I think Daddy was the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. Still do. Even today. Tall and lean and lanky in that Gary Cooper kinda way. And he was quiet like that, too. Sticking pretty much to hisself a lot of the time. Not that he was unfriendly. Not in any way. Always with a joke or something funny to say. A lot of people laughed when he was around. But I’ve heard said that sometimes the funny ones are the sad ones, which is kinda ironic. The guys who make you laugh the most are the ones off crying somewhere.

            No, I think Daddy wasn’t as much sad as just kinda a little lost mosta the time. You know, not like lost in a car on some dirt road out in the middle of nowhere. Because that surely wasn’t Daddy. He probably coulda found his way outta the forest in the middle of the night blindfolded and chasing off a bear at the same time. He had an impeccable sense of direction. Lotsa people said so. Knew so. ‘Cause he loved offering people rides, even if they were near perfect strangers, just anywhere reasonable they needed a ride to. And that’s including the folks in town or at the church or even one time the Chief a police, who’d tied one on so tight he could barely piss standing up. Or at least that’s what Daddy said about it back then, which I didn’t understand back then, but I do now, of course.

            I think Daddy got lost after Mom went away. Kinda like he didn’t know what to do with hisself or with Earl or me. Oh, he made healthy dinners and sack lunches worth some good trading and saw we made it to school in clean clothes and our teeth brushed and didn’t watch too much TV at night and said our prayers. Though when Earl got his tonsils out, he got to eat anything he wanted and sleep on the living room sofa and pick the shows we watched. I think Daddy was just not knowing what to do, the way a mother would know, when his child’s sick and he wants to comfort him, and all, and that maybe it was hurting him, too, his baby in pain.

            Yes, I think Daddy was the handsomest many I’ve ever seen, and a lot of the local women and widows musta thought so, too, what with all casseroles they brought and the perfume they bathed themselves in when they came calling. But I think Daddy was the lonesomest man I’ve ever seen, too. Because of the way he’d pull out the old projector and play those old scratchy movies on Saturday nights after he thought me and Earl were asleep. And sometimes I’d sneak down and hear him crying a little, especially when Mom was young and free and dancing around the yard in that yellow dress of hers.