Dear Harrison

By Joe Cunningham

Dear Harrison,

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, and as you will know by now, you won’t ever do something unless you just do it.

I was driving to get you from your Mom’s one day, and someone cut me off. I felt how fragile my life was and how at any moment, in the everyday things, I could be gone. And I would never get a chance to tell you even a little bit of what I wanted to say.

So I decided to write this. And hopefully I am around when you understand it all.

This won’t be everything. I’m hoping I’ll be around long enough to be a pain in the ass and tell you more “-ism’s” and “wise things” that you will mostly find boring until maybe someday in your distant future, perhaps if you have a son of your own, or when you “get out there” and realize what it is like to be a man in this world, you will appreciate and find useful.

I trust that my friends will make sure you get to read this if I’m not there when you are old enough. I’m betting there will be kids that make fun of you for some of these things I am about to tell you but, trust me, they are just jealous their dad isn’t such a badass motherfucker.

 

1. If

By Rudyard Kipling. It is your Dad’s favorite poem and says more than he can ever say. I yelled it out loud at your grandparents’ house when I first got out of the seminary when I was 24. I didn’t know where the hell I was gonna go at the time. But that poem become part of my blood.

Your Uncle Kevin used it in his Best Man speech when your Mother and I got married. Memorize it. You will someday make decisions based on it if you think about it enough.

Also “Invictus” has helped me son. That one is your Uncle Kevin’s favorite.

2. Climb Mount Washington

There is a story about mountain climbers. People who never scale those heights ask them, “Why do you climb that mountain?” and they reply, “Because it’s there.”

When your Father was a boy and all the way through college, he used to run mountains with his friends and kids from boarding school. It was hard in the beginning, but your Dad was “an animal” they would say.

One time, only the toughest volunteered to do the Presidential Range when we were on vacation in New Hampshire. It’s something like 12 peaks, 26 or some-odd miles. We were two teams of 5, we met at Mount Washington and exchanged car keys. Some of the guys on the other team didn’t make it. The fast altitude changes made us all sick. Normally you do that hike in 3 days. We did it in 12 hours.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more sore in my life, but it was something I will never forget. It made me feel I could do anything.

When you get up on the top of that mountain, look out there and think of me, and know that you can do anything you really want to do. Hopefully we can do that together.

3. Do what you love.

Perhaps my favorite speech is this clip of Jim Carrey giving a commencement address. Your Dad does a great Jim Carrey impression as you probably will know (and hate) by now.

It took your Dad a long time to figure it out, and life never really ends when you think you got all your shit together, son. It’s about being responsible and also being able to enjoy the present moment, because that’s all you got, but it’s also the time you have to prepare for the future for you and the ones you love.

When your Dad graduated with a creative writing degree, he went into marketing, because that was a seemingly logical step to make money off of his passion and talent. Though I don’t regret the friends I made, and everything happens for a reason, that was a fucking stupid idea in itself.

After 7 years of getting burnt out and highs and lows of doing great and sucking ass, I realized I had to separate “the money making thing” from “the passion.” I got a job that I can leave at work, left the ones that had me chained to my email inbox, and God, “that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost, read that shit.)

Right now I’m working on a book about Lawrence Gabriel, who you hopefully know very well. He’s a fucking hero and he doesn’t even think so, someone your Dad wants to be like, and someone who deserves being looked up to.

And I’m doing on my own time, when you’re with your Mom and I’m not working. I miss you kid, more than I can say, but two moments that I really feel alive are when I am with you and when I am writing something good.

Find a way to do what you love kid. Do what makes you feel alive. I will always support you in that.

4. Just be you.

You’re never gonna be perfect kid. If you’re reading this when you’re about 15 years old, you’ll probably be going through the emotional battle I went through when I first got hair on my balls and did about 3,000 push-ups a day.

You’re always gonna be rough around the edges, and after 30 fucking years of that, I realized that I like that about myself.

Your parents named you after Harrison Ford because he is like that: someone who has character flaws but is a man’s man: he says what he means, no bullshit, and stands up for and protects women and children. I always felt an actor couldn’t portray someone he was not in some way, and you can read about how he saved people in his helicopter and whatnot.

