The world’s largest online retailer is named after
the world’s largest river. At its mouth in Brazil,
the Amazon River can discharge more than
twelve million cubic feet of water per second
into the Atlantic Ocean. At its peak volume,
Amazon.com has sold 636 items per second.
My father didn’t live to see the rise of Amazon.com,
but he’d be impressed that so many items can
be purchased at a deep discount without leaving
your home. I can almost hear us talking about it
on the telephone, as if he were still alive.
I might’ve told him how Amazon.com recommends
items to buy based on past purchases, and how
it has a forum for customer reviews. I might’ve
told him that today Amazon.com recommended
to me a book of poetry by Rae Armantrout called
Versed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. I clicked on it
and scrolled to the customer reviews. Unfortunately
“Ace 11” gave Versed only one out of five stars,
calling it “cocktail coaster jottings” and “obscurity
without purpose.” I think there was anger in
Ace 11’s tone. Did this anger have a purpose?
Unfortunately my father didn’t have much
interest in poetry, but he did like obscurity and
cocktails. His favorite cocktail was a manhattan—
a mix of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters,
often garnished with a maraschino cherry.
He’d often let me eat his maraschino cherry when
I was a kid, and I loved that boozy candy taste.
Over the years my father’s drinking increased
and so did his obscurity. He was a frugal man,
so he drank cheap premixed manhattans
by the half-gallon jug. He poured so many
cheap cocktails into his body that he became
too sick and weak to leave his home. Did his
obscurity have a purpose? Probably not.