Organic Seller
My name is Gabriel Asher. I was a baby on a farm. When my dad had enough money from selling cattle, my family decided to move into the city life. New York seemed to catch my father’s eye. It screamed big opportunities for him. He started working as a seller of food. Most importantly, all things organic. The farmer life never really left him. The years passed by and all seemed well until my father went to war.
Keep in mind that I was born in January 31, 1911 so I was six by the time my dad felt like it was his time to say thanks to America on June 5, 1917. I told him not to go because I had heard about the Krauts all over the radio. He sat down on his comfy sofa chair, told me to sit on his lap, and said with his uniform on before leaving, “Son, when you remember this day. I want you to look back on the day that your pa made it out alive with that war smile on his face. Because you can be damn sure that I’m going to be happy to see you after killing those bastards.” Those were the last words I heard from my father. It wasn’t like he was actually dead but he might as well should have been.
Ever since he came back from The Great War, it was like he turned into a whole new person. Shell shock destroyed his life. It took away the happiness that we had in our family. He was like a vegetable. Sitting on his favorite chair as he looked out the window. We couldn’t let him listen to radio stories since most of them were reenacting stories but putting some humor into them to make things less dark. Unless Jelly or Belly came on the radio. My father’s favorite musicians. He would somehow tap one of his fingers against the armrest. Sometimes I would read to him.
No matter how bad it was out there for him, it seemed like my mom was always trying to keep the perfect happy family appearance up. She would still do all the chores. The cooking, the cleaning, but she would have to help dad to the bathroom. Thankfully, he could manage himself just fine in those situations. He barely ate. Let alone drink. My mom knew that there was no way out of whatever had gotten into him. She just tried to be a good mother to me and a good housewife to dad. I did the best I could too so that my mom didn’t have all the luggage weighing down on her. Once a week I would take him to the market that he owned. With the way dad was, the responsibility of the market fell onto me. At seven years old, I was the man of the house. It wasn’t as hard but it did put me off of silly crushes and prom dates for future events.
One day, before I could have shown him the market, on the week that I was supposed to take him out, he gave a gently wave for me to come over. It was barely the slightiest movement. I thought it was strange because he would never ask me to sit on his lap. He spoke to me in a hushed whisper and said, “Didn’t I told you that I would come back proud?” For the first time in a year, I heard his voice. I saw him smile. All of that ended in a few seconds when his eyes closed and his head leaned back. My mom screamed when she walked, almost past us, with a tray of food in her hands.
After the death of my father, my mom became devastated. I think that as much as she wanted to give up, she knew she still had a kid to feed. I use to almost everyday wake her up. I would draw the curtains back and gently shake her awake. With the way she use to felt, there would always be some classical music playing just for her after we finished our meals. I would dance with her. Those dances had made her smile and reminded her, as she told me when she became older, of the times when dad use to dance with her at those barn parties. They didn’t have the same music there but it was a happy memory. I use to tell her poems and play games with her whenever I could. Sometimes I use to think that it was odd for a child to help his mom deal with the loss of his own father.
It wasn’t like I had no emotions over the death of my father. I did cry one night after it happened but then I saw a bigger picture. I had already done my crying. I couldn’t be a wimp while my mom needed me. I had to stay strong for her.
Twenty years later, I’m married to a woman named Madeline Wurrow. It seems like I have everything at the palm of my hands. The petite wife with the best cooking, a stable house, my well paid working job, and man’s best friend, a Fox Terrier, to come home to. I thought that after what happened to my father and my objection of him going to war would keep me in line with my simple life. I don’t think I ever notice how boring things were. It wasn’t like I wanted to go out to war and come out the way my father did. I just wanted to do something with my life. I always felt like I was letting my wife down and everybody else. I never think of myself as brave but I wanted a whole new challenge facing my damn life. I wanted to be a man.
