Father in Chiaroscuro

The night her father was murdered, 
I was with Crystal in my room. 
We were thirteen. Saturday night.

On sleepovers we ate Häagen-Dazs coffee 
ice cream and sat on the floor 
with music from my 5-CD changer. 
That night we were painting our nails
with elaborate supplies I owned.

She was the friend who always had head lice,
but I didn’t care. We used Rid shampoo,
then went back to school.
She had two little brothers, 
lived in an apartment like us, 
but in a bad part of town.

My dad came to the door, asked 
me to walk with him to take 
the trash out in the alley. 
At the garbage bin his face flashed 
with information. Crystal’s mother
had called. Her husband was stabbed
to death outside their apartment 
by a neighbor.

My dad said let’s not tell her. 
Let her mother tell her 
when she picks her up in the morning.
I agreed and carried myself 
back to our nail salon. 
I sat down and she looked sweeter, 
her voice and hair softer. 
When she plucked a red polish 
from a pile and held it aloft 
in admiration, I said you can have it. 
Really? she said, amazed. 
I knew she would lose her father in the morning.
A sad secret between us, but not the only one.

I kept watching the death movie of her father in my mind.
He was short like mine, went outside to talk to someone.
A struggle, an escalation, then a weapon drawn.

I kept watching my father by the garbage in the alley 
where he covertly smoked Marlboro Reds.
His face when he told me the news
was disappointingly extreme. I remember thinking: 
why was he so struck when I was the one 
who would have to lie to my friend, 
to sit with her on carpet, sleep beside her ignorance?

When I think of it, I combine the alley 
with the crime scene 
and see each apartment complex,
each front window, father, as if they are one.

Last week, when David Crosby died, I played Déjà Vu,
and “Our House” warmed my room. 
Then I remembered Crystal’s father’s name, 
like my father’s, started with an ‘R,’
that her last name was House. 
R. House, she would joke.

We are floating further from the generation 
that made what my dad called the best music.

He was so lonely there, not smoking
in the dark, moving farther from me. 
This is how I see him now, 
and he doesn’t see me.
He is felled by emotion, his own 
immortality, memories of embattled men.

That night, he was dazzled and dadless too, 
walked back to the kitchen 
to call his mom.