He manhandles the polishing machine at the back of my father’s little lamp factory. A felt disk as wide as a hubcap whines at tremendous rpm. A human should not get anywhere near it. But Walt does, as his strong hands and hairy arms guide brass lamps, candlesticks and the like against the disk. A glossy finish is coaxed out of the surface of the metal.
Walt regularly glances at his image in the greasy paned window. He shakes loose his shaggy locks of dark hair like Elvis. He doesn’t see the three-day beard, dangling Camel cigarette, or wragged plaid shirt missing two buttons. He sees the king of rock-n-roll on the Ed Sullivan Show. He wiles away the polishing hours belting the hits, “Hound Dog,” “Love Me Tender,” “Jail-house Rock,” and the list goes on. His fellow workers yell, “Knock off that bellowing,” but for the most part they tolerate his show, maybe even enjoy it.
And Walt loves the chippies. Saturday night he calls and tells Father—the closest he’ll come to having a real father—that the band at Lakeview Inn is having him sit in with his guitar. By the time Father gets there, Walt is nowhere to be found. Monday morning he claims one of the groupie girls got real cozy and took him out to the band truck.
At 19 he’s four years older but still badgers me to set him up with girls that I go to school with. He describes his sexual escapades, some may even be real. I am intimidated and pretend to understand. Years ago he stops going to school, somehow avoids the Vietnam War. And dies a decade or two later from lung cancer.
dark forboding—
pitty of the
workshop milieu
No comments:
Post a Comment