vaderonice

I took my dad's big red truck
to get looked at by my mechanic uncle
in Hollywood.
Florida.
The last time
I followed my dad driving it
he'd been in the hospital
a couple days.
He barely stayed
at night
in his lane on I95
and I got the expected
visions of a wrecked truck
at some point.
But
I got a sense 
of the muddy steering
while doing 75
the tires too big
or cheap.
It felt like I'd put on
a shoe too big for me.
The bench seat
wide open
my elbows far out to set on
the center console and door arm rest
me surely looking like 
a chicken about to flap out the window.
The driver door speaker did what it could
a functioning alcoholic
so I turned it down
drove in silence
listened for something broken.
When I got to my uncle's 
he put on the radio in his garage
and on 
comes 
the last song 
I heard my dad sing 
while sitting in my living room
an unlit cigar in his mouth
like a kid pretending to be an adult.
I can't decide
if it is a sweet
or bitter whisper
but I close my eyes and hold on
for just a second before
what the fucking my uncle
and as I drove home
I sang the two words
every so often
trying to hear 
my father in my head:
Hola Soledad.

Last weekend
I found
what seems to be a poem
in the nightstand
in the duplex my father stopped 
sleeping in a while back.
Blue ink in Spanish cursive
on both brown yellow sides
the blue lines faded.
I don't know if he wrote it
and I don't really understand it
as I transcribe
afraid I need to get it down digitally
before it explodes or something.

There are sections
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60
and I don't know if these refer to age
or if he was just stylin'.
There's a note
at the bottom
instructing me to turn the page.
I want to love it
because I want writing from my father
But my father was so dry
and this is about
a river in Cuba.
So I worry my mother wrote this
and I am twisted
because I don't want 
to love anything
from my mother. 

So I type
digging out
untangling his script
looking words up to see if they match
what I believe to be the sentiment
from
this distant hum of a thing
scritching at the base of my brain
finding that he used 
aurora
enchantress
and wrote of delivering hallelujahs
to a woman at the mouth of a river
or it's a metaphor
for drinking from her chalice.
I don't believe in gods
but damn it
I want to believe
my father
was a poet like me
though he never gave off
the lilt of lyricism
aside from the way
he sang Hola Soledad
recently:
a lament.

When I get to the part
about bitter years imprisoned
I know it has to be him.
I sob
and remember his simple response
when asking for a reason:
BECAUSE SOMEBODY JUST WANTED TO.

It ends with wondering
about the woman
and children
who would never bear his eyes, hair, or name
and a ghost who escapes a well
with something 
that was never his.
I know
this stupid lucky ghost.
He wanted his father's words
and got a poem.
I know this fucker well.

Had to do
the weed eating
in the backyard
like Homer Simpson does it
like a fool cutting circles
in the grass
and I am shaking. 
The sedentary lifestyle’s hello. 
Got green
in my dress socked sneakers
and I wonder 
is this what 
Poison Ivy’s pussy
smells like
and I’m only 2/3
done
shakin
shakin. 

Southwest 8th Street and 40 Somethingth

I write this almost
a month later.
Everyone is saying
take your time.
How can anyone do that
as they walk
intentionally toward
a motherfucking land mine of tears.

The night before,
we had visitors in the room
late
Ismelia talking over my answers to her questions
repeating how she knew him
since he was a boy
me talking right back over her
just because I'm an asshole.
Jose doing his best
to be supportive of me
though I am a cunty contrarian 
right up to the end
of my father's life.
Saying how proud my father was
making sure to tell me 
he's there for me
but not to replace
my father
knowing the kind of shit
I look for
knowing what a piece of shit
I can be
when someone is trying to help me.

Everyone 
saying
fucking talking
you're doing the right thing
though I find no power resides in me
to keep my father from going under
to right the left side of his face
to stuff the chuckle back into his mouth
when I say the docs say there's no fix for this
"No ay arreglo"
after the multiple brain hemorrhages
and the erratic heart rate.
How he shook his head
when I asked if he wanted them
to bring him back
when the heart attacks came.
These motherfuckers 
expected the heart attacks
like rain.
How he nodded when I asked
if he wanted to be comfortable
though I don't know
if he knew it meant
the dimming of the lights
or if I even had that conversation
or if I just said yes, please
make him comfortable.

