“I don’t know. Women all seem to get more selfish the older they get. It’s like fucking a high school girl. When they’re young they aim to please. They go all out so you’ll fuck them again. Not with older women. They know who really has the upper hand. It’s all about them.”
“How long did it take you to pull that out of your ass?”
“No time at all, this stuff just comes to me, like a goddam epiphany.”
I don’t think I actually knew what he meant. If I did, I pretended not to. That’s what I do, pretend. But not my father, he was full of practical advice and filled you up with it whether you let him or not. He violated your space, breathed your air, consumed you until there was nothing left but him, and then he was gone and there was just nothing left.
There were cats everywhere.
There was a short, chunky, red-headed boy walking down the side of the road and kicking a rock. His t-shirt was blue and his hair was long and the rock must have gotten away from him because he ran into the middle of the road to kick it again. The car was gray and going too fast and didn’t see the boy until the last minute when the driver swerved and hit a weeping willow head on. The boy hid behind a house then ran home and still doesn’t know if the people inside the car died or lived with needles and tubes sticking out of their bodies, hooked to a ventilator, broken vertebrae, broken lives. Maybe their seatbelts saved them and they bruised their chests or cut their foreheads but still made it home in time for ham and string beans and potatoes with little red skins. The boy still doesn’t know. The boy still isn’t sure if he wants to know.
But I do, because I was in the black car behind the gray one and I hit the brakes in time to live. The man driving the car and his two daughters in the back seat did not. I opened the back door and there were two little kittens purring peacefully on the lap of one of the dead girls. I took them back to my father’s house and fed them. They were long-haired calico kittens, bloody, dirty. Two turned to more than fifty in three years and now there were cats everywhere.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with these damn cats when you move outta here.”
“Who said I was moving out?”
“They’re not loyal, that’s the problem. See those two dogs back there? They’ll never forget who feeds them. Cats just fuck their brothers and sisters and shit on your lawn.”
I wanted to tell him that his dogs would do the same thing if he didn’t keep them chained up beside the porch. If he let them off for one minute they’d be ten miles toward the next county, eating rotten scalloped potatoes from other people’s trash and trying to stick their dicks in any old golden retriever. Instead, I asked him if he wanted another beer, and tossed him one before he answered.
I started drinking when I was thirteen, at his request. Donovan McNabb gained twenty-six yards on a quarterback sneak, then we high-fived and he handed me an Old Milwaukee.
“Don’t just look at the goddam thing. Crack it open. It helps you see things the way God intended. That’s why Jesus turned everything into wine even though water could have easily quenched his thirst.”
He killed the first dog I ever owned. I came home from school and the dog was dead in the back yard still hooked to his chain, shot through the brain with twelve gauge buckshot. He mumbled something about getting what you deserve when you bite the hand that feeds you and I cried. The next week I came home from school and there were two little dogs waiting for me in a cardboard box on my bedroom floor. Both mutts, both snowflake white with black blobs like a cow mixed with a husky-shepherd.
“So you’re not moving outta here anytime soon?”
“Not until summer’s over, then I think I’m heading up to Lansing. I got my acceptance letter in the mail last week.”
“What the hell you gonna do in college? I thought you signed the papers the other day when I took you over to the recruiter’s office.”
“I was going to but I –“
“I thought maybe you had it in you, but I guess not. You have to be a man to join the United States Army. They need mental and physical toughness, not a bunch of college boy pussies.”
“I guess you’re right, Pops.”
I wanted to tell him that I found a shoebox with all his old papers he left in his mother’s basement behind stacked boxes of forgotten family photos. I wanted to tell him that I knew he was dishonorably discharged seven and a half weeks after basic training for continual undisclosed acts of insubordination. Instead, I grabbed another beer and went out back to the pole barn where he kept the cat food and filled up two giant buckets full of liver and onion flavor and dumped them on the side of the barn. The same spot I set out the first bowl of food and water for the long-haired calico kittens.
“How long did it take you to pull that out of your ass?”
“No time at all, this stuff just comes to me, like a goddam epiphany.”
I don’t think I actually knew what he meant. If I did, I pretended not to. That’s what I do, pretend. But not my father, he was full of practical advice and filled you up with it whether you let him or not. He violated your space, breathed your air, consumed you until there was nothing left but him, and then he was gone and there was just nothing left.
There were cats everywhere.
There was a short, chunky, red-headed boy walking down the side of the road and kicking a rock. His t-shirt was blue and his hair was long and the rock must have gotten away from him because he ran into the middle of the road to kick it again. The car was gray and going too fast and didn’t see the boy until the last minute when the driver swerved and hit a weeping willow head on. The boy hid behind a house then ran home and still doesn’t know if the people inside the car died or lived with needles and tubes sticking out of their bodies, hooked to a ventilator, broken vertebrae, broken lives. Maybe their seatbelts saved them and they bruised their chests or cut their foreheads but still made it home in time for ham and string beans and potatoes with little red skins. The boy still doesn’t know. The boy still isn’t sure if he wants to know.
But I do, because I was in the black car behind the gray one and I hit the brakes in time to live. The man driving the car and his two daughters in the back seat did not. I opened the back door and there were two little kittens purring peacefully on the lap of one of the dead girls. I took them back to my father’s house and fed them. They were long-haired calico kittens, bloody, dirty. Two turned to more than fifty in three years and now there were cats everywhere.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with these damn cats when you move outta here.”
“Who said I was moving out?”
“They’re not loyal, that’s the problem. See those two dogs back there? They’ll never forget who feeds them. Cats just fuck their brothers and sisters and shit on your lawn.”
I wanted to tell him that his dogs would do the same thing if he didn’t keep them chained up beside the porch. If he let them off for one minute they’d be ten miles toward the next county, eating rotten scalloped potatoes from other people’s trash and trying to stick their dicks in any old golden retriever. Instead, I asked him if he wanted another beer, and tossed him one before he answered.
I started drinking when I was thirteen, at his request. Donovan McNabb gained twenty-six yards on a quarterback sneak, then we high-fived and he handed me an Old Milwaukee.
“Don’t just look at the goddam thing. Crack it open. It helps you see things the way God intended. That’s why Jesus turned everything into wine even though water could have easily quenched his thirst.”
He killed the first dog I ever owned. I came home from school and the dog was dead in the back yard still hooked to his chain, shot through the brain with twelve gauge buckshot. He mumbled something about getting what you deserve when you bite the hand that feeds you and I cried. The next week I came home from school and there were two little dogs waiting for me in a cardboard box on my bedroom floor. Both mutts, both snowflake white with black blobs like a cow mixed with a husky-shepherd.
“So you’re not moving outta here anytime soon?”
“Not until summer’s over, then I think I’m heading up to Lansing. I got my acceptance letter in the mail last week.”
“What the hell you gonna do in college? I thought you signed the papers the other day when I took you over to the recruiter’s office.”
“I was going to but I –“
“I thought maybe you had it in you, but I guess not. You have to be a man to join the United States Army. They need mental and physical toughness, not a bunch of college boy pussies.”
“I guess you’re right, Pops.”
I wanted to tell him that I found a shoebox with all his old papers he left in his mother’s basement behind stacked boxes of forgotten family photos. I wanted to tell him that I knew he was dishonorably discharged seven and a half weeks after basic training for continual undisclosed acts of insubordination. Instead, I grabbed another beer and went out back to the pole barn where he kept the cat food and filled up two giant buckets full of liver and onion flavor and dumped them on the side of the barn. The same spot I set out the first bowl of food and water for the long-haired calico kittens.
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