Yannick Murphy - The Call

WHERE I DROVE AFTER I SEWED UP THE HORSE:To the farm where the caretaker lived up on Cemetery Road. The view from the farm on the hill was beautiful and when I got out of my truck I stood looking at the mountains in front of me and wondering if that was a view I’d like to see every day or if living up on a hill like that would make me feel too unprotected, and like the wind could blow me down. The caretaker wore glasses that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, and wasn’t that a waste, I thought, a man living up here who did not even bother to clean his glasses so he could see the view. He was large and I thought how walking through the woods he must scare the grouse out far ahead of him because his heavy steps would surely alert the grouse a long way off. I introduced myself and he shook my hand and I asked him if he had been hunting recently and he said that in fact he had been and showed me on a picnic table behind the house some grouse he had shot earlier in the day and that he was now just cleaning out. I admired the birds and held one in my hand, letting the head drop back, and touching the soft feathers at its neck. Around here? I asked. The caretaker shook his head. No, down south, I hunt at my brother’s place. He has rock walls all over his property, the grouse like to roost behind them. I’m always lucky there, he said. I told him about my son. I asked him if he knew who that might have been that day, hunting on my property. The caretaker shook his head. You’re asking me something I don’t know the answer to, he said, and he took the bird from me and said he had better get started on them if he wanted to wrap them in bacon and roast them for dinner.

WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID TO ME WHEN I GOT HOME:Poppy, look what your hat has done to your hair.

WHAT I DID:I looked in the mirror. It was true. The hat had done something to my hair. It was sticking straight up.

WHAT SARAH SAID:It looks like an ax blade stuck in your skull.

WHAT MIA DID:Played with my hair so that instead it looked like a palm tree swaying in an ocean breeze.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:Lasagna for dinner. But I don’t like the cow we ordered this year. The ground meat is full of gristle and rubbery veins.

WHAT I SAID:Tastes fine to me. And it did.

WHAT THE NIGHT SAID:A cold front is coming through and the sky is so clear you can hear sounds from very far away. Hear the branches breaking on the hillside? Hear the grouse in the thicket? Hear the chipmunk running across the wood pile? Hear the blood in your own veins? Hear the height of your levels? You can hear them, can’t you?

WHAT THE PHONE DID:It rang. It was the hospital nurse. I saw your son move his foot today, she said. This is a good sign, she said.

WHAT WE ALL DID:We piled into the car. We drove to the hospital. We sat in metal framed chairs by his bed and threw back his covers and stared at his foot.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:Oh, God, look how dirty his toenails are, how come I didn’t notice before. She went digging in her purse for a nail clipper, but I stopped her. It’s okay, it’s dirt from home, I said. Yes, it’s not like he’s been walking around here, she said, and looked around the room at the tiled floor with gray flecks in the pattern. Put the clippers away, I said, and she did. We stayed until Sarah and Mia’s bedtime and then we drove home. We never saw Sam’s foot move.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID ON THE RIDE HOME:Tell me again what the day nurse said. Did she say she saw it move herself? How much did it move, did she say? Was it a twitch or a kick, or just a side-to-side motion? I told her I didn’t know. I didn’t ask all that of the day nurse. You didn’t ask? How could you not ask? Jen said.

WHAT I DID:I turned the radio on. I listened to the news.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:There’s something wrong when you have all these actors and actresses promoting world peace when they’re starring in movies that are awful and violent and will surely affect our youth in a negative fashion.

WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID THEY SAW:A great horned owl.

WHAT THE SEASON IS NOW:No season. Not bear, not turkey, not deer, not moose, not grouse.

WHAT THE TRANSMISSIONS ARE DOING:Coming in more frequently. We can hardly listen to the news without being interrupted several times. My wife says the request is urgent now, more urgent than ever for the Head Potty Cleaner on her spacecraft. She looks at Sarah imploringly, with her forefingers from each hand held up by her ears, to look like antennae poking from her head. Oh no, Sarah giggles, her eyes slanting upward, nearly closing with her smile. I am not going to be Head Potty Cleaner!

WHAT THE TOY PIGGY BANK IN THE SHAPE OF A BANK VAULT SAID IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT:Beep-beep-beep. Who has broken open my doors? Who has plundered the cash? Made away with the goods? Is it the mice who crawl across our loft boards at night? Is it the cluster flies, their beating transparent wings strong enough to turn a combination?

WHAT THE WIFE ASKED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT:What is that noise?

WHAT I TOLD MY WIFE:It’s just a bird. Go back to sleep.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:That is not a bird. No way that is a bird. That’s the bank, she said. The fucking bank.

WHAT I SAID:Think of it as a bird. A tropical bird. A bakonga bird.

WHAT THE WIFE SAID:What is a bakonga bird?

WHAT I SAID:Ah, the rare bakonga bird, you have never heard of this bird?

WHAT I THINK FOR A MOMENT:That the light flashing from the smoke alarm reflected in the window is a light from the spacecraft, but it’s not. I think what the sheriff said, that if I did not see the man who shot my son there is no way to find him, but maybe someone did see. Maybe the pilot of the spacecraft saw. If only he could tell me. I look again into the darkness, waiting to see if the spacecraft will show up. I think how the next time I see it I’ll run outside to the snow-covered field. I’ll flail my arms, I’ll land it in. If it doesn’t come close I’ll write in the snow in large letters like those written by men stranded on deserted islands, only I won’t write “Save me,” I’ll write, “Tell me who did it!” and hope that the pilot can read my words formed in three feet of hard crusted snow.

CALL:The caller who doesn’t talk. I know because Sarah answers and she says hello, hello, and then she holds the phone up in the air and then out to the side, still saying, hello, hello, but louder every time, until she is yelling. I run to grab the phone away from her. There’s no one there, she tells me, and then she hangs up. Quickly I pick up the phone. Hello, it’s me, I say, out of breath from my running across the room, and I’m thinking maybe if he hears my voice he’ll start talking and I’ll find out who it is. But it’s too late. No one’s there now, just the dial tone of our phone, but I keep talking anyway. Brody? Brody, is that you, you fucker? Brody? I say.

CALL:Dorothy’s sheep, Alice, seems to be sick.

ACTION:Drove to Dorothy’s on a bright, sunny day. Snow still sat on the lower branches of the pines, but the winds over the past few days have blown the snow from the topmost parts.

RESULT:Alice wasn’t sick. Dorothy was keeping Alice in the kitchen. There was straw on the floor, over the tile. She is not sick, I told Dorothy, but Dorothy shook her head. I know something is wrong with her, she said. I patted Alice’s head. I looked into her eyes. Dorothy sighed. I could feel the breath from her sigh reach my face. How are you feeling, Dorothy? I asked. Dorothy shook her head. I have things going on with me; at my age, who wouldn’t? she said. I nodded. I told her I thought how Alice was the luckiest sheep I knew. Yes, lucky. But who will take care of her when I’m dead and gone? Dorothy said. You can’t go anywhere, not while she’s alive, I said. You wouldn’t want someone else taking care of her. Who else would have a sheep in their kitchen? Who else would take their sheep to church? No, I said to Dorothy. You are not allowed to check out anytime soon. And I thought of Sam and how maybe if I brought him here to Dorothy’s kitchen, he would awaken. I could lay him down next to Alice under the kitchen table, and the warm breaths of Alice could bring him back.