past simple 11

I was thinking about my father when he called. Although he lives less than an hour’s drive away, I hadn’t seen him in months, but we had talked on the phone three times since Thanksgiving. “I’m hungry, son,” he said, as I stood at the window and watched a heron settle on a branch overhanging the river. “Come over. Me and you, let’s grill some steaks.” My father conducts himself and his ranch hands in military fashion although he hasn’t been in the service since 1966 when his right hand was shot off at Dien Bien Phu. It was during the rainy season, medicine was scarce, and before he was bivouacked back to the hospital, gangrene set in. “Your mother’s doing better, God bless her,” he said. “But I’m going crazy here all alone. I’m breaking out the Scotch. Plan to spend the night.” I paint and teach art at the University of Tulsa. As soon as I could, I left the ranch, which disappointed Dad. I was in the middle of a series of miniature landscapes and stumped over my next move, so I thought the scenery around Dad’s place might inspire me. I packed an overnight bag, leaving the skyscrapers, fuming oil refineries and traffic of Tulsa behind.

Dad greets me at the end of the long gravel driveway. He wears a leather jacket and smells of aftershave. He looks good and from the way he nuzzles his stump against my belly like when I was a kid, I can tell he has already had a Scotch or two. Dad’s proud of his ability to handle liquor and I’ve never seen him drunk. “You really flew over here,” he says, squinting as a wisp of smoke off his cigarette curls into his eye. “Must be hungry. Get on in. Let’s go to the camp.” I get into Dad’s truck and we drive around back of the ranch to where part of the Cimarron River bends into the back edge of our property. He says he’s been traveling a lot lately, trying to fill time since he checked my mother into Dearborn for alcoholism and depression. He came home one Sunday from a cattle auction in Livingston, Texas, and when she was too incoherent to recognize him, he took her in the next day. We pull under a stand of pecan trees and Dad gets his silver flask from behind the seat. He hands it to me and as the drink goes down an angle of geese honk by above in arrow formation. I can just see my breath in front of me. The sky is blue and clear and it’s so quiet I can hear the water secretly whispering from far off. There’s a slight nip in the air but the whisky and the fire quell it. “Come here, son.” Dad is sitting on an old stump going through a manila folder. I sit on the stump next to him and he hands me an old black-and-white picture with scalloped edges. My mom, lying on a hospital bed, is holding a baby. I can only see the back of the baby’s head and its mussed, sparse hair, but I know it’s me. My father is standing next to the bed with his good arm on my mother’s shoulder. The other is completely bandaged from shoulder to elbow. “Why haven’t I seen this one before?” I asked. I’ve seen countless baby pictures of myself: naked on a bed or playing with my grandpa’s hair, or sitting on the back of Butch, our German shepherd, but I had never seen this one particular picture. Dad stands and lights a cigarette off the grill. He puffs and stares ahead and beyond me. I get a quick whiff of Old Spice. “Because I’ve never shown it to you,” he said. “Or anyone for that matter.” The long pause isn’t strange in Dad. He thinks before he speaks, sometimes to the point you’ve nearly forgotten what you’d said to him. I grow alarmed. “Is it Mom, Dad?” “No, no, no.” "Why are you showing me this?” Dad takes off his jacket and drapes it across the hood of the truck. Then he unsnaps and removes his wool shirt, revealing a tanned and muscular left arm – one which brands calves, mends fences and kills copperheads. But the right arm, which ends with the gnarled stump at the elbow, is thin, white and flabby. “This is why,” he says, raising the stump to my face. It’s not a shock, I’ve seen it a million times – the way the nub resembles a knotted swirl of furniture. I drink from my cup and wait for him to go on. “I did it myself, son, I did it myself.” He smokes and stares at me. My mind is multiplying, adding and subtracting at once. “Your mom was pregnant with you and my tour was up but I didn’t get to go home. You were the first and I was scared for her. You know she had nobody but me.” He uses his stump to knock the cherry off his cigarette, then deliberately grinds it into the dirt with the tip of his boot. I had seen him do this before, in anger, right before he fired a drunk ranch hand. “I just wanted to take the index finger off but I flinched and it went right through the middle of my palm. Infection did set in, son, the rest is true. I hope you can forgive me. I wanted to be there when you were born.” He isn’t looking at me and it isn’t a question. He takes a long gulp out of the flask and the heavy western sun winks off it. Dad killed five enemy and has a Purple Heart. I figure he’s earned it. I look at my own right hand – which has five good fingers that handle delicate camel’s hair brushes, mix paint, and draw and sketch. These are no trigger fingers. I know something has passed between us but you live in the moment and can’t always dwell on it. Dad hands me the flask and I take a long drink and feel it slide to my stomach like glowing coal. I close my eyes and hear another flock winging south, honking, and see my next painting. “Goddamn, son,” Dad says, ending the moment. “I’m hungry. Let’s put the steaks on.”




