Musings of a Punk Rock Father

The corpses all hang headless and limp
     Bodies with no surprises. 3

^{I'm at the doorway to the basement stairs.  I slowly turn the knob until the latch pulls free of the recess in the wall that holds it shut.  I open the door, and darkness fills the room the way light should.  Suddenly I am looking at the landing as if I were several feet away, like a camera physically pulling back while simultaneously zooming in with the lens.  I feel the fear and pain settle in my heart, in my stomach.}

My dad's dead body hangs on the coat rack that stands on the landing at the top of the stairs.  I don't know until this moment, the moment the open door reveals his hanging body, that he is dead.  But rather than bury him in a casket, or cremate him, someone has decided to hang onto his body, the way pet owners stuff and mount their beloved animals so they will never be without them.  He hangs wearing his blue winter jacket, the one with two lighter blue rings around the arms.  He hangs slumped forward, his chin resting on his chest, his eyes half open, pupils rolled back to reveal the white.  The dark-framed glasses magnify his eyes, and his thinning brown hair sweeps down his forehead, rather than over the top of his head.

I am compelled to cross in front of him to go downstairs.  I don't know what I need downstairs, why I must go there.  I only know I must pass by my father, who hangs limp from the coat rack.  As I approach, he begins to groan.  Whether the gutteral sound announces a groan of pain or some gas bubble left in his stomach that makes its final trip up his esophagus, I do not know.  I only know that he groans each time I approach him.  Hanging there, groaning, arms at his sides.

³ Misfits. Skulls.  Walk Among Us.  Ruby/Slash, 1982.

Next: Part V