Proof

I used to envy dive bar regulars,in their sturdy jeans with softened knees,pointed like sunflowers to the local joint.There were two dive bars on my street,beacons of the block. The same cohortcrawled from one to the other. I guessa cigarette smokes the same East or West.

My friend worked at a bar called McCarron’sand she must have loved it because she neverleft. I visited her once. Mascara, lip gloss,my delicate waist—I pranced into belly laughsand a beer-glazed floor. The jukebox still had 45s,I thought that was cool but the bartenderblared Britney on a Bluetooth speakerand I wanted him to like me.

The red leather bar stools spilled their gutsunder the weight of their patrons. Seethe woman lean into the man, see him smellher hair, see how the wrinkles around hiseyes soften at her tender touch.

I ordered a shot, then three more. I can’tplay pool and I didn’t know the song so I justspilled my guts and punctured dart holesin my hands and feet and went home. My dadnever went to bars. He couldn’t handle his liquorso he drank beer instead and isn’t thatsuch a cliché? He hid his cans in abrown bag, too; quietly became incoherentfrom his living room chair while I solvedMadlib puzzles on the floor. I askedhim for an adjective once and he slurredout Police and I said No, dad, an adjective!

Then a week later he’d have my mittenedhand cupped in his as we walked througha silent snowy night, Christmas lightsreflected off the virgin snow, and he’dlisten to my third-grade woes and takethem seriously, nodding and respondinglike he had something to learn. And whenI leave a bar in December, I wish he wasthere to take my hand and walk me home.I have always been beautiful, you see, butthe kind of beautiful that wasn’t proofread.

I’m still trying to get the hang of Jesus.Dad loves him so much and if he didn’the might’ve gone to bars. He went to Mass,and I have never seen intimacy like betweenmy heavenly father and my dad. I used to envyboth and bang on church doors, soakedin hoppy holy water. The doors crackedlike a sternum but the Holy Spirit musthave been sleeping or somewhere downthe block, because the cavity was empty.So I walked through the snow, carvingvinyl record grooves to fill the silence.