Greg Gerke currently lives in Buffalo. His work has appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Pindeldyboz, Hobart, Apt, VerbSap, Ghoti and 34th Parallel with fiction forthcoming in Fourteen Hills. He is completing a novel set in Brooklyn. Visit him at his his website.

In this one your father is hopping mad. Yet, he is still in his 70s so hopping might be a somewhat compromised term. But it's dreamland baby cakes and daddy has grown more than a few teeth back so his growls and snarls scare the shit out of me. I never knew he had it in him to be so enervated. He's bending metal, cutting through two-by-fours with his bare hands. What the fuck did I do? Why suddenly the avenging angel act? I always thought he liked me. You said so on the trip to Maui when you at long last revealed the hidden nature of family relationships and your childhood suicide attempts: When all is said and done, though, he does think you are OK. The only time I remember him being plenty upset was when we decided to sleep together at your sister's surprise birthday party. In our variegated decade-long timeline this would be after the first true breakup, year four. We hadn't seen each other for ten months and I was in town. Somehow the e-mail invitation came to me and you were pleasantly surprised. Everyone was on the ground level so we used the third floor bathtub. It sounded like otters thumping about in a dry tub. Mrs. Goldstein thought dogs were trapped when she choose the loo on two because of her irritable bowel syndrome. She needed peace to pass -- and look what we did. Your mother knocked just as the simultaneity of orgasm appeared on the horizon and said, "Show some class." We left for a hotel soon after. It got back to me that your father wanted to strangle me. All through his slide show of 150 shots from his spring trip to the Grand Canyon people spoke in hushed voices. I guess we should have waited a bit. According to Montaigne, delayed consummation is better for the soul. But your hair had grown out and it lay on your shoulders like twisted seaweed. So I dipped into our own pocket of the past and invoked the most beloved in-joke, cackling, "Beach Blanket Bingo Baby." I don't know about you, but I think one can recline in a tub, arm over the side and feel quite exalted, even with a Jewish mother just outside the door. We were destined to climb back on the throne. And then? The only place left to go? Down, down, down.

In our next installment I became a boy of fairy tales. I'd plug my fingers in my ears if there was something I didn't want to take. I'd try to swim the channel to avoid the troll. What a self I was! Always attempting to patch things up between us. It's OK, no it's OK, really. But I'm telling you I really do think it's time you took responsibility for your feelings. I know you just stuck a fork in my arm because I couldn't go to the concert with you, but really. You're absolutely going to need to learn not to do that. Sticking a fork in the arm of your boyfriend is somewhat inappropriate. And in most circles is considered NOT OK. I forgive you but my arm hurts and I'm afraid we'll have to cut short the processing so I can go to the emergency room. Let's make an appointment for ten o'clock tomorrow morning. I should be out by then. By the way, was that Salisbury or A-1 steak sauce plastered on the tines before you plunged it into my flesh?

Remember the birthday when I included a bottle of Clearasil with your main gift of a sweater? Or when I told you I thought we made better enemies than lovers. I didn't know any better. I was the Travis Bickle of Milwaukee, but this Travis Bickle didn't explode. He recognized his own petty existence and went to the bluffs at Lake Michigan ready to dive and out-Gloucester Gloucester. But a funny thing happened on the way to Cudahy. I had a toothache and it bothered me so much I called my dentist. Bridgework. I know, I know -- too many ho-hos. And the damn tongue that would always only lick them to the left side of my mouth. The world is too much for us. Or preservatives and taste enhancers like sodium acid and aluminum pyrophosphates as well as sorbic acid are too much for our teeth.

Oh baby blue Dad was totally pissed at me last night, but now that I've gotten some things off my chest, into my throat and out of my mouth. I feel much more alive and ready to pay state income tax. The birds are singing. Curlicues are returning to my handwriting and even at the foundry I can hear the distant sound of a babbling brook. Your father is the best metaphor I can think of for this syrupy tripe. He moves slow, but he's seen, heard and felt much more than me and he has not traded in core values for monthly subscriptions to barelylegal.com. He is what I need to become again and again if I am ever to break the cycle. He holds and watches over all of his daughters, he thinks of himself second whereas I fight to hold the title of the One-Who-Wants-To-Bring-About-Confusion.

From now on, each night before I go to sleep I will whisper (since my own father is dead), Come to me father. The high life is not what I first thought. Show me your outrage. Let me walk on the storied path behind you. Though now I only ride a pony, in a fortnight I could have my own horse and a different coat of arms. I don't sleep with strange women anymore. I rein it in, on my way to green knighthood. I bless no mutiny and spit on serfs who want to "pick up chicks."


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