By Wesley Houp
Time was
I could hide in his shadow
and envision
an assortment of mayhems.
He had Popeye guns,
one with the eagle, the anchor
and the globe,
the other with a knife-pierced skull.
Death Before Dishonor.
The skull was his life coach.
My brother, sister and I never sassed.
You fucked with my old man
at your own peril.
He lost his teeth in ‘59
to some chickenshit
in a Northside bar with a crutch
who hit him from behind,
but from then on
he was undefeated
until death
mainly because people
who knew better knew better
than to stir his drink.
But he was also kind and generous,
patient to a fault, some might say.
He loved people who loved
nature in their own way.
Insects, birds,
flowers, trees, moss,
geomorphology,
fossil records, native artifacts,
laughing.
Anything ancient
and recurring.
He liked the way the
big wheel turned
and was comfortable
with time’s allotment for him.
He had charity
for hometown shirkers
no one else had much use for.
Wrote so many checks
for bogus jams.
Accepted bullshit excuses
because he couldn’t
allow himself to be the cause
of someone else’s shame
coming to light.
And it cost him,
but he sloughed it off.
He paid for sins that weren’t his own.
He loved buying shoes
for his children.
He would cry over
a sad story, say, about orphans
with no shoes,
even if the orphans were hypothetical.
But he could manifest rage.
Terrific in its velocity.
He once called a man
a whore for money
at a zoning committee meeting.
Apparently the guy
was in favor of bringing
a fast food restaurant
called Skatz to town.
That’s another name for shit,
you asshole, he argued.
Later that summer
with his seven year old son
in tow, the guy confronted
my old man
at the F&M Gulf station.
When he approached,
dad just hammered him.
No questions.
No forewarning.
Knocked him down.
When he got up,
bam. Down again.
Three times down,
covered in blood.
They called me
to come retrieve my father.
“He’s gonna kill this guy”
was the message.
The knuckles on both hands
were open wounds.
He beat this man
until he hurt himself.
Teary eyed,
he said the guy shouldn’t
have brought his son
and that we better not tell
your mother,
and finally let’s get
a plate lunch at Fitch’s.
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