Piece of gum, he challenged. This is he took out the minuscule piece of chewed to death gum and held it between his thumb and index finger. The shame of gluttony must have been written all over my face. Give me that he said. He hold out his hand. I gave him the golf sized blob. That was my Dad in aunt shell. Spoiled, we always had too much. My mom was to indulgent and wasteful. I remember sitting at a table for hours trying to choke down the canned tomato soup that sat in front of me. Our table was always pushed against the wall in the living room. I was ordered to sit there until the cows came home. My Mother who always was tender hearted had to leave the room out of obedience of interfering with his disiplinary action. When the spoon which in,y mind resembled a shovel size portion of the red acidic liquid slid into my mouth I felt it come up and burn through my nostrils onto my dress. The liqide dripped like blood from a broken nose. I began to cry amend of course my mother rushed me away from the table and the slew of beratings. My mother was too easy, too indulgent and too soft. He left the house slamming the door. He was the outsider. He had no say. We all knew it. Our loyalty was with the parent who loved us. I did not love him he was a stranger in many ways who played dad or house for a few days then disappeared for days weeks and months. There was always night telephone desk duty, gun school, bomb school.... On and on. My mother in her fragilmental state would become paranoid and start accusing him of seeing his girlfriend. He would counter back. Sometimes he would lock himself in the bathroom and sit n the floor and read magazines. Sometimes
in a feel sorry for you moment or maybe as a way to get him not to walk out the door. I would sit with him while my mom railed on out side the door throwing shoes and dishes at the door. I think my Dad was secretly glad to have a reason to leave the house. Leave the resbocibility the noisy kids, the demands of kids who were of little more interest then paint drying on the wall. I learned early that if you really want something you will find a way and if you didn't you would find an excuse. I think it was just to hard to let go of the harsh card he'd been dealt it was just impossible to see a kid with too much mayo n his sanwhich or two pie es of gum in their mouth. It was unnerving to see the bowel of soup dumped in the garbage. We were just to spoiled and over indulged in his mind. I think he always saw himself as the little boy with empty pockets and we were the wasteful world that threw away food in the garbage that overflowed with perfectly good food. My Dad was allowed to call home from Vietnam, however infrequently. The one call I remember came in the middle