I swallow another shot of whiskey as I think about the poor dog. Half-dead. Lying on his side, immobile, barely moving as he labors to breathe. His left eye is covered in a milky film from the cataracts that leave him almost blind, and his right eye is only marginally better. His coat has turned to an old matted gray. His body has developed the swayback, malnourished look of all old dogs. But still he lingers, day in and day out, there in the kennel inside the workshop in the backyard.
I sit on the bed that I slept in as a child when I came to visit my grandparents. Maw Maw is fast asleep in her bedroom and I’m staring with a drunken focus at the wall, thinking about the dog. Charlie.
Charlie is a wire-haired fox terrier and in his prime was a rambunctious, feisty, lovable little dog. Only Charlie was born crippled, his hind leg deformed. Dad and Maw Maw doubted he would live. There wasn’t just the botched-up leg. He was a runt, one of those undersized puppies which tend to get kicked out of the feeding frenzy and are left to die. So Dad supplemented his mother’s milk with formula from a baby bottle. Did that for the few weeks it took for Charlie to get some density in those fragile bones, and soon he was running around with the rest of them, albeit with a funny little gait. Dad was like that, taking over when others don’t.
Dad usually sold most of the pups from his litters, always getting top dollar because of the dogs’ great bloodlines. He had usually kept one or two but he knew this would probably be the last litter so there was no sense in keeping any. Customers came and went, flocking to pick out their favorites. Then somebody came in and bought the last two healthy males, and so there was only Charlie. The puppy nobody wanted.
By then Dad and Maw Maw had taken a liking to the crippled dog, so they decided to keep him. Not that there was much choice in the matter.
As a kid, I played with Charlie when I was here, which was a lot. But even later when I stopped in from college, I always said hello to Charlie, and he always came running, his crooked leg ill-timed with the other three, causing that funny bounce of his hip to compensate. He jumped up to me as best he could, often coming down not on his feet but on his side, and still bouncing back up to do it over again. Like most dogs, Charlie was full of love, but I think unlike most dogs, he was given a double helping of it, in thanks for the family who took him in.
I sit on the bed in the middle of the night, drunk, as I am most nights after Dad’s funeral. Charlie. Dog wouldn’t give up living as a puppy and still won’t at thirteen. Lying on his side, blind, every now and then getting up and staggering over to his water bowl. He doesn’t eat much at all. Can’t hold it down, I guess. But he won’t let go. Charlie will lie there as long as it takes, hanging on to his last few moments of life.
Now here’s the thing. Charlie’s been out there for ten days, ten days and no telling how much longer he’ll endure just for the sake of breathing in and out, just to hang on to the world a little longer. To see me coming to refill his water bowl and pet him on the head. And that’s why he lives, for me.
Now here I am these last ten days, going out to Charlie’s bed, feeding him what little food he can eat. All soft stuff, no dry food. And water. Keeping him alive out in the workshop on that shag carpet bed of his. He’s not able to do anything, all day and all night, but think about living. Think about me. Just live. That’s all.
Only a little whiskey left now. I rise, almost falling, hitting my knee on the edge of the rickety television stand. Everything’s foggy, just off to both sides. I see good straight ahead. Singular. I draw back the curtain, look into the dark rain outside and at the workshop. Lightening comes down, illuminating the shop and pens lined up in front, each with an entrance to the shop where the dogs can get out of the rain. Except Charlie’s the only one out there.
Shop’s got a heater but I wonder if he’s warm enough. Bring him inside for the night? Make him more comfortable maybe. But Charlie ain’t gonna be comfortable ever again. He won’t give up. I don’t want him to suffer any more. I’m tired of suffering.
“Fuck this!”
I turn around quickly. Too quickly. The world is spinning. I pause, wait for my vision to catch up. I grope through the kitchen, bump into the table, open the backdoor and the cold, wet air blasts my face. I have a t-shirt and jeans on, barefoot.
The blast clears my head and vision enough for me to make it down the stairs. The rain comes down in biting pellets, hitting the top of my head, my shoulders, running down my chest. It’s dark out, everything’s blurry, everything’s in shadows. Gotta go on memory, on feel. My bare feet shuffle on the concrete patio, past the table where me and Dad used to fillet fish together. I see the gate and feel for the latch.
It’s dark and smells musky. Cold in here despite the little propane heater in the corner. My clouded vision picks out the semblance of kennels inside, tools lined up on the opposite wall, and the big crack in the concrete floor. I use it as a guide, stepping on it, feeling the cool, uneven floor.
Through the musky smells of the old, damp shop, rotted wood and rusty tools, I smell Charlie’s old, sick dog smell. His breathing is muted, barely a light sigh as I stand by the chain link gate. I bend down and lose my balance, falling forward and crashing the top of my head into the cold metal. I fall on my side in agony, writhing on the damp concrete. The blood trickles down my face, whiskey making the pain into a comfortable, hazy throb.
I pull myself up from the concrete and sit in front of Charlie. He doesn’t move, just contemplates me with his cloudy left eye.
“Hey, boy, how you doing?”
He lifts his head and then slowly brings it down again. His ear is cocked and listening.
“Me leaving you out here like this. It’s my fault, Charlie. You don’t know no better.”
I edge up to the gate, leaning in. The damp smell of his coat wafts up from his bed. I feel his stare. My hand nudges the latch loose, Charlie’s ear shifts. The gate swings out.
“C’mon old boy.”
I feel around his body, pick him up and bring him out. I sit down against the metal toolbox behind me and cradle him in my lap.
“You’ve been a good dog, Charlie. You did real good, boy.”
His body is limp against my thighs, the rough, wiry hair brushing the wet denim of my pants. The world is spinning in a sweeping series of darks and grays as the incessant rain patters against the sheet metal roof. My desperate, drifting mind reaches out, wanting something far-off and unreachable. I give up and return to him. A gun will wake the neighbors. A knife is too messy. This is the only way.
“I’m sorry, old boy.”
I grip the back of his head with one hand, his nose with the other, and twist violently.
A brief whimper.
A dull crack.
I look down at his motionless body and begin to cry. I carefully place him back in his bed. I stroke the old matted fur and then close the door.
Gripping the corner of the kennel, I pull myself up and stumble outside to the rains.
“Calvin.”
“Yeah?”
