a journal in short bursts that might occasionally even rhyme |
Stooped, the weight of the world come to rest atop his shoulders, the seed of fat long ago having bloomed, her father, an unremarkable man. His absence loomed, a ghoulish shade trying them in absentia through the empty bottles “my good friends: Mark, Jim and Jack” clanging underfoot, spilling from places obvious and not closets of clothes left to molder dishwasher of tumbler glasses one lone, recriminating spoon above the guestroom door inside the kitchen nook behind the childhood treasure chest cradled by Goodnight Moon and Mr. Squashy. Small compensatory boisterous man, barrel-torsoed chicken-limbed, gregarious of deed if not of soul, poor with expensive tastes, her father, the quintessential barfly. Sorry for your loss. He was a good man (before the drink, the corollary). He would have loved this. It was so sudden. What a horrible accident! How are you? Nod and smile her mother said; his second ex-wife and the only one of five to show. What does it matter that vultures came picking at the living rather than mourning? It makes him no less dead, your father. And he wouldn’t have cared. The funeral was a sham, ended, appropriately enough, in shambles. Same slope same vat figure same voice same eyes but clear from sober-living not a haunt but the same lurch at once confident and deferential packed with insolence servility the same at double-speed. Her uncle his brother, the elder by six crucial minutes rambled interminably a bitter rant of frustrated love a one-sided argument he could never win or lose again; the mourners gorged on the buffet, looked on indifferently, his words battening against the spittle and mouth breathing and making no impression. |