Hen’s Teeth

I recall signal songs and field chants older than my grandfather’s father. Wayfinding and cautionary melodies, picking and cutting rhythms repeated a hundred hundred times as I was rocked or feed, dressed or blessed by my father’s huge hands, a benediction upon my brow, as choral history downloaded from his wise old head to my forming mind.

Daughter, he’d say, what’s heard from womb to tomb sticks like a briar in the brain.

And he was right.

We listened to other songs, too, many a soulful groove on a Friday night. A disc on our turntable turning the tables on injustice so we could glimpse that something better just down the road. Sam said, A Change is Gonna Come, so surely it would.

My father, who had seen a world of change and a world at war, hummed along, more from habit than belief it seemed. I sang loud and proud–

And wondered why we weren’t in sync.

I recall cigar smoke and tall tales, murmered from man to man, most often between my father, and my Uncle Jesse James Sterling (no lie). Stories too blue for women’s ears, they’d say—

To women who paid them no mind.

Not so I.

Tucked into the shadows at the bend of the stair, perched forward a hair’s breadth from disaster, I strained to catch their man-talk. Giggling behind hands too small to stop the glee whenever I heard an unknown word–

I found out later they’d made up just for me.

I recall the shush of the silk-swaddled Naugahyde album, wrapped as reverently as an Egyptian king. An artifact so precious it held sacred space with the family bible, the records of births and deaths and marriages and baptisms, the insurance policies, the discharge papers, and the diplomas.

I recall sitting at my father’s feet when he turned the cracking pages to display the treasures therein: the faded sketches, the creased photos, the battered uniform button, that weird twist of scorched metal, many pressed petals, and a handful of bristles so brittle, so delicate, they were swaddled in their own silk wrapping that was, even then, little more than thread—

I can see Father’s weathered finger, highlighting, solemnizing the ancient contents. His hoarse voice whispered the greats like secrets: the grands, the uncles, the aunts, as he shared again who and what they were.

My voice was so high and bright back then, but able enough to shore his when, at times, he fell silent. Between us, we pulled past into present and polished each memory to gleaming in my young mind’s eye.

I recall an unbreakable grip just before me and just behind. And the pounding of 2025 my father’s great black boots that seemed to shake the earth as he ran alongside. No matter the distance I pedalled, no matter the road I chose, he never lost strength, or paused, never faltered, or fell back. He never let go–

Until I gave him the nod.

And even then he held on a moment more—just to be certain that I was certain.

I recall the day that time, talk, and television opened the eyes of my school fellows and healed their color-blindness. Somehow, despite the lessons we’d learned together and the laughter we’d shared, our differences now outnumbered the ways we were the same.

I recall the brightest of the bunch– and my closest confident– demanding I fix the mess I’d made by scrubbing the difference off.

What a screamer! Long and loud, she was, absolutely beside herself, when I was still me the next day.

I recall the howl of tires and the grunt of a big Chrystler stopping short, the bark of car door meeting steel frame, and the approach of leather slippers just as sure, just as constant as the big black boots had been.

An old man’s comforts, my father called them. And not just an old man’s, no, not at all, the echo of those soles on concrete still like Ali hitting the heavy bag.

I recall tight hands, clawed fingers, sharp nails, a hold as cold and cruel as it was magical. A grip that lifted me up and up until my oxbloods left the ground.

I was too mystified for pain, or even fear–until the shaking started, snapping my head back and forth like the Stars and Stripes above me. A shaking not, thank goodness, as hard as the car had rocked or the door had slammed. That would have broken my neck.

A teacher would have broken my neck.

I recall my feet patting the air, running nowhere unlike the house shoes on the run. I recall rescue as I was dropped like a hot potato at the charge of a very large and very angry black man, who had caught the assault in his rearview mirror.

I recall relief when those hands that had pressed my head and steadied me, and pointed out those who had paved my way, caught me up and held me close before I lost my love of learning and hatred filled that space.

That was the day I began to understand why Sam Cooke couldn’t transport my father to the promised land, why worry warped his smiles, why his goodbye wave fell into a fist– so as not, I think, to signal me back, wrap me in silk, and tuck me away with the Good Book, and the papers, and the album, and all that was left of that broom jumped so very long ago.

That was the day I began to understand his demands—the only ones he ever made: Learn all you can. Do all you can. Give all you can. Be all you can. And hold your heart apart until your discernment is up to par.

That night, after the hot tea, the cold compresses, bruise balm, and some music had been applied, My father wiped his hands with a handkerchief, already wet for my sake, and said: True friends, daughter, heart friends, are as rare as hen’s teeth.

And so, I know, was he.

The End

GeNarrations Fall 2025 – Julie Ganey

Reflections on Revolution(s)

Hen’s Teeth November 12, 2025

It was such an honor to be selected to participate in CityWide on November 25, 2025. So excited!