I wake up in a stupor, my head exploding from the dull ache that hits at once, subsides, then returns. There’s the blurry image of Maw Maw peeking at me from the door of my room.
“It’s Charlie,” she says.
I force my eyes to focus and see the gaunt expression on her face.
“He’s gone?” I ask.
“No. He’s just lying there like he usually does, but he’s whimpering and can’t even move now. I think he’s getting ready to die.” Maw Maw narrows her eyes. “Say, what happened to your head? Looks like there’s blood on it.”
My heart recoils in horror. I didn’t kill him. He lived. Oh Jesus, he lived.
“Um. Bumped it on the desk last night looking for something. I’ll go out and check on Charlie.”
Maw Maw shakes her head.
“I just hate seeing the poor thing suffer. I know how much you and Dad loved him.” She closes the door.
I fight against the urge to vomit and stand up, the blunt pain in my head causing me to suck in my breath. I force myself to walk to the kennel.
I sit by his limp figure, listening to his low moans and wanting to absorb his pain. I sit until my back aches, until my legs cramp, never moving, never leaving. Maw Maw peers in every couple of hours and asks, “Is he gone?” and I reply “Not yet.” The rains have ceased leaving the fresh fragrance of light dew on the grass. I hope Charlie can smell the grass. I hope he can feel the newness of the world. I hope in his mind he’s playing out there now, romping about with his awkward gait as I throw him a ball.
The wind picks up and brings the sweet freshness of life into the darkness. I look down at my friend and see that he is not breathing.
About the author: Mike Hancock is a former hunting guide and commercial fisherman. He spent seven years guiding elk, deer, and bear hunters in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and New Mexico. Prior to that he was a deckhand for two seasons aboard a factory trawler in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Now living in Dallas, Texas, he is a high school English teacher and freelance writer. He holds a B.A. in English Literature and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.
"Charlie" is an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, "Fallen". This is a story of fathers and sons and of emotional bonds that transcend culture and time. Set in the looming mountains of Northwest Montana in 1870 and 1997, the novel chronicles the lives of Grey Bear, a distraught Piegan warrior in the aftermath of the Marias Massacre, and Calvin, a tortured young hunting guide, as they endure hardships and abuse, both seeking redemption in an untamed wilderness.
She stood straight, her chin slightly lifted with her back against the wall. The twilight wind blew loose dirt and empty wrappers down the street. As the old man pressed himself against her, she didn’t seem overly concerned. Her fur collared coat rubbed against the grimy surface and the green skirt that met her knees blew against the brick. She wasn’t flustered, she was calm and even a little dismissive of the sky that hung above them. Whenever she was alone with him, everything else felt like an intrusion.
With a lit cigarette hovering by the side of his long black raincoat in one hand, the man gently stroked the cheekbone of the woman with his other as he leaned forward and kissed her. Once finished she smiled back at him with all her innocence before rather sneakily taking the remainder of his cigarette and putting it to her mouth; her eyes squinting slightly as the smoke met her lungs. She puffed a cloud of smoke directly at him. Although it was just to tease; he moved back a foot or so from her, clutching his hat as the wind kicked. For a moment, she looked a little worried that he was no longer so intimately with her, but it was really only for a moment.
Tall, slender with high cheekbones and pale smooth skin, her smile revealed the tiny dimples on her cheeks. The old man whispered a few words, delicately tucking some loose strands of blond hair behind her ear. The dimples were revealed without transition, as if dawn had just dispersed night.
With his chapped lips he couldn’t resist taking another kiss. It was a kiss that was far more tender than the stubble that covered the lower half of his face. He was a tall and thick-boned old man. He easily had fifteen years or more on the youthful woman. His shoes were modest in cost but a cared for shiny black. His briefcase looked worn and stretched like a boxer’s jaw. It was a traditional leather green and when clutched in his grip it often made him look vintage. Despite their sinister surroundings, visible through impeding fog, he seemed self-assured. Each time the woman glanced down the street at the puddles, at the shadows and queer faces lingering from doorways of abandoned houses; he took her fingers in his hand -- rubbing them until she was again and fully with him; no longer distracted by the mists of the night.
Embracing the warmth of their close contact, they stared at each other with a sincere longing that required little explanation. Another kick of wind acted as an excuse for the man to wrap his arms around the woman's curvaceous hips, happily allowing the backs of his hands to meet the rough brick with an assertiveness that would have left the most unwitting in no doubt that she was his.
Still, it grew late, and the evening activities of the street began to gather pace. The odd stray cat scampered across the road on its tiptoes, occasionally stopping to sniff discarded takeaways and stretch in a manner that exposed feeble bone. Casual whining could be heard from the weaker cats, no doubt crazed from delusional hunger, in the corner of a basement, further on down the road.
Sly faces came and went from buildings, the odd one exposed by the sole streetlamp yet to have its bulb shattered and spread across the pavement. Cars slowly crawled up and down, rarely stopping outside a building for any longer than it took for a figure to lurch from a doorway. Their surroundings were not modest or kind. In the sun light the street lay dormant, resentful to the new day which stopped old habits from roaming freely. Yet to both the woman and the old man, the broken street where they stood was a simple place where they could meet and be alone together, away from the distractions of their lives.
“It will always be you,” she said, her eyes meeting his once her chin was lifted a little more upright.
The old man lit another cigarette, and then sighed as the woman stroked his cheek.
“No, it will always be you,” he replied.
The woman gave the old man a kiss that would linger in his mind long after he had left her. A car horn tooted. As she looked over his shoulder and into the window of the car parked across the road, her eyes began to fill with tears. It was a black, expensive looking car, and the round figure who sat behind the steering wheel seemed to care very little about them or their moment. The old man didn’t bother to turn around, instead he tugged the strap on the woman's coat tightly like a hungry child would on their mother’s dress. Her red lips trembled a moment, but knowing that two pairs of eyes were now expecting something from her she managed to just gain control; and with a finality, she gave her full attention to the old man.
“It’s not forever,” she said, kissing him firmly, until saliva threatened to spill from their lips. “It’s not forever.”
Again the horn was tooted, and this time the old man had to take the briefcase from the pavement so he could distract his mind. He was no longer looking at her and neither was she at him. All they had left of the day were memories, and the cruel formality of the night. Slowly the woman made her way across the street, her heartbeat very nearly overcoming her.
