Sixty-eight and sixty-four driving down from Tylertown
Mississippi
To my home in New Orleans to walk to a Tulane baseball game
White pickup truck wants to get to the field
An hour early to watch batting practice
My father wears a still green t-shirt
From the 2001 college world series in Omaha we attended after I
graduated seventeen years ago
Open door, greet his friend who says he likes my house
Pictures of Fats Domino and Nina Simone watch
Tells me how Jimi Hendrix blues are his jam, but
Stevie Ray Vaughn he could really play
Complains about how his wife makes him listen to satellite radio
The Bridge
His buddy’s friends have a band that rocked some bar in
Mandeville
I offer the facilities. He takes a piss.
Three of us walk. Sun on the edge.
He talks about his financial broker has a suite at the stadium.
My father buys three railbird seats. BP. Artificial turf.
Tulane versus the University of New Orleans
My undergraduate versus graduate school
My father says he wants me to drink so much he’ll have to carry
me home
Different definitions of what it means to be a man
I go to concessions. Buddy tells me I can only buy two beers at
a time.
Walk two Miller lights to father and his friend. Explain.
Father makes fun of me. Says go back and get two more for you.
I joke about how that makes no sense. I’ll just take one. The
second will get hot.
I don’t need it now. Why would I take more than I need?
I go buy my single metal bottle of my father’s favorite brand.
Sip. National Anthem. Stand. Don’t keep full eye contact on
flag.
Stare around the stadium at mouthing.
Father’s hand over heart, mine is not.
I look up at the sky instead. Panorama all the people.
Tulane takes a five to nothing lead.
Finance broker’s six-foot-six son is on the mound for Tulane
Scheduled freshman pitcher is relieved
New Orleans proceeds to load the white bases, ties it up
Fifth inning I call my best friend in Atlanta to see how he is
doing
Sunday was the first Mother’s Day since his mother’s death.
I couldn’t call him because I was out at my parent’s place
In the woods of rural Mississippi where my phone doesn’t work
On the ride back to New Orleans, I see he had texted to wish my
mom a happy Mother’s Day
Thought of a year ago him and me at Jazz Fest to see Stevie
Wonder
His father’s favorite, I remember his mother talking to me about
Fats Domino
In the car when she could not drive because of the chemo and I
brought her to the bank
To sign some paperwork to help my best friend get his first
mortgage in Georgia
My dad starts naming the late 1950’s Yankee’s starting line up
Told me his dad made him stand up and salute the television
When they played the national anthem growing up
Wind is blowing out. Seventh inning. Piss break
Three beers in for the group.
I buy some peanuts thinking my dad will like them.
Back at seat he says, “I can’t eat those anymore. They give me
hemorrhoids.”
Dad’s friend says, “Last game of the season.
Financial broker has to get rid of all the beer in his suite.
Free.”
My dad, “Easy decision. Come on son let’s go.”
I grab my peanuts, view of home plate, and march up the steps
Behind security guards and doors with donor’s names
A black woman works to bring concessions
Finance broker is tall. Genetics. Says he’s an MBA grad
Suite is shitty carpet. Gray home depot cabinets.
A flat screen shows an MMA fight between McGregor and Santos
About eight people muddle. I can’t see the field well.
I brought my beer. Stocked fridge. I don’t sip.
Try to watch. Finance broker starts picking up.
Chucks a bottle of Bloody Mary mix in the trash can.
Offers dad’s friend pennants. He accepts.
He tries to grab my peanuts sitting on a table right in front of
me thinking they were his
Tulane wins, “You have to come down and see the boys. My son can
sign the pennant.”
Walk down. Dad’s friend talks about how much money this dude has
made him in the market.
I tell him, “I worked as an auditor and CPA. You have to know
what you are investing in, where your money comes from.” He rattles about
returns.
Sasquatch signs dad’s friend’s pennant, “You did great Kenton.”
I ask the right hander what his major is, “Finance”
I tell him to make sure to take as many accounting courses as he
can
The language of business, it’s a hard-skill,
Will always be useful to understand how the whole thing works
My dad shakes the pitcher’s hand. “Good job Shorty,” smiles
I say, “Y’all ready to go.”
Dad’s friend goes to thank Mr. Finance Broker
I liked the seats we had.
Walk the few blocks to my house
Dad’s friend starts talking politics
I use the word fuck in a sentence about healthcare.
He tells me to watch my language
I say, “This is my street. You are in the blue dot on the red
plate now buddy.
The word is an intensifier. Fuck is not the scary word.”
Man keeps talking.
