small price to pay
i.
so what, i was renting my dad
forgiveness when i’d let him wrap my smooth bruised skin
in a bear hug after he beat me — for a fee. maybe i was
bartering off a piece of my soul to an unclean spirit
inside him inside me it got confusing: sometimes
sin, like a fence, was all we could share.
but can you blame a child for being so tired
of suffering invisibly — for free —
so tired of having nothing
to brag about
that other boys envied? by fifth grade my faith
in heavenly rewards for righteousness felt little
more than an afterlife hypothesis
unprofitable on this side: to become a guest
and claim my prize in that world, i had to stay a ghost
and broke in this one. i felt like i deserved more
than i got for merely surviving — twenty bucks,
a carton of cigarettes or whatever
permissions no kid should be able to haggle
in exchange for embracing his dad’s sweaty apology
when madness got the best of him. maybe both of us
were selling indulgences, exemptions for wrath,
greed and pride as pathways to redemption. it was pure
quid pro quo: we both got all the love
we could stand to pay for.
ii.
perhaps what really made us similar
was our insatiable desire
to belong — even if it cost us. for years
i would’ve sworn that
had my brother not tripped
over dad’s prone body like a stumbling block,
his passing would’ve gone unnoticed
by anyone but his sons —
he was nobody
until somebody wanted something. hairy and sprawled
as he was like a rug on the kitchen floor
where his clogged artery dropped him
when it popped, anyone could’ve walked right over him,
as usual, to pluck what they wanted from the cupboards
of his heart. one time he was so desperate
for news on family scattered across the state,
he cut out ten percent of his disability check
for his first cousin to come visit
when jobless. cousins started showing up
or calling first of every month
if they were broke. crack addicts and hookers
in the ghetto knew if they saw dad on our stoop
he was good for dirty jokes and a smoke
or two if they laughed with him
not at him
and chatted a minute. when undocumented migrants
secretly moved in with the family next door,
they hung a bleating goat
from our clothesline pole out back,
gutted and skinned it, made tamales
with its meat, then invited dad to feast,
dance with their daughter, and drink
cerveza till dawn. so he said yes
and welcome to America when they asked
to let them splice into our cable tv.
our shared ceiling cracked and leaked
roaches because of their clumsy crawling to hide
the wiring through infested pink
insulation linking above our apartments. looking
back at it all now, decades later, i wonder
if what i described as an emphatic minus
sign between dad’s birth and death dates
was less my bitter negative
summary of life spent seeking connection
and more an absence
of perspective on my part:
whereas i wished to purchase friendship,
it seems dad just gave his away. Maybe
for him the hyphen would stand for love
hammered into his gravestone
like a Commandment — God’s dowsing rod
always looking for a place to land.
i admit, even when that line reminds me of the lash
in his upraised hand, i never questioned his heart.

a letter for Pops
though slightly stooped at 70, Mr. C
was a hulking Lumbee who had grown
notorious in prison for his fists and swinging
moods as dementia herky-jerked his bulk
—like a stop-motion character—
and pockmarked more of his brain every day.
he acted like my dead father,
whose schizophrenia had weaponized
his mind into a minefield full of triggering
memories and blackened logic.
i was just some guy on Mr. C’s block
yet mine was the last friendly face his temper had
not scared off, the one he could trust enough
to stand still as he shuffled up
to beg, childlike, for a soda pop or soup
or, perhaps, a stamp and steady pen
to draft a letter as he stammered it
out. i remember this one time
before he went to hospice, how suddenly
he’d dropped his soft
catcher’s mitt onto my writing hand
in gratitude, i thought,
until his grip curled
into a wrecking ball
and he asked, “Young man,
you ain’t reading my letter
are you?” i met the menace
in his gaze and saw the man
who used to beat me without mercy,
recalled the gauntlet of his madness
that made everyone he loved
run away. no, Mr. C, i said gently,
i am not reading it. i’m only
writing what you tell me. after a moment
he relaxed his grip but left it
laying there, seeming fearful
now, ashamed. “It’s nothing personal
against you . . . it’s just . . . it’s . . .”
i understand, Mr. C. it’s okay,
i understand, i said,
trying to pad my tone
with reassurance, sort of patting
the air with it as if to soothe
my dad’s ghost, or maybe
say what i wish i’d said
those years ago:
i’m still here, Pop, and
i promise i won’t go anywhere
because even with
a death sentence, i didn’t.
George T. Wilkerson: “I am a poet, writer, and artist living on North Carolina’s Death Row. I’m also a Christian, which influences a lot of my thinking and desire to help others understand our common humanity. These pieces are about my Dad, who died during my trial. Although he is no longer here physically, I still sense his spirit — and know that he is waiting for me in Heaven.”