Bar Food

Daddy had no intention of changing his lifestyle. He was in too deep. The dying sizzle of an oil-slicked pan made my stomach churn.

"Still a stroke waiting to happen," he mused. A newly lit Pall Mall was smoking in the ashtray, waiting for him to finish guzzling his beer. Miller Lite washed along his crooked teeth. Only ninety-six calories, the bottle bragged. He was on his third one. It had been a lazy day.

Ketchup melts into the checkered red of the plastic tray. I swat at a fly insistent on landing on the condiments.

A housefly lives for twenty-eight days. What is sixty years compared to that?