No immediate survivors (Thanks Alan)

Lying came so easy to you.
Take for instance the one that saw you beating
an unknown drunk with a chair because he
made the mistake of sitting next to you.
You only wrote bad checks and stole
people's clothes from a hotel in Kalispell.
That wasn't physical it was fiscal.
Why tell mom you beat someone like that?

You told me the same tales and sold me on them.
It was the unspoken thing after every slap
or glare or kick that voice calmly saying
to me or anyone who would listen I beat a man
with a chair. We were a family of malcontents
and broken things never talking about anything.
The truth I knew was to be scared of a lie.
This is how a family disintegrates.

You're the cartoon villain that keeps on giving.
Finding your obit the day before Father's Day
this year, eleven years after you died was surprising
as I never wrote one or was asked for memory.
Your obit said no immediate survivors.
Some stranger to me writing obits about
my father. Someone I never met whose name
remains unknown and voice unheard.

No immediate survivors was right.
I'm not a survivor, I'm a remnant.
A small remaining quanitity, a trace.
Dad I'm putting my bruised psyche to the wheel.