I turn off the light so he doesn’t see me, but of course he already has. Bad timing. Story of my life. He knows I’m here, that I’m home. Will come to check how I’m doing, no doubt. How I’m dealing. Am I crying and sad and alone? No…and yes, yes. Do I need anything from town? He goes in for groceries once a week, Wednesdays, he’ll remind me. He’s a nice man, Jim. A good, old one. Never married, which makes you wonder, though. I wasn’t even away for one week, but when you live in a rural place, that’s noticeable. You see the same people at the same times doing the same things. You become a habit, a clock.
He knocks on the door and I flick the porch light and stand in shadows on the stoop, thanks to the lights I turned off. Brilliant. But now he’s here and it’s awkward. I realize this must seem like odd behavior on my part, but I’ve lost my father. Bereavement allows eccentricities within reason. That’s what I think. The beam from the 60-watt in a bug-filled Mason jar fixture throws a speckled circle of light, like a giant egg. Jim stands inside, yellowed like a yolk.
He’s thin. Wiry. Like an animal that’s hungry but not starving. Not yet. When I first moved in I asked if his real name was James and he said No, that his parents named him what they wanted to call him, and that made sense to me. Thought I’d check how you’re doing, Jim says, standing with hands in his pockets like a scarecrow. Okay, I say, because that’s all you can say when you’re really not. People, I’ve found, don’t really want to know.
Small talk turns to weather (we had the first snow while I was away, four inches, melted by mid-morning that day), turns to How was the flight? On time, both ways, I say…a Christmas miracle. That’s great! he says. Haven’t traveled since the ’86 blizzard…and boy, that was a bear. I wasn’t old enough to remember, but force some sound that I commiserate. Travel isn’t super fun. Can you help me with something, he asks?
I say yes before hearing what, because I owe him. Many times over, I admit. For one: Last winter on a night barely in the teens, he started his truck in his pajamas (I told him to put warmer clothes on, but he pulled on a hat and boots and said That’ll do, explaining that he “ran warm”) and he towed my Honda Civic from a snowbank. I’d driven up the mountain road too late, tired, too many shots of Jack in. And two: This summer he didn’t charge extra on rent when my backed-up toilet drained into his basement pad. Shit happens, he said, and winked. I liked him.
He has a deer, he says, a doe in the back of his truck, and he needs to butcher it. Tonight. Like, pronto. He points to the bed, waves his hand in the air. He looks tired and frail. I don’t think he eats much. It’s hard to eat alone, I get it. I munch cereal or popcorn some nights for dinner. My mother says that doesn’t count as a “meal” but it’s digestible energy, which is really all you need. I nod and make somesorta grunt. Must sound affirmative. Great! he says. So I go with it. Feel guilty. Another trait passed down from my dad.
She takes up half the pick-up’s bed and I can’t see how this old, small man got a deer in there to begin with. I remember my ex-boyfriend’s truck with plastic lining in the back, black corrugated protection for men like him who wanted to keep things spic ‘n span, not that they did anything dirty anyhow. Not that we did more than neck and spoon, and he ironed his jeans and dollar bills, which should’ve “been my sign,” like Jeff Foxorthy says. My dad always liked his Blue Collar specials.
The doe’s head crams in the driver’s side corner, in a bed that looks like acid-washed denim, the original blue flecked and chipped. Her eyes are closed and tongue out, nah nah, like it’s all some sort of joke on me.
He’ll gut and skin her there, in the bed, he explains. Cleaner that way. Can I hold the flashlight? he asks, shoving the Mag-Lite into my hand like a relay baton. My turn. Just run with it, I tell myself. I aim at her stomach and Jim makes a straight slit from the sternum back, cleans out the intestines and stomach, like scraping seeds from a squash. I look away. I don’t think he notices but then he clears his throat and I see the light shining at gravel in the driveway. Sorry, I say. Sorry!
