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Hangers-on

David Sapp

Dad was too generous with his time, too good as the good listener, happily distracted by the harmless but pointless meandering conversations of distant cousins and vague acquaintances – at the diner, Bud’s Barber Shop, or when strolling up Main Street to make a bank deposit. And then there were the hangers-on, those bloodsucking bastards who preyed upon his trust and benevolence. Dad collected these parasites as if they could smell the vulnerability on him.
    William Reddman, a stately, white-haired gentleman who walked and spoke like an executive, simply appeared one day in his green Cadillac with his wife and grown son – dubious investors in Dad’s new venture and, by all appearances in hindsight, grifters. They disappeared as mysteriously, driving off one day after the second mortgage and eventual foreclosure on our home, after the first business, the dry cleaners, went bust. I always wondered if they left with some of Dad’s money. They certainly absconded with his naiveté.
    Larry Yarman, easily the king’s fool, a round, pudgy man, always sheepishly grinning, always much too diffident, loafed in our kitchen in regular, endless intervals – once wearing his wife’s broken sunglasses. He maintained a steady, too predictable job as a surveyor. Out of boredom, he was mildly interested in Dad’s latest get-rich scheme.
    (After Dad got custody of my sister and I decided for him that we should be some kind of family again, I guess one could say we became hangers-on expecting Dad to be a father.)
    Mom’s landlord, Mr. Something-Smith, kept Dad on the phone for five hours on Christmas – our bleakest holiday anyway. Dad, ever the receptacle, nodded at the receiver to the man’s marital woes and his musings over blowing his brains out. As there was no money and the rent was due, this was payment in lieu or at least deferment of Mom’s eviction. Late in the afternoon, my sister and I gave up on the few, sad presents that remained unwrapped around the tiny tree that popped out of a box – lights, bulbs and boughs all in one. We sat together in front of the tinny, snowy black and white TV watching White Christmas.
    Eli, the shady Amishman, whose religion forbade him to drive a car but apparently condoned lying, cheating, and stealing, strung Dad along in straw hat, bib overalls, and scraggly beard, the accoutrements of honest farmer. He was anticipated to purchase my grandparents’ farm but never did. (The Amish would arrive with bushel baskets of cash when buying a property.) One’s word and a handshake became irrelevant. There was some talk of a shunning in Eli’s recent past.
Dad let Uncle Dale, his youngest brother, flop in the studio apartment downstairs while he was, like Dad, between marriages and jobs. His neglected dog, Charlie, a nervous beagle, shat and pissed when Dale was out, ruining the hardwood floors. Dale never laundered his white, button-down shirts; he merely bought new ones.
    Then, after I moved out, there was Mohamed, the skinny, twitchy thirteen-year-old son of the Pakistani man and his wife who were staying with Dad. (Why? How long?) How they found their way to a small, notoriously and predominantly racist town in rural Ohio (even before 9/11) I could not comprehend. I didn’t inquire and had no interest in Dad’s latest. Dad let the kid play with his .22 revolver. The pistol was meant to be handed down to me, but I expressed no interest in guns or hunting. It was never loaded, but the sound of its mechanics was unnerving.
    Ed, Ed, Ed. There was always talk of Ed. Before he lost ten grand in the silver market, Dad travelled with Ed on some wild-assed commodities speculation to Sierra Leon before the country came apart over blood diamonds. Dad returned with excellent stories, a cheap African mask, and dysentery. And there was a deal over a popcorn farm in Indiana that fell through. Ed was obsessed with the prospective buyer, a Dallas TV star. Ed’s deals and obsessions ended abruptly when he arrived in Hollywood, on set with a live grenade.
    After any of these hangers-on vanished, died, or were committed, there was never any regret over their absence, never any mention of them again.

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