(Watch all of his movies, especially Raiders, Fugitive, the Jack Ryans, Regarding Henry, and Witness. And Adaline. And the one your Dad writes for him. There’s something there kid: that’s why you have the name.)

We improve ourselves everyday: eat healthy, read, work out, work on our habits and try to form virtues. Never stop that. There have been times your Dad let himself lose “it,” but he got it back again.

You will never be “perfect,” but I think that’s perfect in itself.

There is only one perfect man in my book, and I hope you get to know him as I did when I was away in Dublin as a hermit for those years.

You don’t have to be a hermit to do that.

5. Don’t give away your trust like you give money to cashiers.

“Your Father worked with Hyman Roth, but he never trusted Hyman Roth.”

- The Godfather, Part II

There are a lot of shady shit people in this world kid. No doubt you’ve met more than a few of them. Some of them “are like wolves in sheep’s clothing.” You will get wiser as you get fucked over, but that’s life kid.

You go from being naive to getting scorned. Just don’t loose the goodness and don’t hate everyone because of what one person did to you.

There’s a reason why Dickens (your Dad’s fav author, read Tale, his favorite book) wrote Oliver Twist. And, analogously, why Rowling wrote Harry Potter, which, I’m guessing is one of your nicknames, because of your name and matching scars, that your Father has also.

It’s because of that. They were able to stay good despite the worst possible things happening to them.

Which brings me to my next point.

6. Don’t play the blame game.

Sylvester Stallone said it better than I ever will here kid. The first Rocky will always be the greatest, but this is the very best speech. It changed your Dad’s life forever.

I been through my fair share of shit kid, but when I looked back after this speech, I realized most of life’s shit comes from the decisions you made, and then there’s the shit that just happens. How you deal with all of that is what makes you a real man or a fucking loser.

Which leads to…

7. Be a real man.

There are a lot of biological men out there kid, but very few real men. I swear if you are a fucking doosh I will rise up from my grave and beat the living shit out of you.

You need to protect women. Respect them. (I knew you would treat women like I treat your Mom now, so even though we don’t always agree, I am aware of that when I talk to her for your sake.) Protect children, the innocent. You need to be the one that stands up for what is right, even when it’s not popular, even when there will be really tough consequences.

Let me tell you kid, the real riches are in character; everything else flows from that.

8. Always seek the truth wherever it may be found.

Your Dad came from an overly-conservative background. People that think they have all the answers. Fortunately, he was able to break outta that, while still keeping the good things he learned.

Some of the worst people in the world are the ones who think they fuckin know everything. Beware of those people! The wise man knows there is so much he does not know.

All of the best philosophers and teachers were able to look at all sorts of different cultures and peoples and find the truth that was there within, the common thread we all have in our hearts to cut through the bullshit and really know and do what is best.

Don’t ever look down on someone because of what they look like or where they came from. There is something to be learned from everyone kid. Obviously, some more than others. Stay humble.

9. Seek true love.

It exists kid. I’ve felt it.

“What is love?” - Phil Collins (great fucking song, haha)

True love is the very best feeling you can feel. (But also "More Than A Feeling" - another great song.) You really have to risk your whole heart to find it, and if you lose it, it is the very worst feeling in the world kid. It will take the wind right out of you and no sword can cut deeper or hurt worse.

But it is worth it.

It makes life come alive, it is the comfort you only dreamed of, it makes sex something ethereal that is more the communication of two people that are crazy about each other.

(I remembered this and added later): son, don't waste your time on girls without character. True beauty is on the inside. Of course, it's great to find someone who has both, and you will. Pretty is on the outside, beauty comes from within.

A wise person once told me: "Reflect what you desire." If you want to attract someone of worth, be someone of worth.

True there is a spectrum of the kinds of love. Siblings, parents, children, soul mates, friends, etc.

I love you son. I love you more than anyone or anything. I know I’m not perfect, by far, but I would die for you without thinking. And I live for you, which is the harder thing sometimes. But I love my life mainly because you are in it.

“I simply love you

More than I love

Life itself.”

- Elton John (who is better than Billy Joel kid)

I post a lot of pictures on Facebook and Instagram, hoping that in the future you will go back and see them and see how much your Daddy loves you. I love you kid.

