the poetrysheet
whimsy, subversion, bowling
Number 484, April 6, 2004
Philip Rush (1939- )
“Kookaburra,
kookaburra, on a gum tree
eating
on a corpse that once was me.
Laugh,
kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra,
Save
a piece for me.
—with a nod to Marion
Sinclair, author of the song, “Kookaburra”
Shoot-out
at OK Corral
Between
the kid and me, it’s came time to be serious and have the discussion about
building trust and respect. Tough subject. Particularly when I often bend the
rules because I think I know how the rules can be bent.
It
doesn’t set a good example, if you know what I mean.
But
yesterday, the girl, now 12, rides off on a bike that’s not her own. She has to
run a couple of errands, pick up exactly two things, for which I give her a
twenty and say, “Buy what you need from the drug store and a bag of sugar from
the grocery. Bring me the change.”
She
rides away. She doesn’t take a lock for the bike, and it’s my wife’s bike. If
it doesn’t come back…I don’t even want to think about it.
The
girl is gone for a long time. So, I take my book, Chuck Pahlaniuk’s Diary (which isn’t bad once it gets going) and sit out by
the garage door to wait for the girly’s return—hopefully with the bike. When
she does return, she’s happy. She has the oversize Aldi bag I know she bought
at the store (I can’t imagine she took one of the twenty-five we have behind
the spice cabinet because I forget them all the time myself).
She
breezes by me, letting the admonition to take a bike lock with her wherever she
goes roll off her with her favorite return these days: “Dad, you never said
that before.”
Yeah,
sure.
So, she
disappeared upstairs and everything went just fine. Until I went up to get my
change: $1.43.
Now,
I’m not making much money these days. So I ask the kid what she bought. She
says, “My stuff and a bag of sugar.” I ask to see the receipt. Her “stuff” also
included soft drinks and fingernail polish to the tune of eight bucks.
“Oh,
no,” I said.
“What’s
the big deal, dad?” she said. “You said buy what I needed.”
“Grab
your stuff, we’re taking it back.”
“Why
can’t we just keep it?” she said, pleading.
“Because
you weren’t supposed to get it, and we don’t have the money to get it.” We
climbed in the car and were headed down the street.
We rode
toward the drugstore. I was sort of angry because she does this kind of thing
so often. The kid was crying.
“But
you have money for tobacco,” she sobbed. “For gas. You had money for a fishing
license so we could go fishing yesterday.”
She had
a point. “But, babe, you were trusted to do a certain thing that you didn’t
do.”
Then, I
told her of the time my mom sent me to the store for ice cream. I came home ten
cents short. I was so scared of her that I told her the guy at the register
shorted me the dime. With ice water in my temples and everything looking 2D, I
walked in behind my mom and watched her make a giant scene at the cashier’s
stand. The man turned around and pointed at me, “Your kid asked me to change a
dime to nickels so he could play the game.”
He
pointed at me and then past me toward the game I had wanted to play since
forever, Shootout at OK Corral.
It had a pistol that stuck halfway out of the machine and shot ball bearings at
little metal bad guys that popped out behind horses and out of saloon windows.
It cost a nickel. I played twice and made my little brother watch.
My mother dragged me home
by the hair, three blocks. Then she sent me to school the next day with
handprints across my face and bruises on my ass. I think my brother got it too.
The trauma was so intense, I never forgot it.
My
daughter and I walked into the drugstore and returned the goods. Actually, I
returned the goods while she stood there and looked unhappy. When we left, I
told her a little about playing the ice cream, the two nickels, and the frenzy
and trauma that followed.
“This
thing is about building trust and respect,” I said. “Not fear and terror. I
want to be able to trust you with stuff, and the only way we can get to that is
after building a track record of that. Not just once or twice, but a bunch of
times. Then, we can let you run a little.”
“All
right, dad.”
I think
I made the point. But who knows. She’s 12. I was, too.
By
Bill Bauer
Dove soft in my palms
the cottonwood ghosts of your hair
rose incredulously
into my face
in afternoon sun.
You were on my fingertips
and I let you go again
as the sun began
to spread behind
late November mountains.
What I will remember is
how fast the beating
of your heart,
how brilliant and transparent
you were at the age of five.
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