My father did two tours in the Nam. The first one was in the infantry, the second was after he came home reenlisted and took the Special Forces test and became a green beret. He killed many commies he told all. "On my first tour I killed five maybe six, the last one was never confirmed but I always thought I got him" then he would take a hit off his scotch. This was the story told to all those that would listen at the Haven St. Inn Monday through Friday.
I spent a lot of time there playing in the alley way along with all the other kids who had drunks for fathers. My mother was a nurse and worked nights so I was left with my father. We used to play hand ball there and I even kissed a girl for the first time in that dirty alleyway, next to stacks of empty miller bottles. As I grew up I would quiver at the moment when my father would tell his war stories. Stories of great Americans and friend's who lost their lives for the sake of all those pussy commie fucks, see that's what he called anyone who didn't serve in the Nam, a commie fuck, he chose to equate them to his enemy for they, as he would say, "lacked the balls to stand up and fight for their country." He never showed emotion when he spoke of any fallen friends only a blank stare and a sip from his scotch.
My father used to beat me really bad; he broke both bones in my arm when I was eleven and told the hospital that I had hurt myself playing football. He told me if I told the hospital the truth he would break my other arm and I believed him. I didn't say anything.
When it was my time, as was the case for all the kids of the neighborhood drunks, I started to work in the Haven ST. Inn, first cleaning up bottles, and then gathering ice and more beer for the bartender. This is when I first started to drink and I did so heavily because I had no worries. My father sat across from me shit faced unable to notice the fact that I myself was drunk. I used to work hard running around emptying the ashtrays, fetching more ice, and popping beers for the old timers simply to keep my mind off the fact that in front of my face my father was getting drunk, so drunk that later that night I would probability catch a beating or someone else would. I become a hard worker and extremely introverted.
I could tell from behind the bar when my dad was about to fight, he would always wear a Brooklyn dodgers cap and at the moment when his mind was tweaked by some comment made by a commie fucker sitting next to him, something inside him would turn and he would take his left hand and adjust his hat three times and then all hell would break lose, always leading to the demise of the other unfortunate soul who had not been privy to my fathers stories about the Nam. Many times I wished he would use his killer instinct on me and end my agony but I guess he used restraint when it came to family.
When I got older and was ready to go to college I stopped working at the bar. They gave me a going away party of sorts, all the old timers drinking scotch and water smiling at my youth telling me I had my whole life ahead of me, the universe by the balls. My dad sat next to me proud putting his arm around me telling me about how his father sat next him at the bar in the old neighborhood, the night before he left for war. Then he said, " difference here son I guess is that you're headin off to college, and well some day you'll come home and be thinking your all smart but I'll tell ya, I'll put you back in your place before you blink an eye. See, before I left for the Nam my father said the same to me; in fact I was about your age at the time. The only difference between you and me is that when I came home I was tough and hard, you, you will probably turn into a pussy democrat."
Hey Dad HAPPY FUCKING MEMORIAL DAY GUESS WHAT I HAVE BECOME A DEMOCRAT THANK YOU!!!