Blueberry Pancakes

Sitting in an English class
focused on 18th century novels,
I spot an abandoned campus newspaper
folded on the floor, half a headline
still readable, and notice a photo of a veteran
dressed in his green Class As
sitting smiling in a chair being interviewed
under large bold letters proclaiming:
"...honored with reception,"
and a wave of shame flushes over me.

Suddenly I'm thinking about my father,
but he is an army engineer, the veteran
looks like a marine if I had to guess,
but something about a man in uniform
“…honored with [a] reception” connects
this nameless soldier with my father,
and despite my best attempts
to participate in the discussion of Mr. B—
as both villain and hero in Pamela,
I am lured into a tangle of memories.

The flashbacks start in objects,
things that reappeared daily.
There's his ubiquitous brown shirt,
which, outside of his drill sgt. hat,
was my favorite piece of his BDUs,
and in slow motion I see myself running
from Jerry Springer or Judge Judy reruns
to hug him, finally home from work, and in the doorway
I rest my head where his chest shifts to stomach,
inhaling deep whiffs of his 5 o'clock cologne,
a mixture of sweat and cigarette smoke:
my father's scent.

And there's cans of beer,
cases of whatever was cheapest
in the cavernous freezer room at the Class Six,
stocked cold in the fridge where I bounce
to grab him one as a favor while he slumps
deep into our hunter-green, leather couch
to watch Cops or Sportscenter, his head perched
on his right hand, his left hand in a bag of pretzels.
Sometimes I would shake the can to surprise him,
and the white beer foam would volcano out
over the tab onto his hands and forearms as he leaned
out of his seat to avoid dripping on the furniture,
ordering me to run for a towel and clean the mess.
Still separated from the class discussion,
I think how angry a friend shaking a soda can
before handing it to me would make me.

With a new wave starting to surge, guilt,
the flashbacks switch to places,
and I'm inside a fourth grade classroom
at Partridge Elementary School at the top
of Epps Street, the street we lived on
and walked up every day to school
when we lived in housing on Ft. Leonard Wood.
I'm sitting at my desk looking forward,
watching Mrs. Casey writing something on the chalk board,
and my dad opens the classroom door half-smiling
and nods at the teacher before crouching behind me,
whispering so he doesn’t disrupt class.
He wants to know when I'm in the geography bee
because he was able to leave morning PT early enough
to come watch me compete.
And I explained to him,
still dressed in his gray sweat suit
with ARMY plaster on the chest
in big, bold black letters,
his shaved head kept warm
under a black wool beanie,
the bee was moved earlier in the day and was over,
I didn't call home when it started
and he had missed seeing his boy
beat out a bunch of fifth and sixth graders
to win the damn thing and earn a spot at districts.
And after I told him this, almost annoyed
having to explain the situation during class,
he smiled at me with a hand on my back
and told me, "Good job!" and he'd see me after work
but had to go home and change for the remainder of his workday.
As he walked quickly out of the room,
I started crying to myself at my desk.

And I'm walking over the standard hardwood floors
in base housing into the back bedroom
he shared with my mother then;
on Saturdays, when he could sleep in after long weeks,
I would wake him up, jump on his bed, lift his eyes open,
so he could make me blueberry pancakes.
I loved his pancakes, but I stop remembering

because I can feel my eyes watering,
the sudden self-consciousness reminds me
I'm sitting in a college class room surrounded
by adults and should not start crying
while discussing Pamela's 'virtue' as her fortune.
I rub the ebbing tears out of my eyes
and look back to the marine in the newspaper,
wondering how Vietnam vets were spat on
after returning home. Maybe it was just
the nation's way of asking for blueberry pancakes.