Heirlooms

My father's father was born in 1906.
He died before I ever saw the light of day
but my mother met him a few times.
She says I didn't miss much, just a round old
womanizer with two faded Navy tattoos on his forearms
who had a weakness for Puerto Rican rum
as strong as my father's for Puerto Rican women.

When he kicked the bucket he left my father his guns:
various rifles, a few shotguns, and an unregistered
.380 semi-automatic that a detective friend
had given him to keep under the bar at his establishment.
The little pocket pistol would've been nice to have
in his absence, maybe even a fair trade
but my father, the stickler that he is, handed it over
to a cop friend of his since it didn't have any paperwork.
One good jerk deserves another.

Then there was his Navy rifle and sword.
Charles George left those to Charles Martin, too
and the latter bungled that just as efficiently.
The set was sold to some collector
to help with the down payment on the house
that my old man still lives in.
It takes a special kind of person
to sell a sentimental piece like that.
Granted, my grandfather was in the Sea Bees
or CBs, the Navy's Construction Battalion
which means he mostly played softball in Hawaii
and sometimes aided in building airstrips or barracks.
They'd go in and do their thing once the fighting had ceased
and the perimeter was secure enough to start construction.
Never saw any real combat, but that's not the point.
A man's service rifle is a man's service rifle, dammit.
You don't go pawning it off to the highest bidder.
Or maybe you do, just like a man's stories.

But the real kicker
the thing that truly gets this Prodigal Son's goat
is that my dad had the nerve
to throw out or bury
the jar of Japanese teeth
that his old man brought home
from the War.

You'd think I'd be better with pliers at work
considering the talent of my ancestry.

The air still looms, alright.