Guileless

Guileless: free from moral wrong; not corrupted; simple and naïve

Uncle Steve was a congenital pervert. Whether this infallible trait was present at birth or established by firm and dirty habits, we are not confident. But at every family holiday, he crept behind the curvaceous women of our nearest and dearest and pinched excess meat around the waist which had escaped a snug skirt, or spilled out of an unruly pair of hosiery, and had far too many obscene sex jokes to tell the much too young and guileless nieces. The pictorial maxim of the Three Wise Monkeys has always been a wildly misused, yet adored proverbial principle to define my father and his two brothers. Trust, it is really a notion for my widowed grandmother to coo over, or a tried and true theme for any last minute Christmas gifts; It is an excuse for a staged annual photograph. The oldest and by far most unpleasant of the three, Uncle Steve, places his soiled hands over his eyes to “see no evil,” and without fail peaks through one and waits for our practiced sniggers. Uncle Mark, whose eyes dart from bosom to derrière without pause throughout the course of the evening, often lingering on the younger and more taut, puts down his 12 pack of Busch to cover his ears and “hear no evil.” My father, estranged and wonderful, is quietly coaxed by my mother to stand in and place his hands over his mouth to complete the perverse simulation of the Japanese legend. My father, however, is his monkey. He says little and laughs quietly. In a room of boisterous drunks tearing through Christmas wrapping and boxes, he sits in the corner almost in another room all together, another world. He sees Steve take me into the kitchen to talk about my budding poeticism and provocative maturity at 15 and takes a sigh of relief as I evade the conversation without him having to step in. He sees Mark’s eyes graze too long at my sprouting breasts in a revealing top I insisted to wear though I knew he would rather me not. He sees my mother’s glass empty and refill itself time and again. He sees the clock reach midnight and knows nothing good comes with hours after ten. And I see him. I see him, concentrated and passionate, cautious, anxious and sweet. I see him alone and want to save him but don’t, because the fear that I am becoming him more year by year is closing in and I must shout all the nonsense that I can before it silences me.