The Memory Game
Tim Muren
My father holds a stringer above a river - two catfish
hang against the greasy sky. Photographic evidence
he wasn't always ancient, he says.
I remember the suck of water as he rose up
from the bathtub. I picture him up there, upstairs,
thirty years younger, the dead moths inside
the milky, glass bulb form a black, triangular heap of brittle
wings above him. Through the door, clutching
a terrycloth towel with one fist
at his hip. He kicks my scattered toys at me,
demanding a clear path. Sometimes lately, is it
my imagination? A storm rises through a space [End Page 158]
in the corner of his eye. His age seems to increase, and at that moment
he looks at me like I am a stranger. Then he returns, quickly,
and he continues. He spears the ground
with a horseshoe stake. He lights the charcoal grill. He cuts
into the belly of a fresh catfish. He invents a game
for his grandchildren - a box of small objects:
scissors, a spool of red thread, a button, a spoon.
"Look closely," he says, then he covers the contents with
the tablecloth, "now tell me what's in the box." My mother
and I discovered years ago that if we paused when he entered
the room, long enough for him to walk past, to move outside,
out of ear-shot, we could avoid his joining the conversation,
With his unalterable opinions, his fierce authority on every subject.
How do I reconcile
the grandfather with the father -
whom I followed with my eyes
as I crouched in the endless hallway with crayons
and notebook paper. Now
I avoid conversation by speaking -
of swimming against contractual deadlines,
at work and home, strange weather patterns, other
states where I wouldn't mind living, until my wife gets antsy
and gathers our children from in and around the house. We begin the process
of leaving, of hugs and handshakes and promises to return, [End Page 159]
and we are back in the car - the children drifting to sleep, shoulder
to shoulder in the back seat. I search for a decent radio station,
and newscasters and skypilots and choirs roll
through on static waves. You can tell our house by
the leaves that cover everything between
two neatly manicured neighbor's lawns, and you will smell gas
from the lamp-post's extinguished pilot light as you climb
the concrete steps. Rain stains the ceiling around
the living room's skylight, the one my father, a retired carpenter,
has offered to take a look at. I scribble notes in charcoal pencil.
Once he helped me chase a salamander, black
with a red stripe, until we lost it in the mud and water.
When he emptied the pockets of his overalls - I remember.
coins, a pocketknife, jelly beans, folded papers, a folded dollar bill.
Tim Muren is a librarian's assistant in Little Rock, Arkansas.
