~
The first book I ever bought was about the red-tailed hawk. I still have the book. I just remembered it when a little girl came up to me at the reference desk and asked for a book about the red-tailed hawk. At first I thought she said, “I need a book about the red-tailed cock.” But then I realized it was the red-tailed hawk. The girl was about six years old.
We didn’t have any books about the red-tailed hawk. There were citations in some of the encyclopedias, but she needed something she could take home. She said she wanted to cut out some pictures. I told her she shouldn’t cut the pictures out of library books. I told her, “Don’t cut the pictures out of library books. Okay, honey?” I called her honey.
~
Tutti and Sammy are in the living room watching Bambi. They want me to turn off the radio so they can hear the movie better. I’m in the kitchen frying bacon. Tutti calls from the living room, “Can you shut that thing off? We can’t hear Bambi.”
I can hear Bambi. I can hear Bambi from out here in the kitchen. I can hear Thumper, too. I can hear all the little fuckers of the forest.
~
If I had more of those tiny decorative magnets, Hammersmith concluded, I could put up more pictures of my wife. He was writing down things he wanted to have for dinner: liverwurst, steak tartare, Filipino bean sprouts.
~
I probably shouldn’t be in charge of putting Sammy to bed. I always put him to bed too late and in the morning he’s tired. He calls me at work to tell me Mommy won’t let him do something. I can hear Tutti in the background telling Sammy to give her the phone. She gets on the phone and tells me I have to get him to bed earlier at night or else I won’t be allowed to put him to bed anymore.
~
I know you don’t respect me for this. But I don’t care.
I live with it.
You try living with it.
24
SAMMY GETS his blue stool and carries it over to the toilet. We have one of those plastic things to put on top of the toilet to keep Sammy from falling in. I help Sammy get his pants down.
When he’s got himself sitting down on the toilet, I ask him if he’s okay there all by himself. I tell him I’m going back to have my dinner. If he needs me, I tell him, he should call.
He’s in there singing Christmas carols. We have a Christmas tape going in the living room. Sammy is sitting on the toilet, singing along to the Christmas tape playing on the tape machine in the living room. I wanted to tell you about this, because I wanted you to know something. Sammy is alone in there. He is in there alone in that bathroom, sitting there on that toilet, and he is singing.
~
Dad goes, “Where are the clips? The wind is blowing the tablecloth off the table.”
Dad’s second wife, Gretchen, says, “You were supposed to bring out the clips.”
“No,” Dad says. “I was supposed to bring out the wine and the salad. The person who brings out the tablecloth is supposed to bring out the clips.”
“Dad,” I call. “I just dropped your burger into the barbecue. You got another one in there?”
“No,” Dad says. “That was the last one.”
Dad eats these special burgers. They are called veggie burgers. They come in a powder. You just add water and then put them in the frying pan. After that you can barbecue them if you want, according to the box. From my limited experience, I find they tend to fall apart and drop between the bars of the grill, into the coals of the barbecue. So far tonight I have lost one hot dog and Dad’s veggie burger in the coals of the barbecue.
“That’s it,” Dad says. “I guess I’m not eating tonight.”
“You could have some salad, Dad,” I say.
“I don’t want any fucking salad,” Dad says. “I hate salad.” He stands at the picnic table, looking down at his plate. He’s holding his fork in his hand. He looks very tall standing there by the table. Everyone else is sitting down, but Dad is standing. I’m over by the barbecue.
“I was going to propose a toast tonight,” Dad says. “I guess there’s not much point in that now.” Dad steps away from the picnic table and goes into the cottage. “Fuck it,” he says.
“Can you get the clips and bring them out as long as you’re in there?” Gretchen calls. But the door slams in the middle of her sentence and Dad never comes back out with the clips.
~
I could have said “Hi.” Just “Hi.” She might have answered. She might have said “Hi” back.
What else could I have said, though? “Nice shorts?” “Nice white legs?”
I think she was trying to look as if she had someplace to go. I’ve seen Tutti walk that way. I know that walk. I knew the moment that woman got beside me that she was trying to walk that walk that Tutti walks. I knew that woman was afraid. I don’t know where she came from. She seemed so small beside me.
~
In the end it’s just him and me at the kitchen table with all the lights out and the blinds closed because it’s so hot. All I can see are his eyes and the way his lips curve.
What I hear is something from a long time ago, a word, or a series of words, leading like crystal to the end of everything.
Before I take him to the airport Sammy stands in front of him with his hands together and says, “You’re going to the airport now.”
“Yes,” he says.
“Bye,” Sammy says. He goes around the corner and out the front door.
~
It’s not that I’m young or naïve or anything. But it seems to me all the stories people tell me these days are one line long and begin with: “I bought these things.”
25
ONE DAY Betty bought a cactus. It was a lovely little cactus, emerald green with tiny white spikes, like sewing needles. It was globe shaped. Betty thought it looked like a little green head. She thought this must be what a Martian head would look like. You wouldn’t want to mess with a Martian, Betty thought, because he would only have to knock his head against you for you to be impaled on all those tiny, needle-like spikes. Betty laughed to herself as she put the cactus in a planter and set it on the windowsill above the kitchen sink.
“This is the nicest little cactus there ever was,” Betty said to herself as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, admiring it.
In truth, her cactus was much like a thousand other cacti in a thousand other homes across the country, and Betty was nothing but a deluded lonely housewife whose husband no longer came home Thursday nights.
~
Excuse me. I’m sorry. Just a minute. Could you excuse me for a minute?
~
Battle Cat was this kitten we had for a while. We couldn’t keep him because we already had a cat. For two weeks, Tutti and I tried to find a home for Battle Cat. Mornings, while Tutti and I were trying to get ready for work, Battle Cat would chase us around the apartment, attacking our ankles. He would grab on to our socks and hold on as though he wanted to try to keep us there.
Finally, Tutti found a home for him. We loaded Battle Cat and his little dish and his litter box into the car and we drove downtown to an apartment building. We took Battle Cat up the elevator and gave him to this old lady who lived in the apartment. On the way back down in the elevator Tutti cried.