Guilt
John Hayes
With our house quarantined
because of my scarlet fever
and my dad not being allowed to come home
that August was the hottest
and the longest month in history.
As I got better I amused myself
by peeling dead skin off my thighs.
It gave me something to do.
When the quarantine lifted
and my dad could come home again
he didn’t.
My Mom blamed me.
Some days I’d pedal my two wheeler
past an old trolley track into the lip of an alley
park by his dingy tailor shop.
Nine feet, seven inches wide by nineteen deep,
a place to sweat, to eat, to sleep.
It had a toilet.
I never learned where he bathed.
We never talked but he’d offer
me warm canned peaches and a spoon
then continue to sew as he listened
to Ma Perkens and the other soaps.
People said he could fix anything with needle and thread.
I think they meant garments.
I’d watch him awhile
then read one of the comic books
he always kept around for me.
He had a real pretty girl friend.
Her husband traveled.
She smoked a pack a day and ate expensive chocolates.
She’d give me dime tips to run errands
but never her chocolates.
She was nicer to me than my Mom
who’d hit me and yell,
“I wish you’d never been born,”
and borrow my dimes
but not repay me.
I guess I owed her.
