Not for All the Mayo in Western Pennsylvania by Chris Zappone

Listen to a podcast of Chris Zappone’s “Not for All the Mayo in Western Pennsylvania.”

MY FATHER IS IN THE HOTEL ROOM extorting someone on the phone. We – my wife Mariane, our daughter Tessa and I – listen as he works the client, using his powers of conviction to extract money from the man on the other end of his cell phone. “I tell you,” my father says, his voice brimming with confidence, his tone bright with belief, “You won’t make the change in your life, until you’re fully committed to the change. Whether it’s money or it’s happiness or it’s the best relationship you can possibly have, none of it will become true until you prepare your mind fully for what you want.” My father paces back and forth.
    My wife and I are sitting in a hotel room in Florian, Pennsylvania and I’m feeling a peace I haven’t felt in twenty years. Everything is in place. Even dad, in a way. The carpet is dark silver and sufficiently plush to get across a sense of luxury. Like you’re just on the nearer side of success.
    The hotel was probably converted into a Sheraton from a police barracks, or warehouse, or armory. Its smooth, heavy textures rise up from my deepest childhood memories, and although I’ve never been in this hotel before, I recognize its stainless steel fittings and hardwood details from the buildings of my youth. Here, the world is constructed of bluestone slate and lacquered maple. This is Pennsylvania and even in decline it’s built to last.
    My wife and I sit on the sofa, playing with Tessa. We talk about our dinner plans in the hotel restaurant and listen to my dad’s enthusiastic conversation. Yes, doubt is a big part of the mental game. It’s part of the no-win game. My dad’s racket is a joyous one. That game is called, I’m-going-to-talk-myself-out-of-what-I really want-in-life-and-then-blame-it-on-something-else, he says. The trick is…Allowing yourself to have these thoughts…No, don’t try to fight it!
    ”He uses so much jargon,” my wife says. “Where does he come up with it?” she asks.
    She’s French, Mariane. And she really only knows the America of big cities. On -the drive here, she got a five-minute case of the giggles when we passed a pizzeria boasting ‘Real Itailian Pizza.’
    ”So what?” I shrugged.
    ”They misspelled Italian.”
    ”I told you this area had fallen on hard times.”
    ”So that affects their spelling?”
    ”The English teachers were the first to go when the schools closed.”
    Now Mariane whispers as she watches my dad pace, nearly shouting at the walls in his excitement. There’s no need for her to be quiet; he can’t hear us. He hears only the great thoughts in his own mind.
    ”Jargon is how it works,” I tell her. “He invents all the terms.”
    ”We better feed Tessa,” Mariane says, reaching for the baby food jars. We offer Tessa spoonfuls of pureed peas and squash, and she gulps it down, her pert, dime-sized mouth opening for the spoonfuls.
    We watch dad walk back and forth near the room’s hallway entrance that leads off to a counter and a bathroom beyond that. He jabs an index finger into the air. “You’ve got to be fully committed to the outcome you envisage because if you don’t, you won’t be prepared to take advantage of it. What? No! It’s not just a matter of positive thinking. No, I call it a redirection of your thinking. You can’t just hope for something good to happen. You have to reorient your mind to thinking the right way,” my father says.
    To be fair, even if my dad is extorting the stranger, the man is deluding my dad. Mostly by giving him an audience. Making him feel impossibly wise if not, judging from the sweeping gestures of his hand, omnipotent.
    A crime is being committed. It definitely is. I just can’t really say by whom.
    Having grown up under my dad’s rhetoric, I tend to blame him. Then again, the older I get the less I really can.
    You see, my dad would get some idea in his head “an unconditional loving relationship” “an authentic relationship” “an empowering relationship” and he’d yammer on about it for weeks. In my teen years, when he was off discovering himself after his divorce from mum, he’d appear suddenly at the house, his eyes burning with excitement for the Great New Father-Son Relationship that we were going to have. He’d speak breathlessly for hours about his great discovery. He’d buy me cherry limeades and jalapeño cheeseburgers from Sonic. He’d gush about this new chapter in our lives. In the end he’d declare that he wanted to have the best relationship a father and son ever had.
    We’d agree. He’d drive off into the night, bliss-filled. I’d turn back to my teenage thoughts.
    Then I wouldn’t hear from him for three weeks.
    So it was an on-again, off-again thing, our Great Father-Son relationship.
    He marches in an anxious circuit on the floor, finger upraised in instruction, hands-free phone plugged in his ear.
    From where I sit, it looks like bullshit. Yet dad just charges on. And his victims…His clients…They line up for more. What kind of country is this where people pay for such glurge? You could claim that he was the perpetrator but for it to be a true scam, he’d have to know he was taking advantage of his clients. He doesn’t. His skill is genuine, he’s sure.
    Still, there had to be some kind of bottom to this.
    Even this quasi-conjob can’t bother me today, not like it usually does. Now it’s just a peace and warmth and belonging I haven’t felt since I was a ten and my dad was just my dad and what he said I believed, and my parents were married, Carla, my sister was alive and well, and my brother and I carried on never ending bedtime conversations about the Roman empire and space exploration. Back when my younger sister Veronica struggled to keep up with us, and learned earlier than any of us that you could count on no one. And it was best just to get over the fact and move on from there.

