We got to live together...

There's something about insomnia that makes me thoughtful—or irritable. Sometimes they're hard to tell apart.

My father was probably one of the most intelligent and compassionate men I have ever known. To most of the world he hid his hunger for knowledge and very suspect beliefs in equality, and presented a Depression-Era-Prairie-Farmer/Laborer persona that kept him unnoticed by social thugs like Joseph McCarthy. It was, after all the 1950s when truly believing in such unAmerican ideals like freedom of religion or the equality of Man and other Pinko/Socialist concepts could lose you your job, or worse.

At home, however, he read everything he could find; loved poetry and music almost as much as he loved my mother; and, with two notable exceptions, did not talk much about religious or racial tolerance/brotherhood, but demonstrated those ideals in the way he lived his life.

One day during the 1964 presidential campaign we were talking about Goldwater and Johnson and Kennedy (both John and Robert) and the Freedom Marches and, almost as an aside he said, "Never follow or even turn your back on a fanatic. Even if he's on your team. A fanatic will kill you and everyone you love without blinking an eye. He'll even kill everyone he loves."

Another time, when I was in college and, like Mark Twain, beginning to discover just how much that little, old man had learned since I was fourteen, he made the observation that all political systems became alike when taken to their extremes. To him there was no difference between Stalin and Hitler. Now that he's been gone for five years, I wonder if he would see the same similarities I see between our current president and Hitler in the 1930s.

But I digress. Sort of.

The first time I can remember my father becoming forcefully vocal about race was when I was about eight, and my younger brother was five. We were at The Pit (an old gravel pit turned into a swimming hole, but with a beach and life guards) and my brother was playing with one of his friends. At some point they did the "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe" chant to decide who would get the pail or something, but instead of "catch a tiger by its toe" they used the 'n' word.

Time, very literally, stopped.

My father did not explode, but his anger tore holes in space and time, and made the Big Bang seem like a faint echo in the distance. It was all the more terrible because it was so contained. He did not yell or throw things or hit. (Dad never hit, or spanked, us). He became so rigid with anger he vibrated. At some level beyond hearing he was emitting a sound that caused dogs for blocks around to howl with fear; and made people fifty feet away who had no idea what was going on back away and looked for shelter. He picked my brother up and held him so they were face to face and said, almost in a whisper—a whisper that made you wish for a quick death and the comparative comforts of Hell—"You will never say that word again."

He put my brother down, and walked away.

Time let a few tentative seconds pass. Eventually Light and Sound found their way back into the universe.

That evening at supper Dad explained why he got so angry. He told us there were words that were only used to hurt other people and make them feel bad, and that word was one of them. That the people who used it were bullies and cowards who hurt other people to make themselves feel important and powerful, but they were really scared and weak and usually not very smart.

I'm sure that if we had been a bit older he would have a lot more to say, but at that time we didn't know about things like Nazis or lynchings or hatreds based on nothing more than skin color. The quiet sadness in his voice was, however, enough to make his words stay with both of us for the rest of our lives.

That was in 1954. Several years later we began hearing and reading reports of people demanding to be served lunch at a Dime Store lunch counter; or sit where they damn well please on a bus; or go to a somewhat more decent school. Then television learned how to make far away problems real and immediate, and on the evening news we watched terrified young girls walk down sidewalks lined with hate into a schoolhouse filled with hate; and people who's only crime was to want to vote or live in equality get beaten down by fire hoses and truncheons and attacked by dogs.

At that time we were attending the Methodist Church in town. My family had a fairly complex relationship with the concepts of god and organized religion, but during those periods we and theology were tentatively reconciled my mother's default religion was Methodist. Dad had had a slightly more adventurous experience with religion that included a stint as a Seventh Day Adventist elder responsible for converting twenty-six souls to the faith. For which he was certain he was doomed to Hell. Basically he felt all priests and preachers were either misguided or criminal. If you were lucky they would do you no real harm, and steal only a little bit of your stuff. So when we would begin one of our periodic stabs at conventional sanctity, we would end up going to a Methodist Church because it was Mom's favorite and Dad didn't care.

One of the town's Methodist Church's trademarks was a cross on the front of the steeple made out of movie marque lights. There were 57 lights in the cross, and at any given time a fair number of them would be burned out. For some reason getting all of the lights working at the same time seemed to be so important that it took up amazing amounts of discussion time during the membership meetings. But very little, bordering on none, overt action came out of those discussions. "It was a sacrilege." "It was disrespectful." "It was blasphemous." "It presented a poor image of the congregation." It was everything, and more, except important enough for someone to actually do something.

After we had joined the church one spring I heard Dad talking to Mom about the lights. He got home from his night shift at The Products a little after 7:00am, and he usually left to roof houses at 8:00am. He'd come home at 4:00pm, eat supper and spend time with us until about 7:00, when he'd go to sleep until 10:00 and then get up and go to work at 11:00pm. Sometimes, when the weather was bad or he didn't have a roofing job, he would nap for an hour or two before my brother and I got home from school. He worked these fourteen to sixteen hour days almost forty years.

Anyway, he figured on his way to that day's job he could throw the extension ladder up against the steeple, change the bulbs, and be on his way in about ten minutes. Mom was against it because Dad was none to steady on a ladder, and the fewer times he went up one the better. She hated his roofing work and was always happiest when it rained and in the winter.

It was, as they say, a moot point.

The next Sunday, in amongst the planning for Easter, some one wondered what the congregation should do, "if, you know, a ni...a Negro family moved into town and, you know, wanted to join our church." All of a sudden all kinds of hitherto unknown regulations started coming out of the woodwork. Services were for members of the congregation only and their guests. To be a member you had to reside in the town, or whatever you call a Methodist Church's jurisdiction, for two years; bring a letter of introduction from your former pastor; be sponsored by two elders; have donated $2000 to the building fund; and for all I know cured polio and solved the problem of going faster than light.

Dad finally got a chance to speak, and I knew it was going to be good because Mom started gathering up our hats and jackets and stuff for a quick getaway. "What the hell do you mean, "what are we going to do?" If you were a man, and a Christian, you'd introduce yourself, shake their hand, and make room so they could sit down. For weeks now I've listened to a lot of crap about a stupid cross having lights burned out. Instead of getting out there and helping some old couple or widow take down their storm windows and put up screens, or helping some family down on its luck put in a kitchen garden you're all in here whining about some fucking light bulbs, and now you have the gaul to wonder whether or not some decent, hard working people can join your church. As far as I'm concerned they have more right to it than you do. And before you say another word or get off your fat asses to change even one of those God damned lights, try reading that Bible you're always carrying around."

With that we left. Mom and Dad lived in that town another forty years, and never once set foot in that church again. The next time Mom decided they needed to go to church (I was in college.) they drove to the church in the next town over. And for those of you who might be wondering—yes. He did say "fucking light bulbs." It was the only time that I know of that he used the word in his ninety-three years.

大とこの糞ひりおわす枯れのかな
The archbishop/Evacuates the honorable bowels/On the withered moor.
—Buson