grayspike

Father died Wednesday the 13th. Steady bursts of relatives and friends have either dropped by or phoned since then. During their condolences they all profess shock and surprise at his sudden demise.

If they really wanted shocks or surprises, they shouldve been with me when I found him. We all arrive kicking and screaming. I suppose the luckiest among us depart quietly.

At least it looked like he left on a cloud. Hed somehow angled himself on his bed to gaze out the bedroom window at what sky appeared through the tree branches. His rictus wasnt from pain but flesh yielding to the inevitable.

Or so I believe.

Anyway, he was too nice, too considerate a guy to have passed away in agony.

As a young man he was aimless. I shared the feeling.

Several years in the army reinforced his condition. While rummaging through his papers I found many undated photographs of him. One in particular caught my eye. In it he looks recently shorn of fatigues, happily sporting the maddest glad-rags, sidled beside some woman not my mother. That days chick was a pickup.

Everything about her screamed stamp my name on my forehead so youll remember it after were done!

She looked the type. Fathers expression reflected everybody will know what this is all about.

If he was discomforted, it was mild. Obviously. Because after he married mother, he never lost his taste for quick obliging women.

Unsurprisingly, he wasnt fickle. Having seen a few of his sidesteps when I became wiser, I saw each had some resemblance to the woman who waited for him at home. Only different.

Only he could determine whether the strangers were improvements. Maybe I shouldve asked. Now there would have been one discussion worthy of pay-per-view.

Growing up we were solidly middle class. In my teens, he never stinted on giving me weekend walking-around money. Of course each of these disbursements came with the same caveat: Be careful.

Knowing what my father was about, I always heard, Dont get caught.

Once or twice my nuts got snagged in situations which required hurried departures through windows. And although weve all had occasions arise where one must make the self scarce, nuts can never be sacrificed to expediency.

These rare failures to avoid complications seldom extended beyond his loud curt rebukes. They were the summer storms of our relationship. Fast arriving big noisy blows that exhausted themselves quickly while clearing the air and leaving it charged.

Plenty of my friends in those situations seldom got out from under them. Their parents would hector.

Just when they thought certain incidents had been consigned to history wham! An uncomfortable untimely reminder of how their balls got singed before dad yanked them out of the deep fryer.

Father wasnt cool. At least he didnt try and be my buddy. And he wasnt some little Adolph who took any and every opportunity to refer back to ones less sterling moments.

Nor was he exactly a fuck up and move up sort. I think he developed a philosophy based on play out a lot of rope and try not to hang yourself.

Were that so, Id say it was a fine prescription for daily living. Yet when I discovered what he did while serving Uncle Sugar, I gained a firmer grasp of his relation with life.

Hed specialized in defusing mines. Dont get caught indeed!

Is that the perfect training for philandering and rearing a son or what?