Authors: Harvey Smith
With furtive glances, Jack watched a skinny girl walking on the opposite sidewalk across the street. Roughly his age, her name was Jenny. She wore bell-bottom jeans and a sweatshirt covered in hearts. He saw her almost every day because they had science class together, but they rarely spoke. She was reserved; tentative in a way that was appealing to him.
When he reached his block he ran for a while just to feel his legs move. Hoisting the backpack higher, he took off down the sidewalk, concentrating on moving fast but keeping his sneakers as quiet as possible. One of his favorite books told the story of a heroic field mouse who wielded a needle, using it like a sword against a clan of predatory rooks. Sprinting along, Jack fantasized about a huge blackbird chasing him. High above, the bird tilted its head, regarding him with shiny eyes. He stopped running after half a block, breathing deeply for a few more paces and finally blowing out a huge breath before settling into a walk.
Big Jack's truck was in the driveway and the garage door was open. Inside, his father was messing around at his tool bench.
Jack stopped just between the truck and the doorway. Studying his father, he let his backpack sag to the concrete, dangling it from a shoulder strap. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, boy.”
Jack watched his father shuffle things around, hanging a set of wrenches on a pegboard rack. He really had nothing to say to his father and Big Jack rarely spoke except when he wanted something or was angry. Jack felt uncomfortable in the silence. He tried to think of something to say, but couldn't. Leaving seemed wrong somehow. Walking away without speaking would draw his father's ire.
Big Jack picked up a wrench and tested its weight in his hand. He fished a roll of pipefitter's tape out of his jeans and tossed it onto the workbench. He seemed perplexed by the collection of objects in front of him. The workbench itself was so saturated with grease that the wood was black and the garage perpetually smelled like the insides of an engine. Jack smelled the odor every time he walked through the kitchen past the door leading into the garage.
“What'd you do at the school today?” Big Jack asked, still looking down at the tools strewn out along the bench.
Jack swallowed to counter the dead feeling in his throat. “Nothing,” he said quietly.
“Nothing?” Big Jack turned to look at his son a few feet away. His wiry hair stood out from his head in tufts, molded and mussed all day by his welding cap. “You didn't do no school work? You didn't run no laps in gym? You didn't talk to nobody?” Big Jack's eyes were a little too wide, bulging slightly with challenge. His voice carried a sarcastic undertone.
Jack stared at his father, aware of the truck parked behind him. A strange heat was coming off the engine and the boy could feel it. He could smell the dead insects embedded in the front grill of the vehicle. “Yes, sir,” he said, “I did school work. And I talked to people.”
“During class?” asked Big Jack.
“No, sir. I listened in class.”
Big Jack tried to detect some sign of falsehood. “Yeah, I bet you did.” His interest waned and he turned back to the tools in front of him. Scratching one side of his face absently, he left a grease streak there. The vein in the center of his forehead stood out freakishly, as it always did when he was puzzled or angry, which was almost a constant.
The kitchen door jangled and swung out. Brodie stood on the step, just inside the house. There was a guilty expression stretched over his face. Jack and his father turned to regard the young boy. Jack felt afraid for his brother.
Brodie looked down at the concrete floor of the garage. “There's something wrong with Boss Hog,” he said.
Boss Hog was Brodie's hamster. The tan, chubby rodent lived in a cage in the boys' bedroom.
“Go see,” Big Jack said. He reached into a small tin of washers and fished around for one of a particular size.
Jack was happy to have a way out of the encounter with his father, but concerned about his brother. He crossed the garage and entered the kitchen, leaning his backpack against the dishwasher. Brodie stepped aside and followed sheepishly.
In the living room, down among some of Brodie's toys, Boss Hog was in a bad way, dragging himself along through the carpet. Jack walked over and sank to the floor. The hamster was making steady progress toward some unknown destination, but his back legs trailed behind him uselessly. Jack made an unconscious sound as he watched the small thing. A dull sensation swam through his chest, paralyzing him as it spread to the rest of his body, a leaden fatigue that caused his arms to droop.
“What happened, Brodie?”
The younger boy spoke quietly. “He bit me and I slinged him into that wall.” He started crying.
“It's okay. Let me see.” He reached over and took Brodie's hand, prying it open. “You're all right…it barely left a mark.”
