needing the milk or the bread.
Turned out he’d passed a young
woman at the bus stop and,
believing no beautiful woman
should have to wait for a bus, he
offered her a ride to where she lived
—three hours away. My mom was
furious with him because he’d cost
us a whole tank of petrol, which
was enough to get us to work and
school for two weeks.
When he was up you couldn’t
stop him, but his mood swings were
wild. In his youth he’d been a boxer,
and one day he said I’d disrespected
him and now he wanted to box me.
He was in his eighties. I was twelve.