The Pugilist

I hadn't seen him for ten years. Not only avoiding him, but where I grew up and all the memories with it. We sat there in silence. He noticed me looking around, reading my silent opinions. Finally, the rough voice, "I work hard for everything I got". The cigarette smoke curling out from his fingers after lighting it. This would be the first of many. Like his women, he would have one smoldering in the ashtray as he lights another one.

I look around the bungalow - rundown, musty, built after World War Two. Outside the dining room window, through the paint peeled frames, apple trees hang heavy with over-due fruit. It all looks like an early 50's scene. Once a paradise but now worn out at the edges. Oh, how I can feel the Irish and the Hail Mary's. My brother, dad, me, we all worked hard. No taking shit from no one. We at least learned that.

My father smiles, his smashed up nose, creases, not crinkles...that nose. Oh Lord, it has been hit too many times - yeah, he's a former pugilist. An ex-Golden gloves champ. Fighting. In the ring, on the street corners, dance halls, in the bars. His eyes, red lines looking like road maps to the past. I could never look in his eyes. Too many lies between us. I stared at his nose, pot marked flat - flesh colored strawberry. Yeah, I could focus on that.

The deep rumbling in his chest started. Cigarettes. Pall Mall. I could hear the years of unfiltered smoke. Then "Your mother always wanted me to come back, you know." I nodded my head. It was one of the lies that we told each other. My mother never wanted to have anything to do with him, after finding out he slept with another woman in their bed while she was in the hospital having a hysterectomy. He could never understand why she would divorce him. The irony was that it was him that was dying from a broken heart.

I looked over at a picture of my father with his father. Switch-men on the railroad. In all kinds of weather. Before gortex and fleece and all that high end, keep you warm kind of clothing which easily protects us from the elements. These two old warriors were my family, my ancestral DNA that lives in everything I do. Maybe that's why I think no matter how hard I work, it's not hard enough. It seems no one in my generation really knows hard work. The kind of work that gets you dirty, gets you exhausted - demanding you drink beer and whiskey at the end of a long day.

"Nice House", I said. "You must be happy here." He glared for an instant then softened, "Yeah, I worked hard for it."

I smiled. "It's a really nice house."