I held his hand
as I spoke on the phone
to one of his buddies from the neighborhood
and I think maybe he waited
that he wanted to make sure 
those humble people knew.
These were his people
away from home. 
That taste of country Cuba.
I wasn't looking at him
and I felt his hand pull away a little
and I just knew.
I told the guy I had to go
and hung up
saw my dad take one last long breath
and just stop.
A single tear
crept down
from his closed right eye
and drowned all light
in my life
all the safety gone
no more Sprites in the late night
when my stomach went sideways
no more big red truck rolling into my swale
no more voice in the car
laughing at me
about being the family food delivery person.
And into the business of Death
I went.

Now I sit here in the air conditioner
ordering computer parts
writing this non poem
crying slow.
He sacrificed so much for me.
He gave up a relationship with a lady
because I was jealous of that woman
and he comforted me
saying hey her kid didn't want it either.
The last thing intelligible 
he said was hey careful driving home
because I drive like an asshole.
He suffered me so much
and I feel I am letting him down
with every interaction I have with my son.
I asked him, as that day went
and after
when his hand was cold.
I prayed
to my father
only Him
and to no made up motherfucking anythings
please please leave me your patience
tell me the trick
how do I shut the fuck up
Tell me, Titan.

He took care of everything a while back. 
I didn't have to find
a groupon for a funeral and a burial.
With the motorcycle cops
we took all the red lights on the way there
and Christina laughed, remarked
how he'd have gotten a kick out of it.
He wanted to be up high in a crypt
so people couldn't step on him
and animals couldn't shit on him.
I think he wanted to look down 
like this was a balcony
and he knew I liked the shade
so there's shade there.
I dread going back
looking up
but
I know where my god is:
Southwest 8th Street and 40 Somethingth.

It's a bit strange
and sad
how easy it is
for me
to put the death of my father
in a box in a far away
part of my mind.

The ease
with which I can speed myself there
to look at any of the many
items in the box
and be instantly broken
makes me wonder
if it means it's needed
to avoid being a monster
or something
and I think why
would drowning this way
be necessary
by design.

It hurts so much
to look back
and wonder
if I shouldn't have waited
just
a little bit
more
before telling them
yes please
make
him more comfortable.

All I can hear
is
go ahead and finish him off.

How He Felt

So I don't forget
his hands were brown spotted with the years
but smooth
warm at first
from the fever
and cooler as the day went.
The skin thin
on the arm
it crinkled
like aluminum foil.
The arm hairs short.
His forehead
felt dry ashy
but his hair was cool
thin but still soft and bouncy
But the eyes yellow in the whites
and the olive was dull.
He had a not great beard going
and the electric razor I bought him
sat in a box at home.

Shallow breathing.
A hard rasp every so often.
The last fight.

My dad didn't pick up
when I called his cell
at the hospital
this morning.
I eventually talked to a nurse
who said he couldn't remember 
the pin to unlock the phone.
My dad does not have memory issues
and while sometimes selective
he remembers with steel.
I told the nurse
this wasn't normal for him
but maybe he had that chemo fog
my girlfriend has
from treatment over time.

Christina did me yet another kindness
and picked up 
tamal en casuela from the Cuban place
and I took it to him that afternoon.
He had some
and let me set up the iPad
so he could watch baseball
but had trouble with certain words
and at the end of the night told me
"La computadora no esta buena"
and tapped on the right side of his head.
"Maneja despacio
y cuidado con las curvas"
was the last complete sentence
he spoke to me.

One Saturday
you walk into your dad's hospital room
and
as you touch
the skin
of his liver spotted forehead
and wonder if it's been like that
or if they're not cleaning him
you realize
you hadn't visited
for a couple days
not because you didn't want
to argue with or upset him
but
because
this might be the beginning
of losing
the man who 
chipped and carved at you
till you were mostly useful
withstood the barrage of your youth
and then waited
how did he know
to tell you he was proud
over the phone
as you sat in the grass
of your front yard
with your two year old boy
in the warm spring sun
thinking
oh this will be
forever.

I had something good
to write about
maybe it was about my dad
in the hospital
but
then I went to a restaurant
because the kitchen is dismantled
BECAUSE CONSTRUCTION
and it's supposed to be
a steak place
but there was no salt
or flavor
on the meat
so
here we are.