Boss Hog still crawled along on his front legs, advancing a few more inches.
“You go to your room and I'll take Boss Hog to Dad. Okay?”
Brodie stopped crying. He nodded and walked off, skirting his wounded hamster and pausing to scoop up a superhero action figure.
When his brother was gone, Jack got lower to the floor and inspected Boss Hog more closely. Tears welled up in his eyes as the hamster pulled itself through the dense carpet. Jack stroked it once, very gently, from the top of its head to the base of its stubby tail. Boss Hog ducked, but otherwise didn't react, continuing his slow passage toward the den, according to his own arcane compass.
Hearing the door to the garage open, Jack called out to the kitchen, “Dad? Can you come help?”
“What is it?” Big Jack came into the room holding a monkey wrench.
“Boss Hog bit Brodie,” Jack reported. “I think Brodie dropped him and now he can't walk.”
Big Jack came closer, taking stock of the situation. He towered over the hamster, but was only slightly taller than his twelve year old son. Grunting, Big Jack knelt. He made a quick diagnosis after watching the hamster. “Back's broke.”
Jack let out a soft breath. He knew from TV that nothing survived a broken back.
“Here,” Big Jack said. “Let's take him into the kitchen.” With a meaty, but careful gesture, he herded Boss Hog into his hand. He straightened and walked into the kitchen, holding the hamster in one hand and the monkey wrench in the other.
Jack followed his father quietly, pride competing with sadness; he was doing something with his father that Brodie was too young to do.
In the kitchen, Big Jack set Boss Hog onto a dishtowel. “Don't let him get away.”
Jack stood at the counter, looking down at the hamster while cradling it in the dishtowel. He eased it back onto the towel each time it tried to crawl. He felt like a soldier with a minor, but important role to play.
Big Jack set the wrench down and moved over to the walk-in pantry. Digging around in the dark, he came back with one of the plastic baggies his wife used to wrap up his sandwiches for lunch. At the stove, he turned on the back burner, which no one ever used because the pilot light was broken. He sidestepped a little to get closer to Boss Hog and Jack moved out of the way.
Big Jack picked up the hamster and gingerly eased it into the plastic baggie. He stole a glance at his son next to him at the counter. “This way, he won't feel nothing. The gas'll just put him to sleep.”
Jack nodded. A cold calm come over him. The small animal was injured beyond repair and this was the only way. He accepted his father's judgment without question. The boy mouthed the words, “Goodbye” as the smell of gas filled the kitchen. The broken back burner, the one his mother had cursed many times, hissed out the invisible air that would put Boss Hog to sleep forever.
Big Jack moved a step closer to the stove with the baggie. Inside, Boss Hog pushed against the plastic cocoon with his front legs, testing it and wiggling his whiskered nose. Big Jack held the baggy up to the burner, off to the side, trapping as much of the gas as he could.
Jack moved so he could get a better view of the scene, face solemn as he watched.
Somehow the broken pilot light ignited, creating a burst of flame like a magic trick. It happened so fast that both Jack and his father were stunned. The small bag melted around Boss Hog in a split second, burning up his whiskers and coating him with molten plastic and fire. The hamster emitted a horrible scree sound, struggling spastically as Big Jack flung the entire mess down onto the stove.
“Goddammit,” he said. His face constricted in disbelief as he shouldered his son aside and snatched up the monkey wrench. Big Jack brought the wrench down so fast on the flaming, struggling creature that the wrench dented the sheet-metal surface of the stove. The fire around Boss Hog was snuffed out by the blow and his skull was crushed in the same instant.
Lips drawn back, Jack looked down at the smoking remains. The hamster's body was covered in a blackened sheath. Its forelegs stretched up plaintively toward the ceiling. Jack could make out one of the tiny, articulated hands where it emerged from the melted baggie. The claws were somehow pristine, tiny points of translucent nail splayed out fiercely. A last streamer of smoke wisped upward before fading from sight. The kitchen smelled of burnt plastic.
Big Jack dropped the wrench on the counter and ran his hand over his forehead. “Goddammit, I didn't mean for that to happen. Goddammit.” He looked at the burner in wild shock. It held a perfect crown of flame. Big Jack looked at his son. “That thing don't never light…it just don't. It ain't never worked.”