I’m a vegetarian and Jim doesn’t know, just a few of the facts that make this whole thing weird. Even if I wasn’t though, this would be gross and borderline feel illegal. Do you need a license for this, I ask, for taking animals off the road? He shakes his head, but I don’t think that answers my question (I make mental note to Google it later on). Just makin’ someone else’s job a little easier, he says. And I see his point but feel a knot growing in my stomach. The same sort I felt as a kid when we found the family dog with a tire-track down her middle. We’d searched for hours and hours, wandering the neighborhood calling her name. Kat! My brother and I thought we were clever, naming our dog Kat, even though my parents never told us we were spelling it wrong if we wanted to be ironic. But there she was at the corner of 45th and A streets. Tried to cross, that’s all. Look both ways—remember that, kids, my dad said. He was always turning things into a lesson for us, my brother and me.
In college, my roommate Kay obsessively streamed documentaries from Netflix, still used her mother’s login, and that’s what started me not eating meat. We watched documentaries that showed calves tied to doghouses, chickens crated with their asses forced over a trough that rolled eggs down the line, and hogs crated on cement, unable to even turn around for an itch. And it seemed to me that it was a certain right, to itch oneself. I couldn’t support itchy, caged animals. In most scenes it was raining, which made it extra sad, and sexy monotone Brits sealed the deal for me. It was trendy at the time, I admit, but I really did care about the animals. And I do really care about suffering, just not enough to go vegan, it turns out.
My dad said this was the liberal agenda being pushed down my throat, threatened to stop sending checks for tuition. Why didn’t I pick a major like accounting, he asked. Accountants were never vegetarians, he was sure. It was fact. Like 2+2=4. But I’m not good with numbers, not good with math. I’ve always been told I have a nice voice though, so I answer the phone and make appointments in a doctor’s office. This is what English majors like me really do in the end, the dirty work of the people who were smart enough to listen to their fathers.
Jim pulls the skin back from the long incision and cuts the membrane between it and the hide. It looks like a bubble-gum mask as he pulls it up and out. That knife must be sharp, I say, stupidly. He nods. It’s almost graceful, his wrist relaxed and rhythmic, like he’s playing jazz percussion. I steady the light and look. At how she’s put together and how he’s taking her apart. Like a kid deconstructing electronics to see how they work. He cuts off her head and lower part of each leg, and then right in half behind the ribs. Then again lengthwise between the legs. Now he needs my help, he says, lifting her out and down into his house. We’ll put her on the kitchen table, capisce? he says. Blood dribbles off the tailgate. Capisce. My mom used to say that when telling me my curfew. Eleven o’clock, no later.
We each make two trips into the house, carrying the back end and then front. Jim hoists the ends up on his shoulder, like cradling an infant, like he’s comforting someone. I hold them out from my body as far as I can. I’m sure this says something about me, but I tell myself I don’t want to mess my shirt, which is true.
In the year-plus I’ve been his tenant I’ve never been downstairs, to his part of the house. He arranged a nice little in-law and rented out the larger first floor where I live. Said he doesn’t need the space and likes hearing people walk about. I found it on craigslist and liked the spot immediately, that it’s rural, with no one looking through my windows. Half hour to “town” but that wasn’t a drawback. At thirty I was done with happy hours, parties, gallery-openings, lying to myself that I’d go out on the town and meet people. Even when I was lonely, it never helped.
The ceiling is low, and there are a few pots, pans, gear—a backpack, sleeping bag, snowshoes—hanging from the floorboard ballasts. A mattress and box-spring sit on the floor in the corner, with one pillow, all covered by a knit patchwork quilt, the kind you find at rummage sales made by somebody’s grandmother they probably put into a “home.” It’s a one-room deal, a “studio” they’d call it in the city. Here it’s just practical. Cement floor with a braided rug under the table. A mini-fridge and a chest freezer. Strikes me as kind of backwards. But who am I to judge. There’s a bottle of soy-creamer and a loaf of bread in my fridge right now. I’m no Martha. No stones to throw.
