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ARTISAN REVIEW
room.
With Charles more determined than ever to cheat others, shrewd
authorities began to pay closer attention to him. Cursed with a sloppy
thieving style, my brother was easily snared and dealt harshly with.
During my senior college year I flew home to join my father as glum
spectators to Charles's first incarceration.
Charles, tiny and very frightened, was dispatched to Rikers Island for
nine months by an oafish-looking judge in wrinkled robes. We darted
from the rank-smelling Bronx Courthouse and entered the first dingy
restaurant we saw.
Father, already denying the event, and beginning to plot Charles'
permanent exile, said nothing about what had just transpired. He stared
furiously at his chicken salad platter. His hands twitched.
He shouted at me, "Now Charles is a jailbird. He must be very
pleased!"
I felt dizzy, sipped my ice water and hoped to wait the tirade out. But
father's outburst was quickly over. Now he ate quickly. He left no food
on his plate.
After I ate half my tuna melt sandwich and drank the good coffee, I
announced loudly, "I told Charles I'd stand behind him. He kept asking
where you were, why you hadn't visited."
Father pointed a finger at me. "Your brother will hide behind you.
He'll feed off you. And he'll steal. Don't be a fooL"
''I'm not a fool," I yelled back.
"Good," he snapped.
People stared at us. We didn't care. My father was livid.
"I won't tolerate fools or criminals," he warned, looking much older
and weary and dangerous.
He left. Leaving me to pay the check and having to use more mun–
dane transportation than his fat Cadillac back to Manhattan. Charles's
fu–
ture was clear. Father would be his failed son's hit man. Everything had
changed. I would never return to my father's apartment. Father would
remarry again. I would find a woman who loved me. My brother, who
had no options, eventually headed west once released from prison.
I sat at the chipped table in the noisy restaurant and hastily scribbled a
poem about my father, my brother, and me. I wrote it on a stained paper
napkin my father had left near his empty plate . I could barely read my
shaky handwriting. I was trembling. I knew the poem was corny and un–
focused. Father would've mocked my sophomoric impulse. But it was the
best I could do.
It
was the best I could ever manage.