Jack stood stunned and mute.
Big Jack used the dishtowel to scoop up the remains of the hamster. He took three quick steps to the pantry and threw the entire bundle, towel and all, into the trash.
There was a papery rustle from the entrance of the narrow kitchen. Both Jack and his father turned to the doorway, where Brodie stood leaning back against the refrigerator. Colored magnets fell to the floor behind him and one of his elementary school drawings floated after them. He called out, wailing, “
Daddy, why did you do that to Boss Hog?
”
Jack crept back into the kitchen later that evening. The dinner dishes sat heaped in the sink. In the den, Jack's father and mother watched television with the lights out. The volume was up loud and light flickered at the edge of the dark kitchen. Walking quietly in his socked feet, Jack stole over to the pantry.
He tried to find Boss Hog's body in the dark, but could not. The smell of coffee, rotting vegetables and roach killer rose up from the trash. Holding his breath, he eased the pantry door closed at his back, stepping down six inches onto the concrete floor. A knotted cord hung overhead. When he tugged it, dim light lit the pantry.
Rooting around, he shoveled aside a pile of cold macaroni and cheese, finally locating the hamster's remains. It sickened him throughout dinner, knowing that Boss Hog was down in the trash a few feet from the table, wrapped in the dishtowel.
Jack lifted the bundle out and brushed coffee grounds from the towel. Reaching up again, he turned out the pantry light with his left hand. In the darkness, he pushed the door open and moved to the far end of the kitchen. The back door let him into the yard and he breathed again only when he was away, out in the night air.
On the side of the house, he moved to the edge of the porch light. Crickets chirped in every direction. He set Boss Hog's rag-wrapped body on the ground and looked around in search of his mother's trowel. Ramona almost never used it and the yard was in dismal shape. However, every few months she got the urge to go into the backyard and dig around, entertaining visions of some grand landscaping scheme that she usually abandoned within the hour. Jack found the rusty trowel sitting on a small wall made of cinder blocks, originally intended to contain a tomato garden. He brought it back to the base of the tree where the grisly package waited. He knelt and started digging. After the hole was eight inches deep, he paused and looked down at the dark earth. His own body blocked most of the light, making it hard to see. There was enough light to make out the dishtowel, the hole and the glinting trowel.
Tears formed in his eyes. He had rarely played with Boss Hog, but he could see the hamster running on its wheel, feet a blur. The cage smelled of urine because Jack hardly ever changed the wood shavings. He choked out high-pitched sobs and his cheeks ran with hot streaks.
The dishtowel was damp under his hand as he arranged it tighter around the body. The melted bag had hardened and he could barely feel Boss Hog at all through the plastic and the towel. The bundle crackled in his hands. Reverently, he placed it into the hole then set a nearby brick down into the grave with equal care, covering the hamster's body to protect it from dogs, opossums or anything else digging around in the yard. Filling the hole with dirt, he used the trowel to cover the brick entirely, patting the earth smooth as he put Boss Hog to rest.
As Jack turned away from the tree, a wood roach launched itself from one of the branches not far away, gliding past. It flew upright as it
whirred
by and landed with a tap against the siding close to the kitchen window. Jack cringed, looking at the thing, a dark spot on the wall. Even the sound of its flight filled him with loathing.
Skirting wide and moving with stealth, he made his way to the back door and went inside, hands covered in dirt.
Chapter 12
1999
Standing at the mirror, dressing for my father's funeral, I found myself wondering how many people had fucked in my motel room. A slide show of couples went through my mind, holding each other down, thrusting against one another with anger, betraying someone else, crying out with sounds that could have been anguish or ecstasy. I worked on my tie, pulling it too tight against my throat, then leaned close to the reflection as my fingers loosened the knot.
The funeral was scheduled to start at four, but there was a casket viewing for family and friends earlier in the day. I planned on attending both, but wasn't sure why. When I was young, I treated my father like some sort of wild animal, approaching him with caution or avoiding him altogether. Later, he just seemed tired and pathetic...broken. He brought me into the world then used me as a dumping ground for hate until the day I was strong enough to wage war in return. That defined our relationship, so why bother?