The round man sat in the car smoking on a fat cigar, tapping his thumbs nonchalantly on the steering wheel, no attempt to open the door for her. The woman chose to sit in the back, and once the door was closed, the round man drove away.
A pink neon light from the brothel flickered to life above the old man’s head. Once fully lit he turned until he was facing the empty spot where the car had been parked. The man didn’t bother to look to his right or acknowledge the two women offering him a sly service as they passed in fishnet tights. Quietly and without fuss, the old man pressed his back against the wall where the woman had stood until the rain began to fall.
About the Author: David was born in a small fishing village on the East coast of Scotland. His family moved from Scotland to England regularly, and for a brief period he spent time in Budapest. He is inspired by writers such as Hemingway, Kerouac and Rimbaud. "Voices that always sounded as if they were on the move."
He has studied creative writing at Buckingham, completed placements with independent magazines, worked on farms, in bookstores and for charities. He has lived in London, Toronto, Krakow, and traveled Europe and North America extensively.
David has completed one novel, is working on a second and has published many short stories and "a pile of poems."
Monty reached into his pocket and pretended to palm a key. He made a turning motion at the broken lock and pushed the door open, like his father had showed him earlier that day. The dank smell filled his lungs; decades of cigarette smoke and poor ventilation and piss and mold and God knows what else. A stench that should not exist in a living place. Puddles had gathered in the dipped middle of the first six stairs, brown water floating on the beaten carpet. He followed up the stairs the trail of mold folded into the edge of the ceiling and the wall, and wondered if he would ever get used to any of this.
He wondered if he would ever get used to the neighborhood. He'd borrowed the only jacket his father would let him take, a Carhartt work jacket with a tear at the elbow, and walked out onto the street. The winter Boston air cut cleanly through the canvas and the pockets did nothing to warm his hands. He should have borrowed a pair of kicks too, he now thought. Had his father been willing to lend a pair. His were the same Timbs he'd had on his last admit to Juvenile Detention sixteen months ago, and his toes and heels were destroyed, pressed and rubbing against the hard leather. They were at least two sizes too small. His desire to get out of the apartment had been spurred at least as much by his interest in checking out the 'hood as to get out of the apartment, his father's insolence as thick as the building's stench.
At the second floor landing Monty nearly tripped over the splayed legs of an old man buried deep under layers of scratchy gray blankets. His eyes were dead and teeth acid burned, and he huddled over a camp stove, a sick wool glove covering the hand that held the spoon. The man had been there since Monty had arrived that morning, and he wondered if the man recognized him, or knew him standing there. The man didn't look up, and he spoke to the flame in words only he could understand. Monty walked passed, and the man pushed a jug of gas beneath his knees, guarding it against the possible theft.
"I don't want your fucking gas," Monty said, but the man either ignored him, or didn't hear, and as Monty turned away he kicked his too-small work boot into the step, and the stab of pain quickly gathered in his eyes, and he bit his lip not to scream. He stayed there several minutes, trying to wait out at least the acuteness of the pain pulsing in his foot, before realizing he'd be waiting days, and thought maybe he'd better take them off. He bent to pull them off and from the close distance the fetid stink off the carpet was pure and potent and he gagged and inhaled deep that same smell before standing upright, and the shock brought up half a cup of the coffee he'd had just an hour before. The brown puddle rested on the tips of the carpet bristles for a moment before disappearing deep into the fibers, the smell of bile indiscernible over the preexisting stench, and he decided to keep his boots on his feet.
The fifth floor came slowly. His father's apartment was dark behind the door, and Monty felt a silence he tried to ignore. He knocked, and waited, and when he knocked for the fourth time he wondered if his father was passed out, or gone. He found an old Blockbuster card in his wallet and jammed it into the small lock on the handle and it popped so easily he wondered if he could work the other three. He tried the top lock and found quickly that it was a deadbolt, and dropped the card and leaned his shoulder into the door and tried to force it. He thought he felt the doorframe begin to give and he stepped back, and knew the only thing worse than being locked out would be the resulting damage of breaking in. He dropped from his knees to a sit and tilted his head back, aiming his face at the higher air.
It was three hours before his father came dragging up the stairs. He held a crumpled McDonalds bag, grease soaked and crushed.
"Got you dinner," his father said, dropping the bag next to his son. His father worked on the locks and Monty touched the cold paper.
"You see what you wanna see?" His father said.
"Yeah," Monty said, thinking now that locked out or locked in, it was so much the same. While he'd been biding his time at Detention, his father had traded down the apartment they'd had in Brookline, and moved to a one-bedroom two miles southeast. Mission Hill. Their old apartment hadn't been fancy but it was big enough for two and the windows were set to let in light when there was light to let in. It was one of few low-income buildings in Brookline, tucked into a quiet upper-middle class neighborhood, and Monty's father had traded down in every possible way. He followed his father inside the gloomy space and stood in the doorway, watching his father collapse on the wool couch. Their old La-Z-Boy sofa set he'd also traded down, for a couch that looked like the worst of Goodwill.
"You gotta lock it," Monty's father said. "Am I gonna have to wipe your ass, too?" Monty turned the four locks and stepped inside. He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. He untied his Timbs and pulled them off, careful not to cause more damage to his feet. His socks were bloody and when he pulled them off he didn't know where to put them and he wished there was some place he could lie down. The living room wasn't much bigger than his cell and the couch took up half the room, sitting squat against the wall between the bedroom and bathroom. The wood doors were warped and cracked, and they hung open as if dead. Opposite the couch a small entryway led to a kitchen nook. Though hole was the word that came to mind.
"What happened to the old couch?" Monty asked.
"Got this now. Guess you'll be sleepin' on it," he said sadly, mourning his own loss.
"I'm allergic to wool."
"Well, aren't you just a warm beer on a hot day."
Monty looked at his feet. Blisters had formed and popped on his knuckles and the ends of his toes, and the skin curled tight and dead around the holes. The wounds on his heels were more elegant, the edges sloping inward through layers of flesh, red and white.
That night Monty unfolded the pile of sheets and thin blankets and made a bed on the couch. He pulled back the quilt and lay on the sheets. The itch of wool was immediate, and though he willed himself to block it out, he shot off the couch after thirty seconds, a fresh rash already pushing at his skin. He pulled the linens from the couch and shook them and inspected them for lint and shook them again. He made a bed on the floor and tried to sleep.
