David Lohrey
Tokyo Express
That man there used to be my father.
I recognize those blue-veined arms on that corpse riding the
train with me from Shimokitazawa to Chitose-Funabashi.
That's the corpse of my father, I swear to God.
I recognize his receding hairline and his pale skin.
It even has curly hair and wears glasses. That's dad,
all right, sitting there beneath the sign for special seating.
That's exactly where he'd sit if he were alive.
Dad saw himself as disabled and in some ways he was.
He was an emotional cripple, that's for sure.
He flew into rages over nothing.
I once got up the courage to point out there were no other cars on the road
but he was cursing. He was ranting. He looked out the window and stopped.
When I was eleven, he'd have turned around and smacked me on the head.
He was always threatening to trounce me.
Dad was a bully. When I was little, mother asked me to get dad an aspirin
to go with his pickled herring and his dry martini.
Years later, dad once said, "After two martinis, I'm not afraid of anything."
I like that.
Like a lot of monsters, he had a heart of gold. Like Frankenstein
and all his monster friends, he scared the neighborhood children
but felt lonely. Like many bullies before him, what he needed was a blind
man to make him a cup of tea. It was precisely because people were not
blind that he hated them.
Oh, but how well Edward Albee understood him.
What he wanted above all else was love: L.O.V.E. Just like an alcoholic,
but he didn't drink. No, his father drank enough for two generations.
He once said, "You think you're a big shot, but you're nothing but a big shit."
I like that, too. I used to pick cashews out from father's dish of mixed nuts.
Amazingly, it didn't make him mad. It amused him.
I did that from his lap.
That old Japanese guy sitting across from me reminds me
of my father when he was alive. The old man there looks
very thoughtful, looks intelligent. My father, too, had that look.
I wish I did.
That man's flesh is as white as a frog's belly, so pale
I can see his blue cheesy veins.
I could see my father's, too. It made him look frail. He'd get cross
but with no power. He became pathetic,
especially when he smelled of urine.
It's hard to control other people when you stink.
It's impossible to run the show when you've sprung a leak.
It's hard to frighten your son when you have to wear pampers.
Fear goes but love lasts. Now there's a line for Machiavelli's Prince.
I learned that from my father. Or is it the other way around?
About David Lohrey
David Lohrey’s plays have been produced in Switzerland, Croatia, and Lithuania. His poetry can be found in Otoliths (AUS), Tuck Magazine (UK), Terror House (Hungary), New Orleans Review (USA) Southword (Ireland), and the Cardiff Review (Wales). His fiction can be read online at Dodging the Rain, Storgy Magazine, and Literally Stories. David’s collection of poetry, MACHIAVELLI’S BACKYARD, was published by Sudden Denouement Publishers (Houston, 2017). He lives in Tokyo.