My father put what he wanted to buy on the drugstore counter and said a polite
“Good Afternoon” to the young white clerk, who didn’t return the greeting or meet his eye,
just stared at the items as if Father had dumped a bucket of kitchen scraps,
and then with exquisite slowness that dripped contempt, began to ring them up.
It was an ordinary day in Indiana in the early sixties. Everywhere a black man went
he had to bite his tongue. Looking back over the years, I wish I could go back to that afternoon when my father stood quiet and still while that punk tried to put him in his place. I wish I could have caught his eye, delivered the silent message that I understood what he had to go through every day to keep the peace, to raise his family.
Charles Coe is author of three books of poetry, "Picnic on the Moon," "All Sings Forgiven: Poems for My Parents," and "Memento Mori," all published by Leapfrog Press. A fourth volume, "Purgatory Road," will also be published by Leapfrog in Spring of 2023. Charles is also author of the novella "Spin Cycles," published by Gemma Media. He is an adjunct professor at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island and Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where he teaches in both MFA writing programs. He is also on the Steering Committee of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union, a labor union for freelance writers and editors.
