Getting On & Off The Wheel

In another life, he might not have had so many run-ins with the po'-po' (= the police).
But he was a young man and if you ask him he would have said that all of it was in good fun. He didn't mean any harm.

In another life, he might not have had to do a tour in 'Nam.
Only to come back broken, haunted, demonized by memories.
Some of which, left him wondering what happened to 9 months of his life over there.
It's probably for the best that he doesn't remember.

In another life, he might not have had to work for gangs to make a living.
Throwing dynamite at people's houses to persuade them to pay up.
He was just doing his job so that he could eat.

In another life, he might not have had the stuffings beat out of him when he said he was
done with the lifestyle and wanted to lead a straight life.

In another life, the woman he loved might have stayed.
She might have stayed to see the child grow.
The child that he helped make with her.
But she had other fish to fry.

So this wounded, lost man stepped up to the plate.
And he lived for this boy.
This boy was his life.
He picked up and carried on after she left.

In another life, he might not have been a friend/co-worker of my dad's.
This rough, sweet, loyal man.
My dad can be a magnet for lost souls that way.
The two were instant friends.
And that was a lifetime ago....that my dad and he whooped it up everyday at work.

In another life, this man's mobile home might not have exploded in the middle of the night.
Burning himself and his son.
In another life, the son had no burns on the lower portion of his body.
And in another life, the only family he has to speak of is not laying in a hospital 1 1/2 hours away, in critical condition - most of his body covered in burns, and breathing by way of machines.

But that is life.
Those things did happen.
And I am left wondering if my dad's old friend is getting off the wheel finally. He has lived through so much.
If he is letting the suffering of this life go.
I am left wondering what will happen to the boy - the 15 year old boy - who is on the brink of losing everything.
The man who lived for him after living through so much.