my fat grandfather used to fuck all the ladies in the bronx
to be fair, i don’t know how fat he was back in the bronx
or how many ladies he fucked
but he fucked at least some
and he got fat at some point
and he left my grandma when my mom didn’t understand
that her fathers cock made the women crazy
and caused my grandma to throw him out
he ran his auto shop down the street from where my grandma lived
eventually moving in with some woman he was fucking
who then gave birth to two of my uncles.
they would pick up my mom in the summer, with the windows rolled down
him in his short sleeved buttoned shirts
cigarette eternally hanging on the corner of his dry-caked lips
and my grandma shrieked somewhere in the background
down on 171st st
mildly psychotic
then he was gone
disappeared
until years later
in the suburbs
in jersey
when my mom bounced against him a local supermarket
then he was around
when we met
when he brought his newest lady over
and they smoked, raspily chiding and laughing and eternally eating
he would sit our T.V. room.
as if the room disseminated itself according to his gravitational pull
leaning forward on the dizzying patterned couch,
wrinkled slight thin-lipped smile crackling his wide fat face
faux wood paneled walls behind him,
air lumps underneath, revealing
the battle between the drive for upward mobility
and the fear of indulgence
waged between my parents
the thick dirty rust-red shag carpet underfoot
that always stank slightly musty
the scotch that he drank
that he let me sip
that i gulped fast
liquid envelopment of his impenetrable charms
his cigarette burning fast, smoke curling through streams of filtered afternoon sun
my mother’s left eyebrow arched in disapproval
by then he was an auctioneer
fucking his way through the insurance torched shops in downtown
a string of stringy and likewise fat fellows piling in
paying homage
one time he took me out for sausage and pepper sandwiches
to some diner looking joint
in the guts of northeast
industrial jersey
we ate fantastically huge greasy heros
he wasn’t smiling
he ordered me around
i think he was fucking the waitress,
she kind of smiled at me
kind of frowned at me too
like i wasn’t cooked enough to be sitting there gorging on the piles of food
that made my grandpa swing
he used to be in musicals at the local YMHA in clifton
once he played the king in kiss me kate.
we still have a picture floating around
i think he was fucking kate.
he was still king.
then he was waxen
hollowed out
cancered
thin smile
surrounded by sheets of skin
that flapped about
like wrinkled yellowed covers
sizzling on a pan
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