In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Let Me Tell the One About when my father sat in the bar and told stories. It was a serious bar, a saloon really, with oak caryatids naked to the waist supporting the back bar, each holding a globe of soft orange light in front of beveled mirrors that reflected the long room as if it were underwater. When my father sat in the serious bar and told stories, he was afraid of nothing and everyone loved him. Tell the one about the man who went to the doctor, they would say. Tell the one about the man who fell in the ditch. My father took possession of each of the stories he told. The more he drank the more stories he owned. He would look up and see himself in the wavering glass behind the bar and know he was rich. Tell the one about the drunk who sits in a bar telling stories, they demanded, but he would not tell that story. He was saving that story for me. When the bar closed he would drive his old panel truck toward home but his friends would stand around on the sidewalk in front of the bar. The orange glow of the lamps was gone, 79 and they could see through the windows only a little light reflected from the dark polished breasts of the caryatids. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait until the next night when my father would return with their stories. 80 ...

Share