“You want to know what my happy thought was?

It was you.”

-Robin Williams, Hook

It was you kid, it was always you.

“The two most important days of a man’s life are the day he was born and the day he finds out why.” - Mark Twain (read Joan of Arc by him, your Father’s 2nd fav book

You are my why kid. You and the people who read the small sliver of my writing that isn’t total fucking shit.

10. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry you didn’t have an easy life kid. You will have heard the stories over and over from many different people (like Citizen Kane, which you need to watch) about how your Mom and I were married for like 5 minutes. The important thing for you to remember is: I will never regret it because I got you.

I miss not seeing your sister and brother and you all the time, but trust me kid, it is better this way.

Your Dad is very much not perfect. But he tries to be all the things I just wrote about here. And I know what I write and what I say won’t really stand up against two shits flying in the wind (WTF?); it is what I do that you will really remember and take to heart.

I am aware of that. And I think about it all the time.

You will hear many stories about me, some of them good, some bad - and some of both of those will be true. I hope you are able to discern which. Your Father was never a cheater, and he’s made a lot of mistakes, but he always tried to be a hero, which has sometimes worked against him.

What is more important than worrying about our legacy is what we do for others, and the quality of character we truly have. Good people will misjudge us (and bad), but it must not be the shit we worry about most.

11. I want you to fuck up.

What? Yeah.

Some of the best experiences and life lessons have come from me going out “there” on my own quest, on my own dime, with my own lack of experience and wisdom and coming back bruised, beaten, and a little bit wiser.

Just don’t go anywhere you can’t come back from.

And I will always be there for you kid. But I want you to be able to be able to take care of yourself too.

12. Your Dad is Batman.

But don’t tell anybody. (Hahaha.)

13. Enjoy the moment, kid.

If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be that. I spent most of my life til recently just thinking about the “next thing” and distant future plans that I hadn’t begun, and not the here and now.

The present is everything that is real. We use it to deal with the past and plan for the future but you’ve got to enjoy it. That’s really the secret to life kid. That and we were meant for more than this world. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” We have infinite desires that can only be satisfied by something/One infinite.

Yesterday, you were with your Mom and I had the day off so I ran around Green Lakes. Your Father loves to run and listen to good music. No doubt you heard me sing in the shower like all the time, or blast music in the car. Your uncles and I inherited that from your Grandfather (“Beepa,” as you call him.)

Find what you love (again) and do that with the people you love. That’s the shit right there kid.

I used to think “It’s not only the destination but the journey” was a motto for losers, but those are the people who really have it figured out there kid. Have goals and work towards them and attain them, but enjoy getting there son.

And the real “there” isn’t even “here.”

14. Put on your own oxygen mask before you help the person next to you put on theirs.

Someday you’ll understand this. You’re Daddy fucked that up and learned that.

15. You become like the people you spend the most time with.

Choose that shit wisely, and be able to shift if need be.

16. Remember the world doesn’t owe you jack shit!

You gotta “earn it” kid. (Saving Private Ryan)

Don’t ever expect a free ride or a handout, from anybody! That will make you weak as shit. And the day will soon come when none of that is there and then you’ll be fucked. You gotta work for everything that is truly worth anything.

Remember that.

17. Beauty will save the world.

 "Beauty is truth, and truth beauty; that is all yea need to know on earth, that is all that you can know." - Keats

Your Father is an artist and a semi-decent writer sometimes and he loves music like the lifeblood that flows through his body.

Go to the art galleries, watch great movies, read great books, listen to the music that makes you feel alive son! Find your favorites and just cherish those! And don’t be ashamed of any of it.

(And go outdoors - art reflects nature and the opposite can also be true.)

I never wanna be that jackass dad who decides everything for you and puts you in all sorts of extracurricular shit. I want you to be you and do what you want. And I will enjoy seeing exactly what that is.

You’re so cute when you sing with me in the car. Haha. All your girlfriends are gonna thank me for adding that. (Haha!)

18. Keep a journal and write down your goals.
Thanks to my buddy Mark, I do that. Most everyday. And it helps a whole goddam lot kid. 

"The lightest ink is stronger than the strongest memory." - Chinese proverb

It just helps you get the important shit into focus, to go for it, and get it done.

