The Day I Made My Father Proud

Image by H. Reinhardt

The Day I Made My Father Proud

The doorbell jarred me
toward consciousness
on a sultry Sunday morning
when I was nineteen,
a college sophomore.
I had slept where the bourbon
laid me—on an old couch
reclaimed from a curb.
The party had sped by,
left me road-kill,
limp and snoring,
so my roommates said,
and now I stumbled
to the buzzing door,
remembering what I had never
completely forgotten—
my family is coming.

Dad at the door.
I mumble, 'I overslept,'
as he surveys the wreckage
of these tired rooms:
lip-sticked cigarette butts,
crushed aluminum cans,
glasses floating sliced limes,
broken brown bottles,
a sticky wooden floor under
smoked-and-perfumed air.
He turns slowly to me
and winks! 'We can't
let your mother see this,'
as if we'd planned the party
together, drank from the same
Yellowstone bottle all night.

We spring to action,
sponging spills, opening windows,
gathering garbage. He spins
through the rooms
with the grace of a dancer—
a miniature Falstaff—
humming old barroom songs
from his Navy days,
chuckling softly, his eyes
gleaming as he hides
the half-emptied Jim Beam.
By the time my mother
has herded all my siblings
up the stairs to the apartment,
we have salvaged it to decency.

You see, he thought I was
too serious, worried that I
read too many books, never
got into real trouble.
I remember the way
he stared at me
one Halloween evening
when I told him
I was staying home
to read King Lear.
His cold brown eyes
were sad, disgusted,
the eyes of an Elizabethan
reveler who had just heard
that the Puritans
had closed the theatres.

But that morning
I made him proud,
couldn't have done better,
unless, perhaps,
one of the girls
had slept over
and answered the door,
wearing nothing
but my faded
red flannel shirt,
top buttons
undone.

Michael Moran

Posted over on the Writer's Almanac
"The Day I Made My Father Proud" by Michael Moran, from The Fallen World.