Roy and Dale and Dad

John Grey

He was looking for a spare part for his Subaru but instead, from a hill of metal, procured himself a Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunch box, which he proudly proclaimed to be the holy grail of lunchboxes, better than the Munsters, Gilligan’s Island, even the Brady Bunch. “They were my dad’s favorite,” he said to me as he rushed back to the car with his prize, hooting like a boy younger even than me and Subaru be damned. “Who were they?” I asked, immediately cutting myself out, posthumously. from my grandfather’s will. “And what’s a lunchbox” which was like a dagger to my father’s heart, a dagger with shiny insides,

63

64 a metal clasp, and painted on top, a cowboy and cowgirl and a palomino with a rusted face. In the car ride home, we both sat silently. On the horse ride home, Roy, Dale, and Dad galloped on ahead, never once looked back at me.