The table is clear except a saw. A roll of paper towels and cleaning spray sit on a chair pulled out to the side. I lay down the last quarter, unsure what to do with my bloodied hands, unsure why I’m still here helping. I want to say I have things to do, a father to grieve. That I’m not back to myself yet and need to be alone. But I owe him, I remind myself, and I’ll be late on rent next month. I’ve always been one to plan ahead. And I feel sorry in a motherly way, a way I don’t often feel, that someone needs me and even might want me around.
Here, he says, already handing me chunks of bloody meat. Wash these. I feel like I might faint but take them to the sink where I can at least stand with my back towards him, so he doesn’t see me close my eyes and take deep breaths. I read in a self-help book it’s helpful to do when one feels ungrounded. Count 1-2-3 in, 3-2-1 out.
The meat is cool to the touch and doesn’t smell. I thought it would, so that’s weird. Pick off any dirt, Jim says, and look for bloodshot. Huh? I say, and can only think about my eyes after I’ve been drinking. Stress in the meat, he says. Injury, it’ll taste bad. Guess it’s just like bruising on an apple. It might be sweeter but it’s no good.
There wasn’t an open casket. In his will, my dad made it clear he didn’t want people looking at him if he couldn’t look back. I didn’t blame him. And I didn’t want to look. It was like peering in a mirror, this last year, seeing what I’d be like in my 60s. We’re a lot alike, my dad and me. Not that we’re alcoholics, not that I am now. Just depressed. Melancholic. A twisting of heads. He’d never accept this was a chemical reaction, like baking soda volcanoes. Like lemon juice souring milk in our brains. But he gave it to me, like eye color or the flu.
I rub my thumbs over the meat I hold under the cool well water from the tap. Feeling the striations and muscle, the grains that straighten and circle tight, like knots in a tree. How old was she, I ask. Probably fawned for the second time around this spring, he says is his guess. Not old, but she’s been around. It must be a rough life, I say, in the forest. He nods. The wrong place at the wrong time, just trying to cross the road like my old dog Kat. May they both rest in peace.
I set the cleaned roasts on a towel to dry, turn around and take the few steps to the table where Jim is working on the ribcage. Hold here, here says, taking my right hand in his and moving it to the spine. Tighter, he says, There, yeah that’ll do it. The ribs move in awkward ripples as he saws and I brace my elbows against my own ribcage for stability. Makes me cringe and feel like I’m watching one of those surgeries you can live-stream online. I get sympathy pains, you know? Your knee hurts, mine will too. I’m a good friend like that.
He used to hunt with his dad, he says. Used to be an ace-high shot, which I guess means he was good. But now doesn’t have the strength to pull back the bow, and his hands aren’t steady enough for a gun. I move mine as he saws. Now you tell me? I say. He laughs— No, he isn’t that bad. He’s concentrating hard and it’s not cold, he says. There are qualifiers. He has the heater running, he says, pointing to the portable electric jobbie in the middle of the room. Set on High, he says. It’s the cold that gets you when you’re old. Still, I move my hands a little farther…to a safe space. He notices, doesn’t laugh, and I feel bad.
It’s late October, and one week ago today we put him in the ground. The 17th. There was a steady rain and everyone’s dress-shoes got muddy, even with the funky faux grass the cemetery laid out. It had the effect of making you feel special. As if aren’t you lucky, to be the one to have a father die. Like rolling out the red carpet or some shit.
The ceremony was well attended. Dad would’ve liked to know. People from his and mom’s church and work, and some from childhood, too. They’d read about it in the paper, they said, and always liked my dad. I recognized some of their names from Dad’s stories and some said they’d met me as a baby. I was cute then, they said, it was nice to meet me.
He cuts the ribs into smaller sections, perfect meals for one, I notice, and hands them to me to clean. There’s a tattoo on his forearm, a parachute and feathered wings on either side. I ask what it means and he says it’s just two squirrels fucking behind an ice cream cone. I don’t get it but kinda see what he means. He was in ‘Nam, he says, that’s all.