In the morning the men sat silently over coffee. Monty sat on the floor, his seat padded by the quilt. The room was dim and shadowed, and filled by the sounds of morning foot traffic and children's hurried steps and Monty wished he were anywhere else. His father sat now with his legs splayed, occupying half the couch and Monty could see that his father's life happened on those wool cushions. He could see that very little happened at all.
Monty finished his mug and poured another, the new freedom to take pressing hard on his heart. He returned to his pile and sat with the mug between his legs. The nutty steam rising off the drink. He took a sip and when he looked up from his mug his father looked away, and Monty wondered what his father saw. What he needed to see.
"I'm going out," his father said, getting up abruptly from the couch.
"Where you going?"
"Out. Don't spill that."
"You don't got work?" Monty said, setting the mug on the floor.
"I'm back on the night-shift. I work tonight."
Monty's father turned from the coat closet, looked at his son. Their eyes met and neither looked away, and Monty felt him searching, for something familiar, maybe, something he could understand.
The door clicked shut as he disappeared, and Monty rose from the ground and took his father's prized Red Sox jacket off the hanger. He took a garbage bag from the kitchen and began filling it with the few things he had.
He choked a knot at the top of the bag and slung it over his shoulder before locking the door from the inside and pulling it closed. From the moment the lock clicked in the door he hated himself for forgetting to trade-up his Timbs for a pair of his father's kicks. The Blockbuster card he'd used before he'd left in his otherwise empty old wallet, which now lay useless on the wool couch. Over the night, his feet had scabbed and blistered. He should have bandaged them, and he should have taken his father's shoes, but he didn't, and he started down the stairs, trying not to limp.
Outside the sky was blinding white. A thick cloud domed overhead and the world was aglow. Monty pressed his eyes shut for a moment and when he opened, they were filled with tears he had to wipe from his face. He didn't know the last time he'd walked alone in daylight.
He started up the street in the direction he'd explored the previous night, but in the slow of day, it didn't feel like the city he'd remembered. A couple old men hobbled with matching walkers, and cigarette butts and broken glass made a neat trellis in the gutter. Down a side street a cluster of cop cars gathered, and outside the yellow tape people yelled and cried. Across the street two young girls jumped rope. There were no sirens, and the scene looked mundane. He kept walking and passed almost nothing, just a modest church surrounded by a sad wrought iron fence.
He found his way to Tremont street, and then Longwood, and the broken residential streets turned to choking traffic. The bottoms of white coats flapped under winter jackets, and the people walked with a brisk authority, holding their stethoscopes from beating on their chests. Monty walked on the curb, letting the important doctors pass. Down the street he saw the hospital where Dr. Gupta had set his broken arm, and around the corner the one he'd been born in. Three ambulances screamed past and he shuffled against the crowds onto Fenway Drive where the people and stores and Dunkin' Donuts were gone and there was nothing but the easy flow of traffic and snow covered trees.
He followed Fenway until it became Park and the road widened and he was in a neighborhood he didn't know. Two women approached quickly, touching each other with the warmth and attention of a particular social class and he remembered to stand up straight. One of the women pulled a set of keys from her purse and pointed over her shoulder with the key. A late model Lexus flashed and beeped. The women were wearing the kind of clothes that reminded him of what his father wasn't, but the wounds on his feet were rubbed down to deep layers of flesh, and he needed to go the right way.
"Excuse me," he said, suddenly aware of the dirt on his pants, the dried blood on his lips. "Is this Comm Ave?" He motioned to the cross street ahead.
"Yes, that right there," one of the women said. She rubbed her leather-gloved hands like they might spark. "But there's no sidewalk on this section of the street."
He noticed the Burberry lining peaking out of her collar and saw now that her earmuffs matched the print. She looked like the kind of woman who brushes her teeth after every meal.
"It's okay, I got it," he said.
"Well, where are you going? A couple other streets run sort of parallel and--"
"Thanks, that's okay. Thanks." He brushed quickly past the women, his palms sweating in his pockets.
He took a left onto Commonwealth Avenue and continued on the two-foot curb that flanked the shoulder. It was only a quarter mile before it merged into Lenox and he knew where he was. The sidewalk emerged in wide and perfect cement squares, and perfect bushes lined the front lawns. A stiff frozen snow topped the roofs of second and third cars not often used, and the neat stillness reminded him of winter and he realized it's been a year since weather has been a part of life. He walked along the gutter where thin sheets of ice crushed beneath his feet, and passing cars spread wide to give him room, and when he came to Tammy's house, there was no car in the driveway. There was no one home.
It was close to seven when Mr. Broder pulled towards his house, slowing as the dark something on his porch came into focus. A person--a man, it looked like--sitting on the top step, head dropped between his knees. He pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, hoping the man would wake and run. But he didn't move. He had no hat and a thin layer of broken snow dusted his head. He got out of the car and slammed the door. Still, there was nothing. He took a few steps closer, thinking about the freezing temperature, and the thin jacket on the man. Dead winter, the sun had set hours ago and the light cast by the street lamp was a gesture at best. The road was silent with the warmth of full households, and he considered knocking on his neighbor's door. But then, what was he afraid of? He felt for his cell phone in the holster on his pants and held it there as he approached the steps.
"Hello?" he said, body half turned toward the street. "Hello?" he said again, with a voice more like the house was actually his.
The man's head jerked up. He looked at Mr. Broder and rubbed his eyes, wiped the winter from his nose.
"Shit," he said, "Hi Mr. Broder."
Mr. Broder looked at him, trying to place the face, the voice. He didn't know either, but there was something familiar, something that reminded him of his daughter.
"It's Monty, Sir." He looked at Mr. Broder, realizing for the first time that there were multiple outcomes possible.
"Monty, are you okay?" Mr. Broder rushed the boy and dragged him in the house. Inside, the walls were fresh and familiar. The furniture and maple wood detailing he remembered from his childhood, as he did the crystal chandelier that hung in the entryway. He and Tammy had always played in that hall, though there was nothing there--just a stiff carpet and a couple antique piano chairs. A boring fourth grade afternoon had found them lying on their backs beneath the chandelier, taking turns kicking a semi-deflated birthday balloon in the air, until one of them had kicked too hard, and the balloon grazed the fixture, gently lifting three of the crystals from the chandelier and dropping them to the floor. They'd dragged a chair from the kitchen but couldn't reach, and even with Tammy propped on Monty's unsteady shoulders, there was an unrecoverable foot of distance. Rather than face Mrs. Broder, they'd hid the crystals in the seat of one of the antique chairs, and fled to Tammy's room without ever saying a word.
