Scott Cheshire - High as the Horses' Bridles

“Dad,” I said again.

He came back and sat beside me, and then he started to stand up again. I set my hand on his knee, and broke his concentration. He stayed, took his beer and sipped.

I said, “You look thin.”

He looked at me, a sweet face really, which I didn’t expect. He tucked his hair behind his ears, and I saw his eyes were green. He said, “I’m fine. Fine.” A black cat jumped, landing on the far end of the table.

I took a long swig and thought of having a smoke, that maybe I could just step out back and have one, and wouldn’t it be nice to come back inside and, like in a cheaply plotted movie, find everything up until now was a dream. I’d find Dad doing just fine, in a clean house, of sound mind, doing the weekend crossword in a brand-new blue Barcalounger. Or better — I’d find him a young man again, Mom healthy and alive. I’d had this kind of fantasy before but always cut it short knowing it would mean never having met Sarah.

“Sarah’s worried,” I said.

“No reason to worry.” He gestured toward the hallway with his bottle. “Your mother was here, you missed her.”

I wanted this to be true. Who wouldn’t?

“She was here,” I said.

He pointed to the hall. “You missed her.”

What is it about a father’s face?

I’d never given so much as a single deliberate thought to my father’s eyes. I could talk of Sarah’s pink and mottled cheeks, of the single errant eyebrow stand that poked out from between her eyes. But a father’s face can be a frightening thing, a bridge between two voids. He was in me. I was in him. Where did that leave us? My mother’s eyes were like light on glass, and flickering. Always anxious, and waiting. I used to think she was waiting for the end, like Dad was, a new beginning, whatever you want to call it. But now I realized — it hit me just like that — it was Dad who made her anxious.

“Mom’s gone,” I said.

He put a hand on my face. A minty aftershave mixed with every other smell, and it helped. “You think I’m crazy,” he said. “And that’s okay. We just don’t know much, do we?”

I had questions. “Why are you calling me Junior?”

He was incredulous. “You’re my Junior.”

I looked at my lap. “What’s my name?” I studied what was left in the bottle.

“Clever boy.”

I tapped the bottle with a fingernail.

He touched my face. “I know who you are and who I am for the first time in my whole life.” He grabbed hold of the back of my chair and stood again. “Good enough for you, Josiah? Hmm?” He pressed a hand to my shoulder, and with his eyes he seemed to say, This is what shoulders are for. “Gill Laudermilk,” he said, “is a dead man and dying. I am a son of God, Yahweh’s Junior. See me in my glory!” He raised both arms, and they fell back to his sides, just as fast. “Let me show you something.”

I touched his side as he walked past, his naked skin. I squeezed lightly, partly to see if he was real, and he grimaced.

“I thought you were losing your balance.”

“Follow me,” he said.

His belly was hard, and starting to bloat.

“I gotta say you look really terrible.”

“Never better in my life.”

He led me to the living room where I used to watch TV with my mother. Where we ate ice cream from a shared wooden bowl. The carpet was the same dull gray, but now worn down and matted, balding in places. Outside light leaked in between creases, through rips in the cardboard covering the windows, but mostly the room was dark. An orange tabby beneath the glass coffee table, crouching, stared at me with silver eyes. A computer sat on the table. It was modern, thin-screened, and this was surprising, yes, but no more so than anything else. The sofa was covered by a white sheet, as if he were prepping to paint the walls. A pillow, a body-shaped impression. He’d been living in the living room and it stank of it.

“You can sleep here, or upstairs. I don’t go upstairs much. I have trouble sleeping up there.”

“So where?”

He pointed to the hallway, and waved his hand. “I know, I know, I know.”

“We need to sit, and start from the beginning.”

“You don’t know the half of it!” He sat and turned on a lamp beside the computer, a replica of the lamp in the dining room. “My lifeline, Junior. Isn’t she pretty?”

“You hate TV and you have this?” The sides of the computer were partly covered with yellow Post-it Notes.

“I still hate the TV! I keep two in the hall closet, never use them. But I hardly go out since your mother left.”

“You said she was here.”

“She’s always here. And without this”—he touched the screen—“no legs. I’m exhausted.”

We looked at each other, like we were both looking for the right words because how do you talk about this when you’ve never been here before? It was scary to see him like this. A laugh sprang from my insides. “You know what you look like? A baby. A filthy hairy baby.”

Anxiety fell from his face, and he laughed back at me. “Ha! Now we’re talking. I’m going back, Junior. Crawling back, diving in!” He rubbed his hands together. And then he looked at his hands, itched the back of his hands, one, and then the other. Rubbed, itched. Rubbed, itched …

“Dad.”

The spell broke, and he seemed embarrassed. Put his hands under his legs.

I walked over to the window and took hold of the heavy drapery. I dug among the folds for the drawstring and pulled. Bent back the cardboard. An explosive swirl of dust motes and a long shaft of daylight washed in. I turned to his nasty look.

“Put it back,” he said.

“It’s good for you,” I said, peeling away the cardboard.

“Let there be light!” he shouted, his arms half raised.

I laughed. He didn’t.

He said, “I said put that back.” He covered his eyes.

I walked over to him, and touched his shoulder. “Hey.”

He slapped at my hand, and said: “This is not your house.”

A white cat jumped into his lap and pressed its face against his arms. He stroked its back. “Good kitty.” He looked at me. The cat jumped, as he stood. He walked away, hand pressing to his side.

“We’ll talk more later,” he said. “I promise. I’m tired.”

I watched him walk away and this made me feel more alone than I’d ever felt. I had the terrible feeling that he would leave the room and I would never see him again. I folded the cardboard back in place, and heard the door of the bathroom slam shut. I heard him fasten the lock. It all sounded like he wanted me to hear it. I walked into the hall, and saw the red light spilling from under. I went back to the living room and dragged at the curtains, covering the windows. The shaft of sunlight drowned.

Time passed. An hour or so. I sat there in the dining room, at the table, and tried to get my thoughts together. I walked through the rooms, the kitchen, the living and dining rooms, and I was fascinated and moved by the most mundane things. The gilded frames on the living room wall, and how they’d been there for decades. They were now peeling and showing wood from beneath. I remembered my father buying them at a yard sale across the street, and hanging them on the wall just how he’d found them. They stayed empty for months. He eventually set a printed psalm within each.

I walked over to the bathroom door and called out his name. He didn’t respond. I heard him snoring. I shook my head, totally befuddled, feeling uneasy, a little sick. I almost knocked, but went outside for a smoke instead. I felt helpless and dumb, even responsible for what was happening, whatever it was, and my fantasy of saving the day dissolved into nothing but anxiety and shame. Afraid the door would lock shut behind me, I picked up a piece of wood from the porch and wedged it between the door and the frame. The sun was gone. But still that stink of fuel. Across the street two boys played handball in the vacant lot against the side of a neighboring garage. I took out my phone and dialed Sarah.