The Mayflies
I sometimes imagine that in those preconscious early years of my life I was not me, or rather I was a kind of amorphous gelatinous being, ripening like the fruit of our pear tree yet to drop—then slip like a slime mold into the earth whence I've died, leaving my family befuddled and asking what just happened, who came before us, left us imprinted a mishapened graph upon the earth, the remnant detritus of storm beaten trees and shattered shop window glass.
The autumn funeral was far more orderly than he deserved. The pews should have rattled and squeaked like the wooden legs upon the linoleum floor of our cafe. And later that day mother would be scolding us our comotion with the forced tight-lipped breath of a retired school head master... if not for her already depleted energy.
"You'll be the death of me before god knows I'm gone," she'd say.
Outside, and beyond the waiting cars a few men stood smoking, kicking tires and picking leaves off the hoods of their vehicles.
Mandy and I were the first to run to our car with mother behind failing to stop us.
"Hah, you're the rotten egg joey!"
"Shut up... midget!"
The following few days were spent chasing our dog Beetle through the raked leaves and down the slope towards the road that led to downtown Colorado Springs. Our house sat high enough on a hill that we could see from our porch the neighboring homes spread sparcely along parts of the winding way. Some of these neighbors were at father's funeral. And all of these were his customers.
I did not know then that he distributed illegally distilled liquor nor that mother had any inkling of it, but I did know that there were troubles between them. One day Mandy and I heard their shouts which trailed through toppled furniture and the screendoor. From our bedroom window we saw mother chasing him with what looked like a butcher's knife. We returned quickly to our beds but slept very little as I recall, for mother came in to us and lay weeping bewteen us until morning when the milk came.
Father never returned but our mornings remained the same.
