The Cracked Safe Between Them

He heard the story
About the candy store
That fronted for
A numbers racket,
And it brought back memories
Of his youth
For that was what his father did
Back in New York.
Other memories
Came flooding back as well,
Ones be had tried to bury
Over forty years ago.
As a fifteen year old,
His fathers safe
Where the gambling proceeds
Were kept
Was an irresistible magnet,
And he figured out
How to take the back off
And skim a little off the top.
He had done it successfully
Several times,
Until his father
Showed up unexpectedly
And caught him in the act.
He expected to get beaten
Within an inch of his life,
But his father didn’t
Say or do a thing.
Two days later
He ran away
And never went back.
He did not speak to his father
For more than
Thirty years afterwards,
But finally had to know
Why he was never beaten
For that incident.
When he talked to his father,
He found out
His father had done
The same thing
To his grandfather
A generation before,
And had also been caught.
He father was beaten severely
And ran away from home
Never to return.
The irony was that his father
Had avoided confronting his son
Over the incident
For fear he would run away,
And that was exactly
What he did anyway.
He also discovered that his father
He kept track of him
All that time,
And knew all the things
He had gone through,
Like the times
He had been hurt
And was in the hospital,
But kept away
Out of respect
For his son’s need
For time and distance.
His father had waited
Almost a lifetime
For that conversation,
And had almost given up hope.