19. Just remember I love you.

I know you’re going to hate my guts and shit. God knows I did that to your grandparents and put them through hell.

But I love you son. And if I do my “job” right, you’re gonna hate me at some point.

I get you tomorrow. And I can’t wait kid. (Your Mom and I split the week.) You and I do this thing where I tell you I love you and you say “I love you back” and then I say “I love you more” and you reply I love you “most-er,” and I “mostest," and “mosterest” and “more than that.” And I know, even though you are three, that’s real kid.

You can be a real pain in my ass sometimes (it’s part of the deal, and it goes both ways), but you gotta know that I would kill for you. And that I can’t be there all the time to protect you from everything. And that will help make you a man. It scares the shit outta me, but at the same time, in some ways, I want that for you.

It’s like when you get sick, which you may know if you ever give me grandkids, I feel it more kid, even if I’m not sick at the time.

Because I love you.

--------

I’m gonna think of 50 other things to say after I post this, but I’ll end here. I’m sure you’ll hear 5 million more from me (and roll your eyes) as the years go by. I hope I’m there to see you do all the great things you’re gonna do. And know I’m already so goddam proud of you, son.

I am not the best Father a boy could have, but you are the best son; and don’t you ever think otherwise.

With all my heart son,

Your Father

Joseph Thomas Martin Cunningham

A Mothers’ Day Poem

By Joe Cunningham

(I wrote this in my senior year of high school.)

There is a woman I have known,

Since long before my mem’ry,

Who’s walked with me on paths of life -

Where’er my legs would send me.

Whose soft, black hair and soft, white cheeks

My hands and lips knew well.

Whose friendly arms and loving heart

Became my favorite place to dwell.

She taught me of the living God,

And of his mother’s son.

She taught me how to love this man,

In each and everyone.

And when the cold winds blew their worst

And shadows filled the air,

Fear would never stand a chance

When she was standing there.

Her tender voice would comfort me,

Though skies would cry and thunder.

Her guiding hand was ever there,

Though my legs would often wander.

And when I’d travel darkened roads

And it seemed that hope was lost,

She always came to rescue me

No matter what the cost.

What loving words can give her due?

She loves me like no other.

What other word describes her thus?

In short – she is my Mother.

Love,

Your Son,

Joe

I Have Always Wanted To Do This

By Joe Cunningham

(I wrote this in college, bascially just because I "always wanted to do that.")

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a king, of course. And the king had a son - the prince, of course. The prince was dastardly, mischievous, and would always play tricks on everyone; tricks that would often hurt someone. So one night, as the king tucked his son in bed, the king said to his son:

“Son, I am going to tell you a bedtime story you will never forget.” And so, he did.

“Once upon a time,” the king said, naturally – the prince sat up eager and impatient, “A very, very long, long, long, long time ago there lived a young prince. He was a very happy and mischievous fellow, always playing tricks on everyone in the castle and the like and laughing his chin off about it when he did it and such and so forth; but he was not every happy enough about his tricks so he set off one day – without telling his parents, the king and queen of the land, of course, of course, in search of the mightiest, most dastardly trick human minds had ever worked.

“He was on his way when he bumped into a very tall thin man with a crutch, a slight crick in his back, and a mysterious grin on his face.”

‘Gu-daye,’ said the man with the crooked back. The boy stared up at him with interest and a bit of fire in his eyes. After all, he was the son of the king you know, and that means a prince, and princes are by nature very bold.

‘What’s so good about it,’ said the little prince, for, in addition to being bold, the little prince was quite a bit rude.

‘Wha-eye tit’s the ‘appi-est day ‘a yor li-ife,’ said the bent man, ‘Aye ‘appen ta’ knowe yor lookin’ for a moast ingeanious, terrible trick any man’s ever played, and aye ‘appen ta’ knowe it.’ The boy was dumbfounded, both with joy at the chance of knowing the trick this close in the journey, and because he didn’t know how this tall bent fellow knew anything about his quest. So anyway, he stopped thinking about that and nodded his head to the tall man.

‘Well, go on then,’ he said, ‘Tell me it.’ And so, the old man told him.

