I remember Mike Haertzel talking about Trish Ogden. He said he would like to drink her bathwater. I was 11. I told him "All work and no play. You're not working." He and the boys laughed at me. Just like my father, they probably thought I was. I just didn't want to hear about Trish Ogden's bathwater.
The car broke down on the way to the movies one night during winter. I was probably in high school by then. I remember being so angry at my father for his car breaking down--for everything in his life always breaking down, and for him never having the money to fix it (or the peace of mind). My feet were freezing in my boots. My mom was still in the passenger's seat. What I mean is, they were still together.
One Christmas, I asked my dad what the videotape was on a shelf in the garage. He didn't answer me.
My grandfather liked King of Queens and would always say that my cat, Ralph, had Gene Tierney eyes.

Gene Tierney.

My grandfather traded a carton of Pall Malls for a monkey in WWII. Stationed in Australia, he met my grandmother. She ripped her stockings on the ship to America to marry my grandfather. She also broke up with her fiance when my grandfather walked into the movie theater where she worked. Chip, was her fiance's name. He dropped dead of a heartache, my gram says. It's better, though cause my pap liked cheap chocolate covered cherries and wanted to save 35 cents on taking my father to a non-professional haircutter, Lizzie, who cut three of his moles off by accident.
And my pap didn't mind when my gram flooded their first apartment.

He knew he was going to die for a long time. He fell asleep upright in recliners with his hands in his lap and his head down. When he had his first heartattack I was laying on the red carpet and I watched him throw up as my mom ran over, and he grabbed his chest. I got up and ran outside, behind the shed, and sat on his tractor. I looked at his fruit trees. Pear, apple, peach. And his grapevine and the structure he built for them to flourish.