My daddy’s god given name was Jean-Michel, but everybody called him Chips. Even me. I’d begged to go on the boat ever since I could throw a stick. Mama didn’t allow water play of any kind on account of her own fisherman daddy getting caught in a dip net full of blue crab. Pinched the hell out his face and neck until he toppled overboard and drowned in the Gulf. She never even poured me a bath, just hosed me enough for the soap to latch. One day, I couldn’t get half into hollering about the boat when Mama held her hand up and said, “It’s fine.”
Chips was angry and rusted in ways even vinegar couldn’t fix. Grew up in the Biloxi marshes of Mississippi where debts were paid in crab. His skin, scorched red—a gift from working on a fishing boat for as long as he was living. Everywhere Chips went, he brought with him a look of long distaste for something just behind you.
I swore mama sunscreen on the face and nose; later Chips told me not to bother with the stuff because it’s bound to end up on your balls from scratching and said it burns like grits on tits. I gripped good at the base of my pole, tight, intentional, the way Chips taught me. Held it stiff in one hand and a full-strength can of beer in the other. It was my tenth birthday. Us, just two fellas wading in the Gulf of Biloxi like a couple of con men on vacation waiting for the fish to bite.
“Sometime they give ya trouble, see, s’why you use this, utterwise dey slip and slobba all over and fly ouchya hand” Chips presented a beer set fresh inside a koozie sleeve, “see heyar?”
Chips was a different man on the water. Discreet, measured. Chip’s Cajun accent was so thick you’d think the doctor clipped his vowels at birth; only those born deformed like him could make any sense of his words. But it dulled on the water, the words laid back and settled in his mouth. When he spoke, it was right in front of him, not whatever wandering off place he seemed to be. I’d heard more than a fair share of the final high tide, the return of the great deluge to which the levy will succumb, baptizing the land. Something about Chips, his long stare over the wide berth of water, made me think he could see the swell. As though far enough out, there lived a different man, who, by some version of grace had shed his inheritance and put it to rest on the ocean floor.
“D’here’s a moment son. When a boy look like duh man he gonna look like fourda rest of his life.”
The soft rock, creak over a wave, the buzz of the beer and wet air on the gulf made me want to close my eyes, “So, Chips? You sayin’ I’m a man now?”
“Hell no. Ya peter aint but the size of a slug and your brain aint grown. No, son, it’ll be long time before ya look like the man youwuh gonna be.”
I had only strength enough to nod. Chips cast his rod again, “Then you die, Curtis… and you look nothing like that man.” Chips pronounced my name Coy-dus. I kept my eye on the shoreline. Chips must have sensed my thinking because he followed up, “Well, see, ain’t no kin gonna let you look less than fresh when folks say their goodbyes.”
I didn’t understand.
Chips said you have to see the body of the dead, to know they’re gone.
“But foura, five days later d’heres the bloat and blood foam comin’ ouchya face, look like the Lord put a gris-gris on ya. So, they gussy.”
Chips said after death someone pays an undertaker stranger, a third-rate weirdo, to do dirty things to you. Sponge your naked body, “balls an’ all, get ya clean before they empty you out—the only bit of blood you have left in this life and they pillage it from you like a goddamn gypsy.”
He said they remove your organs and fill you with formaldehyde, “Udder times they leave yo organs and slice ya just enough to slip their hands in ya.”
My mouth soured as Chips talked about the “special thread.” How they smush-pull your skin, tight, like a fitted bedsheet just to get the needle through. Your eyes and mouth glued shut—“not like the glue ya mama threatens with when you talkin’ through her shows, no sir. Strong glue you’d need a guttin’ knife fo’. And praise Jesus enough you don’t get fondled, or mouth sexed. Who knows what they into. Then dress you up like they did dolls when they were young and perverted.”
I had half a mind to jump out the boat, “I feel sick.”
“Critter goddamn you do! Serial killers do this! But hell if we don’t pay some pervert to do it to the ones we love.”
Just as Chips prophesized, he’s being sent off a puppet—glued, propped, and robbed of blood. Holley Bros. funeral home is the best in all of Harrison County. Least that’s what some local told Mom when deciding where to showcase Chips.
