My father was this smooth talker, that's what made him a business man. He once said, "I don't know the first thing about a business when I start it, people just think I do. They believe me. They believe in me." I just wish he would have spent some time selling me something, so that I could have believed in him. Regardless, I think that's why I am finding this easier than I originally planned. Telling it all.  Spitting it all out.  Telling you the truth.

      Sitting around the dinner table when I was younger, listening to my dad tell stories, I must have memorized the patterns and techniques. The stories were worthless, amounting to nothing more than the tales of the latest asshole he screwed out of a piece of land. But I would always listen and enjoy it when I was a kid. There was something about the pauses in his speech. The momentary hesitations creating just enough suspense to make me want to hear more.

     It was also the quick seconds. The moments of truth. Destruction. The moment he would lay the ax down at a township meeting. The closing of a good deal.

     All this then, is my father.  Every fucking word.  

I look into mirrors and I see my father.