Fred Weeks

He was six foot two and two hundred fifty pounds.
With a barrel chest, Still cock strong at seventy five.

The drinking had finally taken its toll on him.
Jana got him up early to drive to dialysis’s
Every Thursday. He drove himself
too bullheaded to accept help.

Jana never had much good to say about him
“He was drunk most the time.” she said.
and he beat the hell out of my mother.”

He fathered seven children from three different women
but it was the white children he sent to college
with the money he made logging and running moonshine.

Jana’s dark brown eyes burned fire red mad.
She showed the fierce side of her native heritage
when she spoke of him that way.

When he became homeless no one would take care of him
except Jana.  She gave him a room and a bed
and cooked good dinners, much better then she cooked me

She even got his plate and brought it to him
on the account of his knees so he claimed.
She never brought a plate to me
I had to get my own and the best portions were always his.

I began to wonder who was the provider
for this make shift family.
Never the less I kept quiet

Fred would always tell me stories and fall asleep half way through
His eyes closed but he kept talking babbling on incoherently
about some brawl in some bar, and some whoresome where.


The three fingers missing from his right hand
trying to move

The ragged facial scar from a busted beer bottle
carved into his cheek, telling its own tale of a rapid demise.
Perhaps trying to get a woman who was already married.
Perhaps saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.

Most of the time it was Jana who would interrupt him
with those fiery eyes telling he was full of shit
or telling him it was time to go to bed, take his medication
or simply to just shut up.

Then one day he was gone
I came home from work
to see Jana sitting
in the corner of his bedroom
tears filling her big round eyes
and streaming hard down her cheeks.

He had fallen asleep
going through an intersection
and had met his end.
T-boned by a semi
doing seventy five
at a four way intersection.

Just like that
he was gone

Through sobs and tears
Jana said “I should not have let him drive.”
‘He always kept an extra set of keys
He would have driven anyways.’ I told her.

I rolled her into my arms
and she began to ask repeatedly between sobs
the question she should have asked him
“Why didn’t you love me.”

I sat there and held her
knowing there was no answer
to this scar that would not heal.