The Bottomless Pit

From the bottom of an abandoned gravel pit behind my childhood home, seated, leaning against its hardpacked sandy side, he watched the July sun set, the empty prescription bottle at his side. Did he walk that day to his unnatural fate slowly, shoulders rolling like a big cat, alternating first one, then the other, forward, head bent, one black errant curl tumbling across his troubled forehead. Did he hesitate or did he hurry and did he think of me, just 12, soon to be fatherless, before he began his two weeks of decomposing in the hot Texas sun until the man on horseback found him while looking for a lost calf. I couldn't blame my mother for the divorce she filed. I had wanted him to leave, too, and hadn't I prayed he would die when he dragged her over the yard, by a handful of her hair clasped tightly in his fist, because she had cut it without his permission. Especially the next day when I found the clump of auburn hair caught in the lush purple blooms of the wisteria bush, I wanted him to die. He played his harmonica for me, and I sang, "Daddy's Little Darling, Don't you think I'm sweet?" But I prayed my dad would die, and though I asked God to ignore those prayers of terror, I will never be able to love enough wayward men to save my dad.