Wheelhouse was never
part of my father’s lexicon
though I do remember him
using the synonym bailiwick;
I think he liked the click at the end,
the slight touch of baritone drama in
Cracking down on guys like that
(referring to a local wife beater)
would definitely be part of my bailiwick.
He said it as if he were expecting a promotion
from truck driver to sheriff. His one
promotion took him from the road
to head shipper at Gorra Bros.
Fruit and Produce Company
where his bailiwick included the juggling
and barking of orders, and solving for
the most efficient weave of truck runs
in which the violent sociopathy
of the Olde Wharf’s head chef had to be
worked around the hair-trigger tempers
of four of his drivers. He choreographed
the hustling shuffle of avocados, corn, plums,
celery, boxes upon waxed boxes of iceberg
lettuce, crates of oranges; he charmed the bitter
secretary, got a few guys to not vote
for Reagan in 1980, to read a few books,
and somehow had the racists and black guys,
the teachers and dropouts all working
together. He told me about how
one day he daintily plucked a dead
tarantula up from between two hands
of bananas and dropped it gently
onto the left shoulder of the boss’s boy
home from college for a summer of work
or pretend work, scaring the bejeezus
out of the kid who leapt yelping, throwing
his box into the air, broccoli falling
(poem/ stanza continued next page)
like ordnance. It’s one of those stories
that still makes me guffaw and snort
before I remember I’m in the middle of a meeting
with the college president and should be
paying attention. (Pay attention, professor!
my dad snaps, then grins).
Many years on now and I still love
that included in his bailiwick was blowing up
with laughter and scattering across the loading dock
the brilliant system he had so carefully effected there.