Right now, Mom and I are on the front pew because we’re winner-winner chicken dinner—very important people. Mom cry-whispers an inch from my ear drum, harsh, through gritted teeth like she’s about to push me off a cliff, “Curtis, your daddy loved you so much.” I say I know.
The pew behind are family members whose faces I forgot. Then the neighbors. Some woman named ‘Punkin’ who’s related to everyone and no one. Behind her is a crowd of people from high school. They just still live here. The last row is for late comers and early leavers. They must have hated Chips.
Everyone is in their Sears black best. Except for Miss Perry, wearing enough turquoise to be sued for reparations. Even the one-year-old screaming in the back looks like an epileptic spider. The preacher informs everyone that Chips is in heaven. Whew. Mom sways, hand half raised, and mumbles “How Sweet Thou Art”—the pills Punkin’s cousin gave must have kicked in, thank God. Chips was sick for more of my life than he wasn’t, and I think mom’s fighting the feeling of relief. I lied and told my mom I’d sat with Chips’ body before the wake. If Chips saw himself now, he’d be face down in Terry’s hooch.
Terry’s wife, Nardeen, forbade him to brew it again on account of young Henry Clemens cutting his ear off. But Terry always has some on hand for “special occasions.” Terry and Nardeen Beauchêne are housing the reception. Bound to be a hoot—women smile-jousting, men nipping hooch from Terry’s old army canteen (a reminder to all his tour in Vietnam that landed him an ugly scar above his eye). But true rumor holds that when Terry proposed to Nardeen, he was so drunk, he bypassed his knee and fell face first on the spikey broach of Nardeen’s shoe—been blaming it on Charlie ever since.
Nardeen and Terry have a daughter. Bonnie Beauchêne. She’s sitting next to them two rows back. Bonnie went to school in Jackson County, so we didn’t see each other much. I almost had my first sex with Bonnie. I was going to wait until I was older because Chips said it would make more sense, but by the time Bonnie got her mouth around my peter, I couldn’t have picked Chips out of a line of swordfish. Bonnie was a virgin too. When she gave the go, I pulled off her underwear. There was blood on it. I shrieked, she shrieked,
“Curtis, what is it?”
I jumped up to shield her eyes. Bonnie shoved me away and saw it. Her first period. She cried and begged me to leave and ran into the bathroom. I cried a little too on the walk home.
Chips was in his recliner with a Reader’s Digest, catching up on personal testimonies of close encounters with Jesus and aliens. His face, sunken, skin, thin as a porch screen. Even his bifocals looked like they had cancer. I tried to pass but he caught my gait,
“Who died?”
I ignored him.
“Son?”
Before I could close the bathroom door, Chips shouted, “Boy, ya betta get in dis room heyar right now!”
I stood in front of him like a shitty soldier. The rip-squeak of the leather as he leaned in was louder when I was in trouble. He removed his glasses,
“Now, I was talkin’ to ya son. When someone talkin’ to ya, ya respond, y’ear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Now why you look like someone just broke all’yer crayons?”
I shook my head, “I’m not—I don’t.”
Chips looked hard at me. Couldn’t tell if a hug was coming or the belt he kept curled on the end table. He stayed on me—my face, body. Stared so long I thought maybe he was having a stroke. Chips clicked his cheek, returned the bifocals to his face, and went back to reading,
“Yo okay son.”
I ended up losing my virginity in college to an older woman that airbrushed tee shirts at the waterpark. Her work was shoddy and her place was a mess but I didn’t care. I was hard all the time; had to avoid making eye contact with all women, related or not. I was nervous about her sizing up my dick so I asked if we could turn off the lights. I claimed I didn’t want her to see my eczema, which was also true. My reticence left with the brush of a boob. We sexed, savage. It was beyond any fantasy I had—porn, magazines—so spectacular, I honestly had the thought to write her a thank you note. And thank god Bonnie Beauchêne got her period.
