#WeToo

I left the pay phone hanging at the end of the hall.
My father told me Jack didn't do it that way, but took a Colt .45

to his head, in the shower, so everything could be washed away.
Brains, blood down the drain. His wife's affair. Losing his job.

Jack told my older brother he was thinking about it
the day before when they watched golf on television.

My brother, Joe didn't believe him. But believed him later.
Joe went on to become a clinical psychologist after that night.

Joe practiced for forty years. He told me once it was the only thing
he could do to prevent it from ever happening again.

As I went back to my room down the hall sobbing
other boys noticed my grief, the only gift we can give the dead.

Jack was the father of my best friend Bobby. Jack was the best
friend of my father. Jack's wife Dorothy taught me how to make

cinnamon toast. We called them Uncle Jack and Aunt Dorothy,
but they weren't blood. We vacationed with their family every

August for two weeks at Nags Head, N.C. for twelve years.
I would become a lifeguard for six years at the same beach trying to save what I could.