Mr. Broder guided Monty into the kitchen and put on a pot of water. He opened the fridge looking for his wife's lasagna or roasted chicken, but in the naked white light the few items stocked were evidence. And a sad reminder.
Monty sat at the table. Old newspapers were overflowing in the bin, and the counters were clean, but barren. The fruit bowl was empty. There was no garlic on the ceramic plate beside the toaster. "Where's Mrs. Broder?" Monty asked.
Mr. Broder let the fridge door slowly close. "Suzanne is gone," Mr. Broder said, immediately aware of how irritated his voice emerged. "Didn't you know?"
"Yeah, sorry. I forgot." Tammy had told him, over a year ago. But the notion that Tammy's parents had split was the kind of nonsensical information that never sticks, and Monty had promptly forgotten. Even before his first arrest, he'd held the Broders as an emblem of what could be. They read The Economist and didn't keep soda in the house. They were professionals. They skied.
Mr. Broder sat at the table across from Monty, setting down two mugs of hot water and a tray of tea. He flipped through the selection, one tea bag at a time, settling on a chamomile peppermint. He didn't say anything, just looked down at his mug, occasionally yanking the bag to the surface. Monty leaned over his mug, the scentless steam rising to his face. He took a sip. The water eased down his throat, warming his body from the inside.
"You want a tea bag?" Mr. Broder said, sliding the tray across the table.
"I can't stay with him."
"Can't stay with whom?" Mr. Broder said. His voice was calm and unsurprised.
"My father."
"What's wrong with your father?" Mr. Broder said, slipping into his Public Defender persona, a pet-peeve of his almost ex-wife's who berated him for treating her like a system kid. And he knew the question was ridiculous at best. Beside the local gossip, and what he'd heard second hand from his daughter, there had been a series of articles in The Tab, chronicling the assault and battery charges filed against Monty's father.
"He moved to a one-bedroom in Roxbury. Below The Hill," Monty said.
Mr. Broder sipped his tea. He wished the significance of this weren't so obvious.
"I stole his jacket," Monty said.
"I used to have a jacket like that."
"Me and Tammy and B.J. and that kid Fred, we used to sneak into games. After the sixth inning, it was easy. Security left and it was just open," Monty said. "Is it okay if I take boots my boots off? They're killing me."
"Are they new?"
"Nah, they're wicked old. "
Monty untied the laces from his right boot and pried the leather apart. He tried to crunch his toes, to clear his ankle from the heel of the shoe, but couldn't negotiate the squeeze and the ragged flesh scraped out of the boot. He bit his lip and swore only in his breath. His foot came out a blood-soaked mess.
"Whoa!" Mr. Broder said. "Hang on, let me put a towel down. That is a lot of blood!"
Monty peeled back his sock and saw that the wounds were no longer bleeding. A hole the depth and width of three stacked quarters was worn into the back of his heel. On his knuckles blisters were popped and rising.
"Well this looks horrible," Mr. Broder said. "Take off the other one, I'm going to get some hydrogen peroxide and bandages and see if we can clean you up."
Mr. Broder walked up the stairs, wondering where he could find gauze and disinfectant. It had been years since he had to clean his daughter's wounds, though hers had only ever been the scrape of a small rock on a soccer field, or a swab of road rash from a missed landing on her rollerblades. He tried to clear his head of the distain he had for Monty's father, of the memory of Monty on the first day of fourth grade, double black eyes and a bump on his head like a tangerine. He rustled through ancient tins of Band-Aids and Neosporin and felt no better about this updated image of his daughter's oldest friend.
In the dark quiet Monty felt the old house breathing in the winter. The vents kicked and a rush of warm air emerged from the floor by the newspaper bin. He remembered melting chocolate chip granola bars on that vent. Tammy had taught him how. To set the naked bar on its wrapper, to balance it on the slats above the vent. They'd sat cross-legged, watching the sticky granola melt apart. Monty stood from the chair and balanced on the heels of his feet, sliding down the wall. The air blew hot and dry, pinching his skin. But for the past sixteen months he'd been only degrees of cold--sleeping in a concrete cube under thin blankets, he'd quickly wasted his calories fighting a losing battle against the chill. The skin beneath his nose would take weeks to heel, and so, because he could, kept his hands warm and still, soaking dry the hot air. Mr. Broder came down the stairs and cleaned the flaps of skin hanging from Monty's feet. He poured hydrogen peroxide over his toes and heels and when everything was dry and clean as it could be, he asked Monty for his father's phone number.
"What are you gonna say?" Monty asked.
"I'm going to let him know you're here, and that you're safe. He's probably worried about you." Monty didn't say anything.
"I mean, he should be worried about you."
Monty slumped forward in his chair, holding his head in his hands. "Please don't take me back."
"Monty, he's your father."
The phone in the apartment rang unanswered and there was no machine at the other end. If he had a cell phone number, Monty didn't know it, and soon they had nothing to do but order a pizza and watched the Bruins lose. Monty's feet pillowed with gauze, the soft white blocks compressed into Mr. Broder's slippers. He wore an oversized Burton sweatshirt he found in Tammy's room - a vestige of her relationship with a semi-professional snowboarder who didn't know how to read. Not even a menu, Mr. Broder said. They sat sunken in the sofa, eyes glazed on the T.V. They booed the calls and slid the pizza to each other across the waxen floors. The game ended and the men sat away from each other, waiting to see what Mr. Broder would do. Monty fixed a piece of gauze that had come undone.
"Ready for bed?" Mr. Broder asked.
Monty nodded.
"You practically lived here when you were a kid," Mr. Broder said. Monty nodded again, unsure if he was talking to him. "You and Tammy used to jump out of the laundry room window into piles of leaves. God, Suzanne almost killed the two of you. Remember? You cut your knee on that stick and we had to take you to the hospital? And after the hospital Suzanne dragged you guys out of the car and sent you to timeout. I think she made you sit in the second floor bathroom for three hours."
