Still Lifes, Weathered: At Rest

     Semiconscious, flat out on his back on the brown rug in the middle of the living room in the winter of 1988, my father slurs his welcome as my mother and I enter the lighted gloom of a Friday night to—half-shocked, really—discover him. I swerved first to the kinder memory: a minor tradition I began taking my mother happily along meeting friends downtown Sacramento for long table drinking and chatter. The college friends all liked my mother, quiet but interested, gracious but working class demure, and she was easy to lounge with, except when the bar band’s wailing rose too loud and reduced her to a stoic wince.

    I’m glad, now, we spent a few evenings together appreciating the unvarnished neon of 18th and Capitol, or a faux Irish and dark-wooded pub along the railroad tracks of N street, weathered brick, stalwart Victorians, valley oak and silver maple, undrunken, a rebirth for my mother getting a chance to feel the camaraderie of young people, hot-blooded and desirous of laughter, sarcasm, and romance, for you can always turn over the soil.

    Yes, the man on the rug: a concerned rush to raise him unsteady to his feet, supporting under the arm as he slides the opposite leaning shoulder down the hallway’s wall—whoop, both arms supported to bypass the open bathroom door!—to deposit him sleepily into bed. Too many times did we replay this sad performance, my brother, mother, and I alternating, such that remembering now confers a normality to those nights. Skeletons don’t hide in closets but slump in gloomy yellow lighted living rooms staring blankly amused at All in the Family and M*A*S*H reruns. Yet many of those colder nights of boyhood years long gone saw my father throwing football passes through the mist to the gathered kids in our neighborhood running through a November Tule fog. A whispering football twirl, the only sound the rising darkness knows. Or Dad driving three hours uncomplainingly 159 miles from Sacramento to Redding to deliver a few dollars for car repair when my hatchback broke down when visiting my old friend, Tom. Decades before credit cards and ATMs. Three hours.

    Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.