A child of a military man, I suppose so—that’s me. We moved, 

like every three years—during my formative years,

whatever that is supposed to mean.

My father married a German lady. One he met when

stationed in, of all places, Germany. She turned out to be

my mother. She had two children when he married her—there

in Germany. He adopted those two. As the story goes, those

two children had another father, of course, from some previous

marriage. She was a Catholic, small c, because in those days, even though

I suspect he beat her, nothing was said. Catholics don’t divorce, but somehow she freed herself.

By all accounts: he wanted a shotgun and a leather coat.

That was the deal. He’d sign over his rights

as a biological father for a leather coat and a shotgun. That’s how my brother and sister

were adopted—a negotiated deal. To me, they were my brother and sister, for I knew nothing else. 

From Germany, we moved—Georgia, Hawaii, back to Germany. 

When I was nine, maybe ten, a faraway place like Vietnam, was just that,

a faraway place. We ended up in Missouri, then California, 

where my father grew up, the buttermilk-drinking champ of Calaveras

County, so he said—to await his return. 

My sister, now of age, worked for a chicken joint: 

Kentucky Fried Chicken. She met some guy. She stayed, and we went back

to Missouri.

She eventually had two kids—but before any of that, she

embezzled money, then no longer worked for the KFC folks—but as the world

works, they wanted their money back. Somehow my father rescued them. 

After flying out, he drove back—a yellow, Opal Kadett. She drove it to sell

buckets and biscuits. Later he drove it across Roubidoux Creek

while out hunting. Water seeped into the interior.

It was less an extrication from bad fortune—more a simple transaction. 

And somehow, in all of this, before the Kadett,

before the return from the war that wasn’t a war, my brother decided

he’d attempt to run away, from what, I do not know;

But his mother, my mother, heard him in the night. “I catch you,” she said,

as any Americanized German might.

That put an end to that. Who knows what he was thinking, but then,

I never knew what that guy was thinking. German genes run that way.

I trusted them as my siblings. Time has a way of changing that stuff,

and politics can bring out the truth inside someone that he, she, they 

otherwise hide in plain sight. And things like technology can bring people

closer or tear them apart. For me, it is the latter. They’re just someone

else’s kids—a guy who owns a leather coat and a shotgun. They’re not

my brother or sister. We just happen to have the same mother, who

years later died on the operating table—from heart valve damage

caused by speculation, like the leather jacket and shotgun affair, by something

that happened years ago: either scarlet fever or rheumatic fever during the

Hitler years—it taking something like sixty-five years to show up, about the

amount of time technology can bring or tear people apart and heart surgery

can go awry. Her valve repaired, but leaked at the sutures. “We had to stop the heart

to fix the leak. It wouldn’t restart,” the surgeon explained in the less than sterile waiting room.

Never thought it could simply be malpractice, more what the narrative called for.

But that is not what I am guilty of or maybe it is. I didn’t stay at the

hospital. I went somewhere during. I am guilty of being, of the three,

the only one to go to college or to actually get a degree because that 

is what was done in those days—what was expected. This is all before

digital technology came along—days when people used to use typewriters

and make calls from phones on a wall—days of newspapers at the kitchen table.

Days before ones and zeroes; before likes, clickbait, and digital propaganda— 

appearance ruled the day—their son was going to college. 

The local, cheap, college—we did not know

any better, no one had ever done this.

It wasn’t like I was some first-class student who scored high on the ACT. No one

was asking for me—seeking me out to boost GPA stature. Nonetheless, 

I ended up with a degree in English, though I can’t write

worth a crap

with a minor in Philosophy. No one knows why. 

Not a BA as the sophisticated kids achieved—but a BS in English. Yes, BS.

All so I could teach and have summers off. Some motivation. I soon found out I can’t teach kids.

The kids are not like me or I am not like them. I am guilty of meeting a nurse because 

I worked my way through this cheap college working at a pharmacy in a 

hospital where this nurse worked and her roommate was having an affair

with one of the married pharmacists who set us up on a blind date while

in the middle of my divorce from my first wife or it could have been shortly after. My first

wife got that BA at this cheap college. She went on to marry some DJ

from the local radio station. They had a kid, but then they

divorced. I had a kid with the nurse and those two kids

ended up going to the same junior high years later—I barely knew this.

