THE HOW AND WHEN OF IT
We were not alone in San Diego in the fifties. Bobby Smith’s father
George sold used cars and was a beer drunk. Dickie’s father Leon,
A butcher, was too. Dickie and fam lived across the street with Grandpa
Duffield who wore uniform grey clothes, rolled his own, sat in a haze
Of smoke all day and made the memorably horrible sounds of spitting
Into a spittoon. We didn’t yet have a TV, and theirs was always on.
Boxing was big (we watched Sugar Ray Robinson beat Bobo Olson).
We took in the spectacle of wrestling (Gorgeous George preening),
And Roller Derby (tough women elbowing each other in the ribs
As they pumped and rolled). There were other fathers in the neighborhood,
As well, who weren’t lushes, I’m sure, but they remained out of sight.
Mike’s father, Mr Schmidt, worked for Budweiser. Mike and I
Would come home from school and spin 45s, listening to “Buick 59”
By The Medallions & Little Richard’s “Rip It Up” and “Ready Teddy,”
Among the many. “Stranded in the Jungle”? One day Mike’s mother
Said she was sorry to read in the papers that my parents had divorced.
I said, “What?” News to me, at age twelve. The Schmidts had just been
Visited by their old friend Don Larsen, Yankee World Series hero
Who’d pitched a perfect game. When I got home I walked into the kitchen
And asked about what I’d just heard. Mom said, “Oh yes, I was going
To tell you boys. I don’t believe in divorce but your father insisted.”
Geoffrey Young has lived in Great Barrington, Massachusetts since 1982. For 27 years he presented hundreds of shows of contemporary art at the Geoffrey Young Gallery, until closing in 2018. His small press, The Figures (1975-2005), published more than 135 books of poetry, art writing, and fiction. Recent chapbooks of his poetry, prose and colored pencil drawings include Thirty-Three (above/ground press, 2017), DATES, MONEY, PIVOT and AT STAKE. Young has written catalog essays for a baker’s dozen of artists.
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