American Fractal

Hip

22 Hip His nickname not for how cool he was in the sixties, nor his sense of style. Not for a love of architecture’s angles, long summers leaning on roof peaks, a dozen nails between his teeth. No, my father was Hip only because he broke his surfing, he said, through the hurricane of a youth in Florida where the water split blue to green and all nurse sharks and pool sharks looked the same. He had a way of telling stories slumped in his recliner like a late-night talk show host mid-monologue, every punch line the pearl around some tiny truth. Everyone knew the real story: hit by a car walking to school, a whole year in plaster only his sister would sign. Not a friend to rename him, no one to note the irony, pat him playfully on the back. My grandmother fed him pudding, held the glass while he sucked milk through a straw. He must have spent that time dreaming up other lives— I don’t blame him. Four walls around a solitude and with the curtains drawn 23 it isn’t real. And so I draw my curtains. So, too, I shut the light and leave— not fitting in any room like my father never fit, shoulders stiff, a janitor’s loop of keys already digging at my hip. ...