‘Well lemmere see if I remember it all now; it was some, some time ago I came-mupon it, out on the waves of the scurvy sea. I was but a wee lad like ya’are I was, a wee lad and already spent more time at sea than in me own land. I remember the cap-pin a’that certain ship used to sing us sailing songs and tell many a sailing story. Aye, it was this one story that he told that had the spell in it. And he told it like this:

“There once was a quiet poor strong sailing man,” ee’ said, “Whose ship went down and his whole crew was washed ashore on a desert island in the middle of bloody nowhere. Well, when I say his crew, I mean only four of them: him, and three of his mates. Well, they really wasn’t his mates ‘cause all a’ the men onboard that ship just hated ‘im; probably because he was quiet and maybe because he was strong and quiet, heaven knows. Well, in any case, here they were washed ashore and making fires and calling for help and the like, and all the quiet strong one wanted to do was sit and say and do nothin’. So the other three got around him, just to annoy him like and began tellin’ him a story. And it went like this:

‘A long time ago there was this stupid quiet bloak Joovie, and Joovie was silent and stupid. Well, one day Joovie steps on a nail and screams his bloomin’ ‘ead off. And ‘ee was talkin’ all the tyme. ‘N ‘ee was sayin’ all sorts ‘a things like, “Polly wanna cracker,” an’, “Gosh I forgot where I left my panties,” an’ shit like that. Until one day ‘ee loses ‘is ‘ead ‘n starts goin’ off on a wild tangint, like:

“On a wisky wasky Wednesday, in the foremost month of march, and young lofty feller by the name of, oh, Wing Wan walloped his way into the Worthington House in the land of Wally Wally. Wright. So there he was, standing at the dinner table, filled with worthy guests and there he is, unworthy. So Willy Wing Wan (Willy was his christening name, it was) began a speech that lasted quite some time as an attempt to worthy himself to the meal. After all, he was very hungery, coming in from, well, wherever he had come.

‘Ladies and fine gentlemen,’ he said, ‘May I introduce myself I’m Worthy Worthy (that was the name his friends called him – though most people called him “Useless” – and he was feeling quite necessarily friendly at the moment), and this is most awkward, you see I’ve come a long way and was able to make it here just in time today to give you the sheer honor and grace of my presence. No, no, don’t get up; it’s quite allright, yes quite allright. I’ll be spelling that correctly for you in a moment. Now the first thing is for me to explain to you the tidiness of the situation. Allow me to narrate to you the account of my journey here and the reason of its supreme importance for this moment. All right, now I shall begin:

‘We – my late friends and I – were frolicking down the road one day in Palm Springs when a certain blue jay began annoying us in a most inconsiderate fashion. Are you following me here? Yes – a blue jay. Most inconsiderate animals. Hm-fa, ar-a ye-es. Well there we were when one of my fellows, a late fellow I must confess, unfortunate you know, starts rambling on about the time it reminded him of in Sing Sing.

“I was there,” he said, “From 1497 to 1945,” of course that made our mouths drop, “in the years of the most pretentious of weather. It was always sunny, then rainy, then foggy, and it snowed – all in a day, everyday, every year. I remember the first time the sleet came down, it was like a fiasco: prisoners, running around, nothing but shorts on, getting hit by large chunks of ice coming down at great velocities. But you wouldn’t know it though, that it was terrible weather, terrible indeed. It was just finally different than anything we ever had that it got us all up for a little jig outside during kick-boxing classes. Yes, a fine afternoon I do say, though we lost half the men to sleet fractures and abrasions – a fine place for the warden to be in; I think he got a promotion. The politicians were always complaining about no more room in the jails. So this one day comes and we receive a new warden: short, skin and bones, baby-face - doesn’t look a day older than fourteen. So we’re lined all up and he begins to speak over the mike there and tells us all a thing or two:

‘On the first month of the fourth year of the third prison I was ever warden of, a prisoner escaped from my prison by the name of Bottle-mouth Garmen. Bottle-mouth ran through the Chesapeake Woods like there was no tomorrow and he was damn right, he was. By nine the next morning he was back in his cell: his bottle-mouth head stuck on a pike in the middle of the hall so all could see; his body I left rot behind bars for three weeks, not letting anyone out of their cells for that time. The stench was so terrible, that thirty nine of my guards quit and I had to bring in noseless mole rats to deliver the food.

