well, you could say he lives in the earth now, himself, but he's not a potato.

his hands were like monkey paws, dark, rough... pawlike. i am not even sure he had opposable thumbs (haha) but seriously, his hands were sort of permanently curved from years of working in the garden, raking, hoing (hoeing?). he smelled like dirt and tobacco and gin. he taught me that when the drawer doesn't balance to the receipts, if the difference is divisible by 9, that's a good indication i had transposed a number and as i have a bit of a tendency to transposition, that's a handy tip for me. he told me once about his baby son who died in the crib, and he told the story flatly and i already knew the punchline, but when he said "we found him dead" i felt a physical shock like i'd been struck by lightning. that's how i knew we were family, connected.

today while me and my old man were outside planting way too many tomato vines and onions and peppers in a small plot of reclaimed lawn, so that our 80 year old neighbor can watch something grow, and water it... while i dug my hands into the earth and felt the soil pour through my fingers and grabbed great clumps of dirt to break them up by my own strength... i thought about him and that time we were digging up potatoes.

it was rare for me to help him in the garden and i am not sure why i was, but it was coolish, evening, and we were going down the row. he was shovelling the earth, turning it over, revealing the hidden tater treasure, and i was just a kid, scrabbling along on the ground, grabbing them when i saw them and tossing them in a bucket. we were both laughing. we had a good time.