My Friend's Father

I was in 4th grade
when I met A.J.
he had chestnut hair like his father
that swept down to his chin.

He was a golden gloves boxer
with lightning fast fists.

We played tackle football and shot  pool together.

At night we dressed like infantry men
and dashed out there
in the bushes and trees
mixed up in serious battle.

A.J. would borrow his dad's combat gear,
flashlights , blankets, etc...

His father was a short, skinny guy
who served in Vietnam

a constant, intense blaze seemed to burrow way down deep to his core.

I knew he had been through something Ginormous over there.

He killed a lot of people that much I knew, but he had also witness friends die and after seeing that
something inside him must have snapped,

a rainbow bridge falling forever into a cataclysmic darkness.

I never got too close to him
a clear intuition always warned me
to keep my distance.

There was a rumbling warning in his volcanic eyes that told me
He never really left the jungle.
Some vital part of himself was still over there.

His screams slashing through his dreams
still riveting his head into the swollen firefights that made demons
crawl inside his lonely foxhole.

I always had great respect and admiration for A.J.'s Father.
I used to hear those bloodcurdling screams at night when I slept over.

I have never heard screams like that since.

My heart would pour out to him in those long washing mind wanders
you get when you're cocooned in ripe silences
and
the heavy texture of the world seems to vanish
and all you have is the lonely ripples of quiet, secret love
washing to your shore banks.

I loved the man you see.
Even when he lost it.
Even when he beat A.J. to a pulp once.
His foxhole eyes intoxicated with whiskey & war & loss.

It was then and there in that horrible moment that I seemed to really see
how war had come and carved him up, left him still a prisoner in his cramped one bedroom apartment.

I saw him still fighting
a deadly riot within himself.

His demon still trolling jungles for the enemy, or his lost friends, or Rainbow bridge.

Whatever it was I still think of him today sometimes
wanting to understand him more.

Maybe it was that damaged, haunted look he always had in those more than troubled
 quaking eyes of his that always made me wonder what he had seen and did.

What cruel monsters were still digging through this poor man's soul
when he had seen the world darkly end?

What red line of unforgiveness kept tugging at the corners of his blasted out heart?

I still lie awake at night wondering, hoping he has found peace.