I look out the window while Daddy drives and I see what I always see when we go this way and it’s those two dead dogs in the ditch with frozen snarling mouths, slowing melting together with the dirty wet snow. They come apart a little more each time we pass and now I can see in one of their open stomachs and It’s filled with dog food that looks like a grainy soup.

Daddy says they died while fighting each other but I think the owner go fed up with them not doing enough tricks and they both got hit with a hammer and tossed in the ditch. We keep going and I see we’re heading toward the dumping spot where we pile up all our trash so the bears don’t get too comfortable near our house. We pull into the small opening in the woods on the overgrown road with the two tracks on either side of a weed path, and the truck lurches and kicks and pings up rocks into the woods.

We come into the wide-open lot with the sliding pile of wet garbage surrounded by nettles and fallen gray trees and broken branches and Daddy stops the truck close to the pile and he hops out and I hop out and I look in the back of the truck but there’s nothing in there and Daddy is staring at the pile, watching it for a long time and by now I know it's not good to interrupt Daddy while he’s watching and thinking.

Pretty soon he turns to me and asks if I know why we’re here and I say to throw out some trash and he scoffs and says, “you see any fukkin’ trash in the back of that truck”? I shake my head and he asks if I remember my brother Jacob and I say a little bit and he looks at the trash pile for a good long while and Daddy says that today is Jacob’s birthday and he wanted to visit him and I was old enough now to visit him too.

I wait for us to leave so we can go to Jacob although the thought makes me nervous because he’s dead and what if Daddy makes me talk to him and what if he’s falling apart like the dead dogs in the ditch but Daddy just stands there looking at the pile of trash and pretty soon he gets back in the truck and I get back in the truck and we drive home silently but before we turn into our long driveway, I ask Daddy if we’re going to see Jacob and he says we just seen him and once a year is enough. 

My Daddy

We done lived in this house in town since my first memories. I remember snow and a big stranger running around our house and that man had black hair and a black mustache and a gap in his teeth what made him whistle sometimes which made me laugh and Momma called him Ross. I guess that stranger was Daddy. I didn’t know it at the time.

Momma drank coffee and was named Robyn but her name to me is Momma and she has brown hair right down the middle of her back and in a ponytail all the time maybe on account of how she was always wearing horse shirts so she could maybe look like a horse too, only she looked like the little horses other than the big ones and she was bony legs and small like them.

She would sing in the kitchen and says it’s country and while she’s explaining what country is I dip my finger in her coffee when she’s not looking so I could taste it and it was like sweet almonds. 

 I was in a crib for a time and shared a room with Jacob and it’s like looking through smoked glass without any sound when I try to remember exactly how he was then. He has black hair like Daddy’s and was so skinny he could fit under the bed without it touching his back or nothing. I remember there was always breathing in our room that wasn’t me and wasn’t Jacob and it was probably a ghost and I would crawl into Jacob’s bed so we didn’t have to listen to it alone even though Jacob’s bed smelled like pee.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Our kitchen floor was green patch linoleum, warped and hilly enough that when you set down a little car or marble it would roll on its own. When I got a older, Daddy was always home wearing cutoff shorts and no shirt so you could see his big white belly that he would slap from time to time. There was commotion sometimes like shouting and slamming coming from Daddy and Momma’s room and Daddy would come home at all hours of the night and would wake us all up and was real funny and tripped on things and I liked Daddy that way because he would chase Jacob around barking at him and running on all fours and Jacob was playing “escape from the hellhound” until Jacob was lying on the floor laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe while Daddy pretended to eat his stomach.

Then Daddy would sweep me up in his arms and swing me around so I could be an airplane, but I slipped from his hands once and I flew across the room and hit my forehead on the corner of the coffee table. I only got a lump on my head but Momma didn’t like that so Daddy wasn’t able to go out and come back happy Daddy no more and fly me around and chase Jacob. That made me mad at Momma since now Daddy would sit around and stare off into space and shout sharp things at us about using too much brown sugar on our oatmeal and running the hot water for too long. That went on for a while only I don’t know how long and they’s just mixed things that happened and not in a row.

Now I’m bigger and I ain’t remember too good when Momma tells me to pick up things what I leave laying everywhere, but I remember enough and Daddy is first and forefront.  

Daddy came home early one day and says to whoever would listen, “they done it again! They said I ain’t showed enough at the time what they give me to go there in the morning but I ain’t understand why since I can do all the work ok in a shorter period than what they say on account of how I’m much smarter than them and it ain’t take no genius to do what they got me doing at that place. I can paint a door starting at whatever time I like and I said as much to them.” Momma goes “so that’s why you’re home early then? Because they were so impressed that you told them you’re smarter than them and can do everything better and you ain’t need to do what they tell you?” And Daddy starts to say something but Momma cuts him off.

“They sent you home early so you could take a rest? Rest that big brain of yours, is that it?” And Daddy says no, they fired him and Momma says “again! Everybody always firing you! Why ain’t you just go there when they say and come back with a paycheck? Why can't you shut your mouth for once and get us some money? We can't eat air! Can’t pay no bills with air!” And Daddy says it wasn’t right and wasn’t fair and how’s he supposed to put up with them tellin’ him what to do all the time and it wasn’t no man’s work, paintin’ doors and the like and Momma goes “It don’t matter! Man’s work is to bring home something what we can feed these here kids with and pay for this house and... you ain’t know how it works yet?!”

Daddy says “I know how it works alright. I go out and get a job and I’m supposed to act like they doin’ me a big favor while they take all the money for themselves. You know the man that just fired me? He ain’t even know the difference between a paint primer and the paint itself what goes on last! Everyone knows it goes on the outside! He ain’t even able to do what I do and he gets to just, tell me when I aughta be somewhere sos I can't do what I want and I have to keep doing that? For food? I ain’t like it! What he got that he can tell me what to do with the painting of the doors and whatnot? He going to tell me when I can take a shit next?!” And Momma looks over at me and Jacob and says to hush up with that language. Daddy says “I ain’t care! I done painting doors, and I done digging, and I done tearing apart rich people’s bathrooms and I done rode around in a warehouse and picked up things and brought them to other places and they’s all a waste of time! Don’t you see!?”

Momma says “I see all right; I see you getting up late and telling me you’re smarter than everybody, but we can't even pay for a telephone. Being smarter than everybody ain’t going to pay the bills unless you can build a gizmo or something? Can you build a gizmo? Make us some gizmo money?” And Daddy says “not smarts like that. I can't build no gizmo and you know I can't build no gizmo. Least not one that people would understand.” “Then what can you do, Ross? How are you so smart but can't even keep a job painting doors?” And Daddy looks at her hard and smiles a wild smile then backs out of the house, lookin’ at her the whole time while walking backward to his truck, and he gets in, and drives off.