All the Wild Children by Josh Stallings Read Free Book Online

uncovered an unexamined falsehood.  Not a lie, but not the truth.
    “Lark you son of a bitch, you told me a premature orgasm was if the man came before the woman.”  I’m laughing.  Teasing the bugger.  “Not that any of the women I was with minded, but it was a lot of pressure for a young guy.”  
    “Yeah, I can see that.  One question.”
    “Shoot.”
    “How old were you when I gave you this sage but lacking advice?”
    “Twelve.”
    “Shit dude, I was fourteen.  What the hell did I know.”  And in that moment I get it.  He was just a kid.  He was always just a kid.  But he was eighteen months older than me so I thought he was grown up.

MY FATHER
     
    My father is an epic poem waiting to be written.  My father is pin pricks of starlight.  We lay on our backs and he names all the constellations.  I will never look at Orion without thinking of him and the mountains and the smell of night in the upper meadow. 
    I am 6.  It is daybreak.  I need to know what things are called.  I think I will make sense of the chaos if I know names.  I point at a red flower, a shooting star.
    “That’s Columbine.  The purple one is a Bleeding Heart.  That over there?  That’s an Iris, see the black ink marks?”  My father is naming all of the flowers in the fields around our house.  “California Poppy.  Missio n Bell s .  That one’s a Buttercup, put it under your chin to see if you are in love.  The green is Miner’s Salad, you can eat it.”  It tastes cool and wet.  “Lupine and Clover and Fairy Lanterns” - everywhere color to be named.  I have these same wildflowers tattooed spiraling up my left arm.  As I type they remind me of where I come from.  They remind me to be honest.  They remind me to name the names.  The red skinned trees are madrone.  The shrubs are manzanita.
     
    My father is a harbor from my mother’s anger.  My father is a raging storm. 
    I am 50, I search for a happy memory of my parents together.  I find happy memories of my mother, see her laughing in her peasant dress.  I can smell yeast and flour on her hands.  I have happy memories of my father.  But never the two of them in the same frame. 
    I call Lark, there has to be one memory tucked in there.
    There is a long pause.  “I got it.”
    “OK, I’m ready, shoot.”
    “Remember them on the beach, San Gregorio?” 
    I do.  Bonfires, bright heat against the cold northern California air.  My parents and their friends drink red mountain wine from big jugs.  Me, skinny, with blue lips from cold.  I snuggle into mom’s poncho.  My father sits beside us, playing his dark brown time worn Martin.  The adults are singing Woody Guthrie songs, protest songs, train songs.  This land was made for you and me.  Midnight special shine its ever loving light. 
    “Were they all Quakers?”
    “I think so.”  He is quiet again.  He’s thinking.  I can see the way his brow knits, it’s subtle, but I can see it.  Or imagine I can, he’s in Houston, I’m in Los Angeles.  “Hum.”
    “What?”
    “I remember now, they would have a Quaker meeting up at our house, and after they would potluck.  They would drink red wine.  And our parents would smile at each other.  Damn, the only time our parents got along, they were drinking.  And I became a drunk, any big surprise?”  He’s smiling, I can hear it.
    “Yeah that’s it!  If only our parents hadn’t a drunk wine, we would be able to drink like gentlemen.”  We’re both laughing now.  We’re both long time sober now.  Lark is in his car on the way home from running an AA meeting at the Houston jail.
     
    In 1962 Quaker activists build a trimaran called the Everyman.  Their plan is to sail deep into the Pacific ocean in an attempt to stop Christmas Island nuclear testing.  My father petitions to be captain of the ship.
     
    I want to volunteer as one of the crew members for the voyage to Christmas Island. You will want to know my reasons