Pops and Pete’s Play Palace

“You ready, Pops?”

My father nodded and smiled at me. A dream we had shared since I was a boy was finally coming true.

Three. Two. One.

With a cut of a ribbon, “Pops and Pete’s Play Palace” was open.

When I was a boy, my dad and I would lay on a grassy hill near our house while staring at the clouds. We starting doing that daily when I turned eight. At the time, I did not know that the yelling I would hear at home was my parents fighting. I only thought that my dad was always watching TV, I would have never thought that he was actually watching his life fall apart. I think the times on the hill were solace for him.

I think a lot of children see their parents as perfect protagonists in the world. My dad was my best friend and I could never see any flaw in him. I did not see his depression and confusion on how to cope, both of which made it overwhelming for my mother. She cared about but thought his sickness was his fault. She did not like how he changed and started withdrawing from us and everyone. He would get home late after work, and take his food to bed. Despite his decline, we would still lay on the grassy hill. The day before his 35th birthday, we stared at the clouds for longer than usual. We were silent for a long time, which felt uncomfortable. Eventually, I thought of something to say.

“Pops, I know what my dream in life is.”

“What is it, Pete?”

“I want to open a toy store when I grow up, and I want it to be ours. You and I own it together. We can sell all the toys in the world. Legos, board games, bouncy balls, action figures, and more! Wouldn’t that be amazing?” My excitement was tremendous. My dad nodded, and continued to stare at the sky. He asked, “What would we name it?”

That was the one thing I had not thought about. At the time, I did not care about the name because I knew we would not be able to open a store for quite some time. I instead thought about how I needed to go to the toilet, and then the letter P came to mind. All of a sudden, I had it. “Pops and Pete’s Play Palace!”

My dad smiled at me and said, “I love that. It’s good to have goals at this young.” He ruffled my hair and stood up. He helped me up and whispered, “I think it's time to go back inside now.”

A week later, I was waiting for a long time after school to be picked up. After two hours had passed, the school principal called me to her office. I worried that I was in trouble, even though I had not done anything wrong. She told me there was an emergency, so my parents could not pick me up. Soon my younger sister Cammy was brought inside the office too. She was five years old at the time, which made it difficult to tell her something was wrong. The principal told us that our Aunt Eunice would be there to pick us up soon. When she pulled up in her car, she had a cigarette in her hand and told us to get inside. My twelve year old sister Melissa was in the front seat. Melissa looked like she had been crying but smiled at us and helped Cammy into the car.

“Auntie Eunice, what happened?”

She started to drive out of the school parking lot, and threw the cigarette butt out the window. I did not know she smoked. “I can’t tell you yet. But we’ll be okay, your cousin Charlie and Auntie Wendy will meet us at home. We’ll have a sleepover. It will be fun.” I did not care about fun, I wanted to see my mom and dad.

“I like sleepovers. Can we have pizza? Please?” Cammy bounced in her seat with excitement. I was glad that she did not know what was going on.

“Of course, sweetie.” Eunice smiled back at her and when I looked into Aunt Eunice’s eyes, I noticed that she had been crying too.

When we got home, Charlie and my other aunt were there. Charlie was my favorite cousin and like the older brother I had always wanted. He and I went up to my room and I asked him what was going on. He looked at me, and also looked like he had cried. “I can’t tell you. But we'll talk about it later.”

They slept over for almost a month and I wanted to see my parents more than anything. During the third week, Melissa and I were called into the kitchen. We were told we could see my dad. I was excited, but Melissa looked nervous. We drove for an hour with our Aunt Wendy and Charlie. When we made it to our final destination, I noticed that it was a hospital. We went inside and an elevator took us to the fifth floor. We then went to a front desk and signed our names on a piece of paper. It had a list of names. I was intrigued by this list, I started to count them when Melissa took it to sign. My aunt told the receptionist that permission was given for me to enter the facility. I felt like an FBI agent, I thought I was given permission to go somewhere secret. I quickly realized that this was a special type of hospital. I would later find out that my dad was a patient in a psychiatric ward, after attempting to kill himself.

“Dad!” I screamed when I saw him. I hugged him tight. After the hugs and tears, I sat on his lap. I was confused as to why everyone asked him if he was doing better and why he answered vaguely. After forty minutes, visiting hours ended. We were starting to leave when my dad asked me to stay another minute.

“I have something for you.” He handed me a folded up piece of paper. I opened it up to see large drawings of a building. When I looked closer, there were words on the exterior that said “Pops and Pete’s Play Palace”. I cried tears of happiness. I hugged him and before we parted ways, he said, “I want you to add more to this, and all the toys you want. I love you, son.”

“I love you too.” I ran out. I hid the drawing in my coat pocket, while still holding on to the idea that I was in the FBI.

On our opening day of our store, it was busier than I thought it would be. I felt overwhelmed but every time I looked at my dad, he looked happier than he had ever been. April 3rd of 2004 would be my proudest day, I was overjoyed. We were quickly selling out of products, but our earnings were high enough to fund whatever we needed. That day to November 2007 were a rush to Pops and me. Those years went by quickly. We never thought that a toy store, not owned by a huge corporation, would be this successful. We added more toys and more square feet to our business. Our store became cramped, so we paid for an expansion of space in 2006 without a worry in the world.

And then the recession hit.