‘At the end of the torture, several of the men had gone and lost their minds and inevitably, one of them we had speaking incessantly for all his life. He would go like this:

“All around the mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasel. Why the monkey ever chased the weasel in the first place, nobody knows. It remains a fact though that the weasel ended up running ‘round the corner so fast that he buffeted into the future, where he met a certain mischievous man with a pen who said the most mysterious enigmatic seven words ever written in a short spot after the weasel sneezed like this:

‘Ah-CHOO!’ ” ’ ” ’ ” ’ ” ’ ”

I have always wanted to do that.

………………………….

So ends the story the enigmatic man once told in the future to his mischievous little son, the prince, of course, ending his annoying little escapade for the near future and delivering peace to all the land; until the next morning, of course.

The End.

Underneath A Sunday

By Joe Cunningham

(I meant to publish something else today I wrote a while ago, but then I found this.)

My father saved my life once, and he doesn’t even know it.

One day in college, I was day dreaming about childhood memories when a certain episode of my past began to glow with never before seen importance.

My father once worked for the Bishop’s chancery downtown overseeing the help for handicapped people. I and my siblings grew up getting hugged by smelly, large, deformed people who always had a way of transmitting joy despite the physical “ick.” And we helped a lot of homeless people, my father and I. Dad never missed an opportunity to give a homeless guy his bag lunch or whatever he had at the time: half-bruised apples that were “still good,” a roll of crackers, hot dog rolls (why were those in the car?). We never had much money and they used that for “drinking, smoking, and drugs,” Dad explained.

“People down here lead very hard lives,” he said; so we helped them however we could, but couldn’t give them any money.

I think my Dad knew every homeless guy in Syracuse. Sometimes they would show up at the dinner table at home. Mom would be on edge the whole time. There was a particular middle aged African American man there once that had a Creole accent and rambled on from story to story with such agility, throwing in a loud “Mighty fine” or a “thank you very much Ma’am” every time Mom walked by. It looked like she was on pins and needles. Mom was as charitable as Dad, just more cautious about strangers being in the house.

I remember one time in the city in particular when my father left me outside on a bright spring day to talk to a man who had lost his legs getting run over by a truck while he was sleeping in an alley in the wintertime. The homeless man seemed cheerful enough, like it had happened long enough ago and he had gotten over it as much as something like that can be gotten over. It was an awkward five minutes but soon Dad was back with a cup of coffee from his office’s break room with the usual large smile on his face. The expression on the homeless, legless man’s face was noticeably brighter as we walked away. Dad wasn’t one for throwing his kids into life-lessons; they just came as we went. Coffee made smelly gray haired guys happy – check.

And then there was this man: homeless I’m sure, and I can’t remember a particular time my Dad did him a favor in my presence, though I’m one hundred percent sure he did something. I can’t remember his name, but for all intents and purposes his name was Roger.

Roger was probably forty: brown hair, always dirty stubble on his face and the usual stink that comes from being forty and not taking a shower since God knows when. He was a little overweight (strange, right?), hand-me-down clothes, blank stare, quiet. Nice as my Dad was, there was a language homeless people used among their own that they didn’t open up to anybody else. The most you could get out of one of the talkative ones was their pitiful life story and then a plug for a buck. Not happening.

It happened on a Sunday. We went to St. Lucy’s Catholic Church: a dirty, slum town church we left when I was still a kid. There was guitar music and lots of kids, lots of poor people, and the group homes came with all the smiling handicapped people. It was a lively Mass; I was both weirded out and felt at home. Despite the unease, I felt the other kids in my posh Catholic elementary were missing out on something necessary for childhood: I believe I understood right then that you didn’t know the world until you looked under what people called the gutter and found the goodness in it – the whole “diamond in the rough” thing from Aladdin.

After church services we would all run down to coffee hour, or as we kids preferred to call it, “coffee and donuts,” with the emphasis on the “donuts” part. My favorites were the chocolate-covered “whatever you call it’s.” Sometimes there was juice. Other times there was not.

