On this day 53 years ago my parents were married in the Bible Baptist Church in Jett, Kan. (pop. 3,500 in the '60s.) There's pictures of them feeding each other wedding cake. They divorced 10 years later. One night -- I was 3-years-old -- they told me they didn't love each other anymore. I kept walking back from Dad's chair in the living room. "Daddy, do you love Mom?" "No." Then to my mother's chair. "Mom, do you love Dad?" Shaking her head. "No." I tried to be such a little man, not to cry. I think I barely did.
I almost cursed God and told Him where to go this morning, but I remembered when I was a little boy in the early '70s and I had nowhere else to go.
I asked Dad last week, "How did you feel when Mom left you? You must've been in hell." He didn't say much. Just, "been there, done that."
I could say this is gonna be a bad day, but I'm going to press on. I might crack some jokes. People like my jokes. I feel a little like Don Draper in the episode of Mad Men where he revealed in a client meeting that he was raised in a brothel and used to go through the John's trousers, looking for money and loving the sweetness of the Hershey bars he found.
Some friend of mine has given me tough love. He always did. I better get to work now. I write and investigate for a secret underworld writing society that takes me away from home a lot. There are a lot of secrets to my job I'm unable to reveal.
secrets
But then there always have been.
"Lord, This Time You Gave Me a Mountain" -- Elvis Presley
