What I Know

///   MY father would show up just long enough to sell the impression that this time, he was here to stay.  Just long enough to lead weekly church choir practice.  Just long enough to take my small hands and flip me over somersault style.  Just long enough to act as a translator for someone in our church who didn't speak enough English to file a police report on the armed men who had emptied his grocery's register that morning.

And yet, he also came back just long enough to leave stacks of lottery tickets piled high among dry cleaning tickets in my parents' biggest dry cleaning plant, the same one where I would spend my summers stuffing sleeves with tissue paper, running to the corner market to get him cigarettes and frozen fruit bars.  Always strawberry for me, usually coconut for him.

You'd think with the long hours and the handful of modest dry cleaners in our parents' names, there'd be enough to cover the basics.  But when you throw your money straight to the house night after night, that formula doesn't do much before your wife finally tracks you down parked next to your buddies at the blackjack table.  And oh, hey, yeah, your daughters and your baby son are waiting outside on the other side of the red velvet ropes because children aren't allowed on the floor.

Once, I thought I was going to die standing there carrying my baby brother for as long as I did.  I was certain that my arms were going to fall off.  When uhmmah finally emerged from the gambling floor, she was happy.  She had located his coat in the coat racks.  It was army green.  She was sure he was in this casino and that the search would be over soon.  We were close.  The next time she surfaced, she reported that she had found him, but that he wouldn't leave.

That little effer.

I probably didn't have the vocabulary for that at such a young age, but the sentiment, I assure you, was the same.

Having the children there was strategic on uhmmah's part.  If we weren't present, he'd be more likely to stay with his friends.  Only once did he try to stay behind.  Uhmmah fretted for a while, unsure of what to do because the children bait, well, we had never failed her before.  Sure enough, within the hour, he surfaced and joined us on the boardwalk.

We had McDonald's on the way back.

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