<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Weight of a Father<\/strong><\/p>\n It was fairly simple. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Richard King Perkins II<\/strong> is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a ten-time nominee for the Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best of the Web awards. His work has appeared in more than fifteen hundred publications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Weight of a Father It was fairly simple. All they had to do was follow the mindless path of destruction through torn-up front yards and past broken streets signs to arrive at our front door. Dad was still passed out at the end of the hall and now the neighbors had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18332,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18331\/revisions\/18332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAll they had to do was follow the mindless path of destruction
\nthrough torn-up front yards and past broken streets signs
\nto arrive at our front door. Dad was still passed out at the end
\nof the hall and now the neighbors had formed a vigilante mob,
\nbanging on the front door, clamoring for the blood of my father.
\nI opened the door and listened to their righteous indignation
\nbut didn\u2019t really hear much of what they said. All I knew is that
\nthey wanted to exact some form of social justice on my old man.
\nI told them to get off my property (a common saying for kids
\nat that time) or I would start executing them one by one (a less
\ncommon saying for kids at that time.) They left quietly, stunned
\nby the prospect of an even greater threat than a drunken fool
\ncareening through the neighborhood in a gold Chrysler New
\nYorker. The cops knocked on the door an hour later but I didn\u2019t
\nanswer. By the time they actually talked to him the next day,
\nhe was sobered up and could honestly say he had no idea what
\nthey were talking about. That night wasn\u2019t the last night I picked-
\nup my dad and put him to bed, but it was one of the last. Have you
\never noticed how the weight of a father fluctuates constantly,
\nthat it can vary greatly from one moment to the next?<\/p>\n