			Eddie Chuculate

			PURPLE HEART

			PURPLE HEART I was thinking about my father when he called. Although he lives less than an hour’s drive away, I hadn’t seen him in months, but we had talked on the phone three times since Thanksgiving. “I’m hungry, son,” he said, as I stood at the window and watched a heron settle on a branch overhanging the river. “Come over. Me and you, let’s grill some steaks.” My father conducts himself and his ranch hands in military fashion although he hasn’t been in the service since 1966 when his right hand was shot off at Dien Bien Phu. It was during the rainy season, medicine was scarce, and before he was bivouacked back to the hospital, gangrene set in. “Your mother’s doing better, God bless her,” he said. “But I’m going crazy here all alone. I’m breaking out the Scotch. Plan to spend the night.” I paint and teach art at the University of Tulsa. As soon as I could, I left the ranch, which disappointed Dad. I was in the middle of a series of miniature landscapes and stumped over my next move, so I thought the scenery around Dad’s place might inspire me. I packed an overnight bag, leaving the skyscrapers, fuming oil refineries and traffic of Tulsa behind. Dad greets me at the end of the long gravel driveway. He wears a leather jacket and smells of aftershave. He looks good and from the way he nuzzles his stump against my belly like when I was a kid, I can tell he has already had a Scotch or two. Dad’s proud of his ability to handle liquor and I’ve never seen him drunk. “You really flew over here,” he says, squinting as a wisp of smoke off his cigarette curls into his eye. “Must be hungry. Get on in. Let’s go to the camp.” I get into Dad’s truck and we drive around back of the ranch to where part of the Cimarron River bends into the back edge of our property. He says he’s been traveling a lot lately, trying to fill time since he checked my mother into Dearborn for alcoholism and depression. He came home one Sunday from a cattle auction in Livingston, Texas, and when she was too incoherent to recognize him, he took her in the next day. We pull under a stand of pecan trees and Dad gets his silver flask from behind the seat. He hands it to me and as the drink goes down an angle of geese honk by above in arrow formation. I can just see my breath in front of me. The sky is blue and clear and it’s so quiet I can hear the water secretly whispering from far off. There’s a slight nip in the air but the whisky and the fire quell it. “Come here, son.” Dad is sitting on an old stump going through a manila folder. I sit on the stump next to him and he hands me an old black-and-white picture with scalloped edges. My mom, lying on a hospital bed, is holding a baby. I can only see the back of the baby’s head and its mussed, sparse hair, but I know it’s me. My father is standing next to the bed with his good arm on my mother’s shoulder. The other is completely bandaged from shoulder to elbow. “Why haven’t I seen this one before?” I asked. I’ve seen countless baby pictures of myself: naked on a bed or playing with my grandpa’s hair, or sitting on the back of Butch, our German shepherd, but I had never seen this one particular picture. Dad stands and lights a cigarette off the grill. He puffs and stares ahead and beyond me. I get a quick whiff of Old Spice. “Because I’ve never shown it to you,” he said. “Or anyone for that matter.” The long pause isn’t strange in Dad. He thinks before he speaks, sometimes to the point you’ve nearly forgotten what you’d said to him. I grow alarmed. “Is it Mom, Dad?” “No, no, no.” "Why are you showing me this?” Dad takes off his jacket and drapes it across the hood of the truck. Then he unsnaps and removes his wool shirt, revealing a tanned and muscular left arm – one which brands calves, mends fences and kills copperheads. But the right arm, which ends with the gnarled stump at the elbow, is thin, white and flabby. “This is why,” he says, raising the stump to my face. It’s not a shock, I’ve seen it a million times – the way the nub resembles a knotted swirl of furniture. I drink from my cup and wait for him to go on. “I did it myself, son, I did it myself.” He smokes and stares at me. My mind is multiplying, adding and subtracting at once. “Your mom was pregnant with you and my tour was up but I didn’t get to go home. You were the first and I was scared for her. You know she had nobody but me.” He uses his stump to knock the cherry off his cigarette, then deliberately grinds it into the dirt with the tip of his boot. I had seen him do this before, in anger, right before he fired a drunk ranch hand. “I just wanted to take the index finger off but I flinched and it went right through the middle of my palm. Infection did set in, son, the rest is true. I hope you can forgive me. I wanted to be there when you were born.” He isn’t looking at me and it isn’t a question. He takes a long gulp out of the flask and the heavy western sun winks off it. Dad killed five enemy and has a Purple Heart. I figure he’s earned it. I look at my own right hand – which has five good fingers that handle delicate camel’s hair brushes, mix paint, and draw and sketch. These are no trigger fingers. I know something has passed between us but you live in the moment and can’t always dwell on it. Dad hands me the flask and I take a long drink and feel it slide to my stomach like glowing coal. I close my eyes and hear another flock winging south, honking, and see my next painting. “Goddamn, son,” Dad says, ending the moment. “I’m hungry. Let’s put the steaks on.”

					pastsimple