My dad warned me because I was young, but he said it was necessary.
"Son, we are going to go to a place that I don't want to take you to but a man in this place took something significant to me when he was at the house painting. You see, you're too young to leave in the car and your to young to leave at home and it's too late for anyone to look after you because I didn't notice it was missing earlier. This place is called a flop house it's a dump, but it's sometimes all people can manage to keep out of the rain."
It was raining that night I remember the noise the wipers would make on my dad's old station wagon. They would squeak. He called his car Betsy and often asked it to hang in there a bit longer.
When we got to the flop house, there was a cluster of guys out front smoking and drinking they all stared at me funny. They needed haircuts and could use a shave all of them had on layers of clothes. My dad took my hand and asked someone what room Elmer was staying at.
One guy said room five and patted me on the head. He asked my dad for a cigarette before we went inside. My dad gave him the whole pack he had. We weren't inside to long and I stood right outside the doorway I couldn't see in but I was frightened to hear my dad yelling so loud. A few minutes later he came out carrying my mother's old hospital coffee cup, my father always kept change in that cup at home. He often would look at it and hold it. We left the flophouse with the empty cup and my dad was rubbing his hand. He took me to Whitecastle that night and then we went home. I have that cup now and I often look at it.