Those two kids at the same hospital where my mother died when I was not there.

I am guilty of not teaching, either myself or those kids. Those kids

who I am not like or they are not like me, though I gave it a go after my

stint, not in the military, but at some other cheap university who paid me

to go there to get a Master’s degree in Applied Philosophy, whatever the

hell that is, though I know, but few others do. I am guilty of not teaching;

though I tried at a high school before going back to that pharmacy I left—in the hospital

where my mother died when I was not there.

I taught some philosophy to some older kids and some adults at that cheap

University—while my wife stayed a nurse. Me, back at that pharmacy—for the money, then

more money at some insurance company handling their claims. 

We were trying to raise a kid and to make a life while this other, who used to be

my wife was over there doing something else: raising a kid and divorcing the DJ,

then living with some other guy for decades until they married, so social media

told me, before I left that game.

Now my father is dead. He married some other lady, who told me after his death, “That watch, 

that Rolex he promised you, the one he bought in Vietnam. He sold that. He didn’t tell you. I’m

sorry.” It would explain some fancy knife I got from him around the time I assume he sold the

watch. And this other guy, my used-to-be sister married, he’s dead. My mother is dead, though

she hated the guy my used-to-be sister married—called him little Hitler. My mother died, though

only after my father divorced her and she became a big C Catholic, after living a little c most of

her life. I suspect her former husband, the father of my used-to-be brother and sister, is dead. 

Who knows what became of that shotgun and leather jacket? The internet surely couldn’t say, or

 even if 

any of this, 

all of this,

is even true or just some anecdote told over and over. We simply live in film, in an overly

exaggerated celluloid metaphor rat-a-tat-tat—everyone pushing a boulder. Our technology

addiction blurred by the trailer announcement—based on a true story.

It’s a bad screenplay with scenes out of order, disjointed direction: Did Jesus die on the cross for

our sins?

Or did those five in Ohio actually die as soldiers fired simply

because of some insane war that we did not call a war,

while we waited in 

California, where embezzlement and kids attempt to run away from home.

Black market profits, enough to buy a Rolex—none

of which I am guilty, but then, maybe I am culpable of all 

of it—certainly coffee.

Writing, I suppose so in a pretend attic unaccompanied by shame—like Sisyphus and his damn boulder.  And I

not having read William Faulkner like those BA graduates claimed

they read or blameed for trying to do the right thing when not knowing what that 

thing is or even what it looks like: maybe a shotgun and a leather coat, in this bad

script so the rights can be signed over and just walk away, putting it all behind. Maybe selling a

watch

that was promised. But, then, maybe luck has more to do with the difference between a bad poet and a good one.

Born in 1957 to a German mother and an American military father in Wurzburg, Germany. Married 43 years with one child who
has one child, making me a grand father in 2023. Fascinated by meta-narratives as I'm a product of the modern era living
in a post-modern world--what once was absurd is not understood in the same way, something changed when the towers were hit. Now, we distrust logic and reason: rationality has no weight in argument. "Argument" is no longer understood as it once was. Science and its methodology is met with skepticism--medical professionals or any expert is dismissed because they are scientists or because they are experts in a field of study. It isn't what they say, it's because they are experts! Everything is biased, as the argument goes, because scientists are being paid by someone and they're all shills. We say that no one is above the law, but that is only true for those who don't control the law. Thus, the notion of universal truths, universal morals, or universal reality no longer guides us. Instead, reality is shaped by the individual: anything goes, a sort of nihilism. Facts only exist as a construct of power, not who is in power, but more or less the power that is held in the belief that everything is relative: depicting anything in the world cannot be determined by what came before. Hence, "A Leather Coat and a Shotgun" may or may not be "true" since apparently, nothing is true: "facts" are illusionary. The last line of the prose narrative poem is taken from Charles Bukowski's "the diffence between a bad poet and a good one is luck."  I lived in Springfield, MO for nearly 40 years after receiving my Master's from Bowling Green State University, Ohio in 1984, worked for State Farm insurance for 27 years, taught Intro Philosophy as an evening instructor for both Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) and Drury University in the 1990s while working day time hours for State Farm. I'm an avid bicyclist and chess player and dabble in writing as the mood strikes. I now live in Lee's Summit, MO since 2023 to support my daughter and her husband in raising their child when my wife and I are called upon.}

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