I help my dad upstairs.
I hold my hand on the small of his back.
I wait at the door as he gets out his keys.
It takes a while.
No matter.
He opens the door.
We walk down the hall to a second door.
He opens the door.
Inside: dust, dirt, bits of dry glue,
splinters of wood, splinters of oak,
of ash, plywood, splinters of pine,
sawdust, wires and cords, copper wire,
solder, a soldering gun, a little dry sponge
for cleaning the tip of the soldering gun,
chisels, saws, nails, screws,
shards of glass, glass vacuum tubes,
shards of glass near the window too.
My dad gets to work.
I watch as he jerks the hand-plane back and forth,
I watch his whole body rock back and forth.
When I watch my dad work I can’t help but think of
Muhammad Ali, not as he was near the end of his life,
shuffling and stone-faced,
but rather in the ring in his prime,
swaying back and forth against the ropes,
rope-a-dope.
Swaying back and forth
he bumps into the circular-saw
resting on the edge of the workbench.
It falls towards my feet,
I move just in the nick of time
as it crashes to the floor.
As I catch my breath
I trace the power cord
across the floor and up the wall.
My dad doesn’t turn around,
instead he seems to pick up steam,
pick up the pace,
so many unfinished projects to complete.
The table for my sister Faith,
the altar for his best friend Ric,
the speaker cabinet he burnt with a blowtorch,
in the style of “shou sugi ban”
which he says is an age-old Japanese weatherproofing technique.
The guitar amplifier he is making for me,
which is on the table across the room
with its insides splayed open, a mess of
wires and wood and beautiful little
ceramic capacitors, little paper resistors
circled by brightly colored lines a meaningful code,
like the wings of a butterfly,
like the belly of a bee.
I walk over to the wall and tug on the cord.
Come back and pick up the saw off the ground.
Put it back where it was.
Sometimes I fear for his life too.
Lake Walsh is an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Lake can be reached by email at [email protected].
