tonight. That’s polite, she said.
WHAT I SAID: If you already know the answer, then how is that polite?
WHAT SHE SAID: It is, it just is.
WHAT SARAH SAID: Poppy, there have been eighty-two deer bagged in our town so far. We read it on a piece of paper hanging on the wall at Phil’s, beside the shelf for videos, above the special soup for the day.
WHAT I SAID: I am going out now. And to myself I said what Sam would say, “Kill the deer, eat the meat, kill the deer, eat the meat.”
WHAT I SAW GOING UP TO MY SPOT: Three coyotes. They were beautiful and big. Their silver-tipped winter coats, already in, made them appear fluffy. They turned and looked at me, as if waiting for me to come along, and then they trotted east, over the ridge, where I couldn’t see them any longer.
WHAT I HEARD WHILE AT MY SPOT: Three rifle shots.
WHAT I SAW WALKING BACK HOME: Two hunters who told me that earlier they had shot three coyotes for fun.
WHAT I WONDERED: Why everyone is shooting everything that shouldn’t be shot.
CALL: The caller who hangs up. The caller who my wife thinks is always the hospital when it’s not. The caller who lets me listen to the dial tone of our phone. The caller who makes me turn the phone off and on again and say “hello, hello, hello,” even though the dial tone drones on.
CALL: A retired veterinarian who needed some bute for his horse.
ACTION: Drove to his farm. Saw that he was combing his horse. Handed him the bute. He would administer it to his horse himself. He talked very quietly, so quietly I had to stand very close to him. I could see the short hairs of his horse on his sweater, sticking to the woolen sleeve. I used to work at Suffolk Downs, he said. Really? I said. I had worked at the racetracks in Southern California for years, before moving here, I told him. He nodded his head. I think he began to speak even more quietly, and so I leaned in even closer to him, my chin now almost touching his shoulder. Is that so? he said. Well, then we have something in common. Tell me, he said, do they still use as many drugs on the track as they used to? Even more, I said. He shook his head again. You know, when I started practicing near here, I saved my clients money on the goners, I carried a Colt.45 pistol in my truck. It was much cheaper than that fancy euthanasia solution.
I wondered if my clients would think that was okay, to step out of my truck with a pistol instead of a syringe. People these days, I told the retired veterinarian, might not like me putting a hole in their horse’s skull.
You tell them they can save some money, they’ll do it, he said, nodding his head at the same time.
You’re probably right, I said.
Yes, I’m right, he said. I’ll tell you something else, he said. I’ll tell you how to kill a horse with just a scalpel. Think, he said, how would you do that and not leave a mess of blood?
I liked this. It was a mystery I had to solve. I thought about it. I stood back from the retired veterinarian’s horse and looked at it, thinking how I could kill it with just a scalpel. The horse was calm right now, but I knew that if I pulled out a scalpel and tried to stab into its throat, it would rear and strike and run, and besides, even if I were able to cut into the horse with a scalpel, he would bleed profusely. I thought of all the orifices a horse has. If I were able to stab it in one eye, it would still bleed copiously before it died. Then it struck me, of course, where I could cut the horse. If I reached up inside the anus with my scalpel, I could cut into the large artery there. In less than an hour he would be dead, and there would be no blood on the outside that anyone could see, just a horse lying on fall’s carpet of gold and red leaves.
RESULT: I told the retired veterinarian I had figured it out. He smiled and nodded while I told him. You’ve got it, he said quietly. And then he said how he bet it would work on humans, too, and I told him I wasn’t planning on killing any humans and then the moment I said it I realized I had lied. I had imagined my son wasting away hooked up to machines. I had imagined the mass of him disappearing beneath the white hospital sheet. I had imagined having to put an end to my son when the time came. I told the retired veterinarian I had a riddle for him now. A riddle I haven’t been able to answer myself. I told him you go hunting in the woods with your son and your son gets shot in the shoulder, and who did it? I ask. Who knows who did it is what you should be asking, the retired veterinarian said, his voice even quieter now, and the tail end of the word
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE TO VISIT MY SON IN THE HOSPITAL WHILE MY WIFE AND SARAH AND MIA DRIVE WITH ME: I no longer need my doctor visits. My doctor will have to find someone else to share his amazement with over my high levels. I will not be going back. I can’t think about myself. I can only think about my son.
