The Last Shot--excerpt from my memoir

An excerpt from my childhood memoir, When I Was German.  Here I'm about eleven years old, out on a Saturday morning with my father after dropping my mother off at work.  And here, I cross the Rubicon and leave him behind.

My childhood memoir When I Was German is now available for Kindle at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FM254KM

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                         I remember the last time I went out with my old man on a Saturday morning.

             There was a drugstore uptown.  It had a soda counter, and an old man, almost as old as mine, worked behind it.  There were more old men who sat at the counter every Saturday.  My old man made friends with these men.  They looked and smelled like bums.  These old men were a lot like my old man.  They told stupid stories about the old days and they bragged how about how important they thought they were, or how important they thought they used to be.
            This last Saturday was a cool summer morning.  I was sleepy from staying up half the night listening for a fight, for a Goddamn Screw, so sleepy I didn’t argue when my old man said, let’s go, come with me while take your mother to work.  I went.
             We dropped her off and he parked outside the drug store.  Let’s go, I wanna see the boys, my old man said.
              What boys?
             The buncha guys here, a buncha old time guys who come from the Big City, like me.
             I went inside behind my old man and I quickly found the comics.  The store had lots of comics.  It also sold dirty books covered with pictures of naked ladies, not far away.  I looked over the comics and I tried to peek at the covers of the dirty books at the same time.  I could hear my old man’s big mouth.  He was bullshitting with his bums.  They were bullshitting back to him.  They chuckled and bragged out loud.
            My old man waved to me.  Come here!
            I stepped out from behind the comic rack.  My old man dragged me by the arm to the counter, inside the circle of bums.  Come on, for Christ’s sakes, my old man hissed.  He gripped my shoulders too tight.
           His friends needed shaves.  They smelled like booze.  My mother told me that the only good thing about my old man was that he didn’t drink.  I was glad, because I hated that sweet, hot smell.
           Nice lookin’ boy ya got there, Joe.
           My old man tapped his crotch.
           Yeah, he’s my last shot!
           I knew what he meant.  Even though he was an old man like the other bums his dick still worked.  He gave my mother the Goddamn Screw and he made me.
            I was his Last Shot.
            His hand still dug in my shoulder.  The bums chuckled.  They were impressed.
            I hated him.
           We went home.

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