Good Boy
A short essay as recalled by a much younger me
I reach up and hold Mom’s hand. What I want to do is press my face against the glass cabinet for a closer look at the cookies and pastries. I pull towards it and Mom squeezes my fingers, holding onto me like a leash. Her wedding ring pinches and I tell her so. Her voice is angry when she says, hold still.
Behind the case, Cookie Grandma looks like a nurse wearing a paper hat. She lifts up an end of the counter and dips beneath it. Walks towards me and Mom. She wipes her hands on her apron and straightens out her dress. She asks Mom something and Mom nods, then she kneels down to my level. I look closely at her face. Her eyes are wet, and the skin around them is loose and droopy. She asks if I’d like to choose something from the cabinet. And I do, so I nod and say yes.
Mom gives my hand to Cookie Grandma who then brings me closer to the glass. She asks what I’d like and I point to a white frosted cake. She laughs and says I can’t have a whole cake and I should choose something smaller. She says, choose a cookie, but I don’t see any cookies like I know. Like Chips Ahoys or Oreos. Cookie Grandma says, those are cookies, and points to them. They are frosted and big and a couple take up an entire plate. I choose the biggest. She asks me if I’m sure. I say I am, but Mom interjects. No, she says. Pick a smaller one. You won’t finish that one. But I know I will finish it and I look at her, hoping she’ll say, ok, go ahead. She doesn’t. Mom looks at Cookie Grandma then at me. Tells me, choose something else, like she’s mad. Go ahead, Cookie Grandma says in a softer voice, choose something else. I look again through the glass but I can’t decide. There’s too many to choose from. Mom says to hurry up.
Cookie Grandma squeezes my hand gently and says, go ahead now, pick something. But I just stand there because I don’t know what I want. Mom huffs and Cookie Grandma turns around to give her a look. Then there’s loud footsteps on the floor above, then more loud footsteps coming down the stairs, and then a side door opens and a large man covered in white flour stands half way through it. There’s a cigar in his hand. My Mom says, hi Grandpa, and I don’t understand because he’s not Grandpa. He says hello back then looks at me, smiles, and tells Cookie Grandma to bring that boy upstairs. Then he turns around and goes back up the stairs. Stomping on each step. Cookie Grandma looks at Mom and Mom gives her a look like she’s not sure. Then she nods and Cookie Grandma looks down at me and says OK, let’s go upstairs. She tells me be careful on the steps because they are really, really steep.
I lead us up the dark stairwell while Cookie Grandma holds my hand over my head. Mom follows. The steps don’t creak when I step on them. We reach the top and the man covered in flour is sitting behind a big wooden desk. There’s a pink box on the desktop. The man’s cigar is now in his mouth. Between his teeth. He wears glasses that make his eyes extra big. There’s one light hanging above his head and it shines softly on a stack of money in his hands. He’s counting it. But he stops to say hello again and my Cookie Grandma tells me, say hi to Grandpa, but I don’t say hello.
Cookie Grandma kneels down and points to the man. That’s your Great Grandpa, he’s my dad, she says. I look at him and he puffs a cloud of blue smoke towards the light. He smiles at me, nodding. Asks me if I’ve gotten a cookie yet and I shake my head no. He looks at Cookie Grandma and then past her at my Mom in the stairway. He raises his arms and hollers, well, someone get this kid a cookie! He sets down the stack of money and stands up. He lifts the lid of the pink box. I stand up on my tip-toes to see what’s inside.
I know all about pink boxes since Cookie Grandma always comes over to our house with them stacked in her arms. There’s always some kind of coffee cake inside. The man covered in flour reaches his big hand into the box and pulls out a giant cookie. The same kind I originally wanted. A big brown one with all these cracks on the top. That’s a sugar molasses, he says. Cookie Grandma looks at Mom and Mom sighs. The man reaches over and hands me the giant cookie. Ash from his cigar falls on the desk and he says, go on now, take a bite. I take a big bite and Mom sighs again and says something about it ruining my dinner. The man laughs really loud with the cigar mashed between his teeth. Then he bangs his fist on the desk and we all jump. Good boy, he yells, then points at me and then at Mom, who looks down and shakes her head. He straightens his back and bangs his head on the light, making it swing. All of our shadows move back and forth. The man covered in flour laughs again and tells me to eat up. So I take another bite. An even bigger one this time. There now, you see, he says. Now that’s a good boy. A real good goddamned boy.
For more than half a century, my great grandfather, Wendel Kretz, a German immigrant, owned a bakery on Irving Street in San Francisco’s Sunset District. The Golden Brown was known for its cakes and cookies, and for being a place that never turned anyone away. As a young child my mom would occasionally take us kids to visit him at work, and this essay summarizes my fear and reverence for the man I never truly recognized outside of his home.
