“I remember,” said the old man sitting in the park as he rolled a cigarette from his fixings. “About 50 years ago, I suppose. Could’ve been a hundred, because time gets slippery after midnight—on a clock or in real life.”
The reporter waited patiently, but wondered briefly, as the old man rolled his cigarette, lit a match from the bottom of his boot, and inhaled deeply, if the old timer had forgotten the question.
“But sir…” the reporter began to interject.
Suddenly the old man looked at him and held up a hand. The older man’s aged eyes seemed gunmetal grey, as clear and forceful as a thunderstorm rolling across the Kansas plains. That glare and simple hand gesture stopped the reporter’s interruption as cleanly as if a noose had been dropped around his neck and tightened. The reporter gulped audibly and waited. A chill ran down his spine and gooseflesh crawled along the arm holding the small digital recording device.
“When I was a boy, my father would drink liquor most every day. It was just what he did, and 90 days out of a hundred it wasn’t a real problem. By ‘real problem’ I mean he didn’t destroy the house, beat my stepmother, or destroy everything we owned. He didn’t kick the shit out of me and my brothers, or slam our heads against the walls, or keep us locked in our rooms so long that when we had to piss, we just did it in the gallon jug we kept in the closet instead of asking to go to the bathroom—anything to avoid reminding him we existed and stirring his wrath again.”
“In other ways he was a problem every day, because even on his best day we were scared. We knew everything could go wrong in a second. He would even say, ‘Boys, don’t make me get riled up. You don’t want that and neither do I.’ Or he might whisper, ‘Boys, I’ve about had enough of your mom’s bitchin’, and if she doesn’t quit, I’m going to burn this whole son-of-a-bitch to the ground,’ while smacking his fist into his hand. When he did that, my legs would tremble, my young virgin balls would suck up, and I would almost piss my pants. And that’s the truth.”
The reporter listened carefully, although the words seemed secondary. He could see the drunk father, the bitching mother, the three boys, and the small town rental. He could smell the oil field stench and sweat from a man who made his money working on the machines that pulled the oil out of the earth. He listened, saw, and understood in a way the digital recorder never could.
“I spent my first 17 years on my knees, living in fear, worried about things I couldn’t control. My baby brother Paul got run over and killed at 14. My next brother Tony went crazy on booze and is probably still drunk to this day. My dad got killed at work in an accident around my 17th birthday, and Mom brought my new stepfather home about four months after that. After a couple of months he threatened to ‘lay down the law,’ and I beat him with an ax handle. He didn’t die, but it was close. After that I went out on my own, and for the most part I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“The point is, I was weary then, and I’m weary now. So if Iran and China and Russia and whoever the hell else wants to come over here to my land and put me on my knees, or in a closet, then fucking do it. Because I can tell you this: I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
Solomon
submitted by /u/Solomon5150
[link] [comments]