Sundaes and Stake Outs with My Dad

Keeping Secrets Begins at Home

My father was an F.B.I. agent. I understood nothing of what he did.

Several times a year, he dressed in gray denims and went to a place called “Firearms.” When he came home, he presented my brother and me with large outlines of scary looking men with holes in them. We pored over our papers, counting the number and placement of the holes. The fact that my father had been practicing to shoot people never crossed our minds. As much as we begged to bring them in for “Show and Tell,” my mother made damn sure they never left the house.

Every morning, my father rode the train into the city where we were told, he “fought communism.” Sometimes he wore a dark suit. Other times, he dressed like a homeless man, who, for some reason, spoke Chinese.

Ice Cream Was Complicated

In a big family, even if you can only tolerate your parents, if you get to spend time alone with them, you grab it. The best times for me were when my father tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Want to go out for ice cream?”

“JUST ME? ICE CREAM? ARE YOU KIDDING?”

“We just have to make one stop first,” he always added.

I knew the drill. I put on my church clothes and grabbed my totally empty Cinderella suitcase. He carried a big empty brown leather case. We passed a lot of ice cream shops, but never stopped.

Not until we got to the airport.

My Dad carried his suitcase and held my hand tightly. People smiled at us. He wore his 1959’s “man hat” a little low on his forehead, and he wore very dark sunglasses, indoors. He looked like a stranger.

The Mission

Finally, he stopped at a bank of long windows overlooking several runways. He sat me down with the firm instruction, “Don’t move.” I tried to obey at first, but as time passed, it got really boring. All he did was look out the window and write in a tiny black notebook. When I’d had enough of sitting still, I called, “Dad?” No answer.

“Dad…” I persisted, “Are you “fighting communism?”

He jerked his head around, and from the expression on his face, I was glad he wasn’t packing heat. He furtively glanced around and looked tremendously relieved that we were alone.

You’re in the Army Now!

Finally, he closed his notebook, and asked brightly, “How about that ice cream?” But before he started the car, he turned to me somberly, “Now I have to tell you something important, “This is our secret. And we don’t tell anyone our secrets!”

“Not even Mom?”

“No, Mom knows all the secrets.” (There were more?)

“We all have to be very careful…because if we aren’t, bad things could happen.”

I stared at him expectantly. “Like what, Dad?”

He swallowed hard. “We could end up in Butte, Montana?”

At 6, I was a little hazy about where Butte, Montana was. But from the way he said it, it sounded like it was next door to hell.

But all the secrets business faded away as we pulled into ice cream Mecca: Howard Johnson’s.

A waitress asked, “What can I get you honey?” I loved it, almost as much as the ice cream itself. In a big family, your food preferences were of absolutely no significance. “I want a hot fudge sundae, with peppermint stick ice cream, and a lot of whipped cream and a cherry on top,” I said proudly.

If Butte, Montana was hell, then this was heaven.

Over the months and years, I became more curious about my parents. They had a lot of secrets. Sometimes my father just up and disappeared. When I asked my mother where he was, she got a weird look on her face and said something shady like, “Hmm, good question.” This coming from a woman who turned the house upside down over a missing sock.

I grew up in the J. Edgar Hoover era of the F.B.I. It was an authoritarian and petty reign, in which agents could receive harsh consequences for anything from blowing a case to wearing the wrong tie. And as if “fighting communism” wasn’t enough, they were expected to keep their families in line. If their kids got into trouble, they were required to report it. We didn’t do anything “reportable” until puberty. Adolescence brought unlimited possibilities for bad behavior and the consequences were easy to forget.

Adolescence Was Different!

I cut a wide swath of petty theft throughout the local mall, and finally got nabbed. The ride in the police car was nothing compared to the electric silence of my parents as they drove me home. They ushered me into their bedroom and locked the door behind them. They looked more shaken than I was.

My father started. “We’ll talk about the shoplifting later.”

“Wait a minute,” I thought. “I just got nailed by the police, and we’re going to table that transgression so we can talk about something more important?”

“I’m supposed to go into work and report your crime…” my father said.

“Sweet Jesus, where is this going?” I panicked.

“But I’m not going to!” he declared.

“What would happen if you told on me?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“Disciplinary action…” the word trailed off. “That’s why you can’t tell anyone…No one…Ever…!”

“But what would they do to us?” As I asked the question, distant queasy memories from my days as Daddy’s G-Girl flashed before me. Suddenly, I knew.

They knew I knew. “Oh God…No!” I cried. “We’ll end up in..”

My parents nodded solemnly as we lamented in unison: “Butte, Montana.”

J Edgar Hoover is long dead. I can shoot my mouth off whenever I want. I can tell people about everything from empty suitcases at the airport, to the subterranean secrets of the federal government that lived within our family. But even now, when I hear mention of that place of dreaded exile, I recall my collusion in those stakeouts and the quid pro quo of peppermint sundaes for “fighting communism.” Gripped by my near banishment, I still break out into a long, cold sweat.