The popcorn pinged against the bottom of the pot as my dad poured them in. Below the pot, the burner turned red and ticked angrily. Soon after, as he shuffled the pot back and forth on the burner, we heard a bang as the first popcorn popped. More and more popcorn collided with the lid as the popcorn started to pop in earnest. He yanked the lid off with a single hand, which sprung back at the heat of it. The burner had turned bright red as he pulled the pot off. A burgeoning pile of popcorn grew and grew. Moments, later, it started to steam, or smoke, I couldn’t tell.
“The bag,” he said, “Quick!”
I clutched the bag and brought it in front of him. The popcorn streamed out of the pot and into the bag as I clutched it gingerly, twisting my fingers away from the hot material. Leaning forward, clutching the bag, the fumes wafted right into my face. It was smoke, and I averted my streaming eyes.
In my distraction, some popcorn fell from the pot to the floor.
“Move the bag.” Said my dad, tersely. “Help me.”
I did as he said, and the rest of the popcorn neatly fell into the bag.
“Now the butter,” he said.
“Here it is,” I replied, handing the measuring cup full of yellow-white fluid.
For the next couple minutes, he engaged in his signature procedure. He carefully splashed a small amount of melted butter into the popcorn.He then instructed me to allow a small cascade of salt to fall into the mass of popcorn. Then, I grabbed the brown paper bag and tossed it carefully up and down to shuffle the popcorn. We repeated this several times until all the butter was mixed in.
I took a bowl from the cabinet and scooped it into the paper bag, retrieving a healthy serving. My dad was next, and he helped himself to the same stuff.
We then trudged over to the living room, each clutching an amber glass of iced tea and a bowl of hot popcorn. I picked a piece out of my bowl and crunched it between my teeth. It was crisp and salty. I plopped onto the couch while he perched himself on his favorite armchair.
“What shall we watch?” my dad said, munching.
“I dunno,” I said.
“Let’s see what’s on,” said dad, flicking the TV on.
We switched between channels, stuck between late night reruns of cheesy sitcoms and news reports. Finally, as the search continued, we struck gold. On one of the more obscure channels in the endless world of cable television, we found something promising. The familiar chords of the Star Trek theme tinkled away in front of us. Our TV was an old model, a bulbous square-screened affair that fit perfectly with the square aspect ratio of the show.
It glowed with the outrageously sixties colors of the old show. The theme warbled on as dad smiled in nostalgia.
“I used to watch this show as a kid, you know,” he said, “I would stay up late. It was past my bedtime. I would turn the show down to a minimum and sit right in front of the screen.”
“You went all the way downstairs to the living room?” I said, surprised.
“Oh no, we had a TV in each room.” Dad said, turning to face me, as the show continued, the colors reflecting onto his face, “Your uncle fixed broken TVs that our friends gave us for fun, so we had a TV in each room.”
“That’s cool,” I said, turning to face the screen. In my head, I tried to imagine what my dad was like as a kid. Somehow, I couldn’t do it. The image of my dad I had in my head would always be one of a balding man, with always receding black hair. He wore thick glasses above a thick mustache and a large nose.
“How was work?” I said.
“Not so good” he said, “They let some more people go today. Not me, this time.”
“That’s good,” I said, “I think you should start looking for another job.”
“Yeah,” he replied, “But they pay me too much here. If I left, I would have to take a big pay cut. And there’s Brian in college, and you about to go as well.”
“I know, but it would be wise to prepare.” I said. I remembered the expression I saw on dad’s face as he walked in, one of tiredness and disgust. He seemed more and more stressed each day this week, this year.
“It’s inevitable, though,” he continued, “The company wants to get rid of their US employees. We’re expensive. Why pay an American to work if you can get an Indian to do the same job for half the price?”
“It’s the guys in the back running spreadsheets,” Dad said, bitterly, “They don’t care about quality of work, they care about the bottom line. It’s what’s dragging the company down the tube.”
“You should just leave,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Dad, turning back to face the screen.
We watched the rest of the episode in silence. I tried my best to get absorbed in the plot, as Captain Kirk punched a guy in a green suit that looked vaguely like an alien. I couldn’t get my dad’s look of weary defeat out of my head. He kept going to the same awful job every day so we could go to college. I was both immeasurably grateful and sad. I hated that he did it, but understood why.