Day 5: Nursery Rhyme

The bar stunk of people encrusted to their bar seats. Humpty
Hump sang something stupid and everyone began to bounce. A girl dumped tea
on her date because he wouldn't let her have another drink. I sat
on the edge of the pool table until someone said don't sit
on that. "I brought you here to teach you about life," my dad said in a
slurry mess. "Just have a look around. Read the lines on the wall."
The graffiti, he must have meant. I did. I didn't get it. Hum...pity
I never got my dad, either. Dumb pity
is all I had for him. But he was the only parent I had.
And the story goes he wasn't my real dad. He dated my mom when a
truck ran her down, and there was no one else around. A great
man, my teacher said, until my grades began to fall.
That's when we began home schooling. "All
you need to know about life is learned by living it. The
teachers know only what they were taught to teach you, but the kings
and queens of the world learned by living. School is for breaking horses.
This is your classroom." He opened his arms wide and
spun around the bar. "Everything is your classroom. All
the world. All the world's a stage. Remember? The
guy who said that? Elvis. He had no schooling and he was the king of kings.
And when it comes to men (I was fourteen)...when it comes to men-
You'll learn right here in the world what you couldn't
ever learn there, but that's for later. Right now put
your head on straight and your eyes on clear." Another Humpty
song came on and we danced together.
I'll never be this young again.