“Never leave the coffee hour room,” Mom said. It was a golden rule, or bronze, or whatever came after “Love thy neighbor” and all that. It was a very hard rule to follow (it was always packed to the brim) but I followed it to a “T.” A week without television would be hell and was worth getting tagged in tag, not playing outside with the big kids, and whatever other horrors there were.

There was only one time I left the room. That was when I was selling coupon books for school and saw one of the poor neighborhood kids watch me receive twenty bucks from one of the parishioners and pocket it. I would turn it in later. Mom was there. She must have thought it would be good for me to learn responsibility. I put it in her purse anyway. Moments later I heard a voice and felt small hands bigger than mine grab my arms from behind and a hard object press in between my shoulder blades. I laughed, probably because I knew where this could go and didn’t have the money anymore. I was pushed into a room down the hall.

“Give me the twenty dollars,” growled the voice. He reached into my pocket and I laughed again. There was nothing in there of course. He released me and I turned around. It was the poor kid wearing a frustrated face and that nasty thin pony tail tied with a rubber band. I thought he had had a weapon, but he was holding just his own fingers. I never told my Mom til after I remembered this story in college. It just didn’t occur to be of any importance at the time. I returned to the coffee room, unscathed and in good humor.

That fateful Sunday Dad took me out of the room. I think we were going to use the bathroom or something, but I don’t remember having to go when it happened. Maybe we had already gone or Dad just wanted to talk to someone outside because I remember him talking to someone and I was just standing outside and around the corner, like a dog that suddenly stops following his master and stands there dumbfounded.

I remember looking up and seeing three people staring at me slouched against the wall opposite me. It was a dead end: one was on my left at the impasse and the other two a little to my right. The two people on the right smiled at me. They were tall, a bit fat, and dirty. The one to the left I recognized. It was Roger. He had a different look on his face: thoughtful, and a little bit weary of something; or smiling with a hint of that – I can’t remember, but it was different from the other two, it must have been.

It only took a moment, what they said. For a second I saw into their private world where they actually talked to each other, like best friends, as equals and, in a way, wiser than the rest of us “rich people.” I think it was a woman: one of the two standing a little to my right. She cracked open the smile on her hairy face and spoke forwards but to Roger, never taking her beady eyes off of me. I don’t think that now I will ever forget what they said.

“What about this one?” she asked. Roger was staring at me too but in a different way.

“No, not this one,” he said. And that was all.

I stood there, in all naïveté, for what seemed like an hour, but was probably three to five minutes, recording everything: copying it in my mind, unknowingly erasing the original footage and placing the copied tape deep into my mind for that daydream day in university when I would shiver over the weight of each of those words; until I felt my father’s hand take mine, and I never saw those three people again.

He led me back into the warm room of coffee and donuts and too many people, my mother’s eyes, and safety. It was probably near time to go and we must have piled into the station wagon, wood trimmed, rusted, and all: myself in the back seat with Lucy, my older sister. I must have stared out the large back window, both of us pointing our tongues out at the cars behind and giving them pig-nosed snubs, laughing, and hiding under the seat when our two vehicles met awkwardly at a red light. The family cars would change: some broke down, others came when the family grew; and I in a blur grew out of care-free adolescence and my quiet, frustrating, and rebellious teens; until college and the move to Ireland, and that fateful day of recollection. All in all, what stood out as I remembered was my Father. He is a good man, my dad – like no one else – and everyone knew it. And Roger knew it.

To the Lady in the Woods

By Joe Cunningham

 

A poem for Ben’s Wedding: April 9th, 2016

I knew your husband since we were young:

We fought the neighbor kids and won,

We ran ice-covered mountains in the sun,

We knew a language known to none;

We were like brothers.

We are like brothers.

We both faced things that no one knows,

I watched him go where no one goes,

I know there was a time he froze,

A while -

From the sorrow of a thousand woes.

He never spoke much about it.

He knows he’s better off without it.

We walked that lonely road

Together. And as we picked our pieces up - the load,

It one day turned for him from winter’s cold,

To a fair summer’s sun, and gold.

For from that moment he told me your name,

I knew he’d never be the same -

“Theresa.”

You lit an everlasting flame.

His joy and wholeness, yours to blame.

Many happy returns to you both.

Your “brother,”

Joe