01-Aug-1976 Red Bank,NJ Monmouth Arts Centre, USA
I used to live in this two family house, on this main road used to go through town. Yeah, I know. My mom used to work downtown at some office building as a secretary. And my pop, he was a... he was a guard down at the jail sometimes. A lot of times, he'd just stay home. And when he'd be home, I remember, (???), he used to shut off all the lights in the house and just sit in the kitchen, drink his beer, smoke a cigarette. In the wintertime sometimes, he'd leave the gas stove on so that it got real hot in there and shut all the doors. My mom used to sit in the front room, watch TV all night. And I'd go out. And if you came... If me and my sister if we came in... if we came in around ten or eleven, it was never too bad. But if we came in late, I knew my pop was sitting there waiting for me, sitting there in the dark for hours. And it put me and I tried to... tried to make it through the kitchen and run to make it up to my room. And just as I was, just as I was about through, he'd end up calling my name, tell me to sit down and talk to him for a little while. And we'd sit there in the dark. And meanwhile I could always hear his voice, but I could never see his face though... We'd talk about mostly nothing, what I was doing in school, and how I could join the army. Start asking what I thought I was doing with myself and where I was getting my money from, and all of a sudden, you're no good. And pretty soon, we'd start screaming at each other. And my mom would be coming in from the front room keeping us from fighting each other. And I'd be running out the back door, telling him that it was my life, I could do what I wanted to do...
(Bluetele)