FIRST WORK
This is part of my latest collection available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1960038109
At ten I sought my first paycheck from Mister Kuntsler,the old man wheezing on a porch stoop across the street,laid low by emphysema. I’d hear his body struggle, tryingto sing songs he’d sung when young—now chained to heavy tanksto inflate his lungs. Each Saturday he’d sit behinda rolltop desk, retrieve his ledger to sign the checkI earned dragging their two metal trash cansto the curb, three times a week. When needed,I cut the grass, shoveled snow from the walk. His signature’s scrawled and jagged—the only flourishhe had left in him, but a half-century before,he’d been a warrior, a Basque who’d fought Franco,an armed Fury riding horseback through the forestsor across mountains that spanned the Spanish border.On days he wasn’t hindered by breathlessness,he’d recall those years—invading the plains, thensleeping on stone beds or hiding, huddled aroundclandestine fires set after scaling those coastal steppes. Once he croaked the words Askatasuna eta herrialda:“Freedom and country.” And in that moment, his face brightened,his back straightened, and he seemed to shed age.Often, my jobs done, his wife of 60 years sat with meat their kitchen table. She poured homemade lemonade,fed me slices of burnt cheesecake. “From our country,”she’d say, her aged eyes fixed on her own distant memory.After he died, she tripled my pay to thank mefor returning her husband a measure of pride.