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Pathetic And Dangerous as Hell

Bill Rettig

As you pulled Grandpa through the double door, he was begging, Please,Wilford, I can’t go back. No shock treatments. Don’t. Please. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.
They saw blood on Grandpa’s mouth and heard your shouts overwhelm his whine, YOU STUPID FUCK, SHUT UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP. The men were ready for you two and as they removed Grandpa from your rough hands they heard your breathless voice condemn everyone, Damn you.

I didn’t see all that, but

I did see you after he killed himself
sitting on the love seat in the living room
with your head tilted back.

I thought you spent each night counting the holes
in the acoustical ceiling tile,
instead of counting sheep.
And if I got up to go to the bathroom,
during the night, I felt sad
because you were still on that couch.
You just couldn’t sleep, could you?

And as you filled out the paperwork, (and told them how he’d chased grandma with a hatchet till she ran out of the house to the neighbor’s and called you to come take him away and how you’d found him some two hours later still lying on the linoleum floor crying and swearing at himself then when he saw you he’d picked up the hatchet and threw it through the kitchen window) the men half carried him away making that moment the last time you’d ever see him alive.
That was your dad, Dad.
Pathetic AND dangerous as hell, in the same night.
I finally figured out why you kept
staring at the holes in the ceiling.
He was up there messing with your head.
He’d come out of one hole screaming

YOU LITTLE SHIT!
Then as he crawled into the next hole
He’d whimper, imsorry imsorry imsorry.
No wonder you didn’t sleep.

But why’d you keep watching him?
Why am I still watching you?

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