The football games would go on and on, and there Chuck would sit, beer in hand, irritating everyone, refusing to leave. He would drink beer after beer, trying to egg my father on in matters of politics and religion. Thanksgiving always seemed like the biggest holiday for Uncle Chuck: He would sit on our couch, which my mother would cover with a clean bed sheet before he arrived in order to save the furniture from his ripe and, at times, fungal smell. A confirmed bachelor, Chuck haunted our family holidays like a ghost wrapped in a foul-smelling, beige cloth.
My father's brother, Uncle Chuck, was a man apart: apart from hygiene, apart from manners, apart from any social life outside of his addiction to dog-track racing and the creepy world of the United States Postal Service, where he worked.
