American Krauts
Grandparents No. 1
He said he loved her after he saw her jump over a fence My Grandmother sewed tank seats at Fisher Body She ran an industrial flywheel Singer stitching canvas for Shermans While grandpa lay beneath that same war machine repairing broken tanks in the blood and mud of France Third Army, Second Armored He put the tracks back on field-dressed iron scars and waited for fuel He robbed Peter's parts to pay Paul's repairs kept the battle line moving He marched miles behind rolling cannons with a rifle and a tool bag Normandy, Paris, Dachau, The Bulge Almost Berlin The paper trail lost in a building fire before I was old enough to want to know I want to know if he ever sat in one of those seats that she sewed I don't know if they knew what the other was doing during the war I imagine him test-driving a serviced Sherman Tank around the motor pool, like it was a GI care package He peeled the uniform off in the half-open doorway He bare-chested Tom the Second for the first time His wife packed the soldier's things into an old dress box She left five bucks in his green pants a Zippo I found Chesterfields in the right breast pocket I stole his photograph- Patton pissing in the Rhine It still smells like Grandma's house I wonder if he repaired tanks because he worked on cars at home or if the Army chose him because he was five feet, three inches I wonder if she sewed tank seats because she was a seamstress or if it was the way she decided to fight He called it "the service" a war comprised of breakdowns and beautiful Parisian women war buddies living miles and miles from Portland, Michigan He sold more tires from a VFW barstool than at his business address The tire shop lived for a hundred years, almost No one ever died in his stories about the war No one ever died at The VFW until the next morning They had 7 Children, 33 Grandchildren sown by wrench and sewing needle Almost all of them worked at that tire shop Keusch Super Service some stayed their whole lives most left after graduation I met him after he quit drinking sitting in his swivel chair watching baseball I sat on the floor in my underwear while Ruth the Riveter sewed a patch on my torn blue jeans He yelled at me once for shooting a songbird with my bb gun She never yelled at me once she yelled at him, though I am certain she made the seat cushions for the wooden chairs that circled her dining table She cooked sausage and sauerkraut without irony we ate pot roast and pancakes fresh banana bread with butter beneath a painting of a old man praying over a loaf of bread They played Rummy every morning at that table following 6:30 Mass after she cooked breakfast a notepad stood on edge between the plastic salt and pepper shakers Ruth: 1,453,009 Tom: 1,424,993 She won the game He saw her jump a fence Patton pissed in the Rhine
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