PixelVixen707

(Photo by Zero101 via Simon Parkin)

Here’s something I missed by not becoming a “real” reporter: I’ve never done the painfully uncomfortable interview - the one where you visit the family of a shooting victim, or the sole survivor of a crash, or a brand-new war widow, and you’re only there to get something out of them.  Yes, you feel bad for them.  Yes, you’ll share a Kleenex. But you’re there because you need your information.

I felt like that, just a little, when I finally got Brad Palikari on the phone.  Not because it was a new tragedy - I mean, he lost his folks 19 years ago - but because I had to dredge it all up just to win a bet.

But I made the best of it. I hit him with the best icebreaker I had:

“Brad? Hi, this is Rachael. You stuck your tongue in my ear when we were seven.”

Long pause - and then, joy, he laughed.

So that got us talking. He told me what he was up to - he lives in San Fran, he works in IT, and well, that’s actually the whole story. I gave him the skinny on how my friend Nara Malone tracked him down on Flickr, and why I had to talk to him.

And then he told me about the worst day of his life.

“When the fire happened, the front of the restaurant was burned.  But there was some stuff left in the back room, and that’s where we’d moved the game.  It was eating quarters, and we had to set it aside for service.  I remember that because when the guy came to clear out the restaurant, he cleared out everything else - barrels of cooking oil or old dishwasher racks or whatever - and then I saw him cart out the game. And my first thought, seriously, was, ‘They’re taking away the Mr. Do!, too?’ My folks are dead, and I actually thought that. But I really liked that game. I played it for free all the time.”

“What was your high score?” I asked, as if it was a serious follow-up.

“75,000 or something.”

” … Is that good?”

“I thought so.”

Change gears. “So this guy, who cleared everything out.”

“Yeah - I think he’s named Chuck, or Seth.  He still runs a junkyard in LA somewhere, doing restaurant salvage.  I get his holiday cards.  I don’t know why I’m on his card list, except maybe that he felt sorry for me.  That day, he came over to give my aunt a check, and he looked down at me. He gave a big sigh, and then he just put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Good luck kid,’ and drove off with everything we had in his pick-up.”

I didn’t know what to say.  But I knew what I had to say. 

“Did you keep any of his holiday cards?”

“Sorry.  I always toss them out.”

“Okay.  That’s okay, Brad.  I mean, I feel stupid asking you about all this when it’s just for a stupid bet - ”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,”  he said.  ”My dad would have liked that. That’s why he printed all those bumper stickers - it was kind of corny, but he could look at those photos and tell people that his restaurant was world-famous.”

I smiled at that. Why not? Dads are supposed to be corny.

Now, we just have to find Chuck, or Seth, or whoever this guy is. We could wait ’til December when Brad’ll get his next holiday card, but I don’t have that kind of time. So, anyone have any ideas that don’t involve my cracking open the L.A. yellow pages and dialing number after number?

And oh, that reminds me - my phone is broken. Broken by someone I’m dating whose name rhymes with “Frak! Why did you drop my phone in the toilet?” So if you find a hot lead, small favor: please try the number and see where it leads. I’ll be grateful forever. Or at least ’til the next favor.

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