Some background to my first parent-teacher interview

I hated bicycles as a boy.
My father who walked with a Hollywood limp
from failed amateur football,
used to loosen the nuts on my training wheels
then push me down a steep hill.
A German Shepherd would taunt me
with saliva slobbering from its jaw-
its Dire Straits loving owner
hadn’t worked for fifteen years,
fired for calling his boss a faggot.
I used to feed the dog laxatives
so it would crap on my father’s good lawn.
He had to clean it with a high power hose
that blew the ugly mess
over his Hush Puppies and my mother’s hydrangeas.
My folks slept in separate rooms-
both were Port guzzling,
functional alcoholics who hated their lives.
Somehow my old man found out it was me
who gave those treats to that angry dog,
but he never muttered a word.
Started giving me bike lessons from then.