My father was a complicated man ”“ smart, thoughtful and generous. Yet he was seemingly unfazed by his own racial prejudice. Like many people, he would say things in private that he knew he shouldn’t. Among his targets of choice were blacks.

When I was in high school, my father would utter racial epithets at dinner, knowing he’d get a rise out of my mother and me. My mother would roll her eyes and sigh; other times, she’d turn a deaf ear and suggest I do the same: “Just ignore his remarks and they’ll go away.”

Sure enough, she was right. My dad’s racial slurs declined in direct proportion to their audience. 

I’ll never know what motivated my father’s prejudice, or what he really felt. I suspect that his views, like so much racism, were largely abstract: It wasn’t that he disliked black people; he just didn’t know many. But I remember when that changed and why.

It was the late 1960s, when my father owned a small toy store. One day, a young black couple came in to do their Christmas shopping. My father struck up a conversation with the husband, Dan, an earnest, good-looking guy who was down on his luck. As I recall, Dan’s job was on the line and one of his kids was in the hospital ”“ it was a rough time all around. Dan left his phone number and said he’d be available for any odd jobs that might come up.

So began a 25-year relationship that was choreographed around race. 

Dan never knew what to call my father. “Mr. Silverman” sounded too stiff, and “Harold” too familiar, so he settled on “Boss.” My father enjoyed the playful respect inherent in that nickname, and it set the terms between them.

Over the years, Dan worked for my father under various guises ”“ as a maintenance man, mover, carpet cleaner, factotum. Nor did they have any fixed arrangement regarding payment. Dan would paint my dad’s office, for instance, and the two of them would review the job after the fact. Then they’d agree on a fair price. The relationship relied on mutual trust.

All the while, my father and Dan bantered endlessly about race. They would joke about being black and white, respectively, noting their unmistakable differences. Bystanders, myself included, might blanch at the bald-faced remarks that amused these two grown men, but there was apparently some deeper process at work. By constantly referencing my father’s whiteness, and Dan’s blackness, they were navigating a racial minefield.

Eventually, my father’s racial slurs went by the boards. In their place, he had a new mantra that he’d proudly declare.

“I trust Dan like a son,” he would say.

I don’t know that the relationship between these two men ended my father’s prejudice, but it certainly made a dent. As any observer could see, their odd friendship, with its prickly edges, delighted them both.

— Joan Silverman is a writer in Kennebunk. This column originally ran in The Maine Sunday Telegram.