At the beginning of the recession, we had enough sales to keep us afloat. Despite it being the start of the recession, December 2007 was a decent month due to the holidays. 2008, however, hit us the worst. My dad fell back into a depression in late 2008 and stopped working. Luckily, my cousin Charlie and other family members helped me out. I put out a help wanted sign on the front. One day in 2008, a woman named Lauren walked in and applied for a job. She said that her nieces loved the store. Later on, Lauren and I would marry and have three children. Without her, I would have lost hope. When the Great Recession was finally over, it was like a weight was lifted off my chest. The small business owners in town rented out an entire restaurant to celebrate the return of business stabilization in November 2009. I saw my father that day, he looked truly happy again after a year of fluctuating depression. I felt at peace seeing him this way.

2010 to 2013 were great years for us. Newer Lego sets, Justin Bieber dolls, huge Barbie dollhouses, and better remote controlled cars made me realize how quickly life goes. In 2011, Lauren and I married. Life was full of joy. Seeing my wife and my dad get along so well was indescribable. Around this time, I started seeing former classmates of mine come in with their children. The moment I saw that first former classmate, I started to realize exactly why I was going to keep working in the toy store. I came to a full realization when my dad would interact with the children. His depression would fluctuate and flare up throughout the years and just when I would think he was unable to work, he would show up and still love his job. He was even happier when my son was born in 2013, which prompted Lauren and I to take our longest break from our jobs to focus on him. We took a break once again in 2017, when our twin girls were born. 

We had some business struggles throughout the next couple years, but we saw it as an ordinary fluctuation in sales. Deep down, I knew that it was not a fluctuation. It was a decline. As much as children loved our store, parents liked ordering toys online more. Our loyal customers kept coming, but not many new ones came. I did not tell my father the severity of our situation because I did not want to hurt him. His antidepressants and therapy were helping and I did not want to wreck the progress they had made. It was a lot of weight to carry individually though, and I sought out therapy also.

At one point, my therapist said, “Peter, you have to think about telling him. We can work on a way you can do that, you have to understand that it could hurt him more if he does not find out until it’s too late.” He was right. It was like I was always walking on eggshells around my father. It was my decision for it to be that way, but it was not easy. It was going to be more difficult being honest with him. I never found the courage to tell him about how things really were.

Our luck returned in the summer of 2018, which was unexpected. The largest chain of toy stores in the nation went out of business, which left us as the sole toy store in town. More parents wanted their children to have that “old fashioned” toy store experience before it was too late, which we and their children were more than okay with. Given that I did not think we would make it this far, our luck continued for much longer than originally thought. On July 27th of 2019, I was driving my dad home after a late night at work when my dad told me he had some news.

“I’m older now and after a lot of thought, I am stepping back from the business next year. I want it all to be yours. It would be an honor for you to take over. How does that sound?”

I could not believe it, and I was more than ready to take over. “That sounds amazing dad, I can’t believe it.” I looked at him, “I love you, Pops.”

My dad patted my shoulder and said, “I love you too, son.”

And then everything changed. 

I cannot remember much of what happened after that. I do remember waking up in a hospital bed and yelling, “Where’s my dad? Where is he? Dad? Pops?” I started sobbing and tried to get out of the bed when I felt pain in my ribs. My head hurt and was covered with a bandage soaked in blood. I continued yelling for my dad and started crying harder, and then my wife and mother ran into the room.

My mom cleared her throat and asked, “Do you remember what happened?” I did not. “You and your father got into a car accident, someone accidentally hit your car. And it was really bad.” She paused and cried harder. “The driver of the other car and his two children died. The cars were totaled.”

“And dad? Pops? What about him?”

Lauren looked at me and said calmly, “I am so sorry, Pete. He didn’t make it.”

It was as if the whole world fell on top of me, I was drowning out of water. I could not hold in my sobs, and started screaming, “No, no, you’re wrong. He’s fine! He is alright, he is alive and well! I am sorry, honey, but you are wrong!”

But I knew she was right. It was a hard pill to swallow, learning that I was a lone survivor in a tragedy that killed three strangers and the person closest to me. I started to scream and cry harder, and I had never felt that amount of pain and sadness. Some people would have thought I was overreacting, but no one can understand how much this loss affected me. It would continue to hurt badly, I had fallen into a depression for the first time. The feeling made me more sympathetic to what my dad struggled with for so long. I was unable to enter the store for over three months and the first time I did, I immediately called my employees over for an announcement.

“Thank you all for your work while I was gone. As you know, my father died and I haven’t been here in months. I had a meeting with a successful businessman a couple of weeks ago, and he gave me an offer to sell the store to him.” This announcement was the result of a meeting with a man named Harold Schmidt. He saw the pain the store brought me and gave me a large offer to buy the property to open up another business, the offer was large enough for me to start retirement thirty years earlier than I had expected. “The store will close in February 2020 for good. I negotiated a deal to have all employees work in the new business for a good salary, I know he will take care of you all. I’m so sorry.” My employees were shocked and I felt guilty, but I knew I made the right decision

The holidays brought a lot of sales and so would clearance sales after 2020 began. I was happy to see customers clearing off shelves, but it was more of a bittersweet feeling. I could not believe it was all over. I knew I needed to close the store, but it was painful nevertheless. 

On the store’s last day open, a father and son walked in. The son looked around with a look of fascination. “Dad, I have an idea. When I am a grownup, we should own a toy store together. Just like this one.”

“That sounds awesome. What should we call it?”

“I have to think about that.”

I went to the breakroom and cried after that. I continue to hope that the father and his son can achieve that dream, and have the happy ending that I had always dreamed of.