On our third go, I caught a glimpse of red in the glint of the window. We turned on the lights and it looked like someone had been disemboweled on her bed and kept fighting back. Our faces were smeared with blood, mouths and earlobes. A halo of pink circled our privates, handprints where we smacked and slapped. I checked for stab wounds. She just stared at the bed, hands on hips and said, “Huh.” I offered to help burn the evidence, but she just giggled and asked to take a polaroid. Why did Bonnie Beauchêne have to get her period.
Folks form a line for the casket like their waiting on hog and slaw. Women suck in their tum-tums; showcase their fresh bought number. It’s a consolation parade, really; a participation award. Because they didn’t win, not today.
Receptions are usually in the back of the church, but you can’t drink, or curse and people grieve in different ways. Terry and Nardeen are happy to host, it’s the least they can do. Women swarm the kitchen, boys sneak cans from Terry’s ice box filled with all the beer in Mississippi. The men are tickled as shit to be far from death and the immediate proximity of their wives.
Susan Stacey is headed towards me with a full plate of deviled eggs. She wears heavy gold things that look old as shit and brand new at the same time. She has fake nails, big hair, and leans into her southern accent to hide the halitosis,
“Hey there sweetie, you want something’ to eat?”
“Maybe just a plate of deviled eggs if you, have it?”
“Huh…”
Get there Susan.
“Oh! Ha-ha! Yes, because I’m carrying” —
“little joke—no, I’m good, thank you for offering.”
“Are you sure, you must be starving” she says.
“Not much of an appetite.”
“Aww.”
Idiot.
“You know your father loved you so much—I remember when’yre little, your daddy tryin’ to teach you how to swing a golf club and bless your heart, you kept tryin’ to hold it with your tiny hands and just couldn’t figure it out. Your sweet little face so confused—just swingin’ and spinnin’ like you’s taming the wind.”
“Happy to oblig”—
“Me and my Stan used to say, the levee wouldn’t break long as we kept you clear of it.”
I’d like to tell Susan that Stan used to take the cart girl behind the trees and teach her how to grip his driver,
“How is Stan?”
“Oh, you know, since his surgery…” She pops a deviled egg in her mouth, “Did you know he had surgery?”
Critter goddamn, Susan, you’re just going throw that hard boiled baby chicken in your halitosis hole and keep talking, “I didn’t know, no.”
“Yeah… well…” Susan whispers yolk flecks at me, “Ima go see how yo mama’s doin’. Now, lemme know if you get hungry.”
“Thank you for coming. Tell Stan hi, I know Chips really liked him.”
He did not. Stan drinks too much and smells like suspenders. Chips changed the subject whenever Stan said something crass about anything, everything. I liked that Chips didn’t like Stan. They were business partners on an idea Chips had for peddling boat expeditions. The day-trippers could gather and drink a deal of beer, play at fishing, and fake their finest Hemingway. It worked for a bit before Stan got caught embezzling money for the owner of the Golden Knuckle—a strip joint where politicians drank and drugged and got their peter polished. Chips walked and never said a word about it after. Just went back to trawling, killing himself for another man’s pocket. I wish Stan was dead. Kill him myself if mom weren’t still alive.
If there’s anyone worse than Stan at this shithouse soiree it’s Pearl Jean Clapper. She has a bumper sticker on her car that says, Meet Me in Church on Sunday. Pearl Jean has a son, Arthur. We we’re in Boy Scouts together. Pearl Jean was out of town one night when Arthur stayed over. His dad said it was okay, but when she found out, she drove back from Alexandria and picked him up. It was one in the morning. She didn’t say sorry or give an excuse, just hauled him off without a word. I watched Chips lock the door behind them. On his way back to sleep, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Never mind it, son.”
Two weeks later, mom took me out of Boy Scouts. Apparently, Arthur told his mom that we were at a retreat and I tried to touch his penis. False. I beg-cried mom not to tell Chips about it. The idea that the image or thought of it could even brush past his thinking, made me sick with shame. Because truth is Arthur tried to touch my penis. And I let him. No one had ever touched my penis, and I thought, huh, I wonder what that feels like. I didn’t even close my eyes, I just watched his hand on my dick and thought damn, I can’t wait for a girl to do this. I didn’t think it was gay or dirty or wrong, hell, I thought it was awesome. I didn’t want to touch his penis, and Arthur didn’t ask me to. It never happened again, well, not with Arthur.