Monty smiled. "Yeah, I remember," he said. He remembered perfectly, the six-foot tall piles they used to scrape together. They took turns watching each other launch from the window, every jump out-doing the last. They were stunt doubles. Firefighters. Bandits. He remembered the enormous worm that crawled out of Tammy's tangle of hair just as the sun was disappearing and the first gusts of steamy air came panting from their mouths. He touched the raised scar on his knee. Mrs. Broder had held his hand as the surgeon pressed the massive needle into his leg. And she hadn't let go until the last stitch was in.
"God, I can't imagine what happened to your father."
"Don't worry about him. He knows how to take care of number one."
Mr. Broder offered a sad smile, and by the expression on Monty's face he was certain Monty knew what he was getting at.
Monty woke to a gradual brightening that illuminated the room. For the past year and a half he'd been startled awake by a tinny bell and the flash of fluorescent lights that left him with a headache through breakfast. Mr. Broder had put Monty in the master bedroom. He'd taken to sleeping on the daybed in his office and didn't like the idea of anyone in Tammy's room but her. Monty stepped down from the king sized bed and followed the radiant heat to the master bathroom. It was undiscovered territory, having always used the bathroom off Tammy's room. The half-bath was bigger than his cell, with a granite counter that sprawled across the wall and easily held the two sinks. He opened the hidden cabinet that was built into the wall. It was stocked with Kiels: hand soap, moisturizer, intensive cream, face wash, face buffer, facial moisturizer, exfoliate, astringent, eye cream, eye rejuvenator, eye elastin, caffeinated face cream. There was a bottle of blended oils that included avocado. He guessed at a bottle of Ultra Moisturizing Buffing Cream with Scrub Particles, and followed it up with Brightening Botanical Moisture Fluid. A shy stubble was emerging on his chin but he couldn't bare the thought of bringing a razor to his ultra moisturized face. Mr. Broder had given him a fresh head to use on his own electric toothbrush and as Monty ran the massaging bristles over his teeth a string of foamy paste dripped from the corner of his smile.
Downstairs, the men drank coffee over sections of The Boston Globe. Mr. Broder used a French press, and Monty watched as he poured the boiling water into the sleek glass container and gently pressed the grinds to the bottom. The process was neat and subdued and Monty wondered how people learned these kinds of things. On the front page of the Metro section a man lay bloody and dead on the steps of an apartment building. Shot point-blank at eight pm last night. It was gang related and retaliatory. Mr. Broder knew the address and he looked at Monty, trying to discover if he knew it too. Mr. Broder quickly folded the page and said nothing.
"Like three blocks away."
"I'm not sure, I'm not that familiar with the neighborhood."
"I wasn't asking, Sir."
When the grinds were drained and the paper was marked with rings, Mr. Broder tried Monty's father one more time. Again, there was no answer.
"You remember where the apartment is?" Mr. Broder asked.
"Yeah, I know."
"Okay then, no time like the present."
"Don't you have to go to work?"
"I'm the boss. I called an assistant D.A. He'll take care of anything urgent." He said this as he got up from the table and started up the stairs, taking them by twos. He went to his closet and emerged with a pair of running shoes. They were too big, but with the gauze and bandages they'd fit okay. Monty looked at the New Balances peaking out from under his jeans. They weren't like the ones that had become suddenly cool ten years ago. They were old and worn and functional. And for a moment he was embarrassed in a way he'd never been before. And he knew immediately that it was a luxury.
The men wrapped themselves in scarves and hats and gloves, and as Mr. Broder reached for the door Monty touched his shoulder.
"What if he's there?" Monty said.
"He's your father."
"I can't live with him. I can't. Please. I'll get a part-time job and buy my own food and shovel and do the dishes and I can cook. I'll cook, and I promise I won't get in trouble. I swear."
Mr. Broder looked at him, remembering the night he was first arrested. He'd heard about the kid whose nose Monty had broken when he was thirteen, and the security guard whose jaw he'd cracked just a year ago. He thought of the tents he'd made with Tammy when they were in second grade and the card he'd given Suzanne on Mother's day, more than a decade ago. And beneath his jacket and under his t-shirt were homemade tattoos and scars like tallies that ran up his arm. He said nothing, and guided Monty out the door.
They backed out of the driveway and the elegant homes that filled the historic neighborhood quickly passed, and in a matter of breaths the street was flanked with beat down tenements and heaps of shit piled snow. They passed the taped-off half block they'd seen in the paper, and when the car stopped outside his father's building Monty had lost the rhythm of his breath. Mr. Broder pulled his Club out of the back and fixed it to the steering wheel.
"Lot of jacks in Cottage Farm?" Monty said.
"I go a lot of places for my job. You can't imagine what the state pays to insure this car."
Monty got out and leaned against the outside of the car. A group of ten-year-olds came down the street yelling at each other, and Monty saw that they were wearing Colors.
"Get the fuck outta my air space, Darin," one of the girls said, "I done told you, get your nasty nose pickin' fingers off'a me."
"You can put yo nasty pussy pickin' fingers on that fat cousin you got," a different girl shouted.
"I ain't even playin' with you no more," Darin said, "punk-ass ho."
Mr. Broder stood next to Monty, and when the group passed he took a step toward the building, nudging him along.
Monty reached into his pocket and pretended to unlock the door. Mr. Broder followed him in and said nothing, like he'd seen it everyday. The smell was even more offensive than Monty remembered and with Mr. Broder a step behind he felt more ashamed than vindicated. The old man with the camp stove was passed out on the second floor landing and when Monty rounded the corner Mr. Broder crouched to his side and felt for breath beneath his nose.
"Sir?" he said. There was no answer. "Sir, I'm just going to roll you onto your side, okay? If you can hear me, I'm just going to roll you onto your side so you don't choke."
Monty watched as Mr. Broder took hold of the man's canvas jacket and rolled him to face the wall.
At the fifth floor they knocked but there was no response, and when they tried the door it was locked. They stood facing the door, waiting for something to happen and when Mr. Broder's phone rang he flipped it open and saw that it was Tammy. She was on a ski trip with friends from school, staying in the condo of her freshman year roommate. Milton Academy was only forty-five minutes away but Tammy was always getting her off-campus permissions revoked and he'd figured out by the end of her first semester that impromptu visits were only fun for him. In the fall and spring he was at all her cross-country and track meets, screaming with ballistic cheer, but in the winter he hardly saw her at all. He looked at Monty, the flattened running shoes hanging loosely on his feet. He hadn't complained once.
