My grandfather died by suicide in 1966. Fifty-two years later, I met him for the first time.
Until then, I had pieced him together with bits of information collected here and there over time, discussed in hushed tones and select company. Until then, he’d been three things: angry, intoxicated, suicidal. After all, that’s what took his life.
After I finished my basement, my father brought over a box of my grandfather’s war memorabilia, in case I wanted to display some alongside my own items.
An embroidered shoulder patch read, “U.S. Air Force.” My grandfather was a mechanic, crawling into the belly of planes, making emergency repairs in a cramped darkness. He didn’t just know B-17’s and B-25’s. He flew in them – 103 combat missions.
There was an eyepiece he peered through to confirm bomber hits as a gunner in the Pacific during World War II.…
...continue reading
Grammatically speaking, love is complex and must be handled carefully. As a verb, love can be used in both the active and passive voice, but I most often use it in the active voice, especially if a man’s name is the subject of the sentence, as in John loves me. In this sentence, John is doing the loving and “me” is the recipient of the love–a comforting notion when I’m feeling lonely. Love is also best used in the present tense because if I use the past tense, as in John (or Chris or Mike) loved me, this reminds me that the man in question no longer cares about me, leading to anger and disappointment. If I do speak of a man’s love for me in the past, I usually use the passive voice so that I can easily omit the agent, as in I was loved.…
...continue reading
He started baling hay at 5:00 that morning, then he and his boys branded cows at 8:00, breakfast missed, again. He’d heft the heifers and throw them down, while a son hit the cow with the hot iron, The Bar Double B, the hair sizzling, smelling like what his Sunday school teacher must have meant by fires of hell, “mephitis” she called it, in her prim voice, all nose and lavender perfume.
After tending the herd, the latter part of the day was spent stringing barbed wire between the post oaks. No lunch, again. Only one torn thumbnail on his left hand; only one burn on his right palm. Not bad for a day’s work. But the sons were off to the city for “real work,” they said, in a bank or insurance job. …
...continue reading
A white gull cuts across a snowfield
turns up the coast and is gone
sea and sky cry achromatic blues
neatly punctuated
by a full lunar face at the point of exclamation!
– Edward Sheehy…
...continue reading
Friday, 3:02 p.m.
To: v3ng3ful@lunat1c.com
Subject: Break-up
Dear Vengeance,
I’ll just say it. I’m breaking up with you. I just don’t think things are working out between us. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed leaving burning paper bags full of unspeakable things on old high school enemies’ porches–probably more than I should–but I don’t think your way of dealing with problems is good for me. And so, as part of my mid-June resolution, I’m going to be honest with you and come clean.
I’ve been seeing Compassion behind your back. I just feel like he’s been giving me such a positive outcome! He doesn’t make me give people bottles full of urine with an Apple Juice label. He doesn’t make me insult people to their face just because they sat in my seat–in fact, he makes me compliment their faces.…
...continue reading
I change planes at DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth). Last time I came to Dallas was that November Friday. Then, it was modest, utilitarian Love Field. Now, DFW is a vacuous tomb, a secular temple to all things modern. Curving hallways shout empty expense – highfalutin hotdoggin’. They drift off, out of sight in both directions, melting away like an unbeliever’s prayer. Texans walk by on indoor/outdoor carpet – red river of contrived warmth cutting gorges through glacial glass and stone. These Texans have a different look about them today than they did back on that day.
Now, cool and confident primary industrialists, purveyors of food and fodder, fuel and fiber, they saunter past. Or clump in small knots of small talk. In one corner of the waiting area, a tall blonde woman with dangling earrings chit-chats with two men.…
...continue reading
I. Ken
I could never tell old Mrs. Lindstom why I was in such a rush. But then, I was used to that – hiding my urges and desires, covering the excitable boy in me with the respectable exterior of a normal forty-year-old man. She waddled between the dahlias and the roses; I tapped my finger against the “CLOSED” sign on my lap. For ten years she’d been coming in, and not once had she bought a thing. Shouldn’t that be illegal in a capitalist country like this?
Unable to bear it any longer, I placed the sign on the counter where she could see it.
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “Are you trying to close?”
“Actually, yeah,” I said. “But there’s no rush.”
“Oh, no, but I should really be off now, anyway.…
...continue reading