In November of 1989, the Belaire High School Bengals battled the Central High School Lions in the Lion’s Den, a nickname for their multisport gymnasium. They laid out their maroon colored mat between the basketball goals, and filled their side of the stadium seats with enthusiastic fans. Hillary was somewhat a local hero, an undefeated state champion and the Capitol Lion’s team captain. It was Wednesday afternoon, immediately after school, and only a few parents made it to either side because all but the stay at home mothers were working. Belaire’s bleachers were empty because most kids were in their own after school programs and wouldn’t drive through downtown to reach Capitol, especially because it was considered an unsafe neighborhood; but, for the first time in Belaire’s history, we had a team so big that we had a first string team, varsity, and a second string team, junior varsity, and our side of the bleachers had a respectable crowd. The Lions had a large team, too, and we had agreed to host junior varsity matches before the varsity teams met.

My grandfather was released from prison early because his health was declining and he wasn’t expected to live much longer. He had developed diabetes and what was generalized as a heart condition, and, because he had remained addicted to amphetamines and a few depressants in prison, his overall health had deteriorated and he was thinner and hunched over and had to sit often when I saw him in 1987, almost a year after his release. It had been seven years since I had seen him pull a knife on my dad, and I had seen him in the news weekly and had recognized my earlier mistakes of thinking Big Daddy was Brian Dennehy; and, it had been two years since my dad had gone to prison. I didn’t realize he had been released, but I had coincidentally walked from Granny’s small home to Grandma Foster’s small home a few blocks away – Grandma Foster was Big Daddy’s momma, and my dad had lived with her when he met Wendy – and she answered the door with the biggest smile I had ever seen on her and reached up and held my cheeks and said how happy she was to see me. She told me to come in that Edward was home; I thought she meant my dad, whom she also called Edward, but then I saw the room full with huge men that blocked my view, I knew something was different. Uncle Kieth was there, towering in front of me, and behind him were my great-uncles, Big Daddy’s little brothers, Doug and Joe Partin, both huge men who had always looked up to their older brother. Doug had taken over as president and business agent of Teamsters Local #5 after the national Teamsters finally stopped Local #5 from paying Big Daddy in prison, and Joe had become a football coach at Zacharay High School and then their principle, and remained uninvolved with the Teamsters. My cousin, coincidentally named Jason Partin, but much bigger and a football star for the Zachary High Broncos was there, and so were a splattering of other cousins and ex-wives that I knew of but rarely saw. All were a part of Big Daddy’s family after Mamma Jean had left him, and only Kieth took me around them, and that was because of Grandma Foster. Both Kieth and my dad had lived with her at some point in their childhood, after the FBI had found them hiding with Mamma Jean’s family, and Grandma Foster had always shown them unconditional love and acceptance, just like she had me.

Six months after Wendy died, I was on the phone with Craig Vincent, the big actor who had portrayed Big Daddy in the 2019 big box blockbuster, the Scorcese film The Irishman, about Hoffa’s disappearance at the hands of mafia hitman Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheenan, according to his testimony in his 2005 book. Cristi and I had seen it in a theater recently, and I had been waiting to see Craig perform the role and was happy to finally see it after gradually feeling more and more social again. He had never mastered my grandfather’s accent despite talking with us over the phone to research the role, he told me, laughing and saying it great that Scorcese changed the role to an Irish guy named Big Eddie Partin.

I was very high and sitting cross legged and looking through the campfire flames at my friends holding their beer bottles. One of their daughters, my goddaughter, was sitting cross legged beside me.