Thug by Beth Gordon

Everyone thought my grandfather was a saint behind his white-toothed smile as sweet as butterscotch pie. He took his dog everywhere: to the local pub for lunch and beer, to homeless shelters where old men tried to drink the meat from his breath, to church every Sunday tied up to the sign, Christ Has Risen, whimpering as the ladies walked past carrying plates of lemon squares for the pot-luck brunch that followed each sermon, coffee to wash down the sulphur and brimstone. 

In truth, he was a gangster, the old fashioned kind with rough skin and a scar that turned his two lips into four separate slugs, the kind who vacationed in Key West every winter and referred to that one famous writer as Ernie, as in Ernie ain’t shit, I’ll wipe my ass with his book, and brought back to his multitude of grand sons and daughters, perfect lime pie just in time for Easter.  We loved him without thought for what festered beneath, not our style to pick at scabs, no interest in the source of infection.

We loved all things sticky sweet, loose change between the cushions.  Like future ghosts, we followed him out of sunlight into strip clubs, watched him shake down bouncers shaking down wispy, wiry girls, believed he was a magician, pulling coins from behind everyone’s ears, showering us with sweat-stained pennies. His best trick was with stray dogs rescued from alleyways and unusually cruel owners. For him they howled in unison, like a line of orphaned choir boys, standing on shaky hind legs.

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Beth Gordon is a writer who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. She received her MFA from American University a long time ago. Her work has recently appeared in Into the Void, Calamus Journal, Slink Chunk Press, Five:2:One, Barzakh, and others.