2029. SEEMING TO NOSTALGIAIZE, THIS IS HOW THINGS STAY WITH YOU

SEEMING TO NOSTALGIAZE,

THIS IS HOW THINGS

STAY WITH YOU

I have drawers for this and that. And, yes,

perhaps, though only perhaps, I made that

word up. A penchant to see everything from

the past with a very golden glow. It never

truly works that way : spending time winnowing

out the doubt and all those things that Grandma

said that Daddy never told us. How the rat

in the kitchen died. How the saucepot, filled

with water leaking from the ceiling and the

apartment above, went right into the cooking

of that night's meal. I loved those tales back

then. I love them now - in retrospect. We

lived like pigs on some linoleum avenue of

spikes and perfume. A 1948 Plymouth parked

sinking at the curb. A buckshot wounded window,

a depth-charge from the countertop, the

icebox that never shut off. Two bums,

outside the doorway, incessantly plinking

lead weights into steel buckets, just to make

their noise all night. Yes, that's right, one

night Dad went down at 2am and punched

them both right out. Cold-cocked, jaw-shot,

punched into a deep nighttime sleep. My

little-boy mind digested all that. I thought

of it forever. Is that how old men die?