I didn’t cry at the service, not because I wasn’t sad—I was, don’t get me wrong—but I was glad at the same time and it must have weighed heavier on my emotional scale (I also read about this in the self-help book). I was happy that he was out. Free. Mindless. Whatever happens at our ends I don’t know, but at least it’s not this anymore. I’ve always been jealous at funerals. This makes me feel shitty, of course. There are people who die every day who don’t want to. Who shouldn’t. And yet I’m still here and sometimes I don’t want to be. Life isn’t fair, my dad always said. I’d like to be the gallant one who offers to stay behind on the sinking boat. It’s okay, really it is. Strap on that life jacket. Float to safety and shore. Leave this woman behind. Fucking stop being gentlemen. But they all keep holding the damn doors open. No really, you first.
On the plane ride back I vowed to get medication, pills to make me happy, to make me look at the sky as blue through the clouds, but when I got home I took a shot of Jack and then another before setting down my carry-on bag.
My dad drank himself to death, although they aren’t saying that. My mother told people his “heart gave out,” but she found him in his study surrounded by empty bottles, with a tumbler of whiskey half-full and sideways in his hand, spilling onto his crotch so it looked like in the end he pissed himself. My mother told me this detail because she said it made her extra sad, that last part, like he’d lost his dignity. There wasn’t a note or anything but I knew what it was, had expected it for some time.
Jim carves out lines of meat from the top and inside of the ribcage. The backstrap, he explains, and sweet meat on the underside. When you don’t do it yourself, you don’t get this part, he says, the sweets. Butchers throw it away or take it home for their hounds or grind it into sausage. He looks proud, proud he’s not making sausage.
My dad was a good dad. He took us sledding and camping and bought the powdered-sugar doughnuts my mother never would. Came to every play, recital, game we ever had and was always the loudest one clapping, our biggest fan. Even when I graduated from college with my English degree he told me he couldn’t be any prouder. I believed him. He did his best and that’s all we can do. He was hard to reconcile though. Told my brother and me not to drink, but kept cases of Miller stashed in the garage. He was good though, and funny. God, he could be funny as hell. He had a comedy routine he’d do for us as kids, a la The Three Stooges, where he’d pretend to walk down an imaginary stairway behind the island bar in the kitchen. Lower and lower he’d go. Sometimes he’d bump his head on the way down. I always wanted to be like him. This week I saw a photo on the internet of a stick-figure drawing. It had two frames. Here, I’ll explain. Frame One: The big stick-person placed their feet on the tummy of the little stick-person. Frame Two: The big stick-person took the little’s hands and lifted them up in the air. “You had a great childhood if you remember this game,” it said. And I do. So I must have. “Airplane,” my dad called it. Fly me again! I’d say. One more time. And he always would.
I feel heavy now. Tired. I look at my watch. Midnight and I could use coffee. I rub my eyes. Bloodshot and dry and still a front-quarter to go. I place a rack of ribs on the towel to dry and when I get close to the table, realize he’s crying. This old, hard-packed man with the ice-cream cone and squirrels fucking on his arm. It was a bad way to go, he says, Like that with the car. I nod. It must have been. And suddenly I never want to drive anywhere ever again. You have to respect the animal, he says, Honor its life, ‘cause it ain’t easy, he says, Never is.
And I wonder if it was bad for my dad at the end, if his was a bad way to go. I sit down in the chair with the cleaning spray and paper towels, squishing them with my back, and put my bloody, sticky hands on my lap. I don’t care about my clothes now, just look at Jim and he stares back, wet eyes wide and clear.
It’s okay to cry at a funeral you know, he says. And maybe someday, I will.
Erin Block lives in the mountains of Colorado and is a librarian and freelance writer. Her work has appeared in Guernica, The Flatirons Literary Review, Waterlog, and Gray’s Sporting Journal, among others. She is the author of “The View from Coal Creek,” published by Whitefish Press. More of her work can be found at: www.erinblock.wordpress.
3 comments
What a well written story …. expect nothing less from Erin !!!
Wow, that’s good stuff.
Beautiful!! So very, very moving. Leaves me hungry for more.
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