WHAT THE WIFE SAID TO MY SON AFTER SHE FIXED A PLATE FOR HIM THAT SHE KNEW HE COULD NOT EAT: The Thanksgiving turkey is cold. The marshmallows on the yams caved in. Then Jen told our son how she had seen a man’s stand in the back field. He left a little wooden plaque with his name on it and his address, she said. The stand was deluxe. There was a wide padded seat. I would not be surprised if there was a drink holder in the stand. I felt like climbing up the stand and sitting in it and taking a picture of myself in it and sending the picture to the man, so he could see me sitting in his deer stand on our property, then I would like to take a picture of me with a buck I had shot from his deer stand, and I would like to tell him thank you for setting up his deer stand on my property because I have now shot the biggest buck in our county. But, of course, Jen said, there is no buck I can spread out before you. I did not climb the stand. It was up too high, and there was dinner to cook, the green beans to watch over, this oyster dressing, now cold, to prepare. Then Jen lifted a forkful of turkey and gravy and held it beneath our son’s nose. At least smell it, she said.
WHAT I SAID TO MY WIFE IN BED THAT NIGHT: Oysters are an aphrodisiac.
WHAT THE WIFE SAID IN BED: I am so stuffed. And then she rolled over.
WHAT THE COYOTES SAID: What have you done with our brethren?
CALL: The caller who hangs up. Who needs to reach me but can’t talk when I say hello? Who is this? I’m listening, I say, but no one answers, only this time I don’t hear the caller hang up. I think I can hear him breathing. It sounds restful. It is the sound a seashell makes when you hold it up close to your ear.
WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID: Pop, figure this one out. You’re out in the wilderness in the freezing cold, you come across a cabin and go inside, there’s a match, a candle, a kerosene lantern, and a woodstove. Which one do you light first?
WHAT I THINK: Is Gisela in the cabin? Is she across the bearskin rug?
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: Well?
WHAT I SAY: Uhm.
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: You light the match first!
WHAT THE SMOKE ALARM SAID: Beep-beep-beep. Wake the hell up, you have left the windows open and now the smoke from your chimney has blown back into the house on this night of no wind where the smoke is not carried far away.
WHAT MIA WOKE UP SAYING WHEN THE SMOKE ALARM WENT BEEP-BEEP-BEEP: Is Mommy getting a transmission?
CALL: Arlo has a fresh cow that needs calcium.
ACTION: Drove to Arlo’s. Noticed how there was scarcely any snow on his roads. There was a milky mist but it lay loosely over fields that were still green, where plants in summer gardens, although dry, still stood, as if fooling themselves thinking a short-lived sun on an autumn day could warm the green back through their withered leaves and shrunken stalks as thin as fingers of the sick and old.
RESULT: Handed Arlo the bottle of calcium. Admired the fresh Chianina cow, a white tall giant of a breed from Italy, standing here, strangely, the backdrop of the white-peaked mountains framed between its bony haunches. Arlo’s cattle were always healthy-looking, their weight perfect and their fields nicely draining so that they were not muddy seas. Arlo also kept the Chianinas clean, and bathed them so that their whiteness was impressive and made the cows appear majestic, like huge ghosts walking slowly through the valley and along the mountain face where the borders of their fields spanned. Arlo then showed me an eight-point buck he had shot. It hung from his tree, nicely cleaned, twirling in a moist wind that started to come in from the east. I could almost smell the salt of the ocean in it and Arlo said how he had sat in his tree stand for ten hours before the buck walked down beneath him and he had a shot to the neck that knocked the buck flat down. Oh, he’s a fine buck, I told Arlo. Arlo shook his head and his hair that was as black and as shiny as licorice shook also, and I think how he even
