Year.

It was the year John Kennedy had his head blow wide by some rouge elements of the government of the day or so your father said years later in one of his drunken stupors which became more frequent once he’d retired from the CIA and had his fill of the dirty tricks and he’d tell you never trust governments Yama they lie and kill and earlier about March your mother electrocuted herself in the asylum where she’d been for four years when her insanity got too bad for your father to cope with and she thought your brother Yaacov was one of her lovers and tried to get into bed with him on more than one occasion and he’d lay there still and scared and say nothing the sweat pouring from him as she covered him with kisses and such after which he always locked his door even when she’d been put away and years later when he married some girl from the Bronx she had to pound on the door for him to let her in and that made the marriage go out on a limb a few times when she thought he had some other broad in there with him when all he had was his pillow huddled tight to him murmuring prayers he knew from the Siddur and in the month of June some fruit in a dark suit trying to pass herself off as a guy made it with you although you knew pretty much the layout and not caring much or if you did it didn’t show and she had this thing about you being a Yid as she termed you and often she’d abuse you and take you around with her and she got you into the junk and have you laid out for days on end not knowing day or time and the bed became the island of self discovery and the nights spilled into days and when you got away from her you went to New York and when the heat got to leaning on you too much you hid low and found out your mother’d fried her brain and the memories of her early days haunted you with her nightly visits and soft words before the lucid hours darkened and her words became a mere spew of abuse and anger from her hands hit out at you until the bruises seeped into your skin like ink and she was locked away but still she haunted you at nights even after her death and the sparks had gone out and the sounds from your gramophone spilled out the voice of Lady Day that took you back to your mother singing as she laid her hand upon your brow as you drifted to sleep with her soft tones mixing with the sweet breath from her lips which later in your haunted dreams mouthed emptiness into the stark air.1