Black Suede

Reminiscences of my father, Stephen Shon. Happy early birthday, Daddy! I will love you always.

September 4, 1963 - June 7, 2017

Mommy & Daddy’s wedding day; she drew first blood and smeared him in the face with cake.

Don’t worry, he got her back!

Photo by Marvin Mixon [RIP]

June 1994

Five-foot-nine inches, one-hundred-thirty-nine pounds, a size nine and a half shoe, but your feet were bigger. I was so proud when I, too, grew to that number, but later learned that in men's, I was two sizes too small.

I am semi-tall thanks to you; you and that crooked smile peeking through a beard—full, like the moon in a dark sky—color. I had your gap in my teeth until it closed when the baby ones split and took it with them; I was sixteen.

Sixteen on the day, I yelled from the bathroom, asking Mom where the gap had gone; she laughed at me and said, ‘To the mall.’ I never told you. 

A Virgo sunrise, brother number four, you crushed my uncles in looks and was far too bright for books; the bird’s nest on your chest, only-dude-in-the-‘90s-with-a-shag, and slanted neck to match the tipped hat. O, the effortless swag!

Funny. I never smelled the beer in your whiskers nor the smoke on your kisses; you repelled them somehow, breaking science but never a sweat, not even the time you took off and ran with us kids down the driveway in your white Nike socks and fisherman sandals.

We laughed among ourselves, and Mom shook her head; you chased away the monsters hiding under my bed, then let her sleep to spend time with me in the wee small hours. 

At breakfast, you were a thief, snatching bacon from the plate before Mom finished cooking. My stomach groaned like my voice on the mornings you dressed us for school — pulling the stockings around my chest and snapping my chin with coat buttons.

‘Don’t play with the weather,’ you’d say on colder days—tying our scarves like nooses; we were hardly sick. ‘But we wanted to be,’ I thought as I dove from the car, ‘because then, we’d have a reason to wrap up so tightly!’

Kid logic.

You did the darnedest things. While Mommy combed our hair, you raked the fringe on the ends of our floor rug with your fingers, on your hands and knees until each one laid straight. The unorthodox eulogist, you flushed our fish down the toilet without a word when they died in the aquarium. I’d have settled for a hymn and a hole in the backyard where we played hide-and-seek one night.

You were it and counted in the front; your voice bounced like a ball, as big and deep as a waterfall. The fireflies were your guides; I used your heavy feet to hear how far you were from me, hiding in a garage we hardly ever opened.

Silence…

But the crickets lost the memo; your white shirt gleamed—your cigarette burned a hole in the dark…

“…Olly, Olly oxen-free….” you said.

I could barely keep from blowing raspberries and was relieved I didn't have to pee.

Although, at seven, I wasn’t so lucky. Or was I six when the house cracked in two, and I lived here, and you lived there? I’d sit and stare at your reflection heavy on my face, carved ever so deeply no man can erase. In part, you gave me this forehead, these eyebrows, and lips; your left hand to write with and play a guitar upside down as if my last name was Hendrix.

But my feet are prettier; you had talons, yet you danced a hole in every floor and circles around couples with Mommy when you weren’t dancing by yourself in the mirror. You’re so vain, and I’d probably say Carly’s song was about you; only you were nine at the time of its release and didn’t own an apricot scarf.

But you dressed in white with Black Suede notes sprinkled on your clothes. I loved your hugs—not only for the embrace, but the trace of your cologne in my heart of hearts was home.

You never knew, but amid squeezes, I’d inhale deeply with my head nestled in your chest followed by a smile with closed eyes—like the last time I saw you.

And when I opened them again,

you were gone…

Until the next opus,