Got a little distracted at the desk in my "octopus" (affectionate term for my office, 8 tentacled monster that she is) yesterday. If I'm not doing what I'm 'sposed to, I daydream.
I was gazing into a rough-hewn picture frame containing one of my most cherised earthly possessions ever. A aging photo of my Dad and I, circa 1972.
I notice my Dad's bell-bottomed brown courdoroys, steel-toed hiking boots and he's rolled the sleeves on a yellow-thread bare button-collar oxford. Both hands are half in pocket, relaxed at the wrist. He's parting his chestnut brown hair down the middle, his head cocked carefully to one side sporting a crooked grin. He closes his mouth to hide a chipped tooth, but at this distance who could tell.
His shirt hides a shoulder and chest laden burn scar from when he was 4 years old. It's violent, but contributes to the lean in his stance. I wonder if he's protecting it.
Glen stands in front of a pastel pink and ivory 1955 Chevy Bel-Air. 4-door. The wheels are plain dingy black, caked with Colorado-red dirt. They rest on a bed of snow and mud. The thick wind-shield glass gives no indication of the time of day.
The skeletal charcoal oaks frame the background, leafless, scratchy. Even further back is an amoeba-shaped single axle camp trailer, door's askew, giving us a glimpse of empty space colored black.
To his left, our right, is a little boy astride a metallic Irish green Huffy tri-cycle, streamers peeling from the handle bars, mud and snow crusting the six-spoke ivory rims. He gazes sideways and right with a hero-worship stare underneath an over-sized dingy white derby. Hard to say what he's wearing, it's lost in that gaze.
I wonder if my son will ever look at me like I'm looking at my father. And I wonder if he does, will I have earned it.
J.
3 comments:
I really, really loved this, and I don't think you have anything to worry about.
sometimes, i think all i do is daydream. :)
really really beautiful, jarret. i love to read anything about your dad.
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