John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

To where? said Diesel.

How should I know where? To where bags go.

Are you on-call? said Isaac.

Jearold ignored him and said, You want to come if there’s trips?

Yeah, Isaac said.

Not you, Jearold said.

Sure, said Diesel. I just bought some shit.

Where? said Jearold.

Diesel mocked Jearold’s deep voice and said, Where bags go, and Jearold punched him in the arm.

Why can’t I go? Isaac said. He felt angry. He made a fist.

For Jesus’ sake, said Jearold, I didn’t say you couldn’t go. I just said I wasn’t talken to you right then. He set the bottle down and stood and lumbered toward Isaac and hugged him like a bear and messed around in his hair like Diesel had done. You’re gonna go, said Jearold. You’re gonna go everywhere I go. For good. He pushed Isaac back so they could see each other’s eyes, and then he said, Look at me.

Isaac looked at him.

Look at me, Jearold said.

He’s looken at you, Diesel said.

Shut the goddamn fuck up, slurred Jearold.

Isaac shivered when his father cursed. It made him sound angry even when he wasn’t mad at all. Jearold reached for the bottle and forgot about Isaac for a while; instead he talked to Diesel. Isaac watched the dog, but it didn’t change. Standing in the yard wasn’t what he wanted to be doing. He was seven years old. There were people his age all over the earth, and dogs and maybe insects; they spanned continents. He didn’t know if flies were even supposed to be alive at Christmastime.

Bottle’s small, said Jearold.

You go buy one then, said Diesel.

I bought the last one, Jearold said.

And you drank it, too. Just then Jearold’s phone rang; it was his boss telling him there wouldn’t be any trips. Jearold twisted the phone like an Indian burn, but he couldn’t break it that way. Diesel laughed at him, and he hit Diesel with the receiver, and then he pointed at the dog. That’s what I wanna do, he said.

You wanna fuck the dog?

No, dumbass, that’s what I wanna do to that faggot-ass boss of mine.

You wanna fuck your boss?

Jearold kicked Diesel and said, I want to kill him.

Diesel looked at the dead dog and then at Jearold and back at the dog.

Not fuck him, said Jearold, and he hit his palm with his left fist. Fuck him.

Diesel grinned. He’d hurt some folks himself; that was why his name was Diesel. He swigged out of the bottle and shone his face red like a blister inside out. He laughed and said, That there is a dog. That is sure one fucken dog.

Jearold laughed too. Isaac didn’t see what was funny, but he didn’t mind his father’s laughing; Diesel was their guest, and they had to make him feel comfortable. They went inside so everyone was warmer, because bitter air was on its way and would come fast. Water froze like freezing wasn’t anything at all, and the windows rattled. The whole trailer rocked when Jearold jumped. Isaac didn’t know why he jumped. He watched the men pass a joint back and forth. It seemed to put them right to sleep, but Isaac stayed awake and knew he’d have bad dreams. Please forgive me for the dog, he said to God amidst the blessings in his prayers, and he said them standing up, out loud, with the kitchen light on, because he’d never done it that way before. Jearold and Diesel were asleep, and he wanted to see if anything would be different.

Snow fell that night. The mercury dropped to ten below as Isaac watched the dog turn white outside his window, the flurries gathering like unguent on its rot. Snowflakes made no sound against the pane. Tears filled Isaac’s eyes, and he wondered if he had loved the dog, if it had died for him. He didn’t think so. He imagined his mother standing beside it, beneath the walnut tree. He was falling asleep. Flies were dying from the cold. They died on Diesel’s body, on the metal kitchen table which was gray and shiny from its plating bath, and on every part of the dark, bare countertop; on an empty beer can and on the unmade single bed where Jearold now lay drunk and softly snoring, and they fell dead on the barren iris bed outside and on the frozen dog, on every rock that broke the grass’s shield of worms and flies’ dead eggs and on Diesel’s sleek Camaro; on its shiny, living gloss.

* * *

Jearold didn’t kill his boss at all. He stuck a knife in the backyard bones like Rocks was a voodoo dog, and he twisted it counterclockwise thrice and cried, Lord God. Several days passed. When the boss called, Jearold listened to the receiver and stared ahead and nodded; he said, Uh-huh, yeah. He wore new clothes that didn’t fit him; Isaac didn’t know where they’d come from. Jearold never shopped for clothes himself. He’d started taking a barbiturate; it was in the cabinet, dusty, with Isaac’s mother’s name typed on the bottle. It made Jearold sweat and cry now to drink alcohol, which seemed to embarrass him, but sometimes it made him scream. Don’t you ever let on I cried to Diesel, he ordered Isaac on Sunday, crying, and Isaac nodded. Or I’ll do you like I done the dog, said Jearold. Isaac wished his school would hurry and start back up again. Jearold cracked the trash can lid with a fist that held a knife, and his boss gave him one last trip before he had to quit his job. I ain’t got nobody else to work tonight, the boss said on speakerphone. I got my cousin’s luggage here. It ain’t airline-paid, but I won’t get the police in all this if you do it.

For how much?

For free, said the boss. That’s what I just got done telling you.

Jearold threw the phone across the room. He’d knew he’d have to give it back to Delta soon. It wouldn’t break. He drove to the airport. An hour later he came back home with a full-grown Labrador retriever on a chain leash. This un can eat up the othern, he said, but he was just joking again; the dog was for delivery to Cumberland, Kentucky, which would have been an eighty-dollar trip. The joke was loud because Jearold spoke it loud. He didn’t make jokes much anymore. The new dog couldn’t have eaten the old one anyway, because the flies had fled already with its flesh and left behind a twisted infrastructure of knives all white like ivory and dirty rows of teeth, and Isaac stroked the spine with his tennis shoe, which had a hole in it. He shivered when bones touched his sock. He pissed on the tree because Jearold had locked the new dog inside the bathroom, where it clawed at the hollow door and startled Isaac. He was almost glad the old one had died so early in its life, but Jearold saw him staring at the bones and said, Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’m the only one that loves you. That dog wouldn’t never of loved you. But Isaac knew his mother would love him in his dream that night. She hugged him underneath his eyeballs, where she said, You’re in a dream, wake up, so Isaac woke into another, deeper dream in which she said, Wake up, you’re in a dream, but her eyes were dogs’ eggs now, and he obeyed her infinitely down the quickfire spiral into dreams where her eggs were bigger, deader, bonier.

* * *

Jearold didn’t need to make the new dog mean; it was already mean. It growled and bared its teeth each time he kicked it. He kept it on a short chain so it couldn’t claw him back or slobber on his new black boots. They were a few sizes too big. My boss don’t know where I live, he said. His eyes laughed at Isaac and everybody and the dog. I’ve had it up to my eyes in shit with that little ass-munch, he said.

The dog? said Isaac.

Old ass-munch, said Jearold.

Who owns that dog?

You do.

I don’t want it, Isaac said, but then he stepped back and wished he hadn’t spoken. In the other room the Labrador was snarling.

Somebody wants it, Jearold said and laughed. I’ll bet somebody’s just shittin his pants up a storm. Somebody’s cousin, too.