Homage to the Life and Work of the Late Parrotlet, Russell T.

When I am able to see a face whose form is otherwise only a knot in the webbed and worn edging of my memory’s fabric I look at it, and the exchange is so deliberate that the face begins to cry. Ronald Reagan’s tears, in this case, are real tears, not Hellcats of the Navy tears. He cries because he feels that I make him real, though he will always remain a tin man, and tears will only rust his boyishly saucy expression. I’ve never seen Hellcats of the Navy, nor Bedtime for Bonzo, but in 1951 my seven-year old mother watched that handsome man give milk to a monkey with eyes brighter than mine when I now beg him for that relief that can only be induced by the one truly sympathetic face that sneaks away from my receding memory. With his tears he purports to have saved me, though he has never offered me, a Jew, salvation. Am I special? Chosen from the chosen ones by the chosen leader of the unchosens?

Hovering to his right is the kind face of Mr. Russell Pascatore Sr., who begat Russell Pascatore, who begat Russell Pascatore, who begat the late parrotlet Russell T. He is my Eye of Horus, keeping watch on humankind, though, as good father and begetter, he neither cries nor smokes dope. He has shown me pictures of his offspring, and of himself as the offspring of men, other Russells and Rosarios, and called himself a sentimental slob. But when I look here into his benevolent eyes (we will leave aside the striking sculptural elegance and rich tones of the hair on his face and head) he sheds no tear.

I will be brash. In the faded primary hues of the loosening web that is the sagging structure of my memory – booties crocheted by my own grandmother – Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ are a couple of shams. I must look beyond the green Eye of Horus and pursed lips of Benjamin Franklin to the paternal countenance of Mr. Russell Pascatore Sr. Can the images floating around the heads of the president of the United States of America and the president of Christianity ever become married to their meanings? Can I hope to find my real father? Perhaps I can buy myself a father who will never tell me what to do. He’ll give me one-hundred dollar bills and I will drive out to the hood and buy kine nugs and when I get home there will be a mushroom cloud on TV. The whole of my generous family will be seated before it watching that cloud puff baby mushrooms out of itself like me into my paper towel roll stuffed with dryer sheets. Instead though, I have HOPE. My hope is a smiling flower with heart petals and I hope for a father who will shield it from the spears of angry barbarians tribes.

When I look at the face of Russell Sr. I know that I do not have to fight terror. Nonetheless, I am afraid.