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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “6 Feet Under” Down in the Dirt (v136) (the May 2016 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

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Following in My Father’s Footsteps

Raymond Manuel Aguirre

Getting shot in the head must be pretty bad.
But nothing is worse than sitting in front of the TV
for hours, for days, for months and years
like my father did,
where every part of him disintegrated
amidst the intricate plots of crime shows,
amidst the well-conducted overtures of a silver screen lover,
amidst the flames and decapitation of a world on the brink of apocalypse.

Every night, he sat in the couch, my father,
back when he didn’t work.
When nobody gave him a chance to work.
When his English was a badly tuned guitar.
When we needed to learn American
through our hapless Filipino eyes.
In front of the TV, he lost himself in its narratives
then retired at night in his couch without a word.
No words spoken to me nor or to my mother.
Just thoughts, perhaps, that kept getting louder and louder
which not even the TV’s volume could suppress.
He probably thought, as time progressed,
he had all the time, he could make a fortune selling it,
how did he have so much of it when he never asked?

My father never seemed to mind what he watched,
so long as he was watching something.
I, in turn, watched him. The TV was his America.
Watch how we do it, Hollywood said.
We can do it, Obama said.
BMW made us possible to do it, ESPN said.
I keep doing it, Bill Murray said.
Aliens keep coming back to do it, Optimus Prime said.
All this time, my father was the bystander
watching people do shit. Getting things done.
Watching TV was the only thing he could get done anymore.

And then one night, he began writhing in pain.
His asshole, he said, was in pain.
Now, he could not do anything. Not even watch TV.
But at least he had Mom’s insurance
to know that he had cancer.
And days after his surgery, while nursing a dying will to live at the hospital
the TV in the living room was quiet.
I was alone, sitting in the dark, in the same couch
that held my father for a long time.
I turned on the TV, flipped through its channels,
and lost myself the entire night on TNT.

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