The Man Who Repairs Electric Chairs Speaks of Art

by Damen O’Brien 

If you must do something, do it well. My father taught me that,

he’d send the chisel searching through the wood, the mallet

followed, tapping like a bird sorting seed, and coiling for him,

the scrolls and mugging ogres, arching cats, sinuous snakes and

dragons, in bannisters and handles, and the rails of rich men.

Even when he knew the detail would be missed, the message lost,

a cunning nick of wood to make an eye, a flourish for a tongue,

his initials in the branches of a fruiting tree. I have a different grace:

I replace the perished leather, make the buckles bright, polish

what can be polished. I have my ticket, so I can check the fuses,

rub machine oil in each junction, torque the screws just so. I am

my father’s son in that. The State is happy with my service and

when I come home from a hard day’s work, I spend what gentleness,

what art remains upon my child. We have a joke we tell whenever

the brownouts that come in summer make the light flicker, when they

make that burning afterglow and when our little TV zaps into

a point and won’t return. Was that one of yours, Daddy? She will say,

and I say, not one of mine. All of mine work perfectly every time.