Unlock front door. Close door.
Two sixty-year-old’s on a sofa. Miller lights. Me standing.
Churn of America having the inside the white-family talk
Moving parts in an engine
Dad and friend say, “Climate change is not real. Adam and Eve.
You have to be responsible for your actions. You should have thought about that
before you had kids. Well you go out and get a third job. Letting all the
immigrants in. Schools are better privatized. Indigent had hospitals to take
care of them we don’t need government involved. Socialism means they take my
land and get to decide what happens with it. Those people over there been
fighting since 1500. Just want to kill each other. I have seen what man is. Do
you know what happened in WWI? This country was founded on work.
Stop feeling guilty son your relatives did not own slaves they
were Rodrig, Moors that invaded Spain who converted Catholic and sailed to Nova
Scotia as Rodriguez, then dropped the z in Louisiana. You have nothing to feel
bad about son. Lighten up. You are so passionate. I don’t disparage anyone
working hard and having all that money, I just wish I knew how to do it too.” Friend
asks me, “Do you know how America got great?”
I say, “America was founded on genocide of the indigenous then
imported slaves as a free labor force in a second genocide amassing massive
economic wealth. War. Opulent owners in an economy run by banks. WWI. Great
Depression. New Deal. WWII fought on foreign soil from the continental.
Technology created leveraged Marshall Plan Europe paid America to rebuild it.
Insulated by oceans. 1950’s minimum wage was about half of the average wage.”
Dad chimes in, “I used to make a $1.15 delivering for the
pharmacy in high school when my dad made about $3.40 working at Celetex. So
I’ll agree with you on that.”
I say, “1960’s anti-war and civil rights protests got rid of the
draft you feared more than anything in the world. Different generations,
different challenges, you have to see people. No matter where you go people
just want to love their family, see their kids grow up safe, share music, share
food, the feeling of a hungry belly, every person is bigger on the inside than
any of us can imagine. Banks want to start wars, control the Federal Reserve to
keep government debt from toppling a system designed to keep most people
desperate and enrich the few.”
Dad says, “Oh, I agree with that the World Bank controls
everything. Everything is rigged. They decide it all. Why do you get so worked
up son? You can’t make a difference. Have a beer.”
I say, “Do you think the World Bank stopped the draft? Do you
think they would have picked Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders?”
Friend says, “Oh Bernie Sanders he’s a fucking idiot. That guy
is so clueless. Never ran anything in his life. Socialism, do you know about
Venezuela. I worked for Shell. Venezuela broke everything to rot and had Shell
come in to fix it up to speed then took it back. That’s the democratic
socialism you want? Do you know who owns it all now; Russia.”
I talk about, “WWI, WWII America and the Soviet Union always
fought on the same side. Two different economic principles in communism and
capitalism fighting for dominion on the earth, but both really run by
oligarchs. Try to explain definitions of socialism, communism, and democratic
socialism and what industries inside capitalism are not good fits for full free
market and need government involvement, only in America that involvement
benefits industrial agriculture, defense contractors, and Big Pharma instead of
the people.”
Crickets. My father goes to take a piss when I mention supply
and demand curves.
I say, “Bankers and elites decided how natural resources are
distributed, who profits, who gets exploited. Soviet war machine ran out of
cash first. America huffed debt exploited foreign people for cheap goods.
Republican/Democrat it’s a one-party system, but the Democrat’s social and
economic policies are better. The solution is democratic socialism and a
coordinated global tax on capital by all 194 nations to address climate change
and women’s health to address population growth, wealth inequality, and the
ultimate striation potable water.”
Friend says, “Obama only got elected because he is black.”
I say, “Are you telling me the World Bank would not have
preferred Hillary Clinton over Obama? Obama got elected because he is extremely
intelligent, but like Clinton he was willing to play ball with Wall Street. Clinton
is super smart too, but her legacy is far more imbedded with the global banks
going into 2008.
This is not about red or blue. Maybe to you and your Fox News
bubble view you think that is what this is. (Pause, dad’s friend smirks as my
father turns to commiserate the nod.) You need to get out the echo chamber and
understand that is what both parties want you to do, to ignore facts, to not
read, to bicker in ideology, and not critically think.”
Alternative facts. False equivalencies
I ask, “Do you know what genocide means?”
Friend says, “That is when they killed the Jews. Indigenous
what’s that?”
I say, “Creek” He says, “You mean Indians; they were killing
each other before we got here.”
I say, “Machine guns from railroads to mow down buffalo herds to
starve people. I say yellow fever blankets. Andrew Jackson. Trail of Tears.