Kelly Grady and I used to sneak behind the Primitive Baptist church house as kids. We kissed with our tongues between two berry bushes and stuck our hands down each other’s pants. I’d stare at the holly berries on the bush, inches from my face, and thought about how when you squeeze the berry between your thumb and forefinger, a yellow center squish out.
My Grannie had the same holly berries on a wild bush near the pasture. Boy cousins dug up stuff while the girls played at witching. They knocked off bush berries with thick sticks and squished them flat to make a poison potion. And the berries were poisonous. When I reached haystack age, Grannie dragged me down to the berry bush as though I had done something wrong. She made me stand right still in front of the bush as she plucked a single berry. She turned to me and said,
“Curtis, this here is a holly berry. I know it look normal or like a tiny blueberry fruit but it aint!” She squished it between her fingers and showed me its yellow guts, “You see that there Curtis? That’s poison, it’s dangerous, so dontchu ever ever touch one or pick ‘em off or God forbid put them in your mouth. Do you hear me child?”
I nodded without breathing or blinking.
“And believe you me Curtis, I will know, ‘cause I’ll either hear you howlin’ in pain or I’ll hear your cousins howlin’ because they just foundya’ dead on the ground.”
Every time Kelly put her hand down my pants, I thought about Grannie’s promise of death. It made what me and Kelly were doing seem far less poisonous.
Arthur only spoke to me once after the night Pearl Jean picked him up from my house. He apologized. He was sorry that I had to leave Boy Scouts and sorry that his mother made him leave my house and sorry he lied about saying I tried to touch his penis. I like that Arthur didn’t say he was sorry for touching my penis because that would have been a lie. So, I forgave him for the other stuff.
Arthur has a girlfriend named Francine he met in college. Unfortunately for Pearl Jean, Arthur also has a boyfriend named Kurt he met in high school. Kurt “tutored” Arthur on the weekends for SAT prep our junior year. Still together. Good for them. I must be staring because Pearl Jean is headed towards me. Chips was always kind to Pearl Jean. I could never figure why; he knew she was awful. Pearl Jean and I haven’t spoken since the penis incident, but Chips is dead, so she has to talk to me.
“Hello Curtis. I’m so sorry about your father.”
“Thank you.”
“I know he loved you so much.”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Arthur apologizes he couldn’t be here. He’s visiting a friend.”
I bet he is.
“Yeah, he’s workin’, teachin’ at Southern Miss—just got recruited by Governor Pearson’s campaign; they want him to do some speech writing.”
“Makes sense. Arthur’s always been a smart guy.”
“Yes, he has.”
“You and Mr. Clapper have done a great job with him.”
What a wretched bitch. You know what, Pearl Jean, if Arthur were here right now, I would touch his penis. I’d love on him like he’s Rock Hudson during fleet week. He deserves it, just for having to suffer an abhorrent, oppressive, cunt-flapping close-minded fuck of a face mother like you.
“Well thank you, Curtis. We try.”
“I know ya do.”
“We actually just”—
“Excuse me please”—
“Oh okay”—
“Pimento” I say with a hand on my belly and scrunched face.
Pearl Jean brought the pimento ball and if Arthur were here right now, he would confirm that it, in fact, tastes like balls.
The bathroom upstairs hasn’t changed since the night Bonnie started her period. Pastels, that mystery smell. Every house in this town has one bathroom with that smell. It’s collective and hard to figure—something old, chemical, fauna, fresh like wet but no water to be found. I tried, as a kid, to find the culprit: in the cabinets; pink Velcro curlers, bobby pins, calamine, individually boxed Irish Spring; dozens of unused razors and toothbrushes—not a candle or Glade thing to be found. Could never place it. It wasn’t until years later I figured it out. Woman’s pheromone, her sex, fresh fluids. It has intoxicated me since I was a boy. It’s here now.
