I had an uncle
we called
‘Vest’
who lived out
in Arizona.
He would
make rare
visits
to see my mom,
his younger sister.
There were
twelve years
between them
and a
continent
and several
worlds.
“Why Vest?”
I asked him
of his
uncommon
name.
“You’re mother called me ‘Vest’
cause she was four and couldn’t
say ‘West’ when I left
home and headed out West.
Vest wore cowboy
clothes
with the
beautiful
boots,
shirts with
designs
of sunsets
or cactus
and snaps
down the front
which would
make a great
sound
as he ripped
it open
which
he did for our
entertainment
and a string tie
with silver
tips
and a turquoise
stone
holding
the strings
together.
Also,
often he wore
a suede leather vest.
My father
thought
he was a
bum
and said
so
but not to him.
Vest told
stories
the adults
did not
believe
but the kids did
and we
loved him
for his
idiosyncrasies
as the adults
rolled their eyes
and
made dubious
faces
and
endured him
for the reasons
we loved him.
He was
married
six times
and twice
to the same
woman.
My mother
took a train
to the first two
weddings.
The third and fourth
she flew,
then skipped
the last two.
The women
must have been
dull as mush
to fall for him,
my father said,
dusting the
breakfast crumbs
from his secured tie.
Vest
had been to India once
and the South Seas
and Mexico
and Alaska
and Nebraska
and came back
with stories
that kept
a wife drenched
in exotic worlds
until she became
bored and boring
and he needed
a new one.
One day
we got
word
he was dead,
killed in a car crash
near Tucson.
My mother cried
a little
and I cried
and my father
was quiet
for a
long time.
His body came
home
on a train
with a note
from his
most
recent
wife
saying
she couldn’t
make it.
She had already
said her goodbye.
The funeral
was short
at the grave side
with a prayer.
My mother
said something
and my father
was more
choked up
than I would have
expected.
2002
__________________________________________________________
The story of Uncle Vest is complete fiction. I had no Uncle Vest and if I
did he would have been married only four times, not six. If he was real,
in the way that you and I are real, today would have been his birthday.