Father's Day

Jay and I are heading back to Kansas pretty soon with a couple friends and we're getting excited. I was thinking about it today because, being Father's Day, I was of course thinking about my dad. So many of the folks in Newton remind me of my dad; they're all so friendly and kind and polite. I knew that would be one reason why we'd go back there on a regular basis. We'll see my Aunt Patty and I'll get to see my parents headstone for the first time. When we went back last fall for the memorial, it wasn't done yet. I don't have any good dad stories right now but there a lot of things he gave me that were things I think dads should give their kids. Like patience and optimism and a good work ethic (look, I really do have a good work ethic and I'm not afraid of hard work....I'm just picky). Specific things like how to bait a hook, and to rub mineral oil into the first corn silk when growing corn to keep the bugs away. Things like when to toss in your hand while playing poker in Vegas. And how to be kind and honest and available to the people you love. My boy's dad isn't a very available guy, so I end up trying to give my son the things I got from my dad and I hope some of it transfers. So far, it's working.

I guess I do have a few stories about my dad, come to think of it, they just happen to live in poems. Here are three.

The Game

Finally he is telling the stories.
He is my father sitting in a big chair
and it is half-time.

He is being casual, and he laughs
as he talks, because he can.

My father is saying this:
Well, I was just a little boy,
maybe six, not older.
I was checking the traps Claude set out
and one had a skunk by the leg.
Hell, I didn’t know.
I picked up a stick and poked at it
a couple times.
Sprayed me up real good.
Got home and walked in the house,
drunk old man knocked me
from right here to that wall
over there.
Didn’t get up for a day.
Anyway, the game’s about to start.

Forth quarter,
six minutes left in the game.
Nothing is happening
on the field.
Goddamn Bastard

I hear
my father say.




P.F. Flyers

At four I was immortal with brand new shoes.
I watched Wiley and the road runner
and knew that death lasted two seconds,
made the body wrinkle up like an accordion.
I saw Daffy Duck succumb to the fat wheel
of a steam roller, become a flat collage
of color, and with a quack and a leap,
spring up and continue down the road
in hot pursuit of Elmer Fudd.
So I wasn’t worried as I stood there
in my P.F. Flyers. Stood there in the hot sun
waiting to cross, my dad right there
unaware that I had something to prove
and a lesson to learn. The car was close enough
for me to see the moths smashed in the grille
and I smiled at the old woman driving.
Then there was magic.
My father’s hand reaching out in slow motion,
my legs pumping and my own breath in my ears.
I could feel other people, frozen,
watching me, and hear the sound
of a horn, the sweet smell
of burning brakes.

I stood on the other side
beaming at my father, waving
at the old woman in the car,
white as a sheet. My fathers hand
came out of nowhere
solid against my behind.



Rest

There is a chair in my living room. A recliner
moved from their house to mine. It is
deep russet, big, comfy. It held my father for years.
It held him complete; his whitegray hair,
sometimes not washed for several days, his compact
tired body, wearing the same blue checked shirt
and his 100% polyester Knightsbridge trousers. He carried
a slightly used handkerchief in one of his back pockets
that he would offer out, if one of us needed.
In the other, his worn wallet, holding black and white
baby pictures of his three grown children.
In his front pockets; an ancient red
switchblade for opening boxes or envelopes,
and one of those oval plastic change purses
that you have to squeeze the ends to open.
Inside the change purse was an Irish Erie,
a peculiar buffalo nickel that he thought might
be worth more than five cents, and several
quarters, or wheat back pennies.
He wore a belt most days, and dark support socks.
There is a place there, on the chair,
where he used to rest his head. A slight
indentation. He would fall asleep
every afternoon around one o’clock. He would dream.
His head would touch the back of that chair, lie
against the cloth, and he would rest. My mother,
memory sick by then, would sit on the couch,
or fold clothes in the bedroom, over and over, running
her palm across the comforter
smoothing out the creases. There would be golf
or the Diamondbacks on the television
and he would snore at irregular intervals. It was
his time to nap. The natural oil from the body, the residue
from the Silver Fox shampoo, and the tiny cells of skin
from his scalp would slough off and work their way
into the fabric. And my father got up from that chair
one day in October and drove himself to the hospital
and never came back. There is a place there,
on that chair where my father’s head rested
that I can lean my own head into, turn so my nose
brushes against the rust colored cushion,
and I can smell him, as sharp and clear and present
as every hug he used to give me. There is a chair
in my living room. It is just a chair. He was just my father.