Settlement

The Mexican

My uncle died in prison. He was a bank robber. That was what he did for a living.

Kidnapped the bank manager the night before the robbery. Hideouts in the woods, disguises, fake legs, night boats off southern coasts.

This is in the sixties. This is in the seventies. This is in the United States. 

When he found out he was dying he went to Canada.

Last job.

He let himself get caught mugging a woman at an ATM. Canadian penal health care is amazing. 

I remember dinners with him in Arizona. The plates cleared, red wine rings on the tablecloth.

My uncle diagramming heists long accomplished, the money long spent.

Pencil and paper, the tuck of his elbow.

He was not a Mexican but he could pass among them. 

Here was the cowfield. Here the getaway car. Here the lookout. Here the alternate route. 

Here is where we went in. Here is where we went through. Here is where the walls came down.

In case. Always in case. 

In prison he wrote a memoir. His life and times. Nine hundred some pages handwritten.

Chapters open with quotes from Einstein, Nietzche, Hitler, my uncle. 

He starts with his birth and moves forward in time.

This is proper. This is correct. 

Like HOVA says: Time don’t go back, it go forward. 

My uncle, he is a boy in Pennsylvania. His father works for the gas company. In the winter they ride out pickup over miles of rural gas lines. Turning cranks, flushing pressure.

The Ford is peppered with bullet holes. Bored hunters. Out there in the woods looking for sport. Potshots at the gas man. My uncle. My grandfather. 

The snow over the tops of the fenceposts in the cow pastures. The trees bare, the grouse coursing. 

My uncle and his father. My father’s father.

Both men kept from me. Both men dead before my time.

Prison and Polio.

Both men dead by time.

Time don’t go back. Except when it does. 

The hunters stalking slowshouldered. The grouse coursing. The freshcrest snow. 

I write about landscapes because they are the same thing as people.

I write about violence because it is the same thing as love.

My uncle writes about his grandparents:

An old .38 S&W breaktop revolver always lay on the fireplace mantle in the living room by day. At night it went to my Grandparents’ bedroom. I never knew of any trouble but they were ready. Grandma still did this after Grandpa died. She would meet you at the door pistol in hand if she didn’t know who it was. Her eyesight was poor in later years.