Dad Watching Jackass
Juan J. Morales
He was mostly gruff, with heft of PTSD
and work shifts dragging behind him, but then there were days,
when I discovered him watching MTV’s Jackass—
men thrown around by a bull in heat,
guys snapping mouse traps on their nipples and crotches,
and morons taking turns getting flipped in porta pottys.
My dad always called them, “dumb sons-of-bitches,”
cackling to tears when they raced grocery carts
into brick walls and launched themselves with giant slingshots
into thorny thickets. He rode the wave
of slapstick, with the same howls that I can’t hold back
watching fail videos that speak the international language of
a ball smacking someone in the face.
I carry on and watch AFV in his honor. I seek out the balance
of cute animals, childhood mishaps, and adult tantrums,
that makes me laugh with my whole body. I keep searching for
the late night movie Dad saw on Univision, where
a man farted whenever he saw a gun. I remember my father in tears
taking me scene-by-scene through every fart—
the bank robbery, the car heist, and the track meet
where even the calm before the starting gun
was interrupted by a man’s flatulence. I don’t know how it ends because
Dad couldn’t stop laughing, but I take comfort there is
a film out there, committed to what conjures
your twelve-year-old self back with laughter
and plenty of jackasses offering themselves up for those
who don’t get to laugh enough in this life.
Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father. He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Handyman’s Guide to End Times, winner of the 2019 International Latino Book Award. Recent poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, The Laurel Review, Acentos Review, Breakbeats Vol. 4 LatiNEXT, Dear America, Pank, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. He is a CantoMundo Fellow, a Macondo Fellow, the Editor/Publisher of Pilgrimage Press, and Professor and Department Chair of English & World Languages at Colorado State University-Pueblo.
Of the two poems in this issue of Collateral, Morales writes, “My father passed away very suddenly in the beginning of February 2019. In an effort to elegize him, I have been writing poems like these that celebrate my father’s life, his 31 years of military service, and the Boriqua wisdom he shared with us. I am also writing to explore how my relationship with him carries on through fail videos, the art of profanity, dreamscapes, and upon speaking with him at his grave in the Pikes Peak National Cemetery.”