This is a spectacular short, short story in how it shows a whole life between this bullying man and his son in so few pages. Again, it involves alcohol, but it also absolutely nails that ambivalence a boy feels towards his father, desperate to be recognised and to be loved, in admiration but also shame. And how he sees himself reflected in his father’s behaviour – “as soon as I saw him, I felt that he was my father, my flesh and blood, my future and my doom.” But instead of spending quality time together, his father proceeds to bully each waiting staff in each of the four places they go to attempt to have a drink, in a feeble attempt to project his authority – is this because in classic narcissistic style he is filling the void of his inadequacy? Or as a deflection from the difficult stuff, having a frank correspondence with his son? It is full of a sad acknowledgement, a coming-of-age tale of desperation.
Looking back now on these stories and why I was drawn to them, it feels like an odd premonition, as if I knew in some part of me where my father would end up.
First published 27th October 1962 in the New Yorker, and later collected in The Stories of John Cheever, Knopf, 1978
A Personal Anthology 