They walked slowly down the stairs, each occupied by their own thoughts. On the second floor, the man with the stove sat against the wall rocking his head from side to side.
"Gone, gone, gone," he said, eyes drifting around the floor. "Yo Daddy, he got his shit last night. He be long gone."
Neither said a word and they walked to the car, knowing the man was right, that in fact, he'd long been gone.
In the car, Monty looked out the window, a shadow of relief falling over his face. Mr. Broder took a couple turns away from Cottage Farm, and found a spot down the block from City Sports and cut the engine.
"You'll need some new shoes. And a backpack," he said. And there would be rules. He thought. And expectations. He looked at Monty. "And a coat. We'll get you what you need."
Monty nodded his head and looked at his lap. He sniffed the tears that were falling from his nose. The men sat in the car, waiting. For instructions. Directions. For some reason not to believe it would be okay. "And we'll need to get something better for your feet," Mr. Broder said. At least the exterior was something he could resolve. He reached across Monty's shoulder and rubbed his head in the way father's do. He felt the place where the tangerine bump had been the first day of fourth grade. It was smooth now, under his coarse, adult hair, and Monty nodded his head, wiped the tears from his face.
Mr. Broder unlocked the car and got out, and watched as Monty carefully removed his feet from the car. The shoes were so big, and Monty looked at them, and thought, maybe one day they'd fit.
About the author: Kara Weiss is in her second year at the MFA program at the University of Washington. She received the Ingam Prize for fiction, which has provided her with full funding and a monthly stipend for the 2008-2009 academic year. We think this rocks.
This is a repost. It first appeared in March. It's a sign from the Universe you should read it again! Actually, it's just archival housecleaning. But you can read it again, if you believe in signs and omens.
Thanks!
-------------- And this is what we said: -----------------
Some of you are going to scratch your heads and wonder, "Poetry?" Some of you are going to send me hate mail. I'm okay with that. Some of you are going to send me your poetic impulse with the thought that it will find a home here at The Front View. Don't. When the Hiss Quarterly was publishing, we focused on Poetry. The Rear View Mirror was a favorite and yes, we featured some outstanding poets during our five year odyssey. There is plotting and planning to relaunch The Rear View (Mirror) at some point in the not too distant future at The View From Here; good things take time.
In the spirit of things that are Hissy, and in the spirit of things to come, I accepted some pieces from three poets LAST year -- during the merge.
The first of these poets is C. Albert, and I shamelessly admit I'm a huge fan. Very seldom do I read poems more than once or twice. If you hook me, and I start prowling around for other stuff you've done -- well, in my humble opinion, you're all that and a bag of chips. She hooked me. I prowled around. The link to her website is in the author bio.
To stay tuned for the latest at The View From Here and The Front View please subscribe using the links provided -- we'll let you know when The Rear View (mirror) happens. In the meantime, enjoy a sneak preview.
Now, to our regularly (sort of) scheduled program:
Runaway
In a new city, I meet the arranged apartment with green carpets in sad basement light.
When I take my first walk, a dog rushes at me and barks for a long while; I become stone.
In the Beacon Hill market, I ask for a bottle of California Riesling because already I miss the terrain I left.
The checker tells me that every morning he thanks the saints he is alive and eats eight eggs for breakfast.
For a moment, I am loved by his eyes. This isn't home but another place I will dream of coming back to.
I helped her make three collages that day. The bird had clipped wings.
Over fifty years old and afraid of them, worried how would she be able to get up early in the morning to go to the cabin by Coos Bay. She planned to sleep in her clothes. I said it doesn't take long to dress.
My once passionate friend still dressed in her purples, though her own spirit stripped. The shock treatments couldn't reach the deep bruise under forgetting.
She had to creep past everyone sleeping. I keep seeing her rushing over the rocks, in her swimsuit, with her tennis shoes on, consumed by dark voices, a wild animal diving into the ice chill, numb and sinking.
They found stacks of collages and will frame some. Inside the torn edges, just shapes, fish turned sideways, water.
About The Author: C. Albert is a collage artist in Seattle, Washington. She began writing poetry when words appeared in her collages. Her collages and poetry have most recently appeared in Mannequin Envy, Women Made Gallery: Her Mark 2008 and Soundzine. For more information and a look at the collages & words, visit The Website.
Well, all else failing I decided to visit my uncle Marvin. He rung me in and I entered his venerable old Victorian, floating above the steps a bit. This was nice because I usually fell.
"Marvin?" I called. "Marvin?"
"Yeah, I'm comin'."
He was way at the back of the flat. I could hear him skating across the hardwood floors on his socks the way he always did. Marvin was like a kid. He was young at heart but old on the outside with skin like old leaves.
"Hoop-de-doo!" he said when he opened the door. That's how he always greeted me. Then he skated back up the long hallway and into the living room. I followed and got in there in time to see him take a leap into his big old chair.
"Tab in the fridge" he told me. "Also oyster stew, brown eggs, tuna salad, Velveeta and a Budweiser. Choose the Budweiser, open and pour. I do not object if you should want more. I remember how you like to come over and drink everything up, everything in the house, and that's how long the conversations is. Right? Right?"
To oblige him, I went in to his vast San Francisco kitchen and grabbed the Bud. Came back in and sank into his old couch which said oof!
"That a boy," he said. "Get all fucked up."
He was having Tab and vodka. He served me my first drink when I got out of high school and that's what he gave me. Gah! If that was all they ever gave you I'd be a teetotaler from day one. Marvin raised his glass. "Here's to you, Nuttso!" He took a slurp of his spiked Tab, making disgusting sounds.
"How are you, Marv?" I asked him, just for something to say. I had very little to talk to him about any more. I don't know what I was doing over there really, I was just on the loose and thought of him, and I was approaching his neighborhood when the thought had just entered my head that it would be wise to throw my wallet down the sewer, that I should end it here, first with my wallet and then my body even though I knew it wouldn't fit, but the next thought was of Marvin.