I smelled it the night Bonnie bled. Just before I went in her room. I said I had to pee, but really, I was nervous and wanted to leave—I was scared I would mess up whatever I didn’t know was going to happen. I sat on the toilet and watched the orange devil eyes stare at me through the white rusted heater in the corner. All that remains now is a discolored outline on the linoleum. It must have given. Chips fixed broken heaters after Camille, fixed anything he could. I remember Mom asking Chips to wash his hands, but in a harsh tone that seemed for someone else.
“Curtis, sugar!” Mom shouts, assertive and high pitched; the tone she uses when holding a person hostage until I come say hi.
“Curtis, darlin’, you remember Shelley, don’t you?”
Critter goddamn, Shelley the babysitter. Summers, Chips all but lived on the shrimp boat to make up for the off-season while Mom worked a church gig. Shelley watched over me. Her dad went to prison for pimping her out when she was young. She was a cheap hire. Had an old car antenna she liked to chase me with. Some days, I climbed a proper tree or managed my way up to the roof, but most days, she’d catch me. Seemed she liked the chase more than beating me with the antenna, but it didn’t stop her from doing the latter. I didn’t tell. Something about telling on a girl felt wrong, even if she was six years older. Plus, Mom felt she was helping her, and Chips was too worn out to notice. Shelley eventually surrendered to her fate and started stripping at Terry Lamoine’s joint off Highway 90.
“Sup Shelley. How’s the Golden Knuckle?”
Mom looks at me, confused.
“I don’t work there anymore, Curtis.”
“Really?” I say.
“I’ve changed a lot” Shelley says.
“Good for you.”
“I found Jesus.”
“Well, I hope you gave him a head start.”
There are half-smoked packs of Pall Mall and Reds hid all over town: in the notches of a split fence, tucked in the mess of a muscadine vine, inside abandoned birdhouses. You can still catch Father Bradley, drunk as a dodo, feeling up random wheel wells and shoulder deep in crawlspaces. Behind the swamp cooler on the side of Nardeen and Terry’s house was always a sure bet—
“They’re aint none there”, I hear someone say behind me.
I rise from a squat and see Puddy, a local kid, standing with three beers hanging from the plastic rings of a six-pack.
“Ms. Nardeen quit,” Puddy says and rips one off the plastic. He hands me the beer.
“Thanks, Pud.”
“Sorry bout your pop” he says.
“Thanks, Pud.”
Puddy opens a beer for himself. Puddy is too young to smoke cigarettes or drink or drive (legally), or be out all hours of the night setting fireworks and pissing on church lawns. We all were. I remember the fireworks would spook the hell out the yard dogs and whenever one took off, we had to find the damn thing and bring it back. One mutt with a name tag and phone number hanging off its collar made it all the way to Gulfport. We had to walk the five hours back home to Biloxi because no one would give us a ride with some busted ass dog in the backseat.
“Your ma okay? Puddy asks.
“Oh yeah, she’s in there makin’ people eat.”
Puddy chuckles. It’s sweet and earnest in a way that makes me sad.
A couple boys emerge from a row of pines that line the backroad to Terry and Nardeen’s house. One of them, a breakneck, bound to catch a case on account of the meth he pushes for his pops, approaches, swinging a tree branch, scythe-like, at the ground. He’s short as hell and mean as shit. Roman (after the candle) Pringle.
“Whatchu sayin’ over here, Pud?” Roman says and spits a bit of dip.
The Pringle family has been the open sore of Harrison County since before the Dixie Mafia was formed. The Pringle family bloodline is a swinish multitude, too feral for even the Klan. As dark as the Gulf can get, it never quite reaches the inhumane trench the Pringle’s have forged. And Roman is the youngest heir.
“Nothin’, just havin’ a beer” Puddy says.
The other boy, Wade, lights up, “You tell him we’re gettin’ tattoos—
“Shut the fuck up, Wade!” Roman says.
“Really,” I say— “Needles scare me.”
“Yeah, me, Pud, and Rome gettin’em together—
“Not matchin’, any gay shit or nothin’” says Roman.
“No, yeah, but like—just like, cool ones” Wade says, looking at his two buddies.
Wade is a clear four years older than the other two. Been held back four times on account of his being illiterate, on account of the head trauma he endured as a small child when he fell off the back of a pontoon, on account of his motion sickness no one knew about. Myth is every man in his family has a monster cock and poor Wade has no sense what to do with it.
