Which done floated away and he went to get it for me! And he ain’t come out of the water soon enough and he’s still down there! Can't you see him?! He still ain’t come up!” Momma and Daddy are looking at me like I’m a stranger, and they’s dead eyed. Daddy says “that’s it. I ain’t want to see that thing no more. You keep it in the back and take care of it. Momma and I is moving to your room so we ain’t have to walk by it every day. I’m this close to dumping it like I done dumped that wolf to fend for itself.
This is all because of you. You brung us all down by getting that beast and bringing it into our house. We was doing good until that thing came along. We had ourselves a garden and we done got all the comforts up here, and they was hard won. But that thing ain’t bring nothing to this place ’sides grief, and you is a part of that grief since it belongs to you.” Daddy gestures to Jacob. “Give him what he deserves, Woman. Fetch him a few blows. Teach him what happens to bad dogs.” Momma blanches and shakes her head. Daddy smiles.
“Ok. Then you’re the bad dog.” He grabs her by the neck and throws her to the ground. “Gabe!” He says in a light happy voice, “get me one of them kitchen knives if you do so please!” Momma screams something but it’s muffled. “What’s that?” Daddy puts his ear all the way to the ground next to her head. “You say you’re going to take care of the bad dog? Take care of him real good like?” Momma is nodding her head and sniffling. “Great!” Daddy says, “then get on to it before we play bad dog all night. Me and you.”
Momma gets up slowly and picks up a blackened wooden spoon from the table and descends on Jacob, standing uncertainly over him. Daddy says in a dead voice, “fetch him one.” Momma starts to beating on Jacob with it while shouting “bad! Bad! Bad! We ain’t never should have let you in this house! You’s a dangerous animal what turns everything sour and takes all our water for yourself!”
I’m trying to get Momma to stop, but she ain’t stop, so I put myself in her way. She don’t care what she’s hitting no more, and she’s hitting me now too and shouting with tears running down her cheeks. She stops and is breathing hard and points the spoon at my face “and don’t think that I ain’t saw you sneak that mangy thing food. Food from our table!” She looks wildly at Daddy who gives her a gesture like keep going. She looks back at me, “That’s our hard-won food and ain’t fit for its likes!”
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She throws the spoon at Jacob and it hits him in the forehead dead center and leaves a red mark, which slowly rises into a welt. Daddy is clapping and whistling now “that’s it! You done taught the bad dog something he’ll always remember! What a good woman! Now for the encore!” Daddy takes off at a lope toward the back of the house. I hear grunting and crashing back there and Momma whispers to me “you all need to get on out of here. That ain’t your Daddy.” There’s more heaving sounds coming from the back rooms, and Daddy comes out all red faced and breathing hard.
“There. That’s done. You take that thing all the way in the back and if we see it again, I ain’t accountable for my actions.” He sits down at the kitchen table and picks the piece of paper and starts reading it again. Momma looks at me for a while longer with wide eyes, then turns back to the kitchen counter to start doing Momma things again. I’m scared, and angry, but I drag Jacob back toward the rooms and I see that Daddy and Momma’s things are now in mine and Jacob's room.
I drag Jacob all the way to the last room where Daddy and Momma used to sleep, and our things are strewn around. The mattresses is all lying askew and them things what I collected and put on my shelf are thrown about the place. The special piece of wood Jacob found a while back what looked like an old man’s face is broken in half now. Jacob’s pants are still filled with his shit. I ain’t sure what all I’m going to do to save my brother.
I fix up the room as well as I can and I decide to pile the two mattresses on top of each other since I ain’t want Jacob out of my sight. Now he’s in the need for protection. I lay him down, and I lay next to him, even though the smell he gives off is something awful, but that’s okay, since Jacob would do the same for me. “You ain’t no dog” I whisper to him, and gently touch the welt on his forehead.
“Not like Daddy says. Don’t listen to them. I know you is in there. You just need to swim to the surface so we can get on out of here and go exploring together like we done before.” I tell Jacob a story about the outside. How I seen a big bald eagle walking on the ground instead of flying and it looked like he was wearing a big pair of stuffed brown pants. He was so proud to be walking and doing something other than flying. Maybe if people were able to fly instead of walk they would be just as happy as that eagle.