Yellow Mama E zine

Robert had a lot of friends

 

by Craig Kirchner

 

People would say, “Your father’s a nice guy,

but I don’t feel like I know him. He’s hard to know.

It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.”

 

He was always thinking about his current project,

creating something new, or rebuilding something old,

needed for the house, oftentimes just for the hell of it.

 

He rebuilt a motorcycle, single large cylinder engine

a Royal Enfield, the model was long out of production.

He crafted a new cylinder head and drove it to work.

 

He traded it for a bar-room pool table and a Bally 25 hole

pinball machine, that he rebuilt. We played pool for years.

He traded the pinball for an old Chevy, needed a timing gear.

 

He built radiator covers that looked like furniture,

rebuilt the basement as a club room and the coal room

with a dirt floor became a bathroom with a great shower.

 

One of his friends had a large individual house on

a large lot, they built an in-ground pool with a patio

and diving board, we swam a lot as kids.

 

One of his best friends was Peewee, a huge Colt fan,

We drove to his house for the ’58 championship game.

His small black and white TV was not doing well.

 

Peewee had aluminum foil coming off the rabbit ears

and running all the way to the kitchen, trying to

improve the reception.

 

My father took off the back of the TV, asked for

a pair of pliers, squeezed and pushed this and that,

The picture cleared up, and they threw away the foil.

 

He drank milk, coffee, VO and water—Crown Royal

on special occasions. I only saw him drunk twice.

At my sister’s wedding he drank champagne and got sick.

 

I got a DUI, he called a connected lawyer he’d known

since they were kids, gave him five hundred dollars,

he got it reduced to negligent driving.

 

He never talked about himself, about the past,

about his childhood, his parents— they divorced

when he was in grade school.

 

He never talked about the navy, he went in at the

end of the war. I asked him if he saw any action.

He was an electrician in the engine room.

 

He was on a battleship in the Pacific— went to the

galley to get a coffee, no sooner walked out and

a shell came through and took out the kitchen.

His good friends didn’t always know what he was

thinking either, but they knew what a good friend was.

He often had their back when they weren’t looking.

 

They knew whatever he was thinking it involved

building something and would be the decent thing to do.

He had a lot of friends.

 

 

       Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville, FL, because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. Craig's writing has been published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, Yellow Mama, About Place Journal, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. More about Craig can be found on Bluesky, and there is an interview up at Spillwords.

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        Jack Garrett was an artist, actor, writer, and musician extraordinaire. He played keyboards and guitar for several rock bands well known in the downtown NYC area during the 1970s and ‘80s and opened for the Ramones as well as for U2 with his band the Nitecaps during U2’s 1980s European tour. He leaves a treasure trove of art, music, and writing. Mr. Garrett had been put on warning at more than one job for doodling at his desk.

  He passed on September 28, 2011.