Lakota way.”
Friend says, “You can say what things means all you want. What’s
a definition? You are just like my nephew that just graduated. You and him are
just alike. By the time you are sixty-eight sitting here then you’ll know.”
I say, “You don’t even know who you are dealing with sir. You
won’t give a shit, because you’ll be dead, but when I’m sixty-eight I hope the
water won’t be up over that sofa.”
Friend says, “Irish, indentured servitude.”
I say, “Barbarity, over fifty million people died in the Trans
Atlantic Slave trade. Humans chained in drawers. Rape. Families sold apart.
Torture.”
Dad says, “I want the government to stay out of everything. Stay
off my land. Shouldn’t be handing out to people. Get jobs”
I ask him, “What about that CRP money the state pays you not to
cut your trees or the seedling programming to help you replant?”
Back and forth going on an hour and fifteen
Father’s friend, “Asks me again genocide? Genocide? Please.”
My father tells me you know what I want on my tombstone
“When you think you know, you don’t know. When you know you
don’t know, then you know.”
I say, “You worked your ass off in the attics of New Orleans to
send me to get an education. I got a scholarship to go to the school on your
shirt, but I did not quit learning when I left. I am a CPA that has worked
inside the hemorrhoids of Wall Street. I am a poet. I’ve written two books. I
have friends on the red right and the blue left. Both sides are full of people
with big hearts and my life has been a lot of purple.
If you think this polarization bullshit is more important than
facts and doing your homework and you do not trust your own son’s education
when I stand here and tell you, knowing you haven’t read, you haven’t
researched any of this stuff, you just think you know and watch Fox News in the
evenings or an S.E.C. network baseball game…you used to be in the I.B.E.W. like
the sign in the outfield tonight.
You know I am no longer a Christian, but I did keep the Jesus
part about what you do to the least among us, the love your neighbor. I don’t
see how Jesus is in any of the things you’ve been talking about. The epitaph
you want. It’s bullshit dad. It’s a platitude. Some people do know things. Some
people do empirical research. Go through peer review on scientific facts over
ninety eight percent of global scientists agree on anthropogenic climate
change. (Friend gives my father the same smirk-nod again.) Some people know economics,
history, science, and sociology because they do their homework and write or
read books based in facts.”
My father looks at me “You get so passionate. You don’t need to
feel guilty or sorry for them son.” He turns to his friend and jokes, “They
should have appreciated the free ride to America. They’re better off for it.”
They both smile on my white sofa.
A hot well of tempered alcohol and rage fumes in my Rodrig blood
I see the picture of me and my best friend at Jazz Fest over my
father’s right ear
I pull the picture off the wall
I hold it up to his startled face. I can see the glare in his
eyeball.
I scream, “Look at it! Would you say that to his motherfucking
face? If you wouldn’t say it to him, then sure as fuck don’t say it to me! Get the
fuck out of my motherfucking house!”
The two turn. Say nothing. Get in a white pickup truck drive
off.
I text ten minutes later.
“Dad, I love you. I told you at grandma’s table over a year ago,
I have zero tolerance for racism in my presence. I know things got heated. I
apologize for cursing at you to say what I said, but I do not apologize for the
point. If you want to pick your father’s racism, go ahead keep the ignorance
underneath its grip. Families fight. We disagree. I love you as a human, but
belittling the education you worked so hard to give me crushes me inside, it’s
like no matter how hard I work in my mind you would be more proud if I could
throw a fastball. You seem more concerned with picking your ego than saying, “I
did not know that son. Thanks for your work and talent to know the difference
between facts and opinions, to be one of the people who gives a shit.”
I drink some water. Check the web.
Poet friend on Facebook, “P.T. Beauregard statue coming down
tonight.”
Think of the march two weeks ago being at Lee Circle
My father, heritage. Midnight.
Read some pages from a Laura Kipnis book. Slept.
Morning dress, statue down
Pass an old black homeless-looking man holding a trumpet by the
Shell station
Called my mother on my drive to work to let her know
She says, “Nobody’s perfect. He’s trying to reach out to you in
his own way.
I call him out when he’s racist, he is wrong, but you reject
him.”
I say, “I love him. I love you. There is no bridge burned even
he thinks there is, but I have zero tolerance for racism. I know he was abused
by his parents. I know who his father was and an idea of the world he grew up
in, but I want him and you to know one of the reasons I am so adamant about
this is because this shit ends here, my brothers and I in this generation. This
family’s legacy of racism is dead. It dies with him.”
