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My head, too, was an unexploded shell
that summer of ‘67, Detroit
burning
a hundred miles away,
so when one-armed Keebler and
his buddy,
Bogash, drive up
in a coral-colored GTO
two days into the riots and
honk,
I just swish a few,
pet the purring car. And then
it is
my father
who comes running—against
a backdrop of fresh paint,
clapboard
—not burned building,
blackened skeleton of car.
They are going
down to the lake
to water-ski. They have
drinks in their hands.
I don’t know yet
what a bastard Bogash is,
or how Keebler stinks as a boss,
I just
know it’s my father’s
new job and I have to laugh
at their jokes, love
what they love,
admire the little doorknob
on the wheel so Keebler
can steer
with his stub, nurse his whiskey.
Already my father is lost:
his trunks ill-fit him, so later,
when he wipes out
and tumbles in the wake
like a flesh propellor
they will chide him raw
for days. But for now
he’s hopeful. This is money.
This is drink. This
is an expensive car.
For as long as it lasts
it’s a convertible and the wind
— the wind
is cool and childless.
So when Bogash grins, my
father grins, clambers in the back.
Fists a drink.
Nods or laughs
or chuckles— I can’t tell—
when Bogash
drops the N-word, threatens
local riots. It’s a lie, but
I don’t sense it. Blind pig.
Blind pigs.
I just see arm-in-arm marching
seven country miles
to this ring of houses
beside the lake,
something in me hazed,
thrashed
—bleeding
money/
panic/fear
so when Keebler
finally nudges
his car toward his boat
on the lake, I am already
inside
loading a shotgun.
A pump-action, six rounds,
I one-arm
up the scaffold,
back of the house,
that lofts our television antenna
like a wire
angel into the sky.
Wind blows, rioting burns
and rolls
in bad reception
on the screen. No one
watches. We just leave it
on
as outboards echo across
the lake. From the roof
I can see
one skier
—Bogash? Keebler? tumbling
father?—cut the skin of water
until
it is briefly scarred,
briefly whipped, before it
calms again,
stills to their perfect summer coin.