    My father flips his cell phone shut, glances up at us. “That was a Brody,” he says, investing the name with a promising tone. “He’s a very successful real estate agent in Arizona. He made something like $40 million dollars last year.”
    ”What does he want with you?”
    ”He’s got people working for him. He’s really good at what he does in the real estate industry. But the relationships he has with the people who work for him need to be improved. And he’s really no good at relationships. So he’s one of my clients.”
    ”Does that mean he can call you whenever he needs?”
    ”Yes, because he pays me a retainer.”
    For such claptrap? “A retainer?”
    ”Yep.”
    We pad down the carpeted hallways to the dining room, pushing Tessa in the stroller.
    ”This is a pretty nice hotel, huh?” dad says looking around.
    ”Yeah, it is.”
    ”Do you remember the Keystone?”
    ”The…?”
    ”…hotel. When I was a kid,” my dad says, “the Keystone was the finest hotel probably in the county. This was back when people still traveled by trains.”
    ”Isn’t that the old hotel that used to be downtown? With the big façade?”
    ”Down on Jefferson Street. Now if that was still open, that was a hotel.”
    ”What did they turn the building into?”
    ”They demolished it.”
    ”It almost looked like a bank, didn’t it? I remember.”
    ”Yeah, it got condemned as a health hazard. It had too much caked on pigeon poop to recover the building. The place started breeding disease.”

