Spirits

It had been almost four years since I had seen my father.  A World War II Navy vet, he was now in the VA hospital in Newington, Connecticut, with chronic pancreatitis. Freshly discharged from the Air Force and newly arrived back to the States, I took a detour through some of the seedier bars in Newark before I reached my mother’s small apartment in Worcester, Massachusetts. The next morning, tired and hung-over, I accompanied my mother on the long bus ride to Newington. It was obvious I was uncomfortable, something my mother noted with disdain.