“Well, no shit, Wade! The fuck else we’d get?” Roman says and tosses up an empty beer can, racks it with the tree branch. “And how’s bout you stop givin’ out all our fuckin’ beer, huh Pud?” Roman says and takes the last can of beer from Puddy.
Roman has a shit lot, raised rippin’ the life out of things. Like a feral dog with broken limbs and no one gives shit enough to put him down. Which is ironic because Roman’s older brother, Clay Pringle, shot a dog in the face with a gun he stole from Chips’. We were in eighth grade. Clay had exploded a mailbox with a pipe bomb and the blast of it sent two purebred pit bulls into such a fit, they snapped off their leash and set free over the fence. The Sheriff threatened Clay to jail if he didn’t rescue the dogs and bring them back. The next day, Chips’ shotgun went missing. Clay found one of the pit bulls, and when he did, he shot it in the face. Dragged the dead thing all the way to the Sheriff’s house and left it on his lawn. Took Clay two more days, but he found the second one.
“You say you scared a needles?” Roman says. He moves close to me.
I nod, “Yep.”
Roman smiles his eyes at me and almost whispers, “Kinda pussy like, no?”
He’s a head shorter than me. I pull a bill from my wallet and ask the boys if they don’t mind rounding up a pack of smokes, “and whatever y’all want, you can keep the rest.”
Roman looks at the bill and frowns away excitement. Puddy and Wade look at Roman, then me.
“Uh… you sure?” Puddy says.
I look down and see it’s a fifty-dollar bill. Hell cares.
“Yes. Come on… do me the favor. Please.” Puddy takes the cash. I say Pall Mall. Roman snatches the money off Puddy before they reach the street.
Mom seems to be doing okay; the sad laugh and cry at old stories with the locals and kin. There’s nothing like impermanence to bring people together. But it’s nice when folks around here settle in, start talking to each other. I catch my mom’s eye. She looks at me like it was all worth it.
“Hey Curtis.”
I turn around to Bonnie Beauchêne standing outside the screen door of her own house. I join her on the porch.
“Curtis, I’m sorry”—
“No, I’m sorry.”
Bonnie sojourns my face for an explanation. She comes on it and smiles, “It’s okay.”
I immediately want to take her upstairs and spend the rest of the day with my face between her legs. No matter what the weather. I want to ask her what she wants and then give it to her. Bonnie notices my erection. I look down, “That’s just the grief talking.”
Bonnie’s laughs, “Wanna walk it out?”
All the Mississippi heat is good for is distraction. Too riddled with physical discomfort to be vexed by much else. I could strip down to my briefs and claim innocence but the weight of my shirt slow soaking my chest feels like a hand on my heart. I could play chicken on the train tracks and claim grief, but I’m taken with Bonnie’s face. I think Chips would have liked to see Bonnie now, here with me—on the other side of talking, where he said, only there can there be something new. Bonnie’s face has taken new shape. I swipe at fake flies as an excuse to look at her. She would look good in yellow. Or am I just thinking of the sun. Perhaps the heat has got to me and Bonnie’s not even here. Perhaps the paramedics are trying to revive me from sun stroke or a heart attack; hooched up men using all their strength to pull mom off my body and all I can hear is Roman laughing somewhere off in the distance.
Bonnie pinches my arm, “Curtis, you hear that?”
“Huh?”
“Yelling like, sounds, like boys in the, over past the field there.”
It is yelling, boys screaming, and Roman Pringle, laughing. Sick, the sound, and then a Blast! Shotgun.
“Omigod!” I hear Bonnie say.
I’m already off. I whip across the sweet grass pasture, haystacks. Red winter wheat slap at my shins—I’m full sprint in the direction of the oaks on the bank of the forest—feral screams and Roman’s cackle, I can barely hear myself shouting, “Roman! You little cunt! COME HERE!” But his voice moves out like an echo. I tear hell for leather into the woods, towards the echo and come fast to a flat patch in the forest—I trip!—clip a log with the tip of my shoe and am sent—thrown into a hurtle, catching sticks and brush on the way down, I smack hard on the forest floor.
