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"Father and Son"
Claude AnShin Thomas

It must have been about 11:00 or 11:30 at night maybe later and I was already deep into the covers when he came into my room. He leaned over at the waste to say goodnight and I could smell him coming closer. That familiar odor of stale beer and cigarettes.

In that never - never place just before sleep I sort of heard him talking to me. His voice coming as though from another part of the house. He was saying "hey Tommy, are you awake? Sorry that I'm late again but there was a card game in the back room after we closed up. I won too, won about $50.00 or so. Enough to keep us in groceries for another week." And then he was gone, or was he really ever there?

He was a school teacher mostly but after school about 3 or 4 nights a week he worked as a bartender down at the American Legion, Post 280 something. He always came home late and always smelling of stale beer and cigarettes and always with some story or other to explain his lateness. Even on the nights that he didn't work there he went down there to hang out with his "buddies" Sometimes he brought me with him. Oh how I looked forward to that. We would shoot pool he and I, we were partners. We played for drinks, always and we drank a lot because we were good. His drinks would be something and alcohol and mine would be coke's. He would tell me the story of how he grew up in the pool halls, hung out there after his father died.

In this place I would listen to him and the others with great attention talking about the war, their war. I would listen to them telling their stories - emotionless, pragmatic slide shows that made the whole thing seem like one big party with a few bumps and twists. These stories conveyed their vision, their idea of glory and it was to me infectious. Through all the years of stories they drank and drank and drank. And there I was a 12 year old, 13 year old, 14 year old boy listening - and I wanted so much to be a man just like them.

At 17 I went off to war with their visions of glory, their ideas of patriotism. I went off to fight, was wounded, hospitalized, rehabilitated, discharged, went to college, married, had a son, and drank, and drank, and shot dope, and took pills.

3 months after my son's 1st birthday his grandfather died, he was only 53, and I've never had the chance to touch him, look into his eyes softly and say "your visions are empty, please tell me the truth". But he died long before we could have this conversation and I miss him!!

< Back | Short Stories & Essays | Next >

"Father and Son"
Claude AnShin Thomas

It must have been about 11:00 or 11:30 at night maybe later and I was already deep into the covers when he came into my room. He leaned over at the waste to say goodnight and I could smell him coming closer. That familiar odor of stale beer and cigarettes.

In that never - never place just before sleep I sort of heard him talking to me. His voice coming as though from another part of the house. He was saying "hey Tommy, are you awake? Sorry that I'm late again but there was a card game in the back room after we closed up. I won too, won about $50.00 or so. Enough to keep us in groceries for another week." And then he was gone, or was he really ever there?

He was a school teacher mostly but after school about 3 or 4 nights a week he worked as a bartender down at the American Legion, Post 280 something. He always came home late and always smelling of stale beer and cigarettes and always with some story or other to explain his lateness. Even on the nights that he didn't work there he went down there to hang out with his "buddies" Sometimes he brought me with him. Oh how I looked forward to that. We would shoot pool he and I, we were partners. We played for drinks, always and we drank a lot because we were good. His drinks would be something and alcohol and mine would be coke's. He would tell me the story of how he grew up in the pool halls, hung out there after his father died.

In this place I would listen to him and the others with great attention talking about the war, their war. I would listen to them telling their stories - emotionless, pragmatic slide shows that made the whole thing seem like one big party with a few bumps and twists. These stories conveyed their vision, their idea of glory and it was to me infectious. Through all the years of stories they drank and drank and drank. And there I was a 12 year old, 13 year old, 14 year old boy listening - and I wanted so much to be a man just like them.

At 17 I went off to war with their visions of glory, their ideas of patriotism. I went off to fight, was wounded, hospitalized, rehabilitated, discharged, went to college, married, had a son, and drank, and drank, and shot dope, and took pills.

3 months after my son's 1st birthday his grandfather died, he was only 53, and I've never had the chance to touch him, look into his eyes softly and say "your visions are empty, please tell me the truth". But he died long before we could have this conversation and I miss him!!