Yannick Murphy - The Call

WHAT GISELA SAID IN GERMAN THAT SHE NEEDS FOR HER DORMITORY ROOM ON THE DRIVE HOME:Gisela needs a new desk. Gisela needs a new lamp. Gisela needs a new bed. Gisela needs new curtains. Gisela, maybe, is shy, and cannot have all the boys on campus peering up at her through her dormitory window while her Kopf is hurting her so, because, as of yet, she still feels krank and has not found the apothecary to buy her aspirin.

WHAT THE WIFE KEPT WARM FOR ME ON THE STOVE:Chicken stew made with dried apricots, cinnamon, and honey.

WHAT I SAID TO THE WIFE:I’m okay without the apricots.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:The apricots are good. The apricots are part of the dish. Eat the apricots. Your levels are begging for fruit.

THINGS MY WIFE THINKS MY LEVELS CAN DO SO FAR:Talk, appreciate food, beg.

WHAT I DON’T CARE ABOUT:My levels. I just want Sam to wake up.

WHAT I DID:Forked up the apricots and laid them on the rim of my plate.

WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID:Did you sew up the horse?

WHAT I SAID:No, the horse did not need sewing. The horse did not need a vet. There was nothing I could do. Now go back to bed.

WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID:Come kiss us good night.

WHAT I DID:I kissed them good night. I pulled the covers up to their necks.

WHAT MIA SAID:Poppy, you have so many drugs in your truck. Couldn’t you just give Sam some to make him better?

WHAT I SAID:No, there’s nothing I have for him in the back of my truck.

WHAT I DID:I covered the rabbit’s cage with a cloth, so she could sleep without the light of the full moon glaring onto her through the metal bars. Then I stood and looked out the window, searching the sky.

WHAT SARAH SAID IN THE MORNING:A deer has walked on our porch. It was true. There were hoofprints in the snow covering the boards that the wind had blown up under the roof. Why had the deer come to our front door? the children wanted to know. I did not know. Maybe the deer had seen the hunter who shot my son. Maybe he wanted to come and tell me who the man was. The deer was a messenger. He is a messenger, I said to my wife and children. Jen laughed, Yes, come to tell us to brush the snow off our porch before someone gets hurt, and then she fetched the broom and began to sweep.

CALL:No call. I went out to my deer stand with my bow and arrow. How can you still hunt? Jen said before I left. I shook my head. I might find the hunter who did this to our son, I said. Then what? she said. She lifted her hands, her palms facing up to the ceiling where some cluster flies clung to the beams. It was like she was beckoning them, asking them to jump into a fireman’s net from a burning building. You don’t get it, do you? I said. You don’t just go into the woods and hunt and hit someone instead of an animal and think you can get away with that. You don’t let a man do that, I said, and I left. I stood the entire time in my tree stand because I knew that a buck would be hard to shoot from a sitting position. Standing, I was ready.

WHAT I SAW:A buck, far away, so far that if I shot him with my arrow, the arrow would never reach him. It would hit the ground first, tunneling through the snow and then down under the flattened leaves of dirt.

WHAT JANE EYRE HAS RECENTLY DONE:She has saved Rochester from a fire in his bedroom. She has doused him with water. What, has there been a flood? he asked.

WHAT THE WEATHER BECAME:Freezing rain that made me not want to go out and deer hunt.

WHO CAME TO VISIT:My brother and his family. He believes that there is a good Lord, that he made us all.

WHAT I BELIEVE IN:Evolution, that a thing even as complex as the eye, for example, can have developed, must have certainly developed.

WHAT HIS WIFE BELIEVES IN:The good Lord.

WHAT SHE TELLS US TO BELIEVE IN WHILE VISITING SAM WITH US IN THE HOSPITAL ROOM:The good Lord.

WHAT JEN SAYS REALLY LOUDLY:Good Lord! Jesus Christ! and I laugh, because she’s making them sound like curse words, but my brother and his wife, they look down at the tops of their shoes.

CALL:A woman with Icelandic ponies needs a prepurchase.

ACTION:Drove to farm through roads along the stream where the water was mostly frozen, making the water flowing beneath the ice appear light green.

RESULT:Examined horse. Decided I was glad I didn’t bring my daughters with me, as the Icelandic pony was so cute, they surely would have wanted one. The owner said she would never own a different kind of pony because the Icelandic ponies had such good temperaments that they were more like golden retrievers than ponies. The dog she owned, however, who trotted at her side, was an Australian shepherd.

WHAT I ASKED THE WOMAN:Do you know a man named Brody?

WHAT THE WOMAN SAID:Brody?

WHAT I SAID:He lives near me. His woods border mine.

WHAT THE WOMAN SAID:He has a horse?

WHAT I SAID:Yes! He has a horse! That’s the man.

WHAT SHE SAID:No, I don’t think I know him.

THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME:With all this snow, how will the deer find food? Can the spacecraft fly in all this snow? Can the cold air wake up my son? If only I could open up the windows in his hospital room.

WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID WHEN I GOT HOME:Pop, Mom said the transmission was coming in loud and clear. It would be meat loaf for dinner.

WHAT THE HOUSE SAID AT NIGHT:The banging you hear is not dead bodies falling to the ground from a great height, but rather the snow sliding off the panels between the standing seams of the copper roof and onto the ground.

WHO I CALLED IN THE MORNING:Brody. I wanted to know if his horse was all right. I wanted to know if I could hear in his voice that he was the man who shot my son. Brody, it’s me, I said, hoping to catch him off guard. Pardon? he said. The vet who came the other night, I said. Oh, yes, he said. The horse is much better, he said. Thanks for calling, he said, and he sounded like he had to run out the door.

CALL:No call. I drove up the road. I knocked on the neighbor’s door. Nate, I said, you weren’t out hunting a few weeks ago, were you? Yes, I was, I sure was, Nate said. For grouse? I said. Oh, no, for buck. I don’t go out for grouse, he said. Then I told him what happened to my son even though in this small town he already knew. He shook his head while standing outside his door. I’m sorry to hear that, he said, as if he hadn’t heard at all. Any idea who it was? I asked Nate. Nate said he didn’t know anyone who went out for grouse anymore. He said maybe twenty years ago he could give me some names of men who hunted grouse around here, but not anymore. They were no longer around. Nate’s wife came to the door. Annabelle said what about the caretaker at the farm on Cemetery Road, didn’t he still go for grouse? she said to Nate. Nate shook his head. No, he don’t go out for it anymore, Nate said. We heard about your son, we’re sorry to hear it, Annabelle said. I nodded. I’d better get going, I said.

CALL:A horse that has a cut on his neck.

ACTION:Drove to farm.

RESULT:The horse had suffered the cut hours ago. I blocked the horse. Then I sewed up the horse cold. I was cold. The horse was cold. The cut was cold, and strange to my fingers to feel bloody flesh that was not warm, that did not have mist coming off the incision when it came into contact with the cold winter air.