I feel the damp and stand up, stare down at it. Bonnie arrives in a full heave. She gasps.
I stole a baby kitten when I was five. Actually, a man was giving them away at a carnival in Jackson, but it felt like stealing having to smuggle it under my shirt on the drive home. She was tiny. Chips was furious.
“Critter God-damn SON!”
Chips didn’t care for cats. Didn’t care for the memory of watching his daddy, my grandaddy, silence a litter of kittens in a burlap sack on account of the cats ruining the fruit crops. Chips begged grandaddy not to kill the mama cat because Chips had grown an affection for her. She ran away a few days later.
Mama and Chips let me keep the kitten but paid her no attention. The litter and food stayed in my room where Chips couldn’t see or smell it. But there were nights I’d catch Chips in the recliner watching TV—arm hung low on the side, whistling to her, “kitty-kitty bitty, kittybeee…” After a while her food moved into the kitchen; the litter made its way to the bathroom. They still didn’t pay her any attention, but they also didn’t jerk when she slank across the ankle. I eventually lost interest in her and didn’t like her butthole. It was pronounced, looked shaved, and one day, she skid it on my face when I was lying on the couch watching cartoons. She bit me once when I was sleeping, broke the skin. I started leaving the front door open regardless of how many times I got yelled at for it.
Chips woke me on a day I was meant to go to school. He wasn’t dressed for work.
“Hey son.”
I gurgled my face, sat up.
“You don’t have to go to school today.”
Before I could grin, I noticed Chips’ eyes, worn and red.
I stopped on the front lawn to tie my shoe while Chips waited beside me. His presence was larger than usual. I sensed that if I looked up at him, he’d be staring off. I had to squint due to sun, but I was right. He led me to the main road, two-lane. On foot, we turned in the same direction the bus did on its way to school. For a moment, I thought Chips was walking me to school then remembered I was still in pajamas. I wondered if I should take him home. Cars drove past us, I winced. Seemed like they were headed straight for us. I wanted to go back to bed, go back to sleep and arise to my mom bending over me with her unbrushed mouth, telling her angel it was time to wake up.
Chips and I came upon a slight ditch. At the bottom was a red and black-brownish thing with what looked like a piece of white paper on it. It had license plate letters and numbers, but it was paper, dirt ridden, something cheap and temporary. I remember a “G” and “L” and what looked like a “3”, but I can’t be sure. It had flown out and across, from where it came and landed on Kitty Bitty’s body. It would have blown away, but it was stuck to her on account of the blood that had seeped through the paper. I was grateful the paper was there. I had never seen a dead animal before, but I imagined meat and skin and stuff. Her legs were uncovered, stuck out in both a stretch and rest. Her paws looked smaller, surrounded by grass and roadside litter, than they did grazing my bed in the morning, patting me to play. I could see all her teeth; her expression was stuck in a yawn. It made me think of a dire wolf skull Miss Dillard showed us in class. Parts where the blood mixed with the fur made it difficult to make out the ants. I caught one ant with my eye and then all I could see were ants, crawling in and out of her mouth. Chips said nothing. Not a hand on my shoulder or head, no hug or soft pat. He let me stay long as I needed to, studying her body, her carcass.
Halfway home Dad scooped me up in his arms. My legs dangling, chin resting on his shoulder as I watch the main road grow smaller; the sound of cars, fading.
“You okay?” Bonnie says, still catching her breath.
“Huh?”
“You okay?”
We stare at the wide berth of blood on the earth with nothing to show for it but what looks a long and painful death. No body, no animal, no slain thing. Just blood on the land, waiting for when, by some version of grace, the tide rolls in high from the Atlantic, sheds the inheritance of this place, and puts it to rest on the ocean floor.
Kasey Buckley graduated from Columbia University and is a MFA fiction candidate at Hunter College in New York. She is a Women’s Forum Foundation of NY Scholar, was awarded The Louis Sudler prize in the Arts and is working on her first collection of short stories. Kasey has roots in Texas and Mississippi and currently lives in New York.