    We’re the first ones in the hotel lounge which is set with a grid of tables over a burgundy, institutional-style carpet. The menu board says the evening’s special will be prime rib and pork roast.
    A curvaceous waitress, who wears so much make up you can write your name in her face seats us and we flip open the leather bound menus. Her powdery scent lingers once she leaves.
    There are burgers and steaks and fried fish fillets with fat ramekins of tartar sauce. The sides are potatoes au gratin, tortelloni, or French fries. All your Southwestern Pennsylvania staples. We just need pirogies and wedding soup.
    Dad holds the menu at arms length to get a look at it through his bifocals. “Prime rib. That sounds all right to me,” he says and places the menu on the table.
    I’m never in PA more than one day without craving a salad or hummus but the steelworker’s diet remains here even if the steelworks are gone. And the locals, who once would have labored in factories, stand behind the counters of Sheetz’s and Giant Eagles and BPs. They bag groceries. They sell gas. They call for clean ups on the dairy aisle, their mouths part slightly in dismay for what’s become of their world.
    With industry long gone, they, like the rest of America, have come under the sway of management pep talks. Management theory. It is the elixir of this economy. The credentialed cousin to my dad’s make-believe specialty.
    ”But how did you find Brody, dad?”
    ”Brody found me. Like they all find me. On the internet. I have a three tiered subscriber levels, you know?”
    ”You have subscribers?”
    ”Starting at only $10 a month. But I tell you, you get 20 of them and you get $200 a month coming in. And that’s just the basic level. I have an intermediate and a gold level, too.”
    ”And they get to call you at any time?” Mariane asks.
    ”The ones on retainer do. Like Brody.”
    His victims seek him out. That’s the worst part of my fathers scam: his victims seek him out. And like a serial con-artist living in the land of make believe, he just doesn’t stop. In fact, he makes sure the world can find him. Now on the internet. Before on the phone. Soon on podcasts. Dad was always an early adopter. Before the internet it was pamphlets and the ubiquitous seminars. And consulting. There always seems to be someone who needs to hear what he will tell them. What, in a nice coincidence, he just needs to say.
    So they pay. $50 for the first session and $35 for each additional. Not bad for a course he personally designed and created. Out of thin air.
    He’s effusively explaining the manual “Breakdown or Breakthrough: You have the power to decide” when the waiter arrives to take our order.
    ”How are yinz doing taday?”
    ”Good. Good.”
    ”What can I get for ya? Would you like any starters? Any potato skins? Fried mushroom caps? Calamari?”
    ”What is your Caesar salad like?” Mariane asks.
    The waiter hesitates for a moment, as if allowing clearance space for her accent. “It’s a full platter. Comes with bacon bits and a creamy Caesar salad dressing. Topped with Parmesan.”
    ”It will be full of mayo,” I said.
    ”Does it have mayonnaise?” she asks.
    ”It doesn’t come with mayonnaise,” he says.
    ”It’s got mayo in the dressing,” I say. “Everything here has mayonnaise. This is Pennsylvania.”
    The waiter is in his 20s. His face is a hodgepodge of Hungarian, Italian or whoever happened to be passing through Ellis Island 80 years ago. His course black hair stands out among the heads of thinning gray visible everywhere in this town, in this hotel, in the dining room even. Dad’s hair has gone white since coming back here, too.
    ”When I was a kid,” my dad says, “They used to call mayo ‘dressing’.”
    ”Dere ya go,” the kid says. “But I’ll ask for you about that one anyway,” he says to Mariane and walks back to the kitchen.
    ”I told you everything has mayonnaise.”
    ”I just wanted to know.”
    ”This is PA. I know what the Caesar salad is like.”
    The waiter returns. “Yeah, you got it right. There is mayo. The chef says he can make you a dressing without mayo, but it will take longer.”
    Mariane looks around.
    ”We’re in no rush,” dad says.
    ”Yes, I’ll have that,” Mariane says. “Please.”
    ”Dere ya go,” he says, rounding and jamming his words together like everyone in Southwest Pennsylvania does. “D-wn” for “down” “Bott-ul” of water.
    His parents must have figured it was worth staying. Not like dad and mum. They moved us to Colorado when things got bad here. And dad ended up back in PA after a couple of lunges – and misses – at big time success.
    When you’re out of options and out of money, you can’t beat small town Pennsylvania. The cost of rent on an apartment is a fifth of what is in the rest of the country. Better still, almost everyone is treading water. No one expects you to be successful.

