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I know now he wasn't
really so old
though old enough to
die
to have been a
railroad brakeman, and watchman
to retire
and drive a red
Model-A from tavern
to tavern in Madison
for beer
he wasn't supposed to
have.
And to have been sick
even before then.
The first time my
stepfather took me
North to see him I
was told
how fat he would be,
warned
not to laugh at his
head completely without
hair and eyebrows
from some disease I
did not know
though of course I
wouldn't have, being
a rather solemn kid.
The summers following
we caught catfish together
in Tinney Park
and I warily observed
the bees he kept
and watched him cut
off chickens'
heads
and took the
slingshot he gave me -- carefully
carved notches for
the strips of rubber
fastened with fine
turns of copper
wire --
back to the city,
where Big Joanne
finally took it from
me
and split the crotch.
And the first summer
that
I didn't get poison
ivy there
I was hardly able,
after drinking
muscatel with two
Oneida girls
and a sailor with a
broken arm
home on leave, in a
Ford by the
Petenwell dam, to
walk
the road to the
cottage that was
to be attached by the
county
for medical bills
when he died.
And when he died I
said, Yeah
I went to the
funeral.
Yeah, it was the
usual thing up there.
Oh, they had a big
meal in town for the people.
In the basement of
the post office. Yeah,
they had some beer, I
got some. But
it wasn't a very big
deal.
Yeah, it was hardly
worth his dying.
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