The Hook (perhaps more a poem)

Every day we walked by the house.

Old and crooked. Built over a hundred years ago.

The foundation was an array of grey stones and clay.

In the back he had his sawhorse and his chopping block.

The wood he piled high. A round configuration. Perfect. Stable.

In the middle a hole so the wood wouldn’t rot.

 

In the afternoon after school he stood in the early autumn sun.

With great power he halved the wood. Threw the pieces over his shoulder.

We walked by slowly. Tried to catch a glimpse without being too obvious.

Sometimes we would even walk around the block so we had to pass twice.

The sun would reflect off the hook at the end of his left arm.

A cold, steely reflection.

And we were terrified.

A man with a hook! No hand! A hook!

Would he pull us into the shed and kill us with that big axe?

He must be dangerous, even evil.

 

A few years later my mother worked as a home care aid for the elderly.

The man got a name. The man got a history. We had failed to see the man.

The man behind the hook. The man behind our fears.

There was a gentle, intelligent man. A man who wanted to become a teacher.

But grew up in a poor farming family and had no choice but go to the saw mill.

As a fourteen year old. Haul heavy wood, watch out for the sharp saw blade.

Grow muscles on his back, his arms, and his shoulders.

A man who married a sweet woman, had children. A boy and a girl.

A man who was tired one cold winter morning. Walked the four miles to the mill.

His toe nails almost cracked in the cold. A few hundred miles away Europe was on fire.

A war tore through the continent. He was tired this morning. Maybe coming down with the flu.

And his hands slipped. A fraction to the side and the saw blade tore through his arm.

 Blood sprayed on the snow.

“Good thing it was cold,” the doctor said “the blood moves slower in the cold.”

 

On his bookshelf, in front of, August Strindberg, Leo Tolstoy and Ernest Hemingway.

In front of his books stood the brand new prosthetic hand. Pink, a dead piece of rubber.

He refused to use it. Felt handicapped wearing it. Had gotten used to the hook.

Controlled it, never slipped, not even a fraction as he halved the wood in the early autumn sun.