    Florian, Pennsylvania wasn’t always this way. Dad and I talk about how it used to be. Back when I was a young boy, when we lived here. “Men actually went into factories and made things,” we tell Mariane. I struggle to recall the memories he outlines in words, like the Keystone Hotel, the Steelers Super Bowl wins in the 70s. We explain to Mariane how this town would have looked years ago.
    ”Oh, it was vital,” dad says with a shrug. “Vital.”
     My dad and I agree about this Past Pennsylvania and just agreeing with him is proof our differences have become remote. He’s past sixty and I’m past thirty and maybe some things should just pass. Maybe they can. And so it baffles even me – bizarre creature that I am — why I go ahead and ask, “Remember our trip to the Denver Zoo back when we moved to Colorado?”
    He stops talking for a second, looking forward to recall the memory. “Yeah.”
    ”Do you remember what you told me in front of the turtle display?”
    He can’t recall. He can never recall, even though I bring this up every couple of years.
    ”You told me you could speak to the turtles, dad.”
    The waiter arrives with an armada of plates covering a massive tray. With the mark of craftsman, he kicks open the stand and begins serving us. Serving us, while working us, bringing our attention to the food, to his care in getting us what we want.
    For Mariane: “One Caesar salad made without mayonnaise. I went ahead and put the dressing on the side so you could decide how much you want.”
    ”Thank you,” Mariane says.
    ”Are you French?” he asks.
    ”Yes, I am,” she says.
    ”Thought so. I hope the salad is to your liking. You have a beautiful baby there. Prime rib for you, sir,” he says. “The au jus, here. Let me know if that’s not enough. Here’s some bread rolls. A mix of whole meal and sourdough. Tell me if you’d like a Kaiser roll. We have those too.”
    By the time the food is laid out before us, everyone has forgotten I was asking him about the turtles. Dad’s attention is on prime rib, on productive relationships, on success, on his granddaughter. So what if for months as an 11 year-old I told people my dad could speak to turtles? So what it got me an unwanted chat with the school counselor?

    After a few minutes of robust cutting and clinking of knives and forks and chewing, dad eyes the waiter, and in a moment of culinary delight, calls him over.
    ”Yessir. Anything wrong?”
    ”This is an excellent piece of meat.” He points.
    ”Glad to hear it.”
    ”What’s your name?”
    ”My name’s Dean.”
    ”Dean, this is an excellent piece of prime rib. Really superb.”
    ”Oooh,” Mariane says. Everyone turns to Mariane, whose got a delicate clutch of fingers holding a napkin under Tessa’s chin. Tessa has thrown up. She’s grimacing in pain while the mess rolls down her front, onto the high chair’s wooden tray. Pureed peas mixed with Goldfish crackers.
    Once finished vomiting, her grimacing stops and she begins to cry. Mariane and I scramble out of our chairs to clean up the mess. The waiter returns to the table with a huge wet rag. Dad pauses for a moment to watch the spectacle, laughs and says to me. “Ah, it seems like just yesterday you were the baby.”
    ”We’ve got to get her cleaned up,” Mariane says.
    ”Dad, we’re going to have to run back to the room and get her cleaned up.”
    ”Take your time,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