"Oh, I'm coping," he said. "Remain interested in history, philosophy, great books of literature in easy to read editions. Don't haunt the night anymore. Don't chase after working girls. Fixed income don't include working girls. Add that knowledge to your future plans, mental case. Crazy as you are, the gov'mint won't pay for jollies. Hey, but I got this." He leaned forward and pointed at his cheek. There was something there alright, a mole or something.
"Take up that magnifier over there," he said. "Get a look at my honey."
I did like I was told. I bent down with the large glass, the one he used to examine old coins. At first I thought I wasn't seeing it right but … well, it looked like a tiny little woman sitting on the side of his cheek. Yeah, that's what it was, a tiny little woman in a bathing suit. She was sitting there a little above the froth of his white mustache, and through the glass I could even see what she looked like, her body type, all about her. She was a little thick in the legs, and she had small breasts that she must have contemplated improving at times, a square head, a squarish hairdo to suit it, or it would be if it wasn't all shapeless and frizzy from swimming in his mouth.
"Like her?" Marv said, breathing old meals and medicine in my face. "She is a strange creature, ain't she?"
I kept looking. I was waiting for her to move. I wanted to know if she was alive or just some weird skin formation. But then she did move: she took one foot and scratched her opposite calf. The expression on her face was that of a tired woman who'd seen a lot and been disappointed with the whole dang thing. Somehow I just couldn't blame her.
I put the glass back and drew away.
"My new gal," Marv said proudly with his old lips pursed. I waited for the little dame to slide down from the movement, slide down and get all tangled in his mustache, but she held her place without effort. Perhaps she was stuck there by means of a small amount of rubber cement. "Best I've had. Name's Cookie and she works in the darkness of the school system. In what capacity she won't tell me but I imagine she's one of those office people who're always telling kids to get their hands out of their pants, types a thousand words a minute, all business at work but a total animal on the dance floor. She says she's from back East and attended Barnard but that's grunt, she's Glendale, Arizona from tip of her toes to her chinny-chin-chins. Wished I'd been there for some of the good stuff she was giving out in her full sized life. What the hell, though, at least we can talk. Hard to hear her sometimes due to all the waxy buildup in my ears currently but we do share some good times. I read at her from Milton to get her good and guilty feeling; then I let her off the hook with some hip new free psychologic whoopy, gets her wet so she almost comes unglued. I love her. Glad she came to me in my time of ancient need."
"Where did she come from?" I asked. I tried to sound serious and matter of fact.
"I told you. Glendale, Arizona." His expression was one of hurt accusation. "Never been there, myself. Why would I have? Them places are just assend bus stops. That's why she concocts all that about a fast East Coast life of perfumed sex in hallways with married men and dinners at the Four Seasons; being kept in a suite at the Plaza Hotel where there were these little robot vacuum cleaners she'd always be stumbling over and inconvenient servants who'd lick her face. She said she saw all four seasons looking out the big windows of that suite at the Four Seasons, saw the park and the carriages, the opera lovers in tall hats and at night there was the Staten Island Sex Fiend in his cape stalking Riverside Drive. He'd ask an unattended lady to light his cigar with her Bic lighter -- it was still in the day of the Bic lighter -- and then he'd yank her into the bushes and make nasty with her until she swooned in an amazement of pleasure, then told the police later how awful it was. Only civil. Can't have enjoyment of them things, it's not Christian. Yeah, she told me all this only she's fulla shit like an old tomato. I enjoy the stories so I don't bother to correct her. Hell, the stories are pretty goddamned sexy, you wanna know the truth. I even get stirrings down there from the Stranger in my Pants … So, tell me, son. What are you into lately? Still engaged in criminal activities?"
"You mean brokerage? Nah, I'm too soft," I confessed. "That's no life for a poetic soul."
"'Poetic soul'!" he giggled, spitting up long strings. "But hey. You still married to that deaf and dumb bitty?"
"Which deaf and dumb bitty was that?"
"Well, I can't remember her name, Nuttso. She couldn't say her name. And you wouldn't tell me. Wouldn't tell me a goddamned thing. Afraid I was gonna steal her away from you, I guess. Take her into the closet and show her what it's really like. Come on, what was her name? You can tell me now. You probably pushed her down the stairs going HEEHEEHEE!"
"I never had a deaf and dumb biddy," I told him. "Maybe you did and forgot about it. You've had so many women, Uncle."
"Well, in traction, then. Didn't you have one in traction?"
I chugalugged my beer. "Marv," I said. "I've had one girl and one wife. The rest is sadness." "Oh, ain't that the truth." He looked sympathetic. "Well, look. You oughta get yourself one of these. Recommend it. She don't give you no grief. There's no real jollies to the deal but … well, you're comin' to the time, aincha? Few years it won't matter. Just bullshitting will be enough. You sit there of an evening listening to your sad and lonely iTunes and talking sweet and lovely, it's even better than all that exhausting bangin'. Don't have to shower afterwards or apologize for coming too soon. Lot of advantage to the celibate kind of love. You can wax poetic and get all gooey and stuff without the actual mess."
He went on like that until I tired of it. I found I could sort of back away slowly, saying, "Right. Right." He'd still be talking. Didn't even know I was gone. I could hear him all the way down to the street. It was then I decided not to toss my wallet or my body down the drain. I figured I could hook myself up with something in life, a growth or something. Marv had done OK. I could do OK, too. And live to share what I have found with others. It is a good and handsome life we have.
Original Photo Credit: Joe Shablotnikat Flickr (graphic enhanced by S. Nash)
About The Author: Brent Powers is a guy who was supposed to be a movie star only he changed his mind during a rehearsal of "Oh Fame Oh". He fled to writing. He did it for years without remembering to publish it. Someone reminded him that a writer must "utter his shit abroad", so he did, and has since, in zines and small print mags from around the time of the turn of the century. His work has appeared in 3AM, SeinundWerden, The Blotter, Bewildering Stories, Hiss, Opium, forthcoming Dogmatika, and so on. He even published a novel, "The Dog's Tooth", in 2002. He is very brilliant and handsome.
I swallow another shot of whiskey as I think about the poor dog. Half-dead. Lying on his side, immobile, barely moving as he labors to breathe. His left eye is covered in a milky film from the cataracts that leave him almost blind, and his right eye is only marginally better. His coat has turned to an old matted gray. His body has developed the swayback, malnourished look of all old dogs. But still he lingers, day in and day out, there in the kennel inside the workshop in the backyard. 
