--ROCKABYE                     

 

                               A Passing Grade

 

       Her father taught her how to steal.

       She caught him one time filching a pack of Camel cigarettes at a convenience store.  In the car, the crinkling wrapper made her flesh pucker.  The smoke looked like smoggy cotton candy shapeshifting into a grainy, gray dragon.  “Want a puff?” he asked.  

       He was a policeman, rather, a detective.  The big difference, he’d told her, was that detectives used clues to fetter out what no one else could see.  He tapped the side of his forehead when he said this, winking at her.

       They lived in a large house in the Hollywood hills.  They had a swimming pool and sauna.  Their drapes opened and shut electrically.

       His cop buddies came over to drink beer and play poker.  He bought exotic sports cars with Italian names.  Policemen seemed to make more than CEOs.

       When Clinton was impeached, her father said, “Hang the bastard.”

       In order to house all of his automobiles, her father added a fourth and fifth garage.  He never actually drove them.  Instead, the vehicles sat there, cloth-covered like dinosaurs in body bags. 

       In college, she struggled with a certain class, the subject keeping her from a four point GPA.  She scoped out the smartest boy—Elliot, the one who sat beside her in the next aisle.  Weeks before the final, she let him buy her coffee, let him walk her back to the dorm, let her inside, let her inside again.

       When she gave her speech at graduation she looked out into the audience, past the capped students to the back rows.  Her father was there somewhere.  Though she couldn’t see him, she knew he was grinning, so full of pride.