against the ceramic plates as we scooped the food into our mouths.

Moments had passed and we all sat back in our seats in satisfied bliss. That Sunday night's dinner was the best my dad ever made.