A Lousy Father and a Perfect Husband

He was a lousy father

And a perfect husband

I’m not saying he beat the kids

Although he wanted to beat them

I know that for sure

Now I don’t know how big of a difference there is

Between a father who beats their children

And a father who wants to beat their children

But I’m just letting you know

In case you’re wondering if he beat them

He didn’t beat them

But he was a lousy father

All the same

Now, my father beat me

But he was a pretty good dad

Aside from that

Isn’t that funny?

That a father who beats his kids

Can still be a good father otherwise

And a dad who doesn’t beat his kids

Can be so fucking awful?

Isn’t that just crazy?

My father was a bad husband

Horrible

My mother died a sad, sad woman

And he beat me

And my brother

Not my other brother though

No idea why

Maybe he thought my two brothers

Were the same kid

They did look kind of alike

Either way, only two of us got beat

But we got beat enough for three kids

And even then

We had a pretty good childhood

But my mother had a godawful

Fucking life

Now I have a great life

But my kids?

My kids are suffering

They know their father hates them

And he knows they know

He hates them

And I’m just walking around like--

Hey, does anybody want to watch a Disney movie

And eat some popcorn?

And they all just look at me

Like I’m the dumbest fucker

That ever walked the face of the earth

Like I don’t know

They all hate each other

I know it

But what the hell am I supposed to do?

Build a gladiator cage

And let they all

Kill each other?

I’m the mother of this damn family

The matriarch

I’m supposed to keep shit together

But a little part of me--

Okay, I’ll be honest

I’ll be honest now

A little part of me wonders

If a man can be a good husband

And a good father

No, that’s not true

Sorry

Sorry about that

I’m not--

I wonder if a man can be both

I wonder if a man can be great at both

Because, oh lord

He’s a great husband

He’s as good at being a husband

As he is bad at being a father

And--and--

And maybe that’s...connected?

Maybe it’s all tied together

And maybe I don’t want to…

Untie it

I know it’s selfish

But--but--

But there’s no guarantee

He’d be a good father to the kids

Even if he was a lousy husband to me

So…

So why not just…

Leave things the way they are?

One day the kids will have their own spouses

And their own kids

And maybe their kids will love them

And maybe they won’t

But if they have the choice--

If they have the choice

I hope they’d make the same choice

I’m making

But…

But

Isn’t that what every parent hopes?

I mean--

Isn’t that what we’re all

Hoping for?

Burning Down Houses in Havana

We used to go riding around

Setting the matches

Poor boys

Poor boys in cars

Just trying

To keep themselves busy

I had bottles of everything

In my backseat

And I never had a car

Go so easy on me

When I think of—

When I think of

What I put it through

Driving it around

Like it was a racecar

I won’t tell you

What I paid for that car

But it was a little bit more than nothing

And it lasted me all through school

And then some

Almost drove it to the mainland

Right into the water

And I bet it could’ve taken it too

I gave it to my cousin

When I left

And I don’t know what happened to it

After that

I don’t know

What happened

To my cousin either

We used to set fire to houses

In and around Havana

Stupid shit

Stupid boys

Stupid poor boys

With matches

And who gave us the matches, huh?

Who thought that

Was a good idea?

They weren’t houses with people in them

We weren’t psycho—

Nothing like that

We’d find these empty places

Fill up a bottle with, uh—

Put a match in

A lit match
And boom

There goes the house

We did that for years

You believe that?

Nobody ever came looking for us

Nobody asked

Nobody saw reports about it

My friend—my best friend

His father worked for the army

And we always thought

If we ever did get caught

That his father would either help us

Or kill us all

But what else was there to do?

His father worked for the army

But that family was still poor

Because the father had a few families

Although we weren’t supposed to know about that

We’d go to the hotel near his house

And watch the people coming and going

The Americans

The ones that weren’t supposed to be there

The women—you could smell them

From a mile away

Their perfume

Their suntan lotion

Their boredom

I used to dream about marrying a woman like that

Now I’m on my third American woman

And none of them smell as good

As those women at the hotel

We only ever got American girl

To come drive with us

She was a friend of a friend

Doing some research project

On the political bullshit going on

We took her to one of the houses

We’d already lit up

One of the ones

That hadn't burned

All the way down

 

We sparked it again

Just so she could see

What we did for fun

Her face in the fire

Looked like compassion

Never saw anything like that before

It was like she felt bad

For the house

And for us

The boys who had to light houses on fire

Just to waste some time

And set a smile

On the face of a girl

From a country

None of us

Were ever going to see

No matter how close it was

She left two days later

And I left three years after that

Never been back

Or set a fire since

But I sometimes I wake up at night
And smell smoke

And perfume

And sometimes

It’s just

Smoke

You Could Look at Us

I told her if she takes her phone out

At Thanksgiving

I’m walking right out the door

She’s trying to say

It’s take photos

So I bought her a camera

The brand new one—the 2038

And I told her—

Because I knew

Where she was going with this

—I told her that she wasn’t allowed

To post any of the photos online

And that just started

World War IV

I said, ‘Mom, not everything needs

To go online’

It’s her generation

They’re all obsessed with it

You should see me at the nursing homes

Yanking the phones out of their hands

And trying to get them

To actually interact

With each other

It’s ridiculous

Danny feels the same way about it

Our entire childhood

She was on that phone

And if you have anything to say about it

She’ll tell you

That she was documenting her life with us

But if you go back

And you look at all the photos

There are very few of us

Without her big stupid face in it

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

She’s my mother

And I love her

But she’s a total egomaniac

Which is fine

I—I can live with that

I’m not the first woman

With a narcissist for a mother

And I’m not even saying

That being vain

And self-centered

Means you can’t have some redeeming qualities

As a, you know, as a mother

But for her to try and play it off

Like it was all about us

Is just infuriating

Especially after—

After years and years

Of us just sort of having to silently

Acquiesce to all her

Digital nonsense

We finally—finally—say—

‘Mom, put the damn phone down’

And she has the nerve

To act surprised

Like this hasn’t been bothering us

Forever

Like she never saw us

Roll our eyes

Or—

And yes—yes—I get that kids

Roll their eyes

I understand that

But—what do you think the impact is of—

She used to go on and on

You know, she was one of those mothers

Who loved to put on a show

About, you know, what a great mother

She was—

And her big thing

Was that we weren’t allowed

To go on social media

Forget that

We were all over

Social fucking media

I mean, is there really—

Is there really a—

So I asked her

If she could just—

For one day

Just spend time with us

Just us

Without having to—

Without having to, you know

Telegraph to the world

How happy her fucking kids are

When her kids

Are not

Fucking

Happy

But honestly

She’s going to give me

Such a hard time about this

Like, she’s going to spend

The entire holiday

Pouting

And I just—

She'll be staring at that damn phone

At nothing

Because after awhile

It's like--

What are you even staring at?

So we'll ask her

To just--stop

And she'll say--

I'm just looking at it

And we'll say--

You could look at us

I just wonder

If there’s more going on there

Because it—

It feels like a—a—

Like an addiction

Or a—a—

Personality—something

It just…

It feels like something

That’s been going on

For a really long time

And that’s—

That’s part of why I think

It’s probably not going away

Anytime

Soon

When the Devil Talks Like God

He’s got enough hands

To make it work

Don’t be a fool

Be a fool

And get fooled

That’s all people do these days

Ride up to the ladder

And see how tall

See how--
See how it all

Pans out

I cut my nails yesterday

Trying to claw my way

Out of hell

Two coffins deep
And I still have dirt

Under my fingernails

And you

Want me

To take these muddy hands

And put ‘em together

To pray?

I can’t do that I’m afraid

Obey and okay

But I can’t

Send up prayers to god

With filthy hands

My mother used to be the one

To tell us

To wash our hands

Daddy didn’t

Daddy couldn’t scrape the rust off

No matter how hard

He tried

And the rust

Used to look

Like sin to me

Back when I was little

I thought my Dad must have been

Real bad

To have hands like that

I didn’t know that evil men

Keep clean palms

And pristine fingernails

I didn’t know

That when you send a prayer up
Covered in dirt

God’ll know you were a person

Who worked

For what they got

And God’ll be proud of you for that

I didn’t know

That the softest hand

You’ll ever feel in your life

Is probably going to be coated with grime

Because it reached into the darkest inferno

To pull you out

And back into the light

My mother used to stand over us

While we were washing our hands

And she’d ask us

What our day was like us

And who talked to us that day

We’d tell her about our teachers

And our friends

And the man who came to the door

Trying to sell us Bibles

‘What’d he say to you,’ she asked

We told her

He wanted to know

If our parents were home

And when we said they weren’t

Because our mother was at the market

And our dad was doing double shifts

He kind of smiled at us

And asked if he could come in

‘But you didn’t let him in, right?’

‘No, ma’am, we didn’t.’

I remember how nice his voice sounded

How low, the timbre

The way he cut his ‘t’s

And slit his ‘r’s

I remember his pretty pink hand

Resting on the doorframe

Looking at my sister

And then at me

Later that night, I got into bed with my mom

My dad asleep downstairs on the couch

Watching tv

I told her how nice the man spoke

And how clean his hands were

She told me

That a hand can be cleaned

The way she made me

Clean mine

So you can’t tell anything

About a person from that

Except that they want to

Present something

To the world

‘But a voice,’ she said, ‘Those “t”s and “r”s…

Now they can tell you something’

I still think about that

When I wash my hands

And put on a suit

And go door-to-door

Asking people

If they want to hear the word

I think about what I present

And who I am

And how clean my hands look

And how clean they’ll never look

Because of the things

I can’t scrub off

I think about my ‘t’s and ‘r’s

And I rest my fingers

On the doorframe

Asking to be let in

To living rooms

And kitchens

And sacred spaces

Sometimes I see a cross

Hanging over the fireplace

And I know I’ve found my hearth

‘Sometimes dirty looks like clean

And sometimes good looks like bad’

That’s something

My mother used to tell us

‘Sometimes the devil talks like god’

And who the hell can tell

The difference