Growing up, we weren’t the wealthiest family on the block. As I stated before, I was raised by a single mother who worked her butt off to support us. Since my mother worked six days a week, I was raised by a good helping from my Grandmother, babysitters, surrogate grandparents (i.e. the great and wonderful Grandma Combs) and reruns of Happy Days.
During the early 1980s, we lived in an aging apartment complex named Columbia Manor. It was flanked by two open fields and sat across the street from Roswell High School. The complex looked as if it was possibly two different buildings converted into one larger entity. The architecture was a blending of Colonial meets 1960’s flare and angles. Part of the building stood on stilts above a lower part, making a lower case t. Between the two major buildings was a football field sized court yard with twelve large oak trees. (Several were climbing favorites and I would hide in them from time to time.) The swimming pool sat at the far end of the courtyard, next to the management office. Outside the small laundry room, a Dr.Pepper machine sold cans of soda for only 25 cents. That machine is why my favorite soda growing up was Dr. Pepper. Never was a Pepsi drinker although Roswell was the site of a large Pepsi bottling plant and employed most of the area. The manager was this wrinkly old lady with short silver hair that looked like Jane Wyman and the mother on Bewitched. Her office was dark and smelled of cigarette smoke. It always scared me a bit to go inside. She had an affinity for clocks. I remember one in particular; it was a clock of a wino leaning on a light post and he would sip from his bottle in sync with the second hand. The bottle and Lamp Post were lit with an eerie pale orange. I would stare at it for minutes. It was the first time I’d ever seen something like that. (she also had one of a cat, that the eyes would go back in forth, along with the tail.)
The one thing that made this apartment complex memorable was its proximity to Tastee Freeze, Long John Silvers and a Doughnut Shop. I can’t remember the name of the Doughnut Shop so I’ll call it Sunrise Doughnuts. This name may actually be the name but I can not state that for fact. The shop would later get beat out by the Daylight Doughnuts that would open down the street in the old Kentucky Fried Chicken building. Yet, during those early years of the 1980s, my mother would give me a couple bucks every Sunday Morning before Church and I would walk over to Sunrise Doughnuts to get a Bavarian Crème Long John and a Bear Claw. (Mine was the Bear Claw of course!)
On one of those Sunday mornings, I walked over to Sunrise Doughnuts and waited to be called on. I waited. And waited. I must also preface that I wasn’t a very outgoing little kid. I was quite shy and very rarely spoke out. I wasn’t more than 8 years old at this time. So, there I stood, standing there in my pressed collar shirt and clip-on tie. (We were going to church after all.) The two old ladies behind the glass case were the same two old ladies there every Sunday. With my two dollars in hand, I would look to them and wait for the all important cue: “Can I help you?” “Yes, please, one Baffarian (kid’s lisp) Crème Long John and one chocolate Bear Claw.” But that morning, the cue never happened. I looked at the two crusty wenches. They looked right at me and then directed their, “Can I help you?” to the stupid adults behind me. I grew angry and upset. I knew those dumb doughnut slingers recognized me. I was the same cute Norman Rockwell kid that patronized your establishment every fucking Sunday! (again, I don’t think this was the actual language in my 8 year old mind but we’ll pretend.) I waited. And I waited longer. I stepped closer to the glass case. I stepped to the counter. Each and every time, those D-holes ignored me. Give me my Bear Claw Dammit!
I ran from the Doughnut Shop. I ran home, across the dirt field and through the chain link fence of the court yard. Running through the sliding glass door of the apartment’s patio, my mother asked, “what took so long?” I had been gone nearly thirty minutes. (Sunrise Doughnuts was only 100 feet away.) Tears were forming in my eyes. My mother knew I was upset. She looked to my hands and saw the two dollars still clutched in my little fist. She asked me what happened. I shouted, “they wouldn’t help me!” She said “what?!” I explained that I waited and waited. Now, she was angry. She told me to get in the car. “We’re driving over there right now!” My mother yanked the steering wheel and entered their small lot with a sharp turn, flipped the engine off and pulled the emergency break. She hopped out and I instinctively followed behind. I still had the two dollars in my hand. When the lady asked her “can I help you?” within moments of us walking through the door she said, “yeah, where’s your manager?” Once the manager appeared, my mother became a bulldog. She spoke loudly so all the customers could hear. She ripped into them like a blaster goes through Stormtrooper Armor. If that moment had a soundtrack, it would have been calked full of slapping and punching noises of any Bruce Lee movie. She verbally. Kicked. Their. ASS! She spun on her heel and grabbed my hand and we left.
I don’t recall how long it was before I got the courage to go back and try it again. But I know, I was never ignored there again. The way I remember it was, those old crows always said, “sorry for making you wait Mr. Whitfield. Your Bear Claw is coming right up, Mr. Whitfield. It’s still warm and gooey, Mr Whitfield.“ Yeah. Take that Bitches!!
Denver Comic Con
