THOUGHTS ON RIDE HOME: Chickens might be nice to have. The children could check for eggs every day. We could eat the eggs. Chickens don’t shit liquid. This is the problem today, people don’t know where their food comes from. My children will know where their food comes from.
CALL: A sheep needs its shots.
ACTION: Took bottles of vaccines and drew up shots.
RESULT: Old woman named Dorothy called the sheep to her. The sheep’s name was Alice. Alice lived in the house with Dorothy. I’d let her live outside, but she’s no bother inside, Dorothy said. Alice lay her head in Dorothy’s lap. Go on, give the shot, Dorothy said. The sheep was very still while I gave the shot. She is like a dog, Dorothy said. I take her everywhere in my pickup. She waits for me until I get back from my errands. I took her into church one day. I showed the pastor. He made a remark about sheep. He said they were dumb. Go get Alice from the back of your pickup, my friend said, nudging me. I went to the parking lot and got Alice. I held the church doors open for her. She followed me down the aisle. She looked into people’s faces as she walked. I’d like you to meet Alice, I said to the pastor. She looked him in the eyes. Now go on, I said. Read the part again in your sermon about how sheep are dumb, I said.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: I know some people who will not look me in the eye.
WHAT I SAW WHEN I PULLED UP TO THE HOUSE: The object flying in the sky again. It seemed to circle the house. More likely it was a drone the military used and remotely practiced with in our secluded woods, but still I could not help but think it was other-worldly, the way its lights flashed on and off, the way it flew so low, as if it wanted to see in our windows and check on what my family was doing. I felt that it knew me somehow.
WHAT I FELT EVEN BEFORE I WALKED IN THE DOOR: Warm. Even though it was cold outside, I already began to feel warm as I stepped onto the porch where the glass front door always seemed to be constantly steamed over from the exhaled breaths of my wife, my children, the dogs, and all the other creatures inside.
WHAT CHILDREN SAID TO ME WHEN I GOT HOME: Doesn’t Alice pee and poop on the floor in the house?
WHAT I SAID: I suppose she does.
WHAT THE WIFE COOKED FOR DINNER: Omelets with green olives.
WHAT THE WIFE SAID: David, I don’t want a sheep.
CALL: A cat.
ACTION: I told owner I don’t do cats. The owner asked if I could do this one. The owner had shot the fisher-cats in his barn that had eaten half his chickens. Shoot the cat, I said, you have shot fisher-cats. You have done huge horses, why can’t you just do a little house cat whose time has come? the owner said.
RESULT: I did the cat in the belly. I did not need to find a vein. I was paid in sausage and bacon.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: This war we are in is a war we started to see how much we can take from another country. It was once not so easy for me to see it this way.
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAID TO ME WHEN I GOT HOME: Mom is not making dinner. Mom is sick on the couch.
WHAT THE WIFE SAID TO ME WHEN I GOT HOME: David, where’s the gun? If you just shoot this side of my head, I’m sure it will get rid of my headache. Then Jen laid her head back on the easy chair where the sun was streaming in and the bright light on her face made her look porcelain-white.
WHAT I COOKED FOR DINNER: Bacon. Glorious fresh bacon given to me by the man who shot fisher-cats, not house cats. I showed my children how the bacon did not release injected water into the pan while it cooked because it was fresh bacon, good bacon. Bacon the way bacon should be.
THOUGHTS WHILE TURNING BACON: Why is it legal to inject meats with water? Why is it fair that the consumer has to pay extra money, per pound, for injected water?
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAID: Pop, don’t burn the bacon.
WHAT THE WIND SAID AT NIGHT: I can blow down all your trees. I can make the walls of your house fall in.
WHAT THE MORNING SAID: I kept the wind at bay.
THOUGHTS WHILE SHOWERING: Deer season will be here soon. Already it is bear. We have heard the hunters and their bear dogs early on the weekend mornings barking, treeing bears. I will hunt first with a bow for deer this fall season. I will sit high up in a tree in a purchased stand that came with big labels telling me never to use it without wearing a safety harness. I will wear the safety harness. I will check it before I put it on. Are the straps worn? Is the buckle fastened securely? Are the deer gods on my side?
WHAT MY SON SAID AT DINNER: Aren’t I hunting with you this fall? He had not hunted with me before, this would be his first time. He was twelve years old now and old enough to carry a gun. He knew the rules well. He had aced his hunter’s exam. Gun tip pointed up or down when walking through the woods, never shoot at an animal on a hill, because you never know who might be on the other side of the hill, open your chamber when passing your gun to someone and say, “action open, safety on” while you’re passing it.
WHAT I SAID: Yes, I suppose you’re ready to hunt with me now.
WHAT MY SON SAID: Yes! I can’t wait! and then he chanted, Kill the deer. Eat the meat! Kill the deer. Eat the meat! in time with holding his fork in his fist and banging his fist on the table, making me think maybe we should wait. Maybe he wasn’t ready to take a gun into the woods.
WHAT THE WIFE SAID TO ME: Be careful hunting, David. I don’t like it. He’s still so young. You only have one son, you know.
WHAT I THOUGHT: Maybe Jen is wrong, maybe there are other sons I have. Who knows if the sperm I once donated in college was ever used or simply thrown away after time? The money I received was spent on taking dates to restaurants I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford.
WHAT I WOULD NEVER TELL THE WIFE: That maybe she was wrong about me not having other sons, because if I told her then I would have to explain why I wanted the money. I would have to explain the other girls, and no matter that I didn’t know Jen then, she might become jealous.
WHAT I SAID TO THE WIFE INSTEAD TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT: Did you know that because light takes time to travel, what you’re seeing is always in the past?
WHAT THE WIFE SAID: I like that, it’s the world’s best excuse. The adage “Don’t cry over spilt milk” applies to everything then. It’s all in the past, there’s nothing we can change.
WHAT I THOUGHT: That I could tell Jen not to cry over spilt milk if ever she learned of how I had earned extra money in college and that somewhere in there was a pun she’d pick up on, the spilt milk of me somehow worked in.
CALL: No call. The phone rang and when I answered, whoever it was hung up. Hello, hello, I said and I kept saying hello even after I knew they were gone.
WHAT WE DID AFTER DINNER: Put on sweaters to keep off the chill and went outside and called to the owls.
WHAT THE OWLS DID: Called back and then the spacecraft showed up again, its lights blinking faster than the last time, as if it were trying to sing out its own kind of call.
CALL: A choke.
ACTION: Touched the horse’s neck. I could feel the ball of food caught in his throat. This could be a tough one, I told Arthur, the hired hand. I gave the horse drugs to relax his throat muscles. I went to fill up buckets. I would need the water to pump through his stomach. I would need to clear the choke. I put the tube through the horse’s nose. I asked Arthur, while I was working on the horse, if he had seen the object in the sky, if he had seen the bright lights a few nights before. Arthur, with one hand resting on the horse’s neck, looked up at the sky, as if the object I had been talking about could still be seen in all the blue. Arthur shook his head. No, didn’t see it, he said. I wasn’t out here. Only thing out here were the horses, Arthur said. You see it, Boss? he said into the ear of the horse I was working on, and while he said it he had the flat of his palm on the neck of the horse and I thought how maybe Arthur wasn’t doing the talking, that maybe it was the horse doing the talking for him.
A flock of geese came flying down to the pond. Arthur and I watched the geese, their feet out in a pose to brake, their wings not beating, coming down on water flat as glass on a windless day. Who knew geese could walk on water? Arthur said, his hand still on the horse.