    Just one of those things. It’s just one of those things, I tell Mariane. And we hurry and clean and coddle and soothe Tessa and fret whether this trip of eight hours in the car has upset her stomach.
    Twenty minutes later, we return to the table to find dad talking with great head nods and sweeps of his hand to our waiter. Dean. Of course. How could dad not? Dad has finished his prime rib. Our food sits on the table.
    It’s okay dad has invited a stranger into our midst and dad can’t stop talking long enough to acknowledge our return, or ask how Tessa is doing. Of all the strangeness dad’s invited into our world, Dean the waiter can’t be that much more of a bother. Not here. Not now.
    At a pause in their conversation dad announces grandiosely to us that Dean has a great future ahead of him in restaurants. “He really has a passion for it.”
    Dean is beaming, being told by dad that his success isn’t just possible, that if he really listens to his heart, it’s assured.
    Dad says Dean is the kind of guy who will succeed in the hospitality business. Dean actually plans to open a four-star restaurant one day. Sounds like what Florian, PA needs, dad says. “Something to add some pizzazz to the place.”
    ”That’s what I’d like to do. Introduce some fine food and excellent service to the town.”
    Part of the excellence means getting the most out of people, dad says. It means bringing out their best.
    Mariane and I cut into our food, listening. The moment is pure dad. If nothing else the enthusiasm he whips up is genuine. He really means it. And Dean will go away, if for no other reason than to serve the elderly couple that has just tottered into the dining room.
    In a moment of optimism, I want to join in the excitement, too. I want to share in the enthusiasm. “Are there any four-star restaurants in Florian already?”
    ”Not yet. The closest are in Pittsburgh,” Dean says, his lips part at the possibility.
    ”Well, I guess you’d have to woo customers from Pittsburgh over here.”
    ”Why?”
    ”Because you probably wouldn’t have enough business for a four-star restaurant in a town this size, would you?”
    ”There are other towns nearby.”
    ”Yeah, but…How many people in Hermine or Mentone Heights would eat at a four-star restaurant?”
    ”Some would.”
    ”Some would, son.”
    ”Dad, they’re mill towns. And mining towns. They’re…”
    ”I’ll make it happen,” Dean says.
    ”I’m sure you will,” dad says.
    They nod in agreement. I watch in dismay.
    My eyes turn from dad to Dean, and Dean to dad. Dean says to dad, “Thanks, mister. It’s nice to have the faith of someone.” And I have to swallow this exchange whole. In order for the moment to pass, I play along with dad and the waiter, and pretend that yes, Dean’s going to open a four-star restaurant when the last elegant thing in Florian, PA sagged under so much infected pigeon shit, it had to be demolished.
    ”I’m not saying I don’t believe your determination,” I say. “It’s just that…”
    Dean cuts me off. “I don’t know about you but this is America: anything is possible.”
    A yelp of a giggle escapes Mariane.
    ”This is America, son.”
    Swallow it. I just have to swallow it like the warm glob of mayo on my side salad plate. I’m speechless. And the waiter just watches me. Waiting to get me to concede his point. His and dad’s cornball reality. And I really was just trying to be encouraging.
    A smile rises on Mariane’s lips.
    ”I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    ”Nothing’s wrong with you,” Dean says, his voice warming with pity for me. “You just don’t believe in what’s possible.”
    I just don’t believe in what’s impossible: that’s what I want to bark at him.
    Dean’s gaze is unwavering and bright as he stands over me. Serene. After a moment of appraisal, he asks, “What have you done today to make your dreams a reality?”
    Over at their table, the elderly couple await in defeated silence, frowning at their menu. Just swallow it. Allow it. Just say, okay.
    Dad looks to me. “Really, son. When it comes to mind over matter, matter isn’t anything. If you believe in yourself.” My posture is locked in place, eyes averted from Dean. I’ve got “the look” on my face. I know I do. But I can’t help it. I can’t even bear to move, I’m so furious.
    Mariane says Tessa needs her teething gel.
    ”It’s in the room. I’ll get it,” I say, almost pushing past Dean and his credulous smile. My footsteps are fast and heavy, and I march past our room and keep walking down the hall, down, down to the emergency exit at the end of the stairway, push it open with both hands, sending it buckling into the outside wall, to charge out into the parking lot, to stand, and breathe air.
    This place! This dying town! I can grow up in Colorado and flee to France, I can have a separate life in New York but this town is waiting for me, wherever I go. This place where I come from…Where Dad comes from…Where the fucking waiter Dean comes from.
    I half expect to see it, as I look over the city, I half expect to see his and dad’s four-star restaurant and am relieved when, instead, I find only the last embers of setting sun prickling through the horizon of roofs and trees.

About the author:

“Not for All the Mayo in Western Pennsylvania” is an off-shoot from a novel which has evolved considerably from what is contained here. However, the themes and preoccupations continue further down the same path. My fiction has appeared in Kos Magazine and Literary New York. One of my short stories was chosen as a finalist in a Glimmer Train competition. I work as a reporter for a media organization in Australia but hail pretty much from Austin, Texas. In addition to fiction, I have had essays and